Australia: Activists protest against ban on documentary

Activists angered by the banning of a documentary about same-sex parenting in schools have staged a protest outside the offices of Sydney's Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Around 150 people reportedly attended the rally, which was sparked by the controversial banning of the Gayby Baby film and the surrounding media coverage. Members of the group Community Action Against Homophobia have held a rally outside the newspaper’s Surry Hills office today to declare "homophobia has no place in schools".

The documentary was prohibited by NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli from being shown during class time, unless it directly relates to students' curriculum. Burwood Girls High School planned to screen the film, directed by former student Maya Newell, but was forced to cancel. A number of teachers also attended and spoke at the rally in support of the cause.  Read more via 9news 

Israel: Latest country to reveal over half of young people ‘not 100% straight’

It seems the whole world is opening up in its approach to sexuality. A recent UK survey found that 49% of young Brits identify as something other than “100% heterosexual”. A similar survey in the US found that 78% of Americans identified as heterosexual – but only 4% of those said they were “100% heterosexual.”

Now, Israel is the latest country to jump on the bisexual bandwagon. The Israeli website Mako & the Pannels Institute conduct a study asking non-religious Israeli Jews over the age of 18 about sexual preferences.

Once again, the results revealed that the younger generation see themselves on a sexual spectrum. Researchers found that 67% of respondents considered themselves to be heterosexual, but only 3% of those said they were “100% homosexual.” The remaining 30% said they were somewhere in-between straight and gay. Read More via Pink News 

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 

Globally, one in four people have a transgender work colleague

The latest Randstad Workmonitor survey has explored global attitudes to sexual orientation diversity in the workplace. One of the questions asked employees in 34 countries whether they had any transgender work colleagues.

On average, 26% of those polled said that they had one (or more) transgender colleagues. This figure rose to 45% in Greece, 46% in Brazil and 50% in India. In the US, 29% of those polled said they had a transgender work colleague, while the figure was 26% in the UK.

Helen Belcher, of Trans Media Watch said, ‘Trans issues have been treated as marginal and unimportant for years. I’ve been saying for a long time that trans issues don’t just affect the trans person, but their families, friends and work colleagues also. Read More via Gay Star News 

Philippines: Typhoon Grindr, liberation, and post-disaster sex

“Before Haiyan, all we had on Grindr was mehhhh – four or five people. After Haiyan, boom – white men!” Jericho*, 28, finds it hard to recall much of a social scene in Tacloban before Typhoon Haiyan. A senior manager at one of the Filipino city’s most expensive hotels, he recounts a routine that consisted of going to the gym in the morning and walking home along empty streets after dark in a city where “everyone knows everyone.” 

2013's Typhoon Haiyan was clearly a disaster, but it was also a powerful gust of change, not least in Jericho’s social life. While some residents have left Tacloban to cope with trauma or find work, the city has welcomed an influx of professional aid workers, able-bodied gap year volunteers, and fellow Filipinos seeking opportunities and hoping to help in the recovery. 

“Overnight,” Jericho says, “my Grindr became the United Nations.”

In the immediate aftermath of Haiyan, patchy mobile phone signal notwithstanding, survivors longing for intimacy turned to Grindr to arrange discreet meet-ups with aid workers, who themselves sought distraction. Grindr is also used to forge platonic friendships, especially as foreign visitors, local volontourists and disaster researchers (author included) longed for social spaces to unwind from physically and emotionally demanding relief work. Read More via IRIN

Netherlands: Dutch activists call for Caribbean Netherlands to adopt gay rights

As a rainbow-coloured flotilla paraded through Amsterdam's canals for the city's annual Gay Pride festival on Saturday, one float carried a sobering reminder that gay rights do not extend to all in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Although the Netherlands itself became the first country to legalize gay marriage in 2001, the three Caribbean members of the larger Kingdom - Aruba, Curacao and Sint Maarten - have yet to follow suit, reflecting cultural taboos in the mostly Catholic island nations.

That leaves the Kingdom, famed for its tolerant stance on marijuana and euthanasia, apparently less progressive on gay rights than Ireland, where voters approved gay marriage in a referendum in May, and the United States, where the Supreme Court upheld a constitutional right to gay marriage in June.

"We want to have the same legislation throughout our kingdom. That would empower all gay and transgender organizations in addressing the question of social acceptance", said Ramona Pikeur, director of Caribbean gay rights organization Dushi & Proud.The Dutch government says it is seeking dialogue, rather than confrontation, with the island nations to promote gay rights and acceptance of gay marriage. Read More

Hong Kong: One territory, two attitudes on equality

Even in Asia, where the level of LGBT acceptance can vary and change with alarming regularity, Hong Kong is a contradictory beast. In 1991, the territory finally ditched British anti-buggery laws that still dog former colonies like Singapore and Malaysia. Today, Asia’s “world city” embraces its queer celebrities and supports a sizable calendar of LGBT events.

Privately many Hong Kongers face enormous pressure to conform. It’s a common dilemma in Northeast Asia, one that in Hong Kong skews the queer bar scene heavily toward ex-pats and visitors. Despite the 1991 reform, an equal age of consent was not established until 2006, and anti-discrimination laws remain a matter of interpretation rather than being absolute. In this deeply traditional society, less than a third of the population supports the legalization of same-sex marriage. In 2012, property developer Cecil Chao offered 500 million Hong Kong dollars ($75 million Canadian) to any man who could woo his lesbian daughter into marriage, and while mere financial mortals may not be throwing around that kind of offer, the underlying attitude is a common one.

Yet three quarters of Hong Kongers also say they support equal rights for same-sex couples, and most are very accepting of LGBT media personalities. While same-sex unions are still not recognized, transgender citizens were finally granted the right to marry an opposite-sex partner in 2013. It seems that in the land of “one country, two systems,” it’s a case of “one territory, two attitudes” on equality. Read More

Uganda: The Gay Pride festival defied local law and taboo

Members of the Ugandan LGBT community celebrated their annual Pride Uganda festival this weekend, defying strict laws criminalizing homosexuality with up to 14 years in jail. Crowds of Ugandans traveled to the shores of Lake Victoria to walk in the festival’s gay pride parade, which was held at a secluded botanical garden 30 miles outside the nation’s capital of Kampala. 

Gay rights activists and allies marched, chanted and danced in the small parade, many waving rainbow flags and wearing colorful masks to conceal their identities. The celebration was part of the five-day Pride Uganda festival, which provided a rare occasion for members of the LGBT community to gather together openly. Many LGBT Ugandans are forced to keep their identities secret, as same-sex relationships are punishable by up to 14 years in prison in the country. 

Not everyone was celebrating. The youngest of 20 brothers and sisters, Badru, a man from Kampala, was thrown out of his home because his family discovered he was gay. Homeless, unemployed and born HIV positive, Badru said he has nothing to celebrate about at Pride Uganda: “Today is rights day but I don’t know what I should be celebrating about when I have so many difficulties,” he said. “Pride is meaningless to me.”

Still, many LGBT Ugandans expressed their desire to live as authentically as possible, despite the almost daily threats of homophobic-based violence. Read More 

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 

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