Taiwan: Presidential hopeful would treat LGBT child with ’empathy, tolerance and respect’

Candidate James Soong Chu-yu said that if he had an LGBT child he would treat them with nothing but “empathy, tolerance and respect.” The chairman of the People First Party – who is currently second in the polls – was asked what he would do if he had a gay or trans child in a Facebook question and answer session with voters.

In the latest polls, Soong is second with 17% of the vote, behind the Democratic Progressive Party’s Tsai Ing-wen, who has also spoken out for LGBT rights.

Last year, an online poll revealed that 68% of the Taiwanese population supported same-sex marriage. Taiwan’s LGBT community have been campaigning for same-sex unions for years.
In July, thousands of supporters flooded the streets of Taipei in a bid to urge the government to change the country’s stance on gay marriage. Protesters waved rainbow flags, lit candles and shouted “gay votes are still votes”. Read More via PinkNews 

Kenya: President Kenyatta on gay rights in Kenya

President Kenyatta appeared on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS. When Zakaria pushed him on gay rights, Kenyatta repeated sentiments he told Obama during his state visit saying that Kenyan's are uninterested in gay rights and that "whatever society you come from right, the principal aim is that you must give the people you know their right to choose." 

Kenyatta went on to note, however, that he will not allow individuals to take the law into their own hands and that individuals should not persecute, beat, or torture gay people. Read the full transcript via CNN

David Cameron in Jamaica: Prime Minister must highlight violent homophobia and 'batty bwoy' hatred

To his great credit, David Cameron has previously promised that his government will champion LGBT rights worldwide: declaring that LGBT rights are universal human rights and that Britain will use its influence to defend the rights of sexual and gender minorities worldwide. Bravo!

As he visits Jamaica, the Prime Minister will have a chance to make good that commitment in a country where it really matters and where his words can make a positive impact. Jamaica is a country where a declaration of support for LGBT equality is desperately needed. Most local politicians and the government shy away from the issue. Around 80% of the population oppose LGBT people and LGBT rights. Mob violence against known or suspected LGBT people is not uncommon.

In these hateful circumstances, only a handful of Jamaicans are openly LGBT. There are no well known out public figures. The gay activist Brian Williamson was the first person to come out and be reported in the media as an openly gay man. He was brutally murdered in a frenzied knife attack in 2004. Read More via IBT 

US: Epigenetic 'tags' linked to homosexuality in men

The biology of sexual orientation has been one of the most vexing — and politically charged — questions in human genetics. For the first time, researchers have found associations between homosexuality and markers attached to DNA that can be influenced by environmental factors. 

Researchers looked at epigenetic markers — chemical changes to DNA that affect how genes are expressed, but not the information they contain. These 'epi-marks' can be inherited, but can also be altered by environmental factors such as smoking, and are not always shared by identical twins.

However, several researchers have criticized the study’s methods and some statisticians have said that the study incorrectly presented its results as statistically significant. Study co-author Tuck Ngun has disputed this and other statistical criticisms. He has said he and his collaborators will issue a statement. Read More via Nature 

US: Why is no one talking about meth and gay men besides Danny Pintauro?

Former child star Danny Pintauro recently told Oprah Winfrey of his past crystal methamphetamine use and how it directly led to his HIV diagnosis. While the world tries to wrap its head around the Who’s the Boss? cherub’s hard-core drug dependency, it’s clear our society still fails to see how intertwined gay life and crystal methamphetamine is.

While we would never allow the erasure of the LGBT story from the official reportage about the spread of AIDS, we are passive about the exclusion of the LGBT community from the facts about crystal meth. 

The International Antiviral Society-USA reported in 2006 that the use of methamphetamine is five to 10x more common in urban gay and bisexual men than in the general U.S. population. Counselors at Gay Men of African Descent, a New York-based service agency, say between 20 to 40% of their clients are addicted to the drug. 

Yet depictions of meth on film often portray users as poor, uneducated, and straight. Read More via the Advocate

Australia: My intersex body--more than an object of fascination or repulsion to be ‘fixed’

Cosmetic gender-assigning operations on children with ambiguous genitalia can have devastating long-term implications. As genetic screening of embryos increases, we can expect variations like 5-alpha-reductase deficiency to disappear from the gene pool.

To be clear, intersex is not common, but it’s not as rare as one might expect – the frequency is as high as 1 or 2 in every 100 individuals. In fact, it is now thought all humans start as intersex in utero before typically developing towards male or female phenotypes.   Read More via the Independent 

Australia: New genetic discovery for intersex people questioned by national intersex community group

A new genetic condition has been discovered that will help form another piece of the puzzle when it comes to understanding why some people are born intersex. However, Australia’s peak body representing the intersex community has questioned why the research was done without the support of intersex-led organisations, and criticised it as another example of stigmatising intersex as “disorder”.

People who are intersex have reproductive organs, sexual anatomy, or chromosome patterns that don’t fit the typical binary definition of male (XY) or female (XX). Researchers from the Hudson Institute of Medical Research in Victoria led a study that showed a mutated form of the FGFR2 gene can also cause XY sex reversal.

Morgan Carpenter, the president of Organisation Intersex International Australia, believes the “disordering” of intersex has led to accelerated biomedicalisation: “Resources and funding go to research like this, but not to community-based support or long-term follow up and testing has clear uses to de-select embryos and foetuses with intersex traits.” Read More via Star Observer

Australia: Indigenous community lacks resources to prevent LGBTI suicide

Indigenous-run mental health services are struggling to attract funding for suicide prevention programs, according to Aboriginal mental health workers. Indigenous people are twice as likely as other Australians to take their own life.

In some areas young Aboriginal people take their own lives at 7x the national trend. Mental health advocate Dameyon Bonson said the situation was getting worse for LGBTI communities: "As a gay Aboriginal person myself, I [had] just got used to there not being any resources," he said.

Mr Bonson used crowd-funding to raise $26,000 for the awareness project via donations from the public. Indigenous mental health advocates said grassroots organisations should not be left to do important work without government support.  Read More via ABC

US: Dating apps fire back at billboards linking STD spread

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is defending an ad campaign in Los Angeles that links popular dating apps with the spread of sexual transmitted diseases. The group has sponsored billboards and bus benches that are aimed at reminding users about the risks of casual sex and offering free STD tests.

"In many ways, location-based mobile dating apps are becoming a digital bathhouse for millennials wherein the next sexual encounter can literally just be a few feet away — as well as the next STD," Whitney Engeran-Cordova, senior public health director for the foundation, said in a statement.

Tinder sent a cease and desist letter claiming the campaign falsely associates the dating app with the spread of venereal diseases: "These unprovoked and wholly unsubstantiated accusations are made to irreparably damage Tinder's reputation in an attempt to encourage others to take an HIV test offered by your organization," a lawyer for Tinder wrote.

The foundation sent a letter to Tinder denying that it disparaged the company and saying it would not remove the reference to the app.  Read More via AP

US: For black gay men, HIV is a perfect storm

Over the course of my career as an HIV/AIDS epidemiologist, my peers and I have documented and helped answer a public health mystery affecting black gay men in the United States. Namely, why are HIV infection rates so high among this population, compared to two other communities that comprise the overwhelming majority of HIV cases in the nation: black Americans and gay men in general?

The statistics are hard to ignore and even harder to fathom. Gay men make up only 1.4% of the total black population in the U.S., yet they account for an astounding 53% of new HIV infections in the black community. And while new HIV infection rates have decreased among black women and injecting drug users, infections continue to rise among black gay and bisexual men. In addition, although gay men are 40x more likely to get HIV than the general population, that figure rises sharply to 72x more likely among black gay men.

There is, of course, no single factor that has led to black gay men being one of the groups most disproportionately affected by HIV in the U.S. Instead, it is a multifaceted “perfect storm” of problems involving social, cultural, and economic forces interacting in a variety of ways. Read More via the Advocate

South Africa: Young sexual minorities face increased HIV risk at university

In South Africa, young men who have sex with men are increasingly exploring their sexuality at university, without always understanding the HIV and other health risks they are taking. Yet there are few programmes and awareness campaigns address that focus on young men who have sex with men to address these issues.

A study across 14 higher education institutions involving sexual minorities, found risky sexual behaviour is increasing the risk of HIV transmission among these population groups. The study found that young gay and bisexual students are coming out of the closet, particularly in tertiary education institutions where they are more likely to meet their counterparts. But it is important to understand that not all men who have sex with men identify as gay. The study found that some men who identify as heterosexual engage in unprotected sex with other men, as well as having unprotected sex with female partners.

Based on its findings the study calls for more programmes at education institutions, and greater involvement of male students who have sex with men in such programmes, to help reduce the risk of HIV transmission. At the University of Western Cape a programme for men who have sex with men, as well as people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex (LGBTI) is improving the lives of many students.   Read more via Key Correspondents