US: 'This Book Is Gay,' LGBT book for teens, is challenged Alaska

A book intended for LGBT young adults is being challenged in the Wasilla, Alaska, public library by residents who want to see it reshelved or removed, reports the Alaska Dispatch News.

James Dawson's "This Book Is Gay" is currently shelved in the library's juvenile nonfiction section. Wasilla resident Vanessa Campbell petitioned for the book to be moved to the adult section after her 10-year-old son came across the book, which contains profanity and sexually explicit passages. The library's director, Kathy Martin-Albright, declined to move the book, and the Campbell family is appealing her decision.

According to the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, Wasilla residents attacked the book at a Wasilla City Council meeting. Emily Hardy, who opposes the book being in the juvenile section, said: "I can't imagine what kind of person would order that material and want to make it readily available for children. That is straight-up pedophile kind of behavior."

Several schoolchildren attended the meeting, telling the city council that "they didn't want 'gay books' or books about gay people in the library at all."  Read more via Alaska Dispatch

Australia: Safe Schools Coalition and Minus 18 launch LGBTI lessons for teachers

It was a crush on the singer Pink that made Jaime realise she was different to other girls in her Year 8 class. Now 17 years old, it has been four years since she came out to her classmates as gay. It was a terrifying experience. "Lesbian or gay or trans people had never been talked about in a positive light in year 7 or 8. It had always been, 'don't be such a lezzo' or' that's so gay'," she said. "That really scared me and it made me feel quite anxious because I felt like I was holding in this big secret and I couldn't talk to anyone about it for fear of being shunned."

Jaimee is one of seven lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) young people telling their story as part of a groundbreaking teacher's resource to be used in year 7 and 8 classrooms. All of Us is the first resource of its kind to be funded by the federal government's Department of Education, and will be available to all schools in both the public and private sector.

Commissioned by LGBTI youth group Minus 18 and Safe Schools Coalition Australia – which has more than 470 member schools dedicated to making classrooms more inclusive and reducing bullying against same-sex attracted and gender diverse students -  it will form part of the health and physical education curriculum.  Read more via Sydney Morning Herald

China: Dream of the bed chamber

“Sex, sex, sexual intercourse, penis, penis, vagina.” More than 150 undergraduates are sitting in a lecture hall at China Agricultural University in Beijing, shouting loudly. Many are sexually active, yet for most it is the first sex education class they have attended.

Their instructor hopes that shouting such words will help youngsters talk more openly about sex. Lu Zhongbao, a 24-year-old student, says he was told as a child that he “emerged from a rock”. When he started having sex with his university girlfriend he had little idea about contraception. This evening he arrived an hour early armed with another question: will masturbating damage his health?

It is not just China’s economy that has loosened up since 1979. The country is in the midst of a sexual revolution. But a lack of sex education means that many are not protecting themselves, resulting in soaring abortion rates and a rise in sexually transmitted diseases. Education on the subject is compulsory in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan—societies that have some cultural similarities with China. But most Chinese schools teach only basic anatomy.

Where classes happen, most students are merely given a textbook. “Happy Middle School Students”, written for 12- to 15-year-olds in 2006 and still widely used, refers to sperm meeting egg without describing the mechanics of intercourse. A more explicit volume for primary-school pupils published in 2011, which did explain how sperm were delivered, was criticised for being pornographic. Read more via The Economist 

Japan: Teacher helps fill school void on LGBT issues

Despite rising sensitivity toward sexual minorities in Japan, schools have a long way to go to improve the environment for LGBT students. But an elementary school teacher from Mie Prefecture hopes her efforts will result in change.

Takako Ogura, 57, a teacher at a public grade school in the town of Meiwa, has introduced her own textbook to teach students about gender identity disorders and related issues in her health and physical education classes. According to a recent survey by advertising giant Dentsu Inc., 1 in 13, or 7.6 percent, of 70,000 people polled consider themselves part of the LGBT community. 

To address the situation, the education ministry in April issued a notice calling on all elementary, junior high and high schools to take measures to prevent bullying and discrimination against LGBT students. Ministry officials, however, admit that school textbooks lack information to encourage students to deepen their understanding on the issue.  Read more via Japan Times

US: Tipping point or state of emergency? Real talk about transgender women of color

While the scales have tipped for some transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) individuals, notably those with access to wealth or those that fit a mainstream beauty ideal, the rest are left behind. Members of TGNC communities of color are having a different discussion. In panels and forums, on social media, in conversation, they are saying, “The transgender tipping point is crushing us.”

The notion that we as a society have arrived at a time and place in which TGNC people have gained equality is misleading. It creates an illusion of safety, reinforcing a binary gender system and excluding TGNC people at the margins—those most deeply affected by the intersections of racism, homophobia, transphobia, and poverty. The “transgender community” is not one community but many communities. Recent advancements in legislation and health care have greatly benefited some, but the progress is not equally distributed, and the increased visibility does not equal acceptance, which is clear when we consider the realities of many Black and Latina TGNC women’s lives.

Barely one year after being featured in TIME, Laverne Cox herself declared a “state of emergency” for TGNC people. And this is why...  Read more via Psychology Benefits

Marking Transgender Day of Remembrance around the globe

On November 20, LGBT and allied people will gather to honor Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR). TDOR is an annual event that gives communities an opportunity to come together and remember transgender people, gender-expansive individuals, and those perceived to be transgender who have been murdered because of hate.

Several transgender women have been killed in Argentina in the past few months, including transgender activist Diana Sacayán. It’s been reported that transgender people have been murdered in El Salvador and most recently, a transgender man in Japan was brutally murdered.

Transgender Europe’s Trans Murder Monitoring (TMM) project reported that at least 1,700 transgender and gender-expansive people were killed in the last seven years. Brazil and Mexico have the highest number of reported murders of transgender and gender-expansive people. Despite these tragedies, HRC’s Equality Rising report also details progress being made by the transgender and intersex advocates to end discrimination, harassment and violence.   Read more via Human Rights Campaign

Activist outed as a 'top gay' by a Kenyan tabloid answers your questions

Lawyer Eric Gitari shares his experiences of being harassed, publicly shamed and fighting for LGBT rights. In May a leading Kenyan tabloid, Citizen, ran a picture of Eric Gitari and nine of his compatriots on their front page. The news splash? They were were being outed as “top gays”.

Life in Kenya is not easy for the LGBT community, who have to contend with daily stigma, the threat of mob violence and lengthy prison sentences. Gitari, who is a lawyer and human rights activist, is undeterred by this and recently secured a major legal victory for the community.

After a long fight, Kenya’s high court ruled that his organisation, the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, could be formally registered in Kenya. This paved the way for similar organisations also supporting the community to follow suit.

Shortly afterwards, Citizen ran their front page. The next battle on Gitari’s hands is a lawsuit he has filed against the state over forced HIV testing and anal examinations, which the government says can determine men’s sexuality. Read more via the Guardian

Iraq: 'Being gay isn't as sexy as ISIS': one young man's fight for rights

"Being gay isn't as sexy as ISIS. So no-one pays us any attention."--These are the words of Amir Ashour, a 25-year-old Iraqi and founder of IraQueer.

Amir left behind his home and family a year ago and is currently living in Sweden. There, he hopes to register and expand his charity, as it is illegal to do so in Iraq. He has received multiple threats from both officials and his friends because of who he is and the work he does.

One of the main threats to the queer community in Iraq, Amir explains, is the armed militias in Baghdad and other cities: “The main one that has been practising all the killing campaigns in Iraq actually announced a partnership with our government a few months ago, under the name of ‘fighting ISIS’. The last campaign we documented was in January this year, while in July 2014, [the militia] killed 35 gay people and sex workers in one day. Not even one report was made about that."

And, Amir adds, that’s just the numbers they’re aware of. “How many more people have just disappeared? Especially with what’s happening with ISIS and people being displaced.. We can’t keep track. And the government is making it impossible for civil society organisations to run safe houses. If an organisation wants to do that, then they are charged with running brothels and prostitution.”

“Even if homosexuality is against religion and Islam is the main force of law in Iraq, killing is illegal. That is not something people can debate and argue.”  Read more via Huffington Post

Tokyo to Taipei, a growing acceptance for LGBT people

When it come to homosexuality, the Confucian cultures of East Asia can be quite conservative, though they don't share the religious or moral objections of Judeo-Christian-Islamic countries. But across a region becoming steadily more urban and cosmopolitan, LGBT communities are experiencing a changes in attitudes and a greater legal recognition that echoes the trend in the West towards much greater acceptance of equality. 

Last weekend some 80,000 people from around East Asia converged on Taipei for the Oct. 31 Taiwan Pride parade, the biggest such event in the region. It was followed by a record 10,000 marchers in the Hong Kong Pride Parade. In Japan, that same November evening saw the broadcast of “Transit Girls,” the first TV drama here about a lesbian couple.

To be sure, for many LGBTs in a region imbued with the Confucian ideals of filial respect and saving face, the toughest battles remain within families. Still, the overall shift seems clear across this diverse region, and is partly due to the influence of the West, including the legalization of same-sex marriage in the US and Ireland. Local media portrayed these changes as a progressive trend that the rest of the world will inevitably follow.  Read more via Christian Science Monitor

Ukraine: Stop harassing us over oppressed minorities --- we're too busy fighting Russia

Though it's not commonly known, Ukraine's LGBT community played a significant role in the Maidan revolution which toppled the unpopular government of Viktor Yanukovych some two years ago. Careful not to upset or alienate conservative nationalist elements at the Maidan, LGBT protesters made a tactical decision not to promote their cause openly. According to EU Observer, the LGBT community refrained from brandishing its own slogans and banners lest it provoke homophobic violence. The Observer remarks that "during the revolution, the LGBT community behaved courageously, but also pragmatically: it didn't champion the rights of the gay minority in order not to split Maidan into liberal and illiberal factions."

In the wake of Maidan, however, many within the LGBT community feel betrayed by the very revolution which they helped to spearhead. In Ukraine, all the current talk is about repelling Vladimir Putin and Russian-backed separatists, rather than adhering to liberal-minded values. It's a rather ironic coda to the Maidan, which was initially driven forward by pro-Western and progressive aspirations. Judging from recent events, however, it would appear that Maidan's liberal credo was rather superficial and merely skin deep.

Recently, many conservative Ukrainians seem to be falling back on a common refrain: don't resort to criticism of our country's internal politics, for such "divisive" tactics will only serve to embolden Vladimir Putin. Though these claims rely on a dubious and false equivalency, such arguments seem to be gaining some traction, as my own experience may attest. What is more, political elites have desperately sought to outmaneuver the LGBT community by playing the nationalist card. Read more via Huffington Post

UNESCO: How can we go ‘From Insult to Inclusion’ for all learners?

The majority of LGBTI youth in Asia-Pacific say they have been subjected to some form of violence or bullying in school. This can take many forms – physical, verbal, psychological or sexual abuse or social exclusion both online and off. The end result remains the same: millions of young learners throughout the Asia-Pacific region are being denied their right to an education.  The impacts can be lifelong and devastating in terms of economic and employment prospects, as well as on a personal level: Asia-Pacific studies show that up to one in three LGBTI learners report depression; up to seven in 10 report harming themselves and nearly five in 10 have attempted suicide.

“From Insult to Inclusion”, the first review of its kind to comprehensively examine these challenges in Asia-Pacific, looks at the broader legal and educational contexts in countries throughout the region related to bullying on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity and expression, and features the voices of young learners themselves and their personal stories of abuse and exclusion. Concrete steps that education sector planners, teachers, school leaders and communities throughout the region can take to address this situation are also presented.   Read more via UNESCO 

US: STIs are skyrocketing among gay and bi men. Is an HIV-prevention pill to blame?

The CDC announced some deeply disconcerting news: Sexually transmitted infection rates have skyrocketed over the last year, particularly among gay and bisexual men. Syphilis transmission rates are especially alarming: The CDC reports a 15.1% increase in new infections nationwide since 2013, with a stunning 83% of male cases affecting men who have sex with men.

What’s going on here? One obvious explanation could be the rise of PrEP (or Truvada), a daily pill, which, all available data indicate, fully protects against HIV infection. Early studies of PrEP showed no evidence that those who took the drug would stop using condoms. But recent surveys suggest that at least some PrEP users do indeed use condoms less regularly once they’re on the pill. Most notably, a fairly small-scale study in San Francisco found a 30% instance in STIs among PrEP users after six months—which rose to a 50% after one year.* Just as troublingly, 41% of subjects admitted to using condoms less frequently while on PrEP.

The San Francisco study was too small to prove that PrEP is closely correlated to decreased condom use. But combined with the new CDC report, its findings should set off alarm bells. Is San Francisco our first preview of a dangerous new PrEP culture, where many gay and bisexual men ignore the risks of STIs once a critical mass of men are on PrEP? That would be the worst-case scenario, and there’s no reason to assume it’s true. But the possibility is worth considering—and, if feasible, forestalling.  Read more via Slate