Singapore: More accessible to queer travellers than ever before

In June, Singapore’s current PM Lee Hsien Loong eagerly reminded progressive critics that “There are gay groups in Singapore, there are gay people in Singapore and they have a place to stay here and we let them live their own lives. And we do not harass them or discriminate against them.”

Singapore’s legal code tells a slightly different story: male homosexuality remains a crime under Section 377A; LGBT defence force personnel are banned from serving in “sensitive” units, and anti-discrimination laws, as well as recognition for same-sex couples, are completely off the table for the foreseeable future.

Yet there’s also some truth to Lee’s claim. Section 377A has not been enforced in years, and seemingly remains on the books to appease the country’s influential Christian organisations. Singapore may be in no hurry to shake its rigorously organised reputation. But those who arrive expecting a staid, joyless police state will quickly discover a side of the city that’s keen to subvert expectations. Read More via Daily Xtra

Myanmar spirit festival offers rare space for gay community

Waving their floral offerings in the air, devotees danced through a temple to celebrate Myanmar's biggest spirit festival which has also become a rare host for the country's marginalised gay community. The six-day spirit or "nat" celebration in Taungbyone village, around 20 kilometres from the central city of Mandalay, draws thousands of revellers each year in search of karmic reward as well as all-night parties.

Gay people in the former junta-run nation still routinely suffer discrimination despite sweeping modernisation in recent years that has started to create more openness. At Taungbyone, however, there is a warm welcome and many of the most well-regarded mediums are gay or transvestite, providing advice and a direct line to the spirits by day and spending evenings dancing in elaborate costumes as part of the celebrations.

Same-sex relations are criminalised under Myanmar's colonial-era penal code, and although the law is not strictly enforced, activists say it is still used by authorities to discriminate and extort. But taboos around homosexuality have begun to be relaxed after a quasi-civilian government replaced military rule in 2011.  Read More via Bangkok Post

This terrifying new Windows 10 feature could ‘out’ kids to their parents

Computers running Windows 10 could be automatically telling parents that their teens are visiting LGBT support websites. The new operating system, which was rolled out last month as a free upgrade, has raised concern over the new ‘activity reports‘ feature.

The feature is enabled by default for users who have set up registered ‘family’ accounts, sending weekly breakdowns of browsing history to the parents – even if the kids browse anonymously or try to clear it. Once active, the feature emails the parents a weekly summary of all the child’s internet usage, including the details of websites visited.

The tool also specifically flags up search terms and blocked content that children tried to access – meaning that teens experimenting with their sexuality could have their sexual fantasies emailed directly to their parents. Read More via PinkNews 

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: Asylum easier for Russian gay men

The situation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Russia has deteriorated so much that the Netherlands how considers them a “risk group”. For this reason the Netherlands has made it easier for Russian homosexuals to find asylum here.

This follows a report published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs last month that stated that LGBT’s are victims of violence everywhere in Russia, and that authorities hardly intervene. From now Russian homosexuals can prove to the Immigration and Naturalization Service with “low indications” that they fear persecution in their own country. Before they had to prove that they as individual would be in danger should they return to Russia.

Previously the Immigration and Naturalization Service regularly rejected asylum applications from Russian LGBT’s on the basis that larger cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg were still safe. The Foreign Affairs report no longer explicitly state that these cities are safer and the Service must therefore now be more restrained.  Read More via eikon

US: Duke students reject award-winning book over gay themes

"Fun Home" may have won several awards for author MacArthur "Genius" Award winner Alison Bechdel, but some Duke University freshmen were not impressed. The 2006 graphic novel, an autobiographical work about Bechdel coming to terms with her homosexuality as her funeral-director father remains closeted, was selected as a summer reading book for the Duke Class of 2019. But some students declined to read it because of its sexual themes and use of nudity.

"I feel as if I would have to compromise my personal Christian moral beliefs to read it," incoming freshman Brian Grasso wrote on Facebook. "The nature of 'Fun Home' means that content that I might have consented to read in print now violates my conscience due to its pornographic nature," freshman Jeffrey Wubbenhorst added in an email to the publication.

"Like many universities and community, Duke has had a summer reading for many years to give incoming students a shared intellectual experience with other members of the class," said Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations: "'Fun Home' was ultimately chosen because it is a unique and moving book that transcends genres and explores issues that students are likely to confront." Read More via CNN 

US: The next LGBT battle is sex ed

Recognizing the dearth of sexual health information for LGBT students, two prominent organizations are pushing for schools to evolve with the times. Planned Parenthood Federation of American and the Human Rights Campaign are lobbying schools to include more sex ed for young LGBT or questioning students. Most curriculums have scant sex education to begin with, and even less for those students who fall outside of heterosexual or cisgender descriptions.

Massachusetts has the best record when it comes to LGBT-inclusive sex ed, contrasting greatly with numerous Southern and Western states, where any discussion of homosexuality is banned in schools; Alabama, Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah all fall into that category.

The need for information for LGBT students is great. HIV rates are rising among gay and bi male youth, while lesbian and bisexual girls have unintended pregnancy rates twice that of their straight peers (that can partially be explained by lesbian and bi youth being pressured to conform to societal norms by having straight sex). Transgender students also need accommodation; forcing a child who identifies as one sex to hear lessons intended for the other can be psychologically damaging.  Read More via the Advocate 

South Africa: Call for gay sex education in schools

High schools should teach pupils about homosexual sex. That’s the view of the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce’s (Sweat) psycho-social manager, Dr Gordon Isaacs .

Isaacs told the Cape Argus that far too little is being done to educate schoolchildren about other forms of sex that are prevalent in society, aside from the traditional “when a boy loves a girl” narrative that is taught across the country.

“It is a critical area that should not be ignored. It is linked to relationships, intimacy, desire and certainly linked to HIV,” Isaacs said. South Africa was the first African country and the fifth in the world to legalise gay marriage in 2006. But nearly 10 years later, the national sex education curriculum still shies away from teaching pupils about homosexual intimacy.  Read More via Independent Online

Canada: Ontario sex-ed protests return in time for new school year

Parents angry at the new sex-ed curriculum protested at MPP offices across Ontario Wednesday, Sept 2 — with some protests better attended than others. The province-wide demonstrations, sponsored by a coalition of organizations including Campaign Life Coalition, REAL Women of Canada and the Thorncliffe Parents Association, are just the latest in a series of actions by a nebulous group of community members who have various concerns about the updated sex ed curriculum.

Under the updated curriculum, students in all four publicly-funded school systems will learn the correct terminology for body parts, including genitalia, and explore why differences like gender identity and sexual orientation make people unique. The updated curriculum will also cover online bullying, consent and safe sex.  Read More via the DailyXtra

WHO: Discrimination to blame for HIV Rates, poor healthcare for trans people

A WHO study on transgender people and HIV notes that inadequate health care for the trans population sits squarely on those who oppose the expression of authentic gender identity. The report sums up the situation in dire terms: “Transgender people are often socially, economically, politically and legally marginalized.” The result is that transgender women have "shocking rates" of HIV, study coauthor JoAnne Keatley said. "There was a recent meta-analysis demonstrating that a transgender woman was 49 times as likely to be living with HIV [than the general population] in 15 countries in which data was looked at and analyzed."

But it’s hard to collect reliable data, as only those 15 countries offered laboratory-proven data on HIV prevalence among transgender people. Not one country in Eastern Europe or Africa could provide information to the WHO team by the time researchers needed it. The available information, though, did show a health crisis, and Keatley, who works with the Center for Excellence for Transgender Health at the University of California, and is herself trans, said discrimination is to blame. 

“What is driving the epidemic is really the refusal — I would say — of governments to pass legislation that allows [transgender people] to function in society, and allows them to participate in the workplace,” she said. Still, Keatley said she sees some progress. Read More 

ISIL attacks on sexual minorities on UN meeting agenda

The UN Security Council will hold a meeting to discuss Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) attacks on sexual minorities in what will be the first ever council meeting focused on gay rights.  

The United States ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power told reporters that the informal meeting will highlight "ISIL and its systematic targeting of LGBT persons who find themselves in ISIL-controlled territory."   

The US and Chile will host the meeting which will be open to all member-states interested in the plight of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people persecuted by the armed group: "This will be a historic meeting. It will be the first Security Council meeting on LGBT rights," Power said. Read More