Egypt: Deport me!

After the court ruled it is legal to deport LGBT people from Egypt, the story went viral abroad. It’s strange because LGBT Egypt has not been in the international news much for months. When you deal with the media, you get used to its collective movements, puzzling as tidal motions when it’s too cloudy to see the moon, or the startled shuddering of gazelles racing in unison through tall grass.

But other terrible things happened here recently. A man acquitted on charges of homosexuality tried to burn himself to death in despair. Police arrested an accused “shemale,” splaying her photos on the Internet. Egypt’s government threatened to close a small HIV/AIDS NGO because it gave safer-sex info to gay men. None of these got such press. The contrast is striking.

I learn three things from all this. First: our attention span isn’t what it used to be. The attention span of news consumers, and activists among them, shrivels; and that’s a problem. Read More 

Russia: Clashes and flash mobs on the Day of Silence in St. Petersburg

LGBT activists and their allies held two Day of Silence rallies aimed at eliminating discrimination, hatred and violence against sexual minorities. One march included call outs to banned LGBT teens support project “Children-404″. Another rally from Vosstaniya Square to the Kazansky Cathedral involved participants with their mouths covered with red tape.

There were several unsuccessful attempts to disrupt the events, but thanks to nearby police officers, the rallies continued and peace was kept. Read More

More and more actions announced for IDAHOT 2015

Created in 2004 to draw the attention of policymakers, opinion leaders, social movements, the public and the media to the violence and discrimination experienced by LGBTI people internationally. In under a decade, May 17 has established itself the single most important date for LGBTI communities to mobilise on a worldwide scale.

The Day represents an annual landmark to draw the attention of decision makers, the media, the public, opinion leaders and local authorities to the alarming situation faced by lesbian, gay, bisexuals, transgender and intersex people and all those who do not conform to majority sexual and gender norms.

May 17 is now celebrated in more than 130 countries, including 37 where same-sex acts are illegal, with 1600 events reported from 1280 organizations in 2014. These mobilisations unite millions of people in support of the recognition of human rights for all, irrespective of sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. Read More

Japan: Rainbow parade celebrates LGBT equality push

Some 3,000 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people paraded through Tokyo’s Shibuya district to demonstrate their hope that Japanese society will continue to forge ahead with recent moves to embrace equality and diversity.

This year, LGBT participants and proponents seemed particularly joyous, emboldened by what they see as a blossoming of LGBT-friendly moves by municipalities and companies. “The mood is definitely different this year. All the flyers or other goods we have prepared for visitors are disappearing like mad,” said transgender Fumino Sugiyama, one of the event’s chief organizers. 

Amid the surge in public interest in LGBT issues, organizers decided to extend the festival to two days for the first time, Sugiyama added.  Read More

A young man who survived “ex-gay ministries” taught me what it means to be a Christian

The campaign against marriage equality sent me fleeing from the church. Here's what brought me back. - Rachel Held Evans:  "If Christians in East Tennessee wanted to send the message that gay and lesbian people would be uncomfortable and unwelcome in our churches, that their identity would be reduced to their sexual orientation and their personhood to a political threat, then we’d sure done a bang-up job of communicating it...

A man I didn’t recognize invited us to attend a meeting that night to discuss the “radical homosexual agenda in America and how Christians should respond to it.” He spat out the word homosexual the same way others spat out the words liberal, feminist, and evolutionist, and it occurred to me in that moment that maybe I wasn’t the only one who brought an uninvited guest to church on Sunday morning. In a congregation that large, there was a good chance the very people this man considered a threat to our way of life weren’t out there, but rather in here—perhaps visiting with family, perhaps squirming uncomfortably with the youth group in the back, perhaps singing with the worship band up front. How lonely they must feel, how paralyzed.

...Seven years after the “Vote Yes On One” campaign sent me fleeing from the church, I discovered church again in an unlikely place: the Gay Christian Network’s annual “Live It Out” conference in Chicago. I spoke at the conference as an ally, but within hours of arriving at the Westin on the Chicago River, it became clear I had little to teach these brothers and sisters in Christ and everything to learn from them. Read the full excerpt from "Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving and Finding the Church" Read More

US: In depth, How the religious right is conspiring to put discrimination back into law.

In 1983, in Oregon, two men were fired from their jobs as substance abuse counselors after they were discovered to be taking peyote. The drug counselors applied for unemployment benefits, but the state rejected their claim, citing work-related misconduct as taking peyote is illegal in Oregon. But the men were both members of the Native American Church, where peyote is used in religious ceremony, and the Oregon Court of Appeals reversed the decision, stating that to deny the men unemployment benefits based on the religious use of a controlled substance violated the men’s First Amendment right to free expression of religion. 

Oregon appealed, and the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court twice. The final 5-4 decision, in 1990, ruled in favor of the state and against religion. Simply put, the court said, if people are allowed to pull the God card when they break a law, absolute anarchy awaits everyone. “To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself,” the decision read.

It’s difficult to imagine Justice Scalia would have felt the same had the case involved something like underage Catholics drinking wine at communion rather than Native Americans using peyote. The Smith decision was widely decried as a devastating blow to First Amendment rights and jolted all sides of the political spectrum into action. As a response, in 1993, New York Democratic congressman Chuck Schumer introduced the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Read More

France: Paper claims Pope rejected gay French diplomat as ambassador

Pope Francis met France’s nominated ambassador to the Holy See, who is gay, and told him that the Vatican would not accept his appointment, a French newspaper has claimed. The pontiff allegedly cited his displeasure with a controversial 2013 gay marriage law in France as part of his reason for the decision. According to the report, Stéfanini had a “very discreet” 15-minute audience with the pontiff over the weekend, who said his objection to the French appointment was “nothing personal”.

The refusal by the Holy See to formally accept Stéfanini’s credentials was seen as an indirect way of forcing France to pick another ambassador and avoid making a public statement on the issue. French president, François Hollande, had let it be known he was sticking by his first choice for the job. Usually, a country would not put a nominee forward to the Holy See if it knew following informal talks that the nominee might not be seen as acceptable.

The suggestion that Pope Francis would deny an unmarried gay man – who has repeatedly been referred to as private in his personal life – the chance to serve as France’s highest diplomat to the Vatican seemed to contradict a statement he made early in his young papacy, when he said “who am I to judge?” after he was asked about the existence of a “gay lobby” within the Vatican.  Read More

UK: Union of Jewish Students examines faith and sexuality at NUS conference

The annual NUS Conference in Liverpool brought over 1,000 delegates together to discuss important issues for UK's students. During the conference, Jewish students hosted a fringe event titled ‘Faith not Fear: Fighting for LGBT and Religious Freedom’.  Over 200 students attended the event aimed at exploring diversity in religion and the LGBT experience. Read More

US: At LGBT Orthodox conference, rabbis & therapists trade notes

In light of several recent Religious Freedom laws here in the United States and public spotlights on controversial conversion therapies, faith and sexuality have once again been cast as opposing forces. A groundbreaking conference sought to reconcile the two, convening religious leaders, mental health professionals and educators to discuss best practices for serving members of the Orthodox Jewish LGBT community.

The event attempted to bridge the gap between the unique struggles that LGBT people face in religiously observant communities and the latest research on psychological treatment by bringing together two professions not often in conversation with one another.

“Having therapists and rabbis in the room together talking about this topic is so necessary,” said Jeremy Novich, a clinical psychologist who attended both in a professional capacity and on a personal level, as a self-identified gay Orthodox Jew.  “How can we ensure that LGBTQ people in the Orthodox community are safe, how can we ensure that LGBTQ people in the Orthodox community aren’t suffering… that’s a question that’s posed to the rabbis, to the parents, & schools.”   Read More

Germany: Religious freedom? Catholic school dumps lesbian principal

The sudden termination of the work contract for a lesbian head of a kindergarten in this Bavarian town has sparked widespread criticism. When the woman told her employer at the Catholic-run school of her plans to marry her partner this coming summer, she had to sign a severance agreement.

Though the principal is apparently abiding by a confidentiality agreement, local politicians are taking up her cause. Ulrike Gote, a Green Party’s spokeswoman in the state of Bavaria, accuses the Catholic Church of "hypocrisy."

"The Church should actually be delighted that someone wants to marry their partner," Gote says. "These are the kinds of double standards that we have had to deal with for a very long time." Read More

What Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism really think of LGBTI people will surprise you

Think all religion is anti-LGBTI? Think again. While many know the arguments for and against equality from Christians, Muslims and Jews, have you considered the world’s other major religions? Journalist Harry Ess deconstructs the gender fluid deities, expressions of human desire, celibacy, and procreation prevalent in these major religions. Read More

Europe urged to protect transgender rights, abolish medical procedures

European nations have been urged to protect the rights of transgender people, abolish medical procedures needed to change legal gender and make transgender-specific healthcare accessible under a pan-European resolution adopted late on Wednesday.

The Council of Europe, the continent's human rights watchdog, also called on its 47 member states to adopt transgender inclusive anti-discrimination and hate crime legislation and introduce a third gender option in identity documents for people who do not identify as male or female.

Human rights organisation Transgender Europe (TGEU) hailed the resolution as the most important and wide-ranging statement of support for transgender rights ever made in Europe. Most countries in Europe require transgender people to undergo genital removal surgery and sterilisation, be diagnosed with a mental disorder and get divorced if married in order to have their desired gender legally recognised by the government. Read More