South Africa: Imaginative gay rights campaign launched

Scalabrini Centre, a migrant rights and resources organisation, officially launched its ‘Let’s Face It’ campaign in March as part of an effort to promote gay and lesbian rights and highlight emerging hate crimes legislation. They’ve cited the 20th anniversary of South Africa’s Constitution, the first to recognise gay rights, as a fitting time to take up the issue.

In a photo-campaign they call “Pop Up Pride,” starting on Human Rights Day, the Human Rights team at Scalabrini has been taking a rainbow cutout of Africa around various areas in Cape Town.

The board contains information about gay and lesbian rights and why it isn’t Un-African, an idea they say is commonly used to oppose the rights of people with different sexual orientations on the continent. Read more via GroundUp

Spain: 'Imagine Madrid without gays' metro advert sparks row

Madrid locals have been criticizing a poster in the city's metro which asks the public to imagine the city without gay people. The poster, which features shots of the empty streets of the Spanish capital, features the slogan: "Imagine Madrid without gays". 

Rather than the "imagine Madrid without gays" (wouldn’t it be great) as many people have inferred the poster is actually trying to say imagine how terrible Madrid would be without its gay population. The message appears to be a little too subtle, however, and the public have reacted strongly.

"I understand the main goal of the add is to attract attention but this has been done in such an ambiguous way that any homophobic person would feel good about it - 'Let the gays go far away this would be a calmer and nicer city without them," Rion Blake, who tweeted about the advert said.  Read more via the Local

Xulhaz Mannan: A friend, an ally, a fellow Rainbow conspirator

I had been trying to avoid it for hours last night but couldn’t escape it any longer, as it was all over social media. “Xulhaz Mannan, 35, the editor at Bangladesh’s first LGBT magazine Roopbaan, along with Tonoy Mojumdar, a fellow activist, was hacked to death.” Many news reports read like this and all I was left wondering was how to process that piece of information. I had come to believe that in this digital age, only things related to the internet could be hacked; not people. I went back to the countless Facebook conversations where I and Xulhaz had talked about our mutual struggles, discussing the intersections within our work while envisioning a trans-national South Asian Queer solidarity. 

Read more via Galaxy

Bangladesh: 'Anyone could become a target’: wave of Islamist killings

There is an eerie feeling out on the streets of Bangladesh. To some of the city’s academics, activists and gay community, Dhaka now feels more dangerous than a war zone, after a spate of machete attacks by Islamist groups, including the murder last week of the founder of Bangladesh’s first magazine for the gay community.

At least 16 people have died in such attacks in the past three years, among them six secular bloggers, two university professors, an Italian priest, two other foreigners working in the development sector, and a prominent gay activist.

“I am more worried now here than I ever was in Afghanistan, where the threats were more of an existential nature,” says a gay American who has spent time in the war-torn country and now lives in Bangladesh. He asked not to be named.

Among his friends to have died were Xulhaz Mannan, a prominent activist – founder of Roopbaan, the country’s only magazine for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community – and Mannan’s friend, Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy. Six to seven assailants pretending to be from a courier company forced their way into Mannan’s apartment and hacked the two men to death last week.

Homosexuality is illegal in Bangladesh and many members of the gay community were already living in fear of being identified. Now they also have to fear for their lives – and the murders have in effect outed many young people by forcing them to change their daily routine.  Read more via the Guardian

Japan: Why it is important for you as a medical or welfare worker to understand LGBT needs

Only recently, the term LGBT has entered the vocabulary in Japan. There is nothing special about LGBT individuals. They are ordinary people who go to school or work daily, shop at a local supermarket with many others, and use medical institutions. Still, many people think they have never met a person who is LGBT, or LGBT individuals don’t live in their community.

Have you ever thought of why you, the user or worker of medical or welfare services, don’t “see” any LGBT individuals? LGBT individuals are invisible in Japan because the majority of them find it difficult to assert what their needs are.
 
Without understanding the needs and problems unique to LGBT individuals and their concerns for their future wellbeing, medical providers may experience miscommunication or non-communication with their clients, leading to treatment interruption and decreased quality of life (QOL). For the provider or servicer, such individuals may be puzzling users for whom treatment or support is difficult. However, this cycle can be changed, if only the typical ethos is applied: “Each individual should be respected.”

On a fundamental level, nothing will change by whether or not your client has come out to you. To respect sexual diversity such as gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender also means to respect those who don’t identify as LGBT. This is what we want to convey in this booklet.  Read more the report here

US: Cities with anti-LGBT laws can't host NCAA tournament events anymore

The NCAA Board of Governors voted Wednesday to require cities to prove they can provide an environment free of discrimination before they can host any event, including the men's and women's basketball Final Fours.

The move is a response to several states establishing laws that allow business owners to deny services to individuals based on sexual orientation and gender identity, the NCAA said in a statement.

“The higher education community is a diverse mix of people from different racial, ethnic, religious and sexual orientation backgrounds,” said Kirk Schulz, president of Kansas State University and chairman of the Board of Governors. “So it is important that we assure that community – including our student-athletes and fans – will always enjoy the experience of competing and watching at NCAA championships without concerns of discrimination.”  Read more

China: For Gay Chinese, getting married means getting creative

Every time Benjamin Zhang talks about marriage, he uses the following words in abundance: "job," "duty," "my parents," "problem," and "urgent".

"The most urgent matter for me now is to find a spouse. I'm not young anymore. I see my peers getting married one by one and having kids, and I have nothing. I just feel very dejected," said the 31-year-old native of the northeastern city of Harbin -- who also admits he loves children and hopes to have his own one day. "When I'm married and have a child, I'd have done my job as a son. That's most important for me."

Benjamin shares the anxiety of millions other bachelors in China, where it's almost a given that people of a marriageable age set off to start a family.

But unlike most of them, Benjamin is looking for a lesbian wife. Benjamin is gay, and he's trying to obtain a xinghun - a new Chinese term coined to describe a "cooperative marriage" between a gay man and a lesbian woman. The marriage, essentially, is a sham: both the husband and wife continue to have their own same-sex partners and may not even live together. Read more via the Atlantic 

Cyprus: Civil unions bringing change

Sixteen couples have entered a civil union so far in Cyprus, while a European study shows there is still room for improvement on LGBT issues and social acceptance.

Eight same-sex couples and eight straight couples have tied the knot since the island’s controversial civil union bill was passed by the House last November, following a heated and protracted debate in the House that caused rifts within political parties.

During a seminar on Monday, Cyprus Ombudsman’s office representative Aristos Tsiartas said that legislation legalising same-sex civil unions as well as criminalising hate speech against LGBT people is the biggest step forward in improving human rights.

“The civil union law not only challenges the legal and institutional framework of the country, but it also challenges our conscience, prejudice, and stereotypes,” Tsiartas said. Read more via in Cyprus

Colombia: High court formally legalizes same-sex marriage

Colombia’s highest court on Thursday formally extended marriage rights to same-sex couples. Reports indicate the Colombian constitutional court’s 6-3 ruling in a case says the process to obtain a marriage license will become the same for couples of the same- or opposite-sex.

The decision also stipulates that judges and notaries cannot refuse to refuse to marry a gay or lesbian couple because of their religious beliefs. It remains unclear as to whether the ruling — which came in a case brought by six same-sex couples — will immediately go into effect.   Read more via Washington Blade

Faroe Islands: Yes to same-sex marriage

Lagtinget, the Faroese parliament, has proposed to adopt the Danish same-sex marriage legislation this week, but added an exception that gay people are not permitted to wed in churches.

With 19 votes in favour and 14 votes against, Lagtinget agreed to a first reading of a proposal that allows gay couples to have a civil marriage.

“The church has been left out of the proposal, because therwise it wouldn’t have been possible to get the religious parties to vote for it,” Georg L Petersen, the chief editor of the Faroese newspaper Dimmalæting, said according to DR Nyheder. Read more via CPH Post