China: For Gay Chinese, getting married means getting creative

Every time Benjamin Zhang talks about marriage, he uses the following words in abundance: "job," "duty," "my parents," "problem," and "urgent".

"The most urgent matter for me now is to find a spouse. I'm not young anymore. I see my peers getting married one by one and having kids, and I have nothing. I just feel very dejected," said the 31-year-old native of the northeastern city of Harbin -- who also admits he loves children and hopes to have his own one day. "When I'm married and have a child, I'd have done my job as a son. That's most important for me."

Benjamin shares the anxiety of millions other bachelors in China, where it's almost a given that people of a marriageable age set off to start a family.

But unlike most of them, Benjamin is looking for a lesbian wife. Benjamin is gay, and he's trying to obtain a xinghun - a new Chinese term coined to describe a "cooperative marriage" between a gay man and a lesbian woman. The marriage, essentially, is a sham: both the husband and wife continue to have their own same-sex partners and may not even live together. Read more via the Atlantic 

Cyprus: Civil unions bringing change

Sixteen couples have entered a civil union so far in Cyprus, while a European study shows there is still room for improvement on LGBT issues and social acceptance.

Eight same-sex couples and eight straight couples have tied the knot since the island’s controversial civil union bill was passed by the House last November, following a heated and protracted debate in the House that caused rifts within political parties.

During a seminar on Monday, Cyprus Ombudsman’s office representative Aristos Tsiartas said that legislation legalising same-sex civil unions as well as criminalising hate speech against LGBT people is the biggest step forward in improving human rights.

“The civil union law not only challenges the legal and institutional framework of the country, but it also challenges our conscience, prejudice, and stereotypes,” Tsiartas said. Read more via in Cyprus

Colombia: High court formally legalizes same-sex marriage

Colombia’s highest court on Thursday formally extended marriage rights to same-sex couples. Reports indicate the Colombian constitutional court’s 6-3 ruling in a case says the process to obtain a marriage license will become the same for couples of the same- or opposite-sex.

The decision also stipulates that judges and notaries cannot refuse to refuse to marry a gay or lesbian couple because of their religious beliefs. It remains unclear as to whether the ruling — which came in a case brought by six same-sex couples — will immediately go into effect.   Read more via Washington Blade

Faroe Islands: Yes to same-sex marriage

Lagtinget, the Faroese parliament, has proposed to adopt the Danish same-sex marriage legislation this week, but added an exception that gay people are not permitted to wed in churches.

With 19 votes in favour and 14 votes against, Lagtinget agreed to a first reading of a proposal that allows gay couples to have a civil marriage.

“The church has been left out of the proposal, because therwise it wouldn’t have been possible to get the religious parties to vote for it,” Georg L Petersen, the chief editor of the Faroese newspaper Dimmalæting, said according to DR Nyheder. Read more via CPH Post 

Isle of Man: Passes same-sex marriage

The Isle of Man has finally approved same-sex marriage – meaning Northern Ireland is set to be the last place in the Isles without marriage equality. As a crown dependency, the Isle of Man maintains autonomy from the UK on issues including marriage.

It was the last part of these islands to legalise homosexuality in 1992 – but a vote today confirmed it won’t be the last to introduce same-sex marriage.

The Manx Legislative Council today passed its Marriage and Civil Partnership (Amendment) Bill – with six votes in favour and three against. The bill amends marriage laws to allow same-sex couples to tie the knot, as they can in Scotland, England, Wales and the Republic of Ireland. Read more via PinkNews

Sweden: Government to pay compensation to trans people who were ‘forcibly sterilized’

The Swedish government will shell out compensation to transgender people who were victims of forced sterilization, the country’s public health minister has confirmed.

Until 2013, Swedish law specified that people who wanted to change legal gender had to be “lacking the ability to procreate”. This meant that hundreds of transgender people were forced to undergo surgery to prevent them from ever having children.
More than 160 victims of the policy brought a claim against the government over the practice – and after a long political battle lasting years, the Swedish government confirmed it would settle the case and pay out compensation.

In a statement, Public Health minister Gabriel Wikström confirmed that the government will develop legislation in order to allow compensation to be paid. Read more via PinkNews

Germany: Gay Vulture Couple Attempts to Start A Family by Incubating An Abandoned Egg

Zoo officials at the Tierpark Nordhorn observed a female vulture "sitting in a strange position" when suddenly, she dropped her egg in mud under a tree. They believed she had no intention of building a nest for it.

The egg was then placed in temporary incubation before it was given to a pair of male vultures, Isis and Nordhorn. The couple promptly sat atop the egg, in an attempt to incubate it to hatch.

According to ENEX, the gay vultures have already built a nest in preparation of raising a family before even adopting the abandoned egg.

However, zoo officials said they were not sure which male vulture at their zoo is the biological father, or if the egg was even fertilized. Read/Watch more

Malaysia: Learn from Filipino counterparts and engage with LGBT community, local police told

A transgender rights group told local police today to engage with the LGBTQ community here, highlighting the Philippines police force that has undergone sensitisation training with such groups.

Justice for Sisters expressed concern that Deputy Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Datuk Seri Noor Rashid Ibrahim’s statement about not allowing openly LGBT people into the force, even if they are qualified, would further perpetuate homophobia and transphobia among police officers.

The group highlighted a report by international rights group Human Rights Watch that documented claims of police actions against trans people, such as sexual violence, arbitrary arrests based on gender identity, arbitrary urine tests, extortion of money or sexual avours, and lack of urgency and bias in investigating police reports lodged by transgender people. Read more via Malay Mail Online

Egypt: 11 men accused of homosexuality jailed

An Egyptian court has sentenced 11 men accused of homosexuality to jail terms of between three and 12 years, legal sources said.

The defendants were arrested in a flat in the leafy Cairo suburb of Agouza in September last year. The court convicted them of "debauchery and incitement to debauchery", the charges generally used to prosecute alleged homosexuals in Egypt as the law does not formally prohibit same-sex relations.

It sentenced three of them to 12 years, three to nine years, one to six years and four to three years. Egypt's use of the debauchery law to prosecute and jail gay men has drawn condemnation from human rights groups. Read more via AFP 

Thailand: Gay couple win custody battle against Thai surrogate mother

A same-sex couple have won a legal battle in Thailand against the surrogate mother who gave birth to their daughter but later refused to sign the paperwork to allow the baby to leave the country when she found out they were gay.

The central juvenile and family court on Tuesday ruled in favour of Gordon Lake, an American and the biological father of 15-month-old Carmen, and his Spanish husband, Manuel Santos, both 41.

The egg came from an anonymous donor and the surrogate, Patidta Kusolsang, is not biologically related to the baby. She initially handed Carmen to Lake at the hospital but later claimed she thought she would be helping a “legitimate” couple and demanded the baby back. Read more via Guardian 

Lebanon: Pro-LGBTQ band says they were told they’d never perform in Jordan again

Lebanese rock band Mashrou’ Leila is known for its socially active lyrics. But the group was banned from playing in Jordan, just a few days before their scheduled concert in Amman, the band said in a statement on Facebook.

The Beirut-based rock quintet is known for its support of political and religious freedom and endorsement of gender equality and sexual identity. That led them to be dubbed “the soundtrack to the Arab Spring,” according to Vice.

The band said that the official, written justification they were provided as to why the April 29 concert was canceled was because the performance would have gone against what the Ministry of Tourism viewed as the “authenticity” of the venue. Read more

Beyond Binary across the world

In communities around the globe, non-binary people are rejecting the categories of ‘male’ and ‘female’, and attempting to redefine gender identity. Queer, gender-queer, gender-fluid, gender-variant, third gender – these are all terms non-binary people use to describe themselves.

In Beyond Binary, for the Identity Season on the BBC World Service, Linda Pressly hears stories from activists who are part of this contemporary movement, and from those simply trying to live free from the constraints of the expectations of gender. And she travels to Thailand and Canada to find out more about gender non-conformers in ancient cultures. Read/Watch more