AIDS CONFERENCE: STOP FUNDING ANTI-GAY COUNTRIES
Sunday’s opening of the 20th International AIDS conference (AIDS 2014) in Australia was marked by calls for counties to end anti-gay persecution. High profile speakers at the opening ceremony highlighted the negative impact of these discriminatory laws on the global campaign against the pandemic. Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, the woman who first discovered the HI virus in […]
KYRGYZSTAN GAY ACTIVISTS PLEAD FOR WORLD’S ATTENTION
Gay activists in the Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan are calling for international support as a proposed Putin-style anti-gay law is set to limit the rights of LGBT people. The “gay propaganda” bill is similar to the one passed in Russia last year, which has been used to restrict press freedom and music concerts, to ban […]
GAY FOOTBALL STAR WEEPS OVER IMPACT OF COMING OUT
Michael Sam, the first NFL openly gay football player, gave an emotional speech after being presented with an ESPN sports award. Last week, Sam was honoured with the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the annual ESPY (Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly) Awards, presented by the ESPN sports network. Since 1993, the award has been presented “to individuals […]
GAY TORTURE ANAL EXAMS STILL USED IN LEBANON
Despite a medical ban, it’s been revealed that a Lebanese doctor is still ‘testing’ gay men using discredited forced anal exams. While the Lebanese Order of Physicians outlawed the practice in 2012, a Beirut-based NGO documented in the latest edition of its newsletter five cases in which a doctor had conducted the tests. According to […]
EU COURT: TRANS PEOPLE CAN BE FORCED TO GET DIVORCED
In a blow to equality, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that it is legal for governments to force married transgender people to divorce if they want to legally change their gender identity. Thursday’s verdict concerned the case of transgender Finnish citizen Heli Hämäläinen (currently legally registered as male), who has been happily […]
100 LEADING HIV/AIDS EXPERTS DIE IN MALAYSIAN PLANE CRASH
The global Aids community is in mourning. Around 100 passengers on the downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH 17 were travelling to the World Aids Conference in Australia, shaking organisers of the event and devastating their colleagues. The Guardian reported that those killed included World Health Organization staff, former International AIDS Society (IAS) president and leading scientist Joep Lange […]
‘GAY’ CHILDREN’S BOOKS TO BE MOVED TO ADULT SECTION
Singapore’s National Library Board (NLB) will no longer destroy children’s books about gay families but the books won’t stay in the children’s section. The NLB’s plans to remove and destroy the books from its public libraries were condemned by many parents and literary figures as an act of censorship. The board justified the controversial move because […]
SA-BASED UGANDAN GAY ACTIVIST TO RECEIVE ELIZABETH TAYLOR AWARD
Dr Paul Semugoma, the Ugandan gay activist who was embroiled in an immigration drama at O.R. Tambo airport in February, is to receive the Elizabeth Taylor Human Rights Award. The award is in recognition of his work as a leader and advocate for human rights in the field of HIV/AIDS. Semugoma came out as gay […]
2ND MPUMALANGA GAY PRIDE ANNOUNCED
The province of Mpumalanga, which has never before held a Pride march, will make history this year by hosting not just one LGBTI Pride event but two. On Tuesday we reported that the first ever Mpumalanga Gay Pride March will take place on Saturday 6 September in the town of Ermelo. We’ve since been contacted […]
TUTU A ‘SON OF SATAN’ FOR SUPPORTING GAYS, EUTHANASIA
The conservative Christian Democratic Party (CDP) has condemned Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu’s support for assisted suicide and gay marriage, calling him “a son of Satan”. In an opinion piece for the UK’s Observer last weekend, Tutu wrote: “I do not want artificial feeding or to be on an artificial breathing machine – I don’t want […]