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Read "Sixteen Propositions" by Michael Denneny:
Michael Denneny's "Sixteen Propositions" is a brilliant analysis of Gay identity and politics.
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May 13, 2008
News: Police in Moldova Watches As Homophobic Mob Assaults Gay Demonstrators
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(Moldova) - On Sunday, participants in the 7th Moldovan Pride were precluded from marching peacefully in support of anti-discrimination legislation and tolerance in the centre of Chisinau. Police did not guarantee the right to freedom of assembly. Large aggressive coordinated groups, including extremist religious groups, members of the neo-fascist movement “New Right”, and legionnaires blocked the bus with participants, forced the door, violently hit the windows, and attempted to remove the engine, while shouting “lets get them out and beat them up”.
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Apr 29, 2008
News: European Study on Transgender's Healthcare Is Published
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(EU) - ILGA-Europe and TransGender Europe published the first comprehensive report on the experiences of health care by Transgender people in European Union. This report is a result of the largest and most comprehensive data collection on transgender people's lived experienced to date.
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Apr 21, 2008
News: New Website Highlights Gay African Heroes
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(UK) - A new website highlighting African heroes and achievers has included three prominent Gay Africans. "Gay Africans make up a part of the landscape of the continent and any member of the Gay community who has achieved something of merit deserves a place on our site. We welcome the submission of their biographies," said the website's creator, Kadija Traoré Bush, who is of is Malian and Beninoise heritage.
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Apr 10, 2008
News: Barroso Urged to Keep His Word On Equal Rights
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(EU) - Within the next couple of months, the fate of an EU directive protecting against discrimination on the grounds of age, disability, sexual orientation and religion/belief in all areas of life will be decided by the European Commission and the European Council. At the moment, there are signs that this directive will not include sexual orientation, age and religion/belief. ILGA-Europe is calling on everyone to join its campaign to ensure that a comprehensive new EU anti-discrimination directive which protects against discrimination on all grounds and in all areas of life is proposed and adopted.
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Apr 06, 2008
News: Olympic Torch Ambushed in London
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(UK) - The bus bearing the Olympic torch was today ambushed outside Selfridges department store in Oxford Street, London, by Gay human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell of OutRage! Mr Tatchell ran in front of the bus carrying the Olympic flame. He held up a placard which read: "Free Tibet, Free Hu Jia." He shouted the same words as he ran along in front of the bus. The police wrestled Mr Tatchell to the ground, which delayed the bus briefly while he was removed to pavement. After questioning, he was later released without charge.
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Apr 01, 2008
News: European Court of Justice Rules in Favour of Gay Pensioneers
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(EU) - European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg delivered its judgement in a landmark case on pension rights for registered same-sex partners (case of Tadao Maruko v. Versorgungswerk der deutschen Bühnen). The facts of the case are as follows: Mr. Maruko lived with his partner in a registered partnership. After his partner died the VddB, the pension scheme for German theatres, refused to pay him a survivor’s pension as such pensions were provided only for married partners. Mr. Maruko sued the VddB, and the Bavarian Administrative CourtMunich referred the case to the ECJ for interpretation of the 2000/78/EC Directive which established a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation.
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Mar 31, 2008
Quickie Link: Media Frenzy at Warsaw Airport for Arrival of Gay American Couple
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(Poland) - Gay Americans Brendan Fay and Tom Moulton found a media frenzy when they arrived at Warsaw airport yesterday for a three-day visit. The couple, who were married in Canada, hit the international headlines when their wedding image was used in Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s televised prime-time address to scare the Polish people against supporting the Lisbon Treaty, arrived to Warsaw for a three-day visit. The trip is sponsored by TVN Television. Their first day in Poland was an opportunity to meet with Polish Gay rights leaders Tomasz Szypula and Greg Czarnecki from the Campaign Against Homophobia (Kampania Przeciw Homofobii – KPH) as well as other members of the LGBT community.
Note: Read more on UK Gay News |
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Mar 27, 2008
Quickie Link: Scott Long's Troubling Style of Advocacy
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(USA) - As the head of the LGBT desk at the Human Rights Watch (HRW), Scott Long bears critical responsibilities for investigating human rights abuses and advocating greater freedoms for our community worldwide. That is estimable work, by any measure. One occupational hazard, however, of taking on a highly specialized charge on matters of such delicacy involving repressive and dangerous regimes is undoubtedly a compounding sense of proprietorship, a fatigued feeling that others "shouldn't mess with my turf, they should stay out of my bailiwick." On matters related to anti-Gay repression in Iran, dating back almost three years, Long seems to have fallen into that trap, indeed to have fallen quite far.
Note: Read more on Gay City News |
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Mar 26, 2008
Quickie Link: First Hate Crime Punishment in Croatia
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(Croatia) - Josip Situm, 25, was detained by police for carrying the homemade bombs. He was charged soon after with planning to hurl the cocktails at the crowd. Although he denied the charges, insisting he decided after he arrived at the parade not to throw the bombs, Situm admitted that he disapproves of homosexuality because he is Roman Catholic. On 28 February, Situm became the first person in Croatia found guilty of a hate crime. He was convicted of endangering lives and property at the Pride parade and sentenced to 14 months in prison and psychiatric treatment. Situm’s conviction was a major victory for Croatia’s LGBT community, for whom street violence is nothing new.
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Mar 25, 2008
Quickie Link: Call to Reform Asylum System to Protect Lesbian, Gay Refugees
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(UK) - The British Government is currently failing Gay refugees, Peter Tatchell told a rally in Whitehall, outside the Prime Minister’s official residence 10 Downing Street. Over 120 protesters braved hail and rain on Saturday to demand that Gay Iranian asylum seeker, Mehdi Kazemi, be granted refuge in the UK. They also urged asylum for the Iranian Lesbian refugee, Pegah Emambakhsh, and an estimated 12 other Gay Iranians who are at risk of deportation back to Tehran. There were calls for a “fundamental reform” of the way the Home Office treats LGBTI asylum applicants. “The British government had ordered Mr Kazemi to be deported back to Iran,” said protest speaker Peter Tatchell, spokesperson for the LGBTI human rights group OutRage!.
Note: Read more on UK Gay News |
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Mar 20, 2008
Quickie Link: Two EU Cities Refuse to Sign Gay Rights Appeal
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(EU) - The Mayors of Riga in Latvia and Tallinn in Estonia have declined to take part in a campaign affirming freedom of assembly and expression for LGBT people in Europe. The Europe branch of the International Gay and Lesbian Association wanted the leaders of those cities to join 19 others in Europe and declare their support for their initiative. The Mayors of Paris, Nicosia, Amsterdam, Winterthur, London, Stockholm, Cologne, Barcelona, Venice, Vienna, Bologna, Manchester, Copenhagen, Budapest, Ljubljana, Zürich, Berlin, Dublin and Luxembourg have all pledged their support.
Note: Read more on Pink News |
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Mar 19, 2008
Quickie Link: Deportation of Gays to Iran Raised in UK Parliament
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(UK) - The British Government is coming under pressure from members of both houses of Parliament, mainly Liberal Democrats, to “come clean” about policies on who are deported to Iran – especially Gay men and women. At lunchtime at Prime Minister’s Question in the House of Commons, Greg Mulholland, the Liberal Democrat MP for Leeds North West, raised the matter, complaining about refugees being deported to Iran.
Note: Read more on UK Gay News |
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Mar 18, 2008
Quickie Link: Polish President Uses Gay Wedding Video to Scare Poles of EU
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(Poland) - A Gay man from the United States on Tuesday voiced outrage against Poland's President Lech Kaczynski for publicly using a video of his marriage to bash the EU's proposed charter of rights. Kaczynski used a prime-time televised address Monday to argue the EU's proposed Charter of Fundamental Rights, linked to the bloc's crucial reforming Lisbon Treaty, could allow homosexual marriage in Poland, a devoutly Catholic country. A video of the couple's marriage in Toronto, Canada was broadcast nationwide to illustrate Kaczynski's presidential address.
Note: Read more on AFP |
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Mar 18, 2008
Quickie Link: Gay and Grey in Berlin's New Old People's Home
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(Germany) - A fluffy yellow bedspread is severely tucked around the hospital-style bed, there's a wheelchair-accessible shower and a token pot plant. At first glance, the Asta Nielsen Haus in Berlin looks like the average old people's home. But this is a pioneering facility - the first in Europe to cater exclusively for Gays and Lesbians. The idea of a Gay-only project for elderly people was first mooted at a "Gay and Grey" congress in Cologne in 1995. It reflects fears among Germany's first openly Gay generation about what will happen when they are too frail to care for themselves. "At the moment, most Gay and Lesbian residents keep themselves hidden. Imagine one Gay person in a home of 100 people. It can be lonely and isolating," says Christian Hamm, who is on the board of the organisation behind the care-home plan. Hamm and his associates are now drawing up plans for an assisted-care retirement centre for Gay people in another Berlin district.
Note: Read more on Guardian |
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Mar 17, 2008
Quickie Link: Complicity in Iran's Anti-Gay Jihad
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(UK) - The British government announced Thursday that it was ending efforts to deport Mehdi Kazemi, a 19-year-old Iranian who has been studying in Britain – a move that should be applauded by human rights activists everywhere. Had he been forced to return to Iran, Kazemi would almost certainly have been executed there. Roger Roberts, one of eight members of the House of Lords who petitioned British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to allow Kazemi to stay in Britain, declared: “There is no doubt that he will be persecuted and possibly face state-sanctioned murder if he is forced to return.”
Note: Read more on FrontPageMagazine |
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Mar 17, 2008
Quickie Link: Nazi Persecution of Gays is Explored in Exhibit
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(USA) - A traveling exhibit from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum uses photographs, documents, and artwork to chronicle the Nazis' arrests and persecution of tens of thousands of Gay men from 1933 to 1945. The exhibit, on display through the end of the month at the University of Rhode Island, gives voice to what its curator describes as "one of the lesser-known stories of the Nazi era." The exhibit begins just before the Nazis rose to power, when an estimated 1.2 million Gay men lived in Germany and a Gay culture flourished in nightclubs and cafes. But after Adolf Hitler took power, the Nazis began closing Gay clubs, and in 1934 the Gestapo asked local police departments to compile lists of men believed to be Gay. A law known as Paragraph 175 that had previously prohibited "unnatural indecency" between men was reworked to dramatically expand the range of illegal behaviors. By 1938, even a perceived wayward glance or touch could be interpreted as criminal by the courts.
Note: Read more on Boston.com |
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Mar 15, 2008
Quickie Link: Gay Refugees Have Difficulty Proving They're Gay
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(Canada) - The Canadian Refugee Board needs to establish clearer guidelines on sexual orientation to help adjudicators avoid stereotyping Gay and Lesbian refugees who have little proof they are Gay, say legal experts. Last week MP Thomas Mulcair exploded at hecklers in the Commons and later shed tears at a news conference after Immigration Minister Diane Finley refused to allow Canada's latest Gay refugee claimant Kulenthiran Amirthalingam stay in the country on compassionate grounds. He later told the Montreal Gazette that he had seen a disturbing video depicting the kind of brutal punishment Gay men receive in Malaysia, including strapping a naked man until raw flesh was exposed. Amirthalingam, who is now back in Malaysia where he spent time in jail for being Gay, was declared not credible by the one-adjudicator panel. He joined a growing list of refugee claimants who have been rejected because they can't prove they are Gay.
Note: Read more on Canada.com |
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Mar 14, 2008
News: Anti-Gay Propaganda on British TV
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(UK) - George Galloway MP is accused of mouthing "the propaganda of the Iranian dictatorship" after he claimed on the Channel 5 TV talk show The Wright Stuff this morning that the boyfriend of Gay asylum seeker Mehdi Kazemi was executed for sex crimes (see full transcript below). The criticism comes from the Gay human rights group, OutRage!.
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Mar 12, 2008
Quickie Link: Gay Teenager Is Facing Gallows as His Asylum Bid Is Rejected
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(Netherlands) - A Gay Iranian teenager faces deportation from Britain and execution in his home country after a Dutch court refused to hear his asylum claim. Mehdi Kazemi, 19, will be forced to return to Britain, where his asylum application was rejected last year. He is then expected to be removed to Iran where his boyfriend was hanged two years ago for 'sodomy.' The ruling will put the Home Office under renewed pressure to reassess his case - or face the possibility of sending a young man to his death. The department’s own guidance concedes that Iran executes homosexuals but rejects the claim that there is a systematic repression of Gay men and Lesbians.
Note: Read more on Times Online |
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Mar 11, 2008
Quickie Link: Homophobic Abuse Endemic in Schools
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(UK) - Homophobic abuse is endemic in schools, with "Gay" now the most common put-down by pupils in the classroom, teachers say. A "conspiracy of silence" in schools and colleges means homophobia is now seen as so normal that some teachers believe they risk disrupting classes - and making themselves a target of abuse - if they challenge students' behaviour. More than 70% of teachers have heard put-downs in their school or college that refer to sexuality, according to a survey of 268 teachers by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers. In particular, teachers report that pupils routinely use the term "Gay" in a pejorative manner. Nearly two-thirds of teachers and lecturers have heard homophobic language on a regular basis. A quarter encountered it several times a week and about 16% of them daily. Boys are significantly more likely to talk about sexuality in a bullying way, but half of teachers have seen girls do the same and nearly 12% said they had seen similar behaviour in the staffroom.
Note: Read more on Guardian |
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