Uganda: Homosexuality in schools - what experts have to say

A few weeks ago, the country was awash with news about one of the most prominent boys only schools sending all their students home due to the ‘rampant homosexuality activities’ in the learning facility.

Standing in the heart of Mbarara town, Ntare School has over the years been known to expel students that have been suspected of engaging in same sex relationships and the latest incident is said to have been triggered after the students’ fraternity attempted to lynch students who were suspected of being gay.

This is a scenario that is very common in most Ugandan schools especially same sex institutions; however, it raises a few questions. Is expulsion the way to go, what happens to the students after they are expelled – on not only an academic level but also psychological and social levels.

Asked what they think is a better approach for schools, the experts concurrently agree that while it is not the schools place to nurture or even encourage homosexuality, they should find more subtle ways of dealing with the problem. Embarrassing these still maturing children only causes more harm than good. Read More via Kuchu TImes 

Seven ways the gay community is failing our youth on HIV

At a passing glance, it would seem as if gay men in America were on top of their game. After all, gay characters are more visible in the media than ever, public opposition to homosexuality has drifted into minority status, and same-sex marriage isn’t just a geographical privilege, but a national right.

But while the mainstream status of the young gay man has drastically improved, the status of his sexual health isn’t looking so good. A new research analysis reported that young people ages 13 to 24 now account for a quarter of new HIV infections, with only 7% of youth in the study reaching undetectable viral levels after diagnosis. This number, which is far below the national undetectable average of 30%, gives insight as to why HIV infection is up 132.5% among young gay men in the same age range over the past decade.

This stain on the gay rights report card demonstrates a glaring omission in our advocacy work. While we have been teaching young gay men the importance of business, family, and law, sexual health has been all but omitted from the curriculum. In honor of the 7%, here are seven ways we are failing young gay men.  Read More via the Advocate

This terrifying new Windows 10 feature could ‘out’ kids to their parents

Computers running Windows 10 could be automatically telling parents that their teens are visiting LGBT support websites. The new operating system, which was rolled out last month as a free upgrade, has raised concern over the new ‘activity reports‘ feature.

The feature is enabled by default for users who have set up registered ‘family’ accounts, sending weekly breakdowns of browsing history to the parents – even if the kids browse anonymously or try to clear it. Once active, the feature emails the parents a weekly summary of all the child’s internet usage, including the details of websites visited.

The tool also specifically flags up search terms and blocked content that children tried to access – meaning that teens experimenting with their sexuality could have their sexual fantasies emailed directly to their parents. Read More via PinkNews 

US: Duke students reject award-winning book over gay themes

"Fun Home" may have won several awards for author MacArthur "Genius" Award winner Alison Bechdel, but some Duke University freshmen were not impressed. The 2006 graphic novel, an autobiographical work about Bechdel coming to terms with her homosexuality as her funeral-director father remains closeted, was selected as a summer reading book for the Duke Class of 2019. But some students declined to read it because of its sexual themes and use of nudity.

"I feel as if I would have to compromise my personal Christian moral beliefs to read it," incoming freshman Brian Grasso wrote on Facebook. "The nature of 'Fun Home' means that content that I might have consented to read in print now violates my conscience due to its pornographic nature," freshman Jeffrey Wubbenhorst added in an email to the publication.

"Like many universities and community, Duke has had a summer reading for many years to give incoming students a shared intellectual experience with other members of the class," said Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations: "'Fun Home' was ultimately chosen because it is a unique and moving book that transcends genres and explores issues that students are likely to confront." Read More via CNN 

US: The next LGBT battle is sex ed

Recognizing the dearth of sexual health information for LGBT students, two prominent organizations are pushing for schools to evolve with the times. Planned Parenthood Federation of American and the Human Rights Campaign are lobbying schools to include more sex ed for young LGBT or questioning students. Most curriculums have scant sex education to begin with, and even less for those students who fall outside of heterosexual or cisgender descriptions.

Massachusetts has the best record when it comes to LGBT-inclusive sex ed, contrasting greatly with numerous Southern and Western states, where any discussion of homosexuality is banned in schools; Alabama, Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah all fall into that category.

The need for information for LGBT students is great. HIV rates are rising among gay and bi male youth, while lesbian and bisexual girls have unintended pregnancy rates twice that of their straight peers (that can partially be explained by lesbian and bi youth being pressured to conform to societal norms by having straight sex). Transgender students also need accommodation; forcing a child who identifies as one sex to hear lessons intended for the other can be psychologically damaging.  Read More via the Advocate 

South Africa: Call for gay sex education in schools

High schools should teach pupils about homosexual sex. That’s the view of the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce’s (Sweat) psycho-social manager, Dr Gordon Isaacs .

Isaacs told the Cape Argus that far too little is being done to educate schoolchildren about other forms of sex that are prevalent in society, aside from the traditional “when a boy loves a girl” narrative that is taught across the country.

“It is a critical area that should not be ignored. It is linked to relationships, intimacy, desire and certainly linked to HIV,” Isaacs said. South Africa was the first African country and the fifth in the world to legalise gay marriage in 2006. But nearly 10 years later, the national sex education curriculum still shies away from teaching pupils about homosexual intimacy.  Read More via Independent Online

Canada: Ontario sex-ed protests return in time for new school year

Parents angry at the new sex-ed curriculum protested at MPP offices across Ontario Wednesday, Sept 2 — with some protests better attended than others. The province-wide demonstrations, sponsored by a coalition of organizations including Campaign Life Coalition, REAL Women of Canada and the Thorncliffe Parents Association, are just the latest in a series of actions by a nebulous group of community members who have various concerns about the updated sex ed curriculum.

Under the updated curriculum, students in all four publicly-funded school systems will learn the correct terminology for body parts, including genitalia, and explore why differences like gender identity and sexual orientation make people unique. The updated curriculum will also cover online bullying, consent and safe sex.  Read More via the DailyXtra

UK: ‘I’m a bisexual homoromantic’: why young Brits are rejecting old labels

The gay-straight binary is collapsing, and it’s doing so at speed. The more people who are out, the more normal it becomes. Combine that with the seemingly unstoppable legislative reinforcement of equal rights and it seems less “abnormal”, less boundary-busting, to fall in love or lust with someone of the same gender.

In fact, the word queer, once the defiant reclamation of a homophobic slur, has become a ubiquitous term. While the young people I spoke to were largely resistant to the word “bisexual”, even if they are sleeping with both men and women, they used “queer” easily and freely. “Among our callers and our volunteers, more people are identifying as ‘queer’, particularly among younger generations,” says Natasha Walker, of the LGBT+ Helpline. “In the past, people were fighting for the right to be able to define themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans* etc. Although this is very much still the case, there is also a definite shift towards an acceptance of people as they are – label or no label.”

Moving beyond the need to identify as one thing or the other feels utopian in many respects, and it acknowledges that for many people, sexuality is not an either/or decision. But it also relies on an idealised vision of an open-minded and kind society, which is true for the privileged world of, say, celebrities, but is not always the case elsewhere. Casual homophobia has not been erased by semantic optimism. Read more

UK: 1 in 2 young people say they are not 100% heterosexual

Invented by Alfred Kinsey in the 1940s, the Kinsey scale plots individuals on a range of sexual dispositions from exclusively heterosexual at 0 through to exclusively homosexual at 6. Asked to plot themselves on a 'sexuality scale', 72% of the British public place themselves at the completely heterosexual end of the scale, while 4% put themselves at the completely homosexual end and 19% say they are somewhere in between. 

With each generation, people see their sexuality as less fixed in stone. The results for 18-24 year-olds are particularly striking, as 43% place themselves in the non-binary area between 1 and 5 and 52% place themselves at one end or the other. Of these, only 46% say they are completely heterosexual and 6% as completely homosexual. Read More 

UK: Universities are failing to tackle sexist and homophobic 'lad culture'

"Lad culture” that can result in sexual harassment is being allowed to fester at British universities because of a lack of action by institutions, the National Union of Students (NUS) has warned. Sexist or homophobic behaviour linked to heavy alcohol consumption is often rife at universities across the country, a study by the organisation found, with staff and student unions failing to take action on campuses.

Policies to tackle the issue are lacking in almost half of UK universities, with just 51 per cent having a formal policy on sexual harassment. Just one in 10 had a policy that covered the display of sexist and discriminatory material on campus. Misogynistic jokes, so-called “rape banter” and pressures to engage in sexual behaviour are an increasingly common problem affecting students, and NUS Women’s Officer Susuana Amoah claimed violence and discrimination were making the education system “inaccessible for many students, not just women”. Read More

US: From South Carolina to North Dakota, churches cut ties with Boy Scouts

With the Boy Scouts of America having lifted its blanket ban on openly gay adult leaders, some churches that sponsor scout troops are cutting ties with the organization — even though the BSA’s new policy does not require any church-affiliated troop to accept gay leadership.

The First Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in South Carolina sent a letter to parents last week announcing it would no longer sponsor a scout troop, ending a nearly 50-year relationship. The letter, from church member and scout leader Buddy Lever, noted that homosexuality goes against the church’s beliefs, and that staying with the BSA might eventually force  to accept gay leaders.

Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic bishop of North Dakota has ordered churches in his diocese to end any affiliation with the BSA: “I cannot permit our Catholic institutions to accept and participate directly or indirectly in any organization which has policies and methods which contradict the authoritative moral teachings of the Catholic Church.” Churches within the diocese sponsor 8 Boy Scout troops and Cub Scout packs, and they will now look for alternatives. Read More

US: Boy Scouts ends ban on gay leaders

The Boy Scouts of America ended its blanket ban on gay leaders , following an executive board vote that capped off several months of quick movement on the issue. “The national executive board ratified a resolution removing the national restriction on openly gay leaders and employees,” Boy Scouts President Robert Gates said in a video announcing the news. Under the new policy, however, individually chartered troops — many of which are backed by churches — will be allowed to continue the ban.

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is deeply troubled by today’s vote,” the church said in a statement. “The admission of openly gay leaders is inconsistent with the doctrines of the Church and what have traditionally been the values of the Boy Scouts of America.”

“While this isn’t a complete victory, it’s an enormous step forward,” said Brian Peffly, who was kicked out of the Boy Scouts this spring because he is gay. “We so much closer to getting back to being about what scouting is all about, going on camping trips and teaching how to build fires and tie knots and lash poles together and build stuff,” he said, “and learning to be a good leader and good friend and good citizen in the midst of all that.” Read More