Sri Linka's Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera should be arrested for voting in favor of gay rights at the UN, an MP has said.
Wimal Weerawansa, leader of the National Freedom Front, said the minister had violated the country's penal code by voting against a Russia resolution calling for the withdrawal of partner benefits to gay and lesbian UN employees. Read More
The European Union was 'astonished' when EU representative Agnes Guillaud was expelled from Gambia without explanation, said a spokeswoman. Guillaud had 72 hours to leave the country. The EU has been critical of The Gambia's human rights record, particularly regarding its laws penalising homosexuality. Last year the EU blocked nearly $15m in aid to Gambia.
President Yahya Jammeh has governed the small west African nation with a firm hand since he came to power in a coup 20 years ago. He has crushed dissent and faces mounting international criticism over issues ranging from human rights to his stated belief that he can cure Aids. The president has also implemented tough measures against Gambia's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. He has called gay people "vermin" and has threatened to slit their throats.
The EU summoned the Gambian ambassador to seek an explanation for the expulsion, officials said. Read More
In Belize — a small Anglophone Caribbean nation tucked into the eastern flank of Guatemala and Mexico — “batiman” (Creole for, literally, “butt man”) has long been the supreme slur against gay men, the worst possible insult to their personhood and dignity. But now another slur is beginning to take its place: “Orozco.”
Five years ago, Caleb Orozco’s lawyer walked into the Belize Supreme Court Registry and initiated the first challenge in Caribbean history to the criminalization of sodomy. Caleb Orozco v. the Attorney General of Belize focuses on Section 53, a statute in the criminal code that calls for a 10-year prison term for “carnal intercourse against the order of nature.” If Orozco won, his supporters hoped, it would establish a moral precedent across the Caribbean and even create a domino effect, pressuring other governments to decriminalize sodomy. But it took 3 years for the Supreme Court to hear the case; 2 years later, the nation still awaits a verdict.
Caleb Orzco is Belize’s most reviled homosexual and its most ostracized citizen, a man whom fundamentalists pray for and passers-by scorn. His weary face is on the evening news and in newspaper caricatures. His name is now a label, one used to remind other gays that they are sinners and public offenders. Read More
A new penal code in Mozambique will soon come into effect under which same-sex intimacy is no longer illegal. The new criminal code is set to come into effect in June, and removes a clause which previously allowed “security measures” to be taken against people “who habitually engage in vices against nature.”
Although homosexuality was not specifically mentioned under the old penal code, it was sometimes interpreted that “vices against nature” referred to same-sex intimacy. The previous penal code had been in place, aside from some amendments, since Mozambique was a Portuguese colony, and was written in 1887. Although homosexuality will soon be legal in Mozambique, the law will still offer no protections for LGBT people against discrimination. Read More
Sam Martin was browsing in a Boston record store 23 years ago when an unusual photography book caught his eye. Mr. Martin flipped through its pages, which featured portraits and interviews with women who had become men, and started to cry.
“I thought, ‘Oh, my God, I’m not the only one,’ ” said Mr. Martin, 43, who started transitioning to male from female after he bought the book. “When I was growing up, I never saw people like me in movies or books.”
Mr. Martin is now on a mission to change that. He belongs to a small group of emerging authors who are writing children’s literature that centers on transgender characters, hoping to fill the void they felt as young readers. Read More
Kazakhstan has thrown out a Russian-style bill that would ban “propagandizing non-traditional sexual orientation” to minors. The bill passed Kazakhstan’s Senate in February but had not yet been signed into law by President Nursultan Nazarbayev. The council cited technical reasons in its decision to reject the bill.
Though this prevents this bill from being signed into law, the council ruled that Kazakhstan’s government can enact laws that restrict citizens’ rights to access and distribute information as part of its responsibility to “defend marriage and family, motherhood, fatherhood and childhood.”
The decision comes after a group of prominent athletes including Olympic diving gold medalist Greg Louganis, tennis great Martina Navratilova, and Olympic snowboarder Belle Brockhoff signed an open letter calling on the International Olympic Committee to uphold its non-discrimination principles. Kazakhstan and China are the two remaining nations bidding to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, in Almaty and Beijing respectively. Read More
Fun Home, a musical based on the best-selling graphics memoir by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, swept the 2015 Tony Awards last night in an unexpected and history-making move, usurping more traditional song-and-dance fare like contender An American in Paris.
Emotionally complex and entirely riveting, Fun Home examines Bechdel's relationship with her father, Bruce Bechdel, a funeral parlor director who was a closeted homosexual and carried out secret affairs with younger men during the course of her upbringing. Juxtaposed with this is the story of Bechdel's realization of her homosexuality, as well as the aftermath of Bruce's suicide four months after her coming out during her college years. Read More
Ontario has given final approval to an NDP private member's bill that bans so-called conversion therapy for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender children.
New Democrat Cheri DiNovo says therapists should not try to "fix" LGBTQ kids or subject them to what she calls unethical and abusive conversion therapy. DiNovo says not only did Ontario allow conversion therapies to go on too long, the province actually covered the treatments under its health insurance plan, a practice that ends now. Read More
Figures released show that for three years the number of new diagnoses amongst men who have sex with men has continued to rise, to the point where it is at the highest annual level since the epidemic started. Opinions are mixed as to the contribution to the high rate of diagnoses of heightened HIV testing campaigns, immigrant communities with less knowledge of HIV and how to avoid it and the increasing pool of people with HIV.
The country's largest HIV peer-support and advocacy organisation, Body Positive, already has 800 people on its books and funding to provide services to the increasing numbers of gay and bi men with HIV is not keeping up with demand, says Body Positive general manager Mark Fischer. Read More
Domestic violence rates among LGBTI Victorians mirror the broader community but support services are not equipped to provide adequate help, a leading research centre has reported. Gay and Lesbian Health Victoria is calling for better-targeted training for family violence support services and the justice system.
The research centre's submission to the Royal Commission into Family Violence said too many abuse victims in the LGBTI community suffer in isolation.
"Generally services are indicating they haven't thought about [the LGBTI community] much or aren't confident," submission author Dr Horsley said. She said support services needed specific training in dealing with the LGBTI community. Read More
With the legalisation of same sex marriage in Britain and Ireland given the green light over the past few years, it’s easy to assume attitudes toward the LGBT community are becoming more accepting. Yet despite this, a portion of bisexual people are still experiencing discrimination.
Almost half of bisexuals claim to have experienced biphobic comments while accessing mainstream services, a new report launched by the Equality Network found. Biphobia was most commonly experienced within NHS and LGBT services. The research is said to be the first UK-wide research report on bisexual people’s experience of services. The study revealed 66% respondents felt they had to pass as straight and 42% felt they had to pass as gay or lesbian while accessing services.
More than a quarter of those asked claimed to have experienced prejudice even when accessing LGBT services. One respondent reported they had “heard lots of negative comments about bisexual people and dismissal of the need to include bisexual people”. Another respondent reported being told that “bisexuals are ‘confused’ and not as good as ‘real gays’”. Read More
The Ugandan National Academy of Sciences (Unas) has endorsed a report that says homosexuality and gender and sexual diversity are natural phenomena, which contradicts Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s stance that homosexuality is abnormal and should be outlawed. Unas and the Academy of Sciences of South Africa (Assaf) are the only academies of science in Africa to endorse the report.
Uganda’s infamous anti-gay laws were justified with a study which Ugandan MPs claimed stated: “Homosexuality is not a disease but merely an abnormal behaviour which may be learned through experiences in life. In every society, there is a small number of people with homosexuality tendencies. Read More