New Marsha P Johnson biopic praised as ‘real Stonewall story’

A new trailer for the film has been compared to Roland Emmerich’s recent version of the riots.
A trailer has been released for a new biopic focusing on trans activist Marsha P Johnson.
Starring trans actress and Oscar hopeful Mya Taylor in the lead role, the short film charts the lead up to the Stonewall rising and has been praised for its depiction of trans women of colour, leading many to compare it to recent flop Stonewall. 

The Roland Emmerich film is based on the 1969 Stonewall riots, which are often considered the birthplace of the gay rights movement. Prior to release, the film came under fire amid claims of whitewashing and trans-erasure, after the first trailer suggested it would be centred on a white middle-class gay hero. Though Emmerich and the film’s star Jeremy Irvine both defended it, it has been panned by critics and audiences alike. Read more via PinkNews

US: 'The Danish Girl,' about a transgender pioneer

“The Danish Girl,” Tom Hooper’s new film, is a story of individual struggle that is also a portrait of a marriage. In this respect and others it resembles “The King’s Speech,” Mr. Hooper’s earlier historical drama, a multiple Oscar winner a few years ago. In that case, the union of George VI and Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, was the foundation on which the tale of George’s elocutionary striving was built. Here, the marriage is bohemian rather than aristocratic, but the stakes, while personal, are every bit as profound and consequential as the matters of state that drove the monarch to the microphone.

When we first encounter Gerda and Einar Wegener, played by Alicia Vikander and Eddie Redmayne, they seem perfectly matched. Both are painters, living amid the soft colors and sea air of Copenhagen in 1926. Gerda is a portraitist, while Einar’s landscapes — drawn from his childhood memories of the fjords and marshlands of Vejle, a town on the Jutland peninsula — have brought him a measure of fame. Like many couples who share a profession, they provide each other with support as well as a bit of competition. Their best friend, Ulla (Amber Heard), a dancer, marvels at their mutual devotion, which combines the easy, egalitarian warmth of friendship with the heat of sexual attraction.  Read more via NYTimes

US: Academy to consider trans actresses in their proper gender category

If you missed Tangerine when it first appeared over the summer, now’s a good time to catch up: The film—director Sean Baker’s sensitive, honest, and often funny look at the lives of a pair of transgender prostitutes over the course of a particularly eventful L.A. Christmas Eve—is sure to be the subject of much discussion this Oscar campaign season. With the support of producers Mark and Jay Duplass and distributor Magnolia Pictures, Tangerine’s trans stars are being advanced as candidates for the best actress and best supporting actress awards. This is a big deal—according to Variety, “It’s the first time a movie distributor has ever backed an awards season push for a transgender actress in Hollywood history.”

That the Duplass brothers and Magnolia are throwing their weight behind a nomination is itself an encouraging—and welcome, considering the performances in question—development. Kitana Kiki Rodriguez (up for the best actress category) and Mya Taylor (best supporting actress) are both new to feature filmmaking, and yet their acting in Tangerine (in front of an iPhone 5s, no less) is deeply compelling, organically modulating from girlfriend comedy to stark portrait of life on the margins with style and verve. But more important, while cis-playing-trans performances have been nominated for the Academy Award before, this push marks the first time actual trans actresses will be seriously considered. Read more via Slate

Gay rugby documentary “Scrum”

MARK Bingham, a rugby fanatic and openly gay man, was on United Flight 93 on September 11, 2001 when terrorists hijacked the plane. Mark, along with other passengers, managed to crash tackle the terrorists in an effort to regain control of the plane. Despite their efforts, the flight went down in the fields of Pennsylvania. No one survived.

In Mark’s memory, the Bingham Cup, an international gay rugby world cup was founded. Not only did the Sydney Convicts host the cup in 2014, they are defending champions. But since moving up a grade in their competition, the Convicts A team has been beaten fair and square in just about every match. Nobody likes to lose, least of all the Convicts. Read more via Star Observer

Australia: This Is What Happens At A Formal For LGBT Teens

Traditionally, school formal night itself pales in comparison to the weeks of anticipation.

Thoughts of table configurations, outfits, fake IDs, and, of course, dates cloud the collective psyche of the average graduating class. But for kids who are gay, bisexual, and transgender, such everyday worries easily magnify as they wonder where they fit in this particularly “straight” mainstay of the high school experience. Consider the transgender girl who has long dreamed of the opportunity to wear a ball gown, but fears ridicule by her peers. Or the out guy who wants to bring his boyfriend from another school, but is met by a hostile administration. For this girl, this guy, and many, many others, the formal can be a minefield of awkward situations and social exclusion.

Enter Minus18. A group for LGBTI young people based in Victoria, Minus18 has run several successful formals for queer young people and their friends in Melbourne over recent years. The group has tapped into a market with clear demand – numbers at their last Melbourne formal swelled to about 500. Read more via Buzzfeed

In Its Honesty and Beauty, Carol Is a Revolutionary Piece of Filmmaking

When Patricia Highsmith’s novel about a love affair between a suburban socialite and a younger shopgirl was published in 1952, it was revolutionary in its depiction of healthy, overt female desire and for its hopeful ending. (Spoiler alert: Neither of the women ended up relegated to a mental institution or in a loveless marriage with a man she loathed or dead.) While lurid lesbian pulp with gruesome endings proliferated at the time, Highsmith’s The Price of Salt (also titled Carol and written under the pseudonym Claire Morgan) elevated love between women to the realm of the possible, offering a kind of representation, surely, that very few queer women of the time would have previously known.  Read more via the Advocate

Protecting human rights defenders: UNDP/OHCHR Global LGBTI Inclusion Index

The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), UNDP, and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights are conducting a survey to include civil society voices to help guide how LGBTI people will be measured in international development. 

While the final text of the SDGs does not mention SOGI, UN agencies consider these populations as being intrinsic to the general population and deserving of the protections afforded in international human rights law. Therefore, UNDP together with OHCHR are developing a Global LGBTI Inclusion Index that will show how well governments are delivering on these goals to LGBTI populations. Read more via ILGA and add your voice

A Strategy For All

It's rare that we get excited about a UN document. We're excited. 

The Programme Coordinating Board (PCB) of UNAIDS recently approved a new five-year strategy for 2016 to 2021. For all the UN bodies, these strategy documents serve to guide the organization. Usually, they are jargon-filled, top-down documents that look good but have little meaning for the people that the agencies are supposed to serve.

UNAIDS has shown itself to be exceptional. Its new Strategy, "On the Fast-Track to end AIDS" is a remarkable document that not only people living with HIV and those working on it, but that anyone involved in health and development should definitely read.

It is the first time we have seen a comprehensive human rights-based approach (HRBA) be genuinely at the core of a strategic plan of a UN agency. Almost every page of the document refers to our rights, and links them to the specific steps that UNAIDS will undertake in the next few years. It is a excellent example of how to use the Human Rights (HR) framework to build a program on. Read more via IMAXI

 Read the strategy at UNAIDS

Is your fav vacation spot Paradise or Persecution for LGBT people?

Can you tell heaven from hell? It's not all palm trees and blue seas for local LGBT people. Take the quiz yourself and help improve the lives of LGBT people. 

The quality of the local nightlife, museums and beaches matters more to people thinking of a holiday abroad than whether their hotel waiter is likely to be sentenced to death or imprisoned for being gay.
That’s a finding from an opinion poll by an international HIV charity ahead of the launch of an online quiz, ‘Paradise or Persecution’ , which aims to raise awareness of the more than 75 countries in the world that criminalise people on the grounds of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

But a HIV charity thinks people would probably think twice about holidaying in a country that criminalises Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender (LGBT) communities, if they knew the scale of the problem.  More

India: Meet Prithika Yashini, set to be India's first transgender Sub-Inspector

K Prithika Yashini is set to become the first transgender police officer in India after winning a prolonged court battle to gain eligibility to be recruited to the sub-inspector (SI) post. The 25-year-old, born and brought up as Pradeep Kumar, had undergone gender reassignment surgery. She applied for the SI post in February, but was rejected on the ground that the Tamil Nadu Uniformed Services Recruitment Board (TNUSRB) doesn't have a third gender category.

Unwilling to give up, she moved the Madras High Court, which allowed her in various stages of the selection process, including the written examination, physical endurance test and viva-voice through interim orders. However, she had to approach the court again as the state police recruitment board rejected her citing various reasons.

The First Bench directed the board to recruit Prithika as SI and include transgenders as a "third category" in future recruitment processes. "The social impact of such recruitment cannot be lost sight of, as this would give strength to the case of transgenders. We are thus of the view that the petitioner is entitled to be recruited as SI with the hope that she would carry out the duties with dedication and commitment to advance the cause of other transgenders," The Hindu quoted the Bench as saying. Read more via International Business Times

Zambia: Trans woman convicted, faces 15 years to life

A trans woman in Mongu, western Zambia, was found guilty last week of permitting a man to have carnal knowledge of her “against the order of nature.” In Zambia, that is a crime punishable by a prison sentence of 15 years to life under Section 155 (c) of the Zambian Penal Code. 

Hatch Bril, 27, pleaded innocent to the sodomy charge, which was filed after taxi driver Abraham Chilemu, 19, complained to police about Bril, saying that she had deceived him into sex. Bril said that Chilemu had forced her to have sex with him, but the magistrate rejected that account. 

Bril’s clothing was entered into evidence — bracelets, makeup, a bra, leggings, and hair extensions. On the basis of those and photos of Bril taken by Chilemu, the magistrate concluded that Chilemu was deceived by Bril into believing that Bril  was a woman. Bril was forced to undergo an anal examination — a procedure that LGBTI activists categorize as a form of torture and criticize as an unreliable indicator of whether anal intercourse took place.

Chilemu apparently was a willing participant in the encounter, but does not face criminal charges. Read more via 76crimes 

Italy: Hundreds of married same-sex couples ‘stripped of legal recognition’ by court ruling

An Italian court has ordered cities to stop recognising the existing overseas marriages of same-sex couples. Italy has poor provisions for LGBT people party due to the strong influence of the Catholic Church, with no country-wide recognition of same-sex couples at present.

Over the past year a number of Mayors and city officials – including the Mayor of Rome – have officially recognised the weddings of gay and lesbian couples overseas, despite threats from the government not to do so.

However, they will now be compelled to stop doing so, and to strip existing same-sex spouses of their legal rights, after Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano took the issue to the Council of State, Italy’s highest administrative court. Read more via Pink News