China: Homosexuality in China, government workplaces unwelcoming

Even though Chinese public sentiment has become increasingly accepting of homosexuality, gay government employees find that their sexual orientation remains taboo in the workplace: “It’s impossible for me to disclose my sexual orientation at the office,” Cheng He, a 25-year-old employee at a government-affiliated research center in Beijing, said. “I don’t think it’s necessary, but my colleagues would not accept me being gay anyway.”

A survey from 2014 by the Shanghai-based human rights NGO WorkForLGBT found that in a survey of 8,000 people, only 2 percent of those who worked at state-owned enterprises disclosed their sexual orientation to their employers or co-workers. But at foreign companies, 9 percent of employees polled had revealed their sexuality to their bosses.

Cheng said for the most part government officials are expected to have a spouse (gay marriage is not legally recognized in China) and children to show that they are “normal” and are stable enough to handle their responsibilities. Being discreet about sexual orientation and remaining single is no refuge, he said, since if you’re over 30 and unattached, bosses and colleagues will often try to set up dates.  Read More

Italy: Most gay-friendly Italian companies revealed

Telecom Italia has been named ‘Best Company’ in the GLBT Diversity Index 2015 – an annual survey of businesses compiled by Italian LGBT workplace diversity and inclusion group. Telecom Italia, which has over 66,000 employees, earned the honor through its introduction of a number of initiatives to promote LGBTI inclusion. These have included extending healthcare insurance and other benefits to all cohabiting couples irrespective of gender.

The company runs awareness-raising workshops for all staff around LGBT issues and has also taken part in a Government-backed scheme, Project DJ (Diversity on the Job), to help find employment for people who have been discriminated against.

The Index’s two other award winners were Microsoft Italia (for ‘Best Improvement’) and Zeta Service (for Best SME).  Read More 

Russia: LGBT activist flees after accusations of collaborating with US intelligence

Russian LGBT rights activist Alexander Ermoshkin has left the country after a nationally televised story on the state-owned Russia-1 channel accused him of collaborating with U.S. intelligence services. He confirmed in a Facebook post that he had arrived in New York and was staying with friends.

Ermoshkin refuted the allegations, saying the show’s producers had set him up. “Without the help, so to speak, of the authorities, it would have been impossible to do this,” he said. “The Rossiya 1 footage cynically distorts the normal diplomatic activities of our Embassy,” a U.S. Embassy said. “Moreover, it includes fake events such as the obviously staged scene in Moscow of supposed recruitment which involved video of people who were clearly not associated with the U.S. Embassy, but were presented as such.”

Ermoshkin is not the first person accused by Russian media of working with American spies: Kendrick White, an American professor who has lived in Russia for more than two decades, was fired from his post at a Russian university earlier this month after being accused of spying in a state television documentary.  Read More 

Australia: Kaleidoscope Australia develops guide for LGBTI refugees

Human rights organisation Kaleidoscope Australia has developed the first guide of its kind to processing LGBTI refugees, intended to provide governments, refugee advocates, and NGOs with a basic introductory tool. President of Kaleidoscope Australia Dr Paula Gerber said, “Our hope is that this guide will assist governments around the world to properly and fairly assess applications for refugee status based on sexual orientation or gender identity grounds.”

A 2012 survey on attitudes towards LBGTI refugees and asylum seekers found that around 175 million LGBTI people were living in places where they faced persecution. From that number, the report projects that of the 5000 that apply for asylum, less than 3000 are granted protection each year.

Concerns have been raised where refugees seeking asylum for persecution based on sexuality have been confronted with the task of having to “prove” their sexuality. The process has involved refugees seeking and presenting video or photographic evidence of their participating in sexual acts in order to make credible their claims. The guide covers procedures of “ascertaining credibility” in a respectful manner, and dealing with applicants who are uncomfortable or who have not disclosed their sexual orientation.  Read More

Hungary: In Europe, Pride is a key political barometer. Budapest’s was safe, at times even joyful.

When Pride marchers had filled Elizabeth Bridge, the people walking in the front released hundreds of multicolored balloons, and the thousands of participants let out a happy cheer. I realized it was the first such cheer I had heard since the march began two hours earlier. “You see, it's a hybrid,” said Katalin Orban, a media studies professor who marched with her partner, Zsofia Ban, a prominent Hungarian fiction writer. “It's not like Moscow or Kiev, but it's not like Vienna, either—it's not a celebration.”

Something odd has happened in Europe: The continent's political dividing line seems to have become defined by the way the Pride march proceeds there—if it proceeds at all. In Moscow, an attempt to stage Pride in May was punished with beatings and jailings. In Kiev, Ukraine, in June, the police failed to adequately protect marchers, some of whom were beaten. Later in June, police used water canons to disperse the Pride march in Istanbul, Turkey.

Hungarian pride organizers have worked to normalize the event by attracting corporations, straight allies, and gay celebrities. Unlike last year, marchers did not walk through a tunnel of police in riot gear. But it also meant that spectators were too far away to see anything. This march was a statement, not a spectacle. The gathering place, in front of the opera house, stank of excrement. Shit had apparently been strewn along the bottoms of the trees that line Andrassy Street. This was a milder form of the tactics of Moscow's self-proclaimed Orthodox activists, who consistently throw human waste at LGBTQ demonstrators. Read More

US: Op-ed: LGBT work, housing protections needed now, says NAACP leader

The fight for full equality has been a long and winding journey. It has taken us from the Stonewall Riots and the AIDS pandemic to this moment in time, this place, an America when LGBT Americans have the right to marry in every state in the union. I am proud to have stood with so many on the right side of history, aligned with those who believe that all Americans deserve the dignity of equal treatment.

But our journey is nowhere near over. Because for millions of Americans, you can finally wed the person whose love sustains you, but that marriage could cost you your job, your home, and your basic rights. Because transgender Americans must still battle everyday discrimination in places that most people access without blinking an eye, and no one should be humiliated at the grocery store or dentist. Because for so many, true and lasting equality is still so far away. 

Every American has the right to build their lives on the bedrock principles of hard work and determination, with the full knowledge that if they can get a fair chance, they can earn a living, provide for their families, and protect the ones they love. But for LGBT people living in 31 states, those rights could be denied because of who they are or whom they love. They are judged, not on their performance, but on their personhood.   Read More

India: op-ed Why are we afraid of gays?

When Manabi Bandopadhyay became India's first transgender principal of a Kolkata college, we praised it as a gender-sensitive revolution. However, same-sex marriage in India remains a criminal offence. The attitude of the mainstream society, including political parties towards the Queer Pride March organised by Queer Pride Keralam in Thiruvananthapuram is a reflection that we are a homophobic society. 

There is high level of prejudice against homosexuality in the state though we claim to be progressive. The role of so-called progressive movements should be blamed for this, says P Surendran, who has exhaustively studied the issue of the third gender and the hijada community in the country . "While we cannot expect Gandhians to support such social realities, the communists too have failed to address the rights of LGBT community because they are afraid of such micro narratives," he says. "When you analyse society in terms of class struggle, you cannot comprehend the essence of gender identity and your thinking will end up being monolithic," he explains. 

It is a reality that homosexuals and transgender are prevalent in rural areas but they are afraid of coming out of the closet. Even Malayali women who openly declare their sexual identity abroad are afraid of doing so in their own native place. If we fail to recognize homosexuality as a social reality, which is genetically determined, the society, including police, will keep on hunting homosexuals.  Read More 

Jamaica: Harassment of homosexuals triggers new security manual in schools

Concerns over the bullying of homosexuals in schools is among issues at the root of a security manual to be launched at the start of the new academic year. The disclosure was made by Minister of Education Ronald Thwaites, who, following his presentation in Parliament, said that the manual dubbed 'Security and Safety Guidelines' is expected to be included in the schools' curriculum and will be a platform to sensitise students on security issues.

"A number of civil society groups including members of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender), fraternity, have raised with me, issues of bullying. It is of serious concern and the policy of Government and of the ministry (of education) is to protect the sexual integrity of everyone, so the fact that they raise the concern would be an important issue for us," the minister said.

"Bullying not only affects this society (LGBT), as we have heard reports of issues with regards to older students interfering with younger students, issues of gender also arise, all of which offer a clear position on offering zero tolerance for bullying of any sort. The manual is now being prepared and will be fleshed out."  Read More 

US: Senate votes down measure to ban LGBT discrimination in schools

Fifty-two senators voted for an amendment Tuesday to ban discrimination against LGBT students in public schools, but the measure to amend the Every Child Achieves Act failed because 60 votes were required for passage.

“I’m tremendously disappointed in the Senate,” Sen. Al Franken, who sponsored the amendment, said in a statement after the vote. “The inability to put in place meaningful protections for some of our most vulnerable children is an enormous disservice to LGBT students all across the country who face terrible bullying every day.”

In addition to banning LGBT discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, Franken’s amendment would have required campus officials to intervene when an LGBT student is being bullied. It would also bar schools from retaliating if a student complains to officials. Sen. Patty Murray, from Washington, pointed out the amendment would give LGBT students similar protections to those already on the books for students based on their race, gender, religion, disability, and country of origin. Read More

Ireland: Gay teachers welcome greater employment protection

A Bill which amends employment equality legislation to protect gay teachers in schools was passed through Report Stage by the government. It allows for LGBT teachers to be open about their sexual orientation in their school communities knowing they have robust protection under the law.

With marriage equality now becoming law, gay teachers say this is a further step towards feeling protected and proud of who they are. The Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) has welcomed the law, saying there was a “chilling effect” for many teachers around the country who are afraid to come out in schools.

Chairperson of the INTO LGBT Teacher’s Group Anne Marie Lillis said: “LGBT teachers can be secure in the knowledge that speaking about our families and our relationships, in the same way as our colleagues and that being gay or lesbian will have no bearing on job security or on prospects for promotion.” Read More

Saudi Arabia: Authorities reportedly fine school more than $25,000 over “emblems of homosexuality”

A school in Saudi Arabia has been fined more than $25,000, with authorities claiming the rainbows on its building were “emblems of homosexuality,” according to a Twitter account associated with the agency that enforces the country’s religious law. The tweet, from the Saudi Society Channel, also showed that the Talee al-Noor International School has been repainted. The Saudi Society Channel is one of the Twitter accounts associated with the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the agency that enforces Islamic law in the country.

Homosexuality and trans people are routinely punished by flogging in Saudi Arabia, and the country’s authorities are among the most aggressive in the region in targeting LGBT people online and on mobile hookup apps. In July of 2014, a 24-year-old man was sentenced to 450 lashes and three years in prison for soliciting sex with other men on Twitter, according to a US State Department human rights report, & 35 men alleged to be gay were arrested this April in a raid. Read More 

Croatia: messages LGBT youth on the walls as a driver of positive change

In order to familiarize the wider community with the inequalities in the society towards marginalized communities and to encourage an environment for positive change, the group Info Zone, led a program to explore marginalized youth. 

Dealing with the problems of the lack of adequate family support and / or support the environment, issues of prejudice, discrimination, labeling, obstacles to the exercise of their own desires, ambitions and dreams, difficulty in continuing education or employment the project included three focus groups: young LGBT people, young people without adequate parental care, and young people with disabilities.

Speaking in a focus group for the LGBT community in which he participated, activist Mirjana Lolić reveals some simple messages that have derived from it: Fear and shame are not the same, Silence is the biggest problem, should have equal rights, BUT .., pride is what is after all stripes ascend, lesbophobia, Advanced minorities contribute to the development of civilization. Read More