Tag Archives: Transgender

Sexual + Gender Minorities

China News | LGBT

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Gay couple sues for right to marry in China
  • Sun Wenlin and Hu Mingliang have sued a civil affairs bureau for rejecting their attempt to register for marriage.
  • The case, the first challenge to China’s ban on same-sex marriage, was set to take place last month, although postponements and China’s notoriously opaque media climate have impeded word of the case’s outcome.
  • Following the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1997 and its official depathologization in 2001, a small but increasingly visible LGBT community has begun to emerge in China’s urban areas, despite attempts to crackdown on media visibility.

Read more:
“Couple’s Lawsuit Is First Test for Same-Sex Marriage in China” (The New York Times)
“In China, gays say life has changed much for the better” (The Christian Science Monitor)
“In a first, Chinese gay man sues for right to marry” (Reuters)

(Image Credit: Gilles Sabrie/The New York Times)

Sexual + Gender Minorities

China News | LGBT

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Chinese broadcasting regulator releases guidelines banning LGBT depictions
  • China’s top broadcasting regulator and an industry trade group released the guidelines, which, though not technically law, have appeared as authorities have censored and removed LGBT-friendly online and offline programming.
  • The guidelines forbid the depiction of “abnormal sexual relationships and behaviors,” which include “incest, same-sex relationships, sexual perversion, sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual violence, and so on.”
  • Diverse representation has been further inhibited by China’s recent ban on foreign-owned media operators from publishing online content in the country.

Read more:
“China Is Censoring Gay Characters From TV Shows And Online Dramas” (BuzzFeed News)
“Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China” (Quartz)
“China’s Censors Take Another Gay-Themed Web Drama Offline” (The Wall Street Journal)
“Chinese Censors Have Taken a Popular Gay Drama Offline and Viewers Aren’t Happy” (TIME)

(Image Credit: via BuzzFeed News)

Sexual + Gender Minorities

Global Feature | LGBT

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The Global Fight to End “Reparative Therapy”

Countries around the world are increasingly acknowledging the extreme physical and psychological effects of LGBT “conversion” or “reparative therapy,” pseudoscientific practices including electroshock therapy, sexual violence, and psychological assault run in an effort to purge LGBT individuals of their sexual and gender orientations and identities. From East Asia to the Americas to the Middle East, governments have begun banning such practices, though they continue to run to the financial and psychological detriment of their subjects. The Guardian examines global stories and efforts to dismantle the phenomenon.

Read more:
“Electric shocks, rape and submersion: ‘gay cures’ and the fight to end them” (The Guardian)

Additional reading:
“A Firsthand Account of the Torture of ‘Conversion’ Therapy” (The Advocate)
“‘Gay Conversion’ Therapists Find Safe Haven in Israel” (The New York Times)
“Gay conversion therapy, fake doctors to be banned in Victoria” (ABC)
“US government calls for an end to LGBT ‘conversion therapy’” (Al Jazeera America)

(Image Credit: Ng Han Guan/AP, via The Guardian)

Sexual + Gender Minorities

Indonesia News | LGBT

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Indonesian city orders Muslim hardliners to remove anti-gay banners
  • Bandung, Indonesia’s third-largest city, ordered the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) to take down banners and encouraged them to leave.
  • The FPI targeted boarding houses in the city they believed to be housing LGBT residents.
  • The pro-LGBT support comes as Indonesia’s education minister has faced a storm of criticism over anti-LGBT comments and a call to ban an LGBT research and counseling group at the University of Indonesia.

Read more:
“Indonesian city reprimands Muslim hardliners for harassing gays” (Reuters)
“Minister on back foot over anti-gay remarks” (The Jakarta Post)
“Affectionate gay students should be banned from university campuses, Indonesian minister says” (ABC)

(Image Credit: Agus Bebeng/Antara Foto/Reuters)

Sexual + Gender Minorities

Taiwan Feature | LGBT

Video

Proud in Taiwan

Taiwan celebrated Pride with its 13th-annual Pride parade, Asia’s largest. Tens of thousands descended upon the streets of Taipei from around the world to celebrate LGBT individuals and culture on an island notable for its LGBT acceptance.

View the Wall Street Journal video on YouTube.

Sexual + Gender Minorities

Canada News | Transgender

Ontario proposes changes to expand gender reassignment referral capacity
  • Ontario’s health minister announced proposals that will allow local healthcare providers to provide referral services for transgender individuals seeking gender reassignment surgery.
  • Currently, those seeking the surgery must be referred through the Gender Identity Clinic program at the Centre for Addiction and Mental health (CAMH) in Toronto, facing up to a two-year wait if referred.
  • Ontario still lacks in-province gender reassignment surgery capabilities, but the health minister indicated that the absence is currently under review.

Read more:
“Ontario expands referrals for gender reassignment surgery” (CBC News)
“Ontario to expand medical referrals for sex-reassignment surgery” (The Globe and Mail)
“Improving Access to Sex Reassignment Surgery” (Government of Ontario)

Race + Color + Ethnicity, Sexual + Gender Minorities

U.S. News | Racial & Ethnic Minorities

Students lobby Portland school board for ethnic studies class
  • The Asian Pacific Islander Leaders for the Liberation of Youth (ALLY) have lobbied the Portland Public Schools Board of Education for the creation of at least one ethnic studies class in all 10 of the public high schools in Oregon’s largest city.
  • Asking that the class count towards the social studies graduation requirement, the group has called for a course that covers the contributions of Asian, Pacific Islander, African, Latino, Arab, and Native Americans and LBTQ Americans of color to American history and culture.
  • Students supported their curriculum-based arguments with data indicating increased academic performance, attendance, and graduation rates for students who have taken similar courses in other schools.

Read more:
“Students Call For Ethnic Studies in Portland High Schools” (NBC News)
“Textbooks don’t tell the history of minorities, students say. Teenagers want to change that” (The Oregonian)

(Image Credit: Casey Parks/The Oregonian)

Gender, Sexual + Gender Minorities

Argentina News | Transgender Women

Argentinian president calls for investigation after murder of trans activist
  • Trans rights activist Diana Sacayán was found dead in her apartment, the victim of a fatal stabbing that police believe may have been perpetrated by an acquaintance of Sacayán.
  • Sacayán had led both the International Association of Lesbians, Gays, and Bisexuals (ILGA) and the Anti-Discrimination Liberation Movement (MAL) in Argentina, and had been personally issued her new national identity card with her correct gender identity by President Cristina Kirchner.
  • With Sacayán’s death the third for transwomen in a month, President Kirchner called for local police and national security forces to investigate as a part of a broader push to tackle the high rates of gender-based violence in the country.

Read more:
“Matan en Flores a una dirigente trans de una puñalada” (La Nación, in Spanish)
“Hallan muerta a la activista trans Diana Sacayán en Argentina” (teleSUR, in Spanish)
“Argentine President Demands Inquiry into Trans Activist’s Death” (teleSUR English)

(Image Credit: La Izquierda Diario, via teleSUR)

Sexual + Gender Minorities

Southeast Asia Feature | LGBT

LGBT in Southeast Asia

The Huffington Post has launched a series exploring the state of LGBT life in Southeast Asia, a region whose climate ranges from the liberal gender norms of Thailand to the Sharia-driven sexual persecution of Brunei. Some activists argue that countries like Singapore’s success in an exclusive focus on economic development to the detriment of human rights has provided an alternative model to the Western liberal-democratic tradition for countries like China and Russia. Writers explore endemic violence, the effects of limited civil society on advocacy, and some nations’ burgeoning acceptance and recognition of the need for political protection.

Read more:
“Being LGBT In Southeast Asia: Stories Of Abuse, Survival And Tremendous Courage” (The Huffington Post)

(Image Credit: Associated Press, via The Huffington Post)

Sexual + Gender Minorities

Malaysia News | Transgender

Challenge to ban on cross-dressing dismissed by Malaysian high court on technicality
  • Malaysia’s Federal Court rejected the challenge to the state of Negeri Semblian’s ban on cross-dressing, overturning a lower-court decision striking down the ban.
  • The case brought by three transgender individuals was dismissed by the court on a technicality, saying the case should have first been taken up by the Federal Court.
  • The rejection comes as Islamic conservatism increases in the Malay-majority country, with Shariah law a difficult hurdle for gender and sexual minorities to clear.

Read more:
“Court of Appeal wrong to declare religious law unconstitutional, rules Federal Court” (The Malaysian Insider)
“Transgender case: Federal Court overturns Court of Appeal’s decision” (Astro Awani)
“Malaysia court upholds ban on cross dressing by transgender Muslims” (Reuters)

(Image Credit: Olivia Harris/Reuters)

Gender, Nationality + Migration, Sexual + Gender Minorities

Global News | LGBT Ugandan Women

Ugandan LGBTI rights activist wins “Alternative Nobel Prize”
  • Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera, a Ugandan lesbian, won the International Right Livelihood Award, known informally as the “Alternative Nobel Prize.”
  • Nabagesera has won recognition for challenging anti-gay activity through legal challenge, including suing a tabloid that had published the names of suspected LGBT individuals as well as the Minister of Ethics for violations of LGBT advocates’ freedom of assembly.
  • She is also the founder and executive director of LGBT rights charity Freedom & Roam Uganda.

Read more:
“Ugandan gay rights activist wins Right Livelihood Award” (Deutsche Welle)
“Ugandan gay rights activist wins ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’” (PinkNews)
Right Livelihood Laureate: Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera

Religion + Belief, Sexual + Gender Minorities

Kenya News | LGBT Christians

Open-Door Ministry

While Kenya has been under fire for its unwelcoming and at times dangerous attitudes towards its LGBT citizens, pockets of haven and inclusion have sprung up, particularly in Kenya’s urban centers. In a brief feature, Voices of America highlights a minister and lesbian Christian in Nairobi who are bucking resistance in providing and occupying spaces of union between the church and the LGBT community.

Read more:
“Kenyan Church Welcomes LGBT Members” (Voices of America)

(Image Credit: R. Ombuor/VOA)

Sexual + Gender Minorities

Argentina News | LGBT

Argentina lifts ban on blood donations from LGBT individuals
  • After more than a decade of petitioning, LGBT advocates saw another major rights victory in the country as the Ministry of National Health ended its ban on LGBT blood donation.
  • The change specifically targets the pre-donation medical history questionnaire that singled out LGBT individuals for discrimination through questions about gender identity and sexual history.
  • Health officials hope the development will assist in promoting awareness of voluntary donation in an effort to increase its pool of blood donors.

“El cambio de paradigma de grupos de riesgo por el de prácticas de riesgo vuelve a posicionar a la Argentina a la vanguardia mundial en materia de igualdad y no discriminación”

Translation: “The paradigm change from at-risk groups to at-risk practices again positions Argentina in the global vanguard in matters of equality and non-discrimination.”

Read the full story at La Nación (in Spanish).

(Image Credit: via La Nación)

Sexual + Gender Minorities

Europe News | LGBT Refugees

European LGBT groups provide assistance to LGBT and other refugees
  • As Germany has become the destination for many refugees and migrants, the Lesbian and Gay Federation has opened a center in Berlin for LGBT refugees.
  • LGBT groups and individuals in Macedonia, Slovenia, Hungary, and elsewhere have also provided support and services to refugees passing through, including LGBT refugees fleeing violence in Syria and Iraq.
  • Syrian gay man Subhi Nahas spoke to ISIS’s persecution of gender and sexual minorities at a U.N. Security Council meeting in August, calling on more active response to provide escape for LGBT individuals from the region.
“For my compatriots who do not conform to gender and sexual norms, the 11th hour has already passed. …They need your help now.”
Read the full story at the Washington Blade.
(Image Credit: Jure Poglajen, via The Washington Blade)
Sexual + Gender Minorities

Nepal News | LGBT

New Nepal constitution enshrines rights of LGBT citizens
  • Along with wide-ranging inclusion of vulnerable classes, gender and sexual minorities were identified as being entitled to political protections.
  • The constitution is the first to be approved since the 2008 abolition of the Nepalese monarchy.
  • Marriage is not defined in the constitution, but a special tribunal called upon by the Supreme Court has recommended the extension of marriage rights to sexual minorities.
“The nation’s leadership has affirmed that its LGBT citizens deserve the constitutional right to live their lives free from discrimination and fear.”
Read the full story at the Washington Blade.