Vietnam: Hundreds of transgender people who had reassignment surgery request new identification

Nearly 600 transgender people in Vietnam who underwent sex reassignment surgery have proposed having their names and identification papers changed in accordance with their reassigned gender. The information was announced by a representative of the Maternal and Child Health Department under the Ministry of Health.

The ministry has also suggested adding transgender people’s identification adjustment to a draft amendment to the Civil Code. According to the ministry’s staff, current regulations do not allow the modification of transgender people's identification. The only exception is for people who have a gender which is different from their looks due to defects in chromosomes or genitals.

Studies presented at a seminar on trans people at Ho Chi Minh City University last year showed that it is usually hard for young transgender people to access social and health services as well as land jobs because they do not have appropriate identification. Trans people face significant challenges because their appearance differs from the image on their ID card. Read More 

Brazil: Rio de Janeiro prisons seek to protect transgender inmates

Brazil’s penitentiaries are notorious for rampant overcrowding and violence endured by all inmates. But advocates say few prisoners are as vulnerable as transgender people, who are often singled out for taunting, physical, and sexual abuse. In Rio de Janeiro, new regulations aim to curb such abuse within the state’s 52 penitentiaries. Advocates have hailed the rules that ban discrimination against transgender prisoners and protect their gender identities while behind bars.

“In Brazil, even regular prisoners are an invisible to society at large. Transgender prisoners are doubly invisible and vulnerable,” said Claudio Nascimento, who heads the Rio Without Homophobia advocacy group, which lobbied for the new rules. The rules allow transgender inmates to be known by their common, rather than only their legal names. They guarantee access to conjugal visits and let transgender people who identify as female decide whether to serve their sentences in a women’s facility.

Rio’s new measures were adopted amid an outcry over the brutal beating in April of a trans woman at a detention center in neighboring Sao Paulo state. Police are investigating allegations that officers tortured Veronica Bolina after graphic photos of her went viral online. In images taken before her detention, Bolina is striking, with cat eyes, prominent cheekbones and flowing hair. After, she’s unrecognizable, her hair roughly shorn, her face a patchwork of lesions, & her eyes swollen shut. Read More 

UK: Powerful Ministry of Defense campaign aims to challenge sexual assaults

A campaign launched by the Ministry of Defence aims to tackle the issue of rape in the armed forces. The campaign features a number of soldiers – both male and female – who are the victims of sexual assault. The posters aim to disspel the idea that ‘not saying no’ is enough – with the slogan “Don’t Kid Yourself! Without consent it’s rape”.

One of the posters features someone speculating: “He’s gay, he would have been gagging for it.” Others feature heterosexual pairings, with one soldier remarking of a woman: “Yeah, she just lay there, but I had fun.” Army chief General Sir Nick Carter launched the campaign after a survey found a shocking 40% of women in the armed forces have received unwanted comments of a sexual nature in the past year. 

An Army spokesperson said: “The Consent Campaign, which has been endorsed by Rape Crisis and Stonewall, is the latest in a number of internal initiatives that the Army has launched to ensure all of its employees act lawfully and treat each other in a way that is consistent with our values and standard.” Read More 

India: Government's Census recognizes transgenders as third gender

After being counted as 'males' by the Indian Government's Census department for decades, the transgender community for the first time found mention in a survey report released by the National Crime Records Bureau. In its new report of 2014, the NCRB recorded the deaths and suicides of the transgender community, making it the first time that transgenders have been recognised as a separate category in an official survey undertaken by the ministry of home affairs.

Transgender activists believe that induction of a third category in a National level survey marks a new beginning. However, there were some who said that in India where there is very little awareness about the rights of transgenders, categorising the community for the first time in NCRB survey might not be the ideal start.

"It seems like a good step but for people to recognise us as a people with equal rights, we would have preferred other concrete steps instead of featuring in a survey about deaths," said Rudrani, a Delhi based transgender activist.

"Another reason for suicide can be the lack of opportunities faced by the community be it in getting an education or jobs," said Rurani. The data provided by NCRB corroborated Rudrani--Out of the 16 people who allegedly committed suicide four were un-employed, two were self employed while profession of 10 others falls under "other professions". The economic status showed that 12 of them earned less than 1 lakh rupees.  Read More

Sister Monica’s secret ministry to transgender people

Sister Monica lives alone in a small house at the edge of a Roman Catholic college run by a community of nuns. She doesn’t want to reveal the name of the town where she lives, the name of her Catholic order, or her real name. Sister Monica lives in hiding, so that others may live in plain sight.

Now in her early 70s and semiretired because of health problems, she remains committed to her singular calling for the past 16 years: ministering to transgender people and helping them come out of the shadows. “Many transgender people have been told there’s something wrong with them,” she said. “They have come to believe that they cannot be true to themselves and be true to God. There is no way we can pray, or be in communion with God, except in the truth of who we are.” Read More

Australia: Fact or fiction? A mother and father are better than same-sex parents

Riding the momentum of the Irish referendum and US supreme court ruling legalising same-sex marriage, there are expectations Australian legislators will change the Marriage Act. A cross-party bill to legalise same-sex marriage is expected to be introduced in the Federal Parliament. But passage of the bill is not guaranteed, and many MPs are against the change.

An argument often used against legalising same-sex marriage by groups like the Australian Christian Lobby, and even a group of 40 religious leaders from multiple faiths, is that gay marriage will have a negative impact on children's wellbeing. Opponents of same-sex marriage, including groups like Family Voice Australia claim that studies show a man and a woman are best placed to raise children.

ABC Fact Check took a look at the research on the effects of gender on parenting and found most studies from the US and from Australia saw no difference between families headed by homosexual or heterosexual couples.  Read More

Portugal: Finally, a 'gay couple holding hands in public' video that won't ruin your day

In the past two weeks, viral videos from Ukraine, Russia, and Israel have shown us how dangerous it can be for gay men to holds hands in public. But a new version of the same "social experiment" offers some hope for humanity.

"There was no hate, threat, punches — not even a single verbal abuse," Lorenzo reported in the video. Some people stared, but he and Pedro felt that these weren't "negative stares," but rather evidence of surprise or curiosity. Before shooting the video, Lorenzo and Pedro rarely held hands in public.

Maybe they were a "bit frightened," they explained. Seeing how people of Lisbon reacted to them change that. "We felt respected and free," he said. "We felt what any straight or gay couple should feel: comfortable." Read More 

South Korea: Activist couple test gay rights barriers in conservative South Korea

Growing up as a gay man in South Korea in the 70s and 80s, film director Kim Jho Gwang-soo was warned that his homosexual “disease” would condemn him to a life of loveless, insatiable promiscuity. “From an early age, my dream was to become a director, but instead of making movies I was apparently going to waste all my time and energy looking for sexual partners,” Kim said.

Times have changed. The gay rights movement in South Korea is currently riding something of a mini-wave in terms of support. Last month’s gay pride parade had thousands marching through central Seoul despite vocal protests by conservative Christian groups. And earlier this month, Kim and his longtime partner, Kim Seung-hwan, went to court to demand legal status as a married couple.

The two Kims are the most high-profile gay couple in South Korea and the lawsuit they filed over their marriage license is the first of its kind. Their lawyer, Ryu Min-hee, said she is pushing for the recognition of precedent in existing rulings where courts have struck down discriminatory family law provisions using the constitution’s equal protection clause. 

“This case isn’t just about marriage rights,” Ryu said. “LGBT people in South Korea are discriminated against in law and life and we want to share this story with the Korean public,” she added. “That’s our goal.”  Read More 

Japan: Is same-sex marriage right for Japan?

Article 24 of the Japanese Constitution states, “Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes.” Whether this is a regulation denying same-sex marriage is an issue on which the opinions of scholars are divided. In Japan this spring, a law took effect in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward that recognizes same-sex couples.

How will the world move on same-sex marriage, and how should we consider its domestic institutionalization? We posed these questions to two individuals. Deciding whether to recognize same-sex marriage is a sensitive topic that divides countries right down the middle.

Recently, major corporations have started popping up in Japan that recognize marriage leave for same-sex couples. Such cases show that the eyes of Japanese society have now begun to turn toward the pleas of sexual minorities. From that perspective, the fact that laws granting certificates to same-sex couples have been enacted by local governments, which are so interwoven with the citizenry, is symbolic. We must continue, carefully, to debate whether to change legal systems such as the Civil Code. Read More 

Kenya: LGBT advocates meet with Obama

A White House official said LGBT advocates were among the more than 70 members of Kenyan civil society who attended a “town hall” with Obama in Nairobi. Eric Gitari, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, a Kenyan LGBT advocacy group, was among those who attended the gathering.

“We discussed the importance of creating strong movements and organizing collectively as civil society against oppression,” Gitari said, noting Kenyan television stations broadcast the meeting live. “The meeting was inclusive of other movements and mainstreamed our struggle with others. Our inclusion in it was monumentally symbolic.” Read More

Russia: From Burning Hearts To Civil Unions: The Unlikely Evolution Of Dmitry Kiselyov

Somewhere around the 98th minute of his weekly news roundup and commentary for Russia's Rossiya television channel this week, Dmitry Kiselyov got around to saying something truly unexpected.

In his coverage of the US Supreme Court, the head of Rossia Segodnya, Russia's massive state-controlled media conglomerate, came out in favor of same-sex civil unions: "We can figure out how to make life easier for adult people who want to take upon themselves -- including in a contractual way -- the obligations to care for one another. After all, love can work miracles," he added. "Who is against that?"

To be sure, it was a tepid statement from someone who is more famous for colorful pronouncements such as his March 2014 reminder that Russia is capable of turning the United States into "radioactive dust." In April 2012, Kiselyov raised eyebrows with this declaration on homosexuals: "[Gays] should be prohibited from donating blood or sperm. And their hearts, in case they die in a car accident, should be buried or burned as unfit for extending anyone's life." Read More

South Africa: Behind the reluctance to champion gay rights in Africa

South Africa is, in some ways, the exception to the generally grim situation facing the estimated 50 million-strong LGBTI community in Africa. Its progressive constitution explicitly prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. The country’s vibrant civil society includes a broad range of gay advocacy groups.

But South Africa’s stance on gay rights in Africa is opaque. Scientists from South Africa and Uganda produced research demonstrating that the rationale for repressive laws on the continent are baseless and pernicious. The study found that homosexuality is a normal sexual orientation and that criminalising it can have negative repercussions across society. In 2011, South Africa bravely led on gay rights issues by introducing a resolution to the UN Human Rights Council that called for equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation.

Yet less than three years later it was reticent about a follow on resolution calling for countries to report on LGBTI violations. Graeme Reid of Human Rights Watch described South Africa’s foreign policy on gay rights as “at best inconsistent and at worst obstructionist”. South Africa’s uncertainty on if, and how, it should promote gay rights in Africa stems from two primary sources. Read More