Two transgender women of color who were killed within a week and a half this month — one in Virginia and another in Texas — are highlighting a trend amid a national epidemic of transgender homicides: police and media misgendering the victims as men. One article in Virginia also hit a nerve with LGBT advocates by dwelling on prostitution, even though prostitution had no apparent connection to the homicide. Read More
Twitter Users in France Convicted For Inciting Violence Against LGBT Community
In France, three Twitter users have been fined for using the hashtag #BrûlonsLesGaysSurdu, or “Let’s burn the gays.” It is the first time France has handed down court convictions for anti-gay tweets.
The case was brought by the French LGBT charity Comité IDAHO, which filed a complaint against the three Twitter users, accusing them of inciting hatred and violence on the basis of sexual orientation. The group called the convictions a “significant victory.” Read More
Graphic Photos On Twitter, ISIS Members Record and Tout Executions of Gay Men
The attacks, which also include the stoning of an adulterer, appear to have taken place in Mosul and were distributed by ISIS social media accounts.
These are obscene images. They depict two men thrown from the roof of a building as a crowd watches them fall to their deaths, and they purport to show the Islamic State (or ISIS) carrying out public executions before an audience in Iraq’s Nineveh province.
The two victims’ alleged crimes? They are believed to be gay. Read More
Germany's call to action: Western embassies should take in persecuted homosexual
The sentences for eight men charged with attending a homosexual wedding in Egypt have been reduced. Volker Beck of the German Green Party told DW that the West should do more to help persecuted homosexuals.
DW: An Egyptian appeals court reduced the sentences for eight men, who are in prison for allegedly attending a gay wedding. The court did not rescind the sentence and the men must stay in prison for another year. They had been sentenced to three years for "publishing obscene pictures." What do you make of the court decision?
Volker Beck: We have seen since the fall of the Islamist regime that the government is trying to show that it can be just as conservative and homophobic as the previous government. The court sentences are completely disproportionate. They are not based on any Egyptian law because homosexuality per se is not punishable in Egypt.
In Depth: Dashed Hopes in Gay Ukraine
Ukrainians thought that, post-Maidan, their country would start to look more like Europe. But for members of the LGBT community, things may have even gotten worse.
“I believe we are in between two evils: Russian homophobic culture and Ukrainian homophobic intolerance,” says Olena Semenova, an LGBT activist.
The Ukrainian gay and lesbian community is large and vibrant, especially in Kiev, where gay clubs and bars operate in relative peace. But many of its members prefer to remain closeted. Homophobia in Ukraine is pervasive and deep-rooted, sharing many parallels with Russia’s. Read More
Church members charged with beating gay man
For Matthew Fenner, a crowd of parishioners gathering around him in a church sanctuary after a prayer service was a sign of trouble. Within minutes, he said they began to berate him because he was gay. One woman told him he was "disgusting." Then for two hours, they pushed and hit Fenner, screaming at him as they tried to "break me free of the homosexual 'demons,'" he said in a police affidavit.
Nearly two years later, five Word of Faith Fellowship church members have been indicted for kidnapping and assault in connection with Fenner's beating. But the case has opened new wounds in the rural North Carolina community where the church has been a lightning rod of controversy. Read More
Op-ed: An Open Letter to Mainstream LGBT Organizations That Have Remained Silent on Black Lives Mattering
Why did we feel the need to write this open letter to mainstream LGBT organizations with a reference to the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act? Because it illuminates the dangers of focusing on one type of identity-based violence -- the violence that impacts LGBT people -- while willfully ignoring the police and vigilante violence that impacts Black queer- and trans-identified people, as well as all Black people:
Mike Brown's bloodied and lifeless body was left on a hot Missouri street for 4.5 hours; the world bore witness to video clips of Eric Garner uttering his final words, "I can't breathe!", as a police officer choked him to death. Read More
Protesters Kiss-In At Madrid Burger King After Gay Couple Is Kicked Out
Over 100 people participated in a gay kiss-in at a Burger King franchise in Spain after a same-sex couple was reportedly kicked out of the restaurant for kissing. A security guard had asked two gay men, ages 18 and 19, to leave the Burger King in Madrid's Plaza de los Cubos last month after a patron who was eating there with his kids complained about them kissing, according to El Pais.
“He said to us that we couldn’t do things like that. That there were children around," one of the men told the publication, adding that the pair ultimately left the restaurant because they did not want to cause trouble. Arcópoli, a Madrid-based LGBT rights group, organized the event. Read More
The hidden and the hunted: Uganda's war on gay men
Reporter Jonathan Heaf takes an intimate view on the lives of Ugandan gay men in the wake of the Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA) - or the "Kill The Gays Bill", as it has become known - passed by the Parliament of Uganda:
There must be no distinguishable markings on the outside of the building. Nothing indicative of what happens within. The room is airless and empty. Michael Bashaija slumps between his boyfriend - an older man named Apollo - and a lawyer, knees wide apart, on a green plastic garden chair that is cracked and worn. Read More
Living Dangerously: What It’s Like to Be Gay in Iran
It is possible to be gay and live under a repressive regime that is always threatening to out you, or worse. But it's a lot like walking a tightrope: scary and fraught with risks
Saeed was 20 years old when he sat his father down and told him he was gay. Trembling, he recounted how, as a child, he hid cutouts of male underwear models from foreign magazines under his pillow, and would gaze at them for hours when he was alone. His mother, sitting speechless in a chair next to her husband, went pale.
A retired colonel in the Iranian Air Force, Saeed’s father looked at him with a straight face, not moving a muscle. “Affirmative,” he said. He had spent three decades in the military, and had been shaped equally by its rigorous discipline and his religious upbringing. “I always knew you were different from my other children. I always used to say that to your mom. Right?” he said, turning to his wife, then added: “Saeed, this is your nature. This isn’t your choice. You should have told us earlier.”
Saeed burst into tears, relieved. His mother took his hands and nodded, “What can we do to help?” Read More
Egypt reduces sentence for eight men over gay marriage video
An Egyptian appeals court has reduced the jail terms for eight men sentenced last month on charges relating to their appearance in an online video purporting to show the country's first gay marriage ceremony.
The court cut the sentences - on charges of spreading indecent images and inciting debauchery - from three years each to one year, judicial sources said. Read More
UK trans people banned from voting unless they provide previous name
Trans people are furious at the UK government's new electoral registration system, forcing them to provide a previous name in order to be eligible to vote.
The new online voter registration system means that trans individuals cannot register to vote unless they provide false information or they out themselves publicly with no guarantee their data will be protected under the Gender Recognition Act 2004. Read More