US: The Fosters Makes History With a Teenage Kiss

A kiss between two 13-year-old male characters on the ABC Family show The Fosters is making waves for reportedly being the youngest same-sex kiss in American television history. “This storyline is important in so many ways,” said actor MacIntosh. “It’s been eye-opening about how many kids struggle with feeling ‘OK’ about questioning their sexuality.”

There was conversation nationally on social media in reaction to Jude and Connor’s exchange, with hashtags like #Jonner and #JonnerKiss trending on Twitter shortly after the kiss was aired Monday night. Read More 

South Korea's First Lesbian Kiss On-Screen Has Taken The Country By Surprise

South Korean TV dramas are renowned for featuring complex, tragic love stories, but viewers of the series Seonam Girls High School Investigators were in for an unprecedented act of romance when South Korea’s first-ever on-screen TV lesbian kiss sparked debate about portrayals of sexuality in a country that, in spite of its growing modernization, still holds dear to deep-seated values of propriety and traditionalism. Read More

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India: Snapdeal has just been taken to court for selling vibrators

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A Delhi lawyer has just taken e-commerce giant Snapdeal to court for selling sex accessories because he wants to test the limits of India’s anti-homosexuality law. Suhaas Joshi, an advocate at India’s Supreme Court, has filed a complaint for abetting gay sex and for exhibiting obscene products. 

Joshi’s complaint, explains that products—such as anal lubes and massagers that are shaped like the male phallus—violate the section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, along with other acts such as section 292, 292 A, 293 and 294 which prohibit obscenity in public. 

Section 377 is the controversial anti-gay Indian law that criminalises any intercourse that is “against the order of nature.” The Delhi high court had earlier decriminalised the act, but India’s Supreme Court subsequently overturned the decision and has left it to the Indian parliament to take a decision on repealing section 377. Read More

Egypt: TV journalist faces trial over raid on 'gay' bathhouse

An Egyptian TV journalist will face trial for defamation and spreading false news after she orchestrated a raid on an alleged gay bathhouse in Cairo.

Mona Iraqi tipped off police before entering 'the den of male sex' on the night of 7 December. She filmed as 33 men were arrested and paraded naked out of the bathhouse. The footage was then broadcast on al-Qahira wal Nas news and made international headlines.

Twenty-six men, including the bathhouse owner and four employees, were tried for debauchery but cleared due to lack of evidence after undergoing humiliating anal exams. Read More

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South Africa: Owners of gay 'cure' camp found guilty of killing teen

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In 2013, 15-year-old Raymond Buys died after he was kept chained to his bed, beaten with planks and hoses at a training camp that boasted of "making men" out of its young recruits. In in 2007, 25-year-old Erich Calitz died from severe brain injuries and 19-year-old Nicholas van der Walt died at the same training camp.

Now “death camp” commander Alex de Koker's “pathetic” and “absurd” testimony has seen him branded a murderer. Read More

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Turkey: Police beat 2 gay Iranian refugees, deny asylum to Iranian Trans person

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In a country that LGBT Iranian refugees are finding increasingly hostile, two gay Iranian men were severely beaten by a police officer. The case was documented by the LGBT Refugee Outreach Program of the Iranian Queer Organization (IRQO), based out of Toronto, Canada. The organization promotes and protects the rights of Iranian gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals in Iran and abroad.

According to IRQO, some 200 Iranian LGBT individuals residing in Turkey are waiting for refugee determination by the UNHCR and for the resettlement process elsewhere to be completed. Read More

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Syria: Gay Men Driven From Iraq Face Violent Persecution And Death

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Following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and the chaos that engulfed the region in its aftermath, many Iraqi ga men left their country and fled to neighboring countries, including Syria and Turkey. Despite Syrian law that prohibits homosexuality — and before the onset of the Syrian civil war and the rise of ISIS — the option to relocate across the border into one of the most secular countries in the Middle East offered asylum from Iraq’s far-right religious militia groups, who to this day target and persecute gays based on either fact or suspicion.   See photojournalist Bradley Secker's report here. 

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UK: Nigeria lesbian fleeing sharia court death sentence seeks asylum

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A judge has adjourned court following an intense hearing of the highly publicized case of Aderonke Apata, a Nigerian lesbian fighting for asylum in the UK. The 47-year-old gay rights advocate and award-winner came to Britain from Nigeria in 2004 seeking asylum on religious grounds after her brother and 3-year-old son were murdered and she was sentenced to death.

Among their arguments prosecutors have denied her sexual identity, while her defense team has promised that she is ready to "debase herself to provide 'evidence' of a sexual nature." 

Protestors from around the world gathered in London to rally at the hearing. Just one petition calling for Apata's safety has over 230,000 signatures. Read More