Birthstory

At first, this is the story of an Israeli couple, two guys, who go to another continent to get themselves a baby by hiring surrogates to carry the children for them. As we follow them on their journey, an earth shaking revelation shifts our focus from them, to the surrogate mothers.

Unfolding in real time, as countries around the world consider bans on surrogacy, this episode looks at a relationship that manages to feel deeply affecting, and deeply uncomfortable, all at the same time. Listen now 

A HIV-Positive Dating App Leaked 5,000 Users’ Data

A security researcher has discovered that user data was until recently leaking from two health apps: Hzone, a dating app for HIV-positive singles, and iFit, a fitness app.

These two leaks together affect far fewer people than some other breaches, however the health app leaks are significant because they contained, in some cases, unusually sensitive and personal information. They also underscore how many health apps do not have to comply with federal patient privacy laws — even if they collect personal information — if they do not share that information with doctors and others bound by those same privacy laws.

In the case of Hzone, such information included names, email addresses, birthdays, relationship statuses, number of children, sexual orientation, sexual experiences, and messages like this, according to DataBreaches.net: “Hi. I was diagnosed 3 years ago now. CD4 and Viral Load is relatively good. I’m therefore not on Meds yet. My 6-monthly blood tests are due in June. Planning to go in meds. I’m worried about the side effects. What kinds of side effect have you experienced? Xx.” As many as 5,000 users appeared in the breach.  Read more via Buzzfeed

Global initiative launched on gay app Hornet to modernise safe sex message

The Global Forum on MSM and HIV (MSMGF) has teamed up with gay dating app Hornet for a new digital campaign to help modernise the HIV prevention message.

Blue Ribbon Boys is a collaboration from the two organisations that prompts Hornet app users to answer a short series of “yes/no” questions about their sexual health.
The questions relate to HIV and STI testing, ARV (anti-retroviral) treatment, PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis), viral load, disclosure, stigma, condom and lubricant use, and other safe sex methods.

Hornet users who undertake the survey and qualify will receive a blue ribbon icon on their profile photo signifying their personal commitment to sexual health, regardless of their HIV status.  Read more via Star Observer

Facebook finally reforms ‘real name’ policy after drag queen bans

After enduring more than a year of criticism, Facebook is making major changes to the way it enforces its real name policy. Facebook users will notice a new system for reporting fake names along with a new system for responding to those reports. The system now includes specific support channels for LGBTQ issues, non-Western names, and instances of stalking or abuse. The new system will deploy in the US immediately, expanding internationally depending on feedback from the US rollout.

Facebook is quick to note that the new system doesn’t reflect a change in the real name policy itself, and users will still be required to use the same name on Facebook that they use in real life. Still, Facebook is betting that the new process will address many of the concerns and open the door to more improvements in the future. 

The real name policy has also presented problems in cases of stalking and abuse, although those instances have received less press coverage. Targets of sustained abuse sometimes avoid using their legal names for privacy reasons, but until now there’s been little guidance for how to square that practice with Facebook’s policy. In the worst cases, the old system could lead to inadvertent doxxing if a user sent in a driver’s license only to have their account automatically switched to their legal name. Read more via Verge 

China: LGBT activist becomes one of China’s first Rhodes Scholars

Last week, four young people became the first students from China to receive a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship, which began selecting candidates from the Middle Kingdom for the first time this year.

Chinese media has celebrated the news, calling the scholarship — which funds graduate-level study at Oxford — the “world’s hardest-to-get” and the “Nobel Prize” of academic awards. The scholarship is being funded in China with donations from the Hong Kong-based Li Ka Shing Foundation, among other sources.

China Real Time chatted with one of the four, Tsinghua University student Ren Naying, about the scholarship, her advocacy on behalf of gay students on campus and her views on China’s so-called “Feminist Five,” who were taken into custody earlier this year while planning to protest sexual harassment on public transportation. Read more via the Wall Street Journal

US: Schools still lack sufficient sex education programs

A huge number of teens and middle-schoolers still aren’t receiving an adequate sex education, such as how to prevent unwanted pregnancy, HIV, sexually transmitted diseases (STD) and even how to get some condoms. According to a new report released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fewer than half of high schools and only a fifth of middle schools teach lessons on all 16 of the nationally recommended topics for sexual health education. Less than 40% of schools nationwide required sex and health education for graduation.

The report’s findings—based on surveys of schools in 48 states, including 19 large urban school districts, and conducted during the 2014 spring semester—also varied widely state by state.  Additionally, many schools still don’t provide relevant sexual education to students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or queer, such as materials with inclusive language. Only 24.4% do so—despite the fact that the number of teens who self-identify with that community grows every year.

“Lack of effective sex education can have very real, very serious health consequences,” Dr. Stephanie Zaza, director of the CDC’s division of adolescent and school health, said in a statement.  Read more via Newsweek

Guyana child care & protection agency says gays can adopt

Director of the Childcare and Protection Agency (CPA), Ann Greene, has brought firmly into focus the fact that there are no laws barring homosexuals from adopting or being foster parents.

Greene stated emphatically that the agency does not discriminate, and under her direction she encourages anyone to apply for the care and protection of vulnerable and neglected children: “There is nothing in the law barring gay people from adopting or applying to be foster parents. The Childcare and Protection Agency does not discriminate, and under my direction the agency is more than willing to try it.”

Traditionally, heterosexual couples are selected to be foster parents or adopt children, but the agency has recently begun exploring other options in its quest to find more comfortable and secured homes for orphans and other vulnerable children.  Read more via Kaieteur News 

Australia: Bill allowing Victorian same-sex couples to adopt passed, will become law

A bill allowing same-sex couples to jointly adopt in Victoria was passed in state parliament and will become law, after the amendment to allow religious services to discriminate based on sexuality was voted in in the lower house.

The Adoption Amendment (Adoption by Same-Sex Couples) Bill originally removed faith-based exemptions, but this was amended by the upper house and sent back to the lower house yesterday where the changes were approved. The hundreds of children being raised by same-sex couples around the state will now have the opportunity to be jointly adopted by both parents.

Rainbow Families co-convenor Amelia Bassett she was disappointed that religious exemptions were maintained and passed in parliament: “We’re disappointed the legislation wasn’t passed as it was intended to be and we wish it had been otherwise, but at the end of the day we feel we’ve achieved something really great.”  Read more via Star Observer

Mexico: Surrogacy ban for gay men and foreigners

The only state to allow gay surrogacy in Mexico has now limited the service to native couples only. State legislators in Tabasco last week voted to limit surrogacy services to heterosexual, Mexican couples effectively banning gay men and foreigners. Furthermore, couples hoping to use a surrogate must include a woman aged 25-40, who will have to provide proof that she is medically unable to conceive or bear a child.

Legislators say they made the decision to “strengthen” surrogacy laws in order to avoid impoverished women in the country from being exploited.

Mexico has become an increasingly popular destination for gay couples from the US wishing to start a family. The country becomes the latest to ban surrogacy for same-sex parents and foreigners this year. In August, the Nepali Supreme court issued an injunction suspending commercial surrogacy across the country. New laws banning surrogacy in Thailand came into effect earlier this year – ending access previously available to gay couples.  Read more via PinkNews

Lebanon: "As long as they stay away”: Exploring Lebanese attitudes towards sexualities and gender identities

The Gender and Sexuality Resource Center (GSRC) at the Arab Foundation for Freedoms and Equality has the great pleasure to present its two-year nationwide study entitled “As long as they stay away”: Exploring Lebanese attitudes towards sexualities and gender identities.

This study was the first of its kind to provide nationwide attitudinal data on sexuality, alternative sexualities and gender identities, and is the largest of its type, scope and subject in the MENA region. It was designed to fill a serious information gap in advocacy work relating to sexual and gender rights in Lebanon by providing critical and previously unavailable information by measuring and qualifying attitudes towards sexual and gender rights in Lebanon.  Read more via AFEMA

Read the full report "As long as they stay away” here

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This survey constitutes a main deliverable of a project entitled “Lebanese Attitudes towards Private Liberties”. It is designed to fill a serious information gap in advocacy work relating to sexual and gender rights in Lebanon by providing critical and previously unavailable information by measuring and qualifying attitudes towards sexual and gender rights in Lebanon.

With the groundwork knowledge acquired from our activist backgrounds, we had embarked on this project not knowing to what extent Lebanese public attitudes would reflect tolerance and acceptance towards this delicate topic, especially when looking at the national context, not just Beirut. While some results were expected, this project did yield promising and unexpected results on which future advocacy work could be based.

Views on sexuality highlighted the importance of the right to sex for enjoyment, free from coercion, judgment and criminalization. While the Lebanese public primarily saw homosexual and transgender identities as a medical or psychological issue, results consistently and repeatedly point in the direction of general disapproval of the use of violence, punitive actions, and imprisonment. Personal attitudes towards individuals with non-normative sexualities and gender identities ranged from a position of advising, helping and medicating, to a position of avoidance, ostracization and marginalization.

It is no secret that attitudes with regards to sex, sexuality, and sexual and gender minorities in Lebanon have yet to develop towards more equality and inclusivity.
What this first large-scale study in the region suggests, however, is that the Lebanese public’s belief in any individual’s human rights to safety and non-violence is a ground on which we can work towards a more just society.

Cambodia: LGBT groups call for greater acceptance

The rights of LGBT people took centrestage at an event to celebrate Human Rights Day at the FCC mansion in Phnom Penh yesterday. Organised by NGO CamAsean, which advocates on behalf of marginalised people, the morning conference included a rap performance by lesbian and transgender teenagers, and an exhibition of photos and films featuring the lives and struggles of LGBTI people.

“Today is all about marginalised people,” said CamAsean facilitator Kong Yara. “We have representatives here from LGBT communities, sex workers, drug users and people living with HIV.”

A 26-year-old jewellery shop supervisor, who preferred not to be named, said that life for a gay Cambodian can be hard: “I don’t have any gay friends, and when I told my best friend at school I was gay when I was 15, she told me she hated gays and never spoke to me again,” he said. “Some people can have an open life as a gay man in Cambodia, but I don’t feel strong enough.”

Nonetheless, he was upbeat about the future: “I think the level of homophobia is coming down a little bit now,” he said. “And I hope I might be ready to come out in two or three years’ time.” Read more via Phnompenh Post 

Human Dignity Trust releases pivotal research on criminalisation and democratic values, good governance & well-being

The Human Dignity Trust has produced a series of ground-breaking notes explaining how criminalisation interacts with various key areas of democratic values , good governance and well-being.

These notes highlight how crucial decriminalisation is for states to prosper and uphold their core democratic principles. They demonstrate the variety of lenses through which criminalisation's damaging effects can be seen, from exacerbating HIV to harming businesses to undermining the rule of law.

In combination they make it abundantly clear that the decriminalisation of homosexuality must be a global priority. Topics include: Democratic Values, Rule of Law, Role of Business, Public Health, International Human Rights Law, International Organisations, and Rights in Times of Conflict. 

Read more via Human Dignity Trust