Abdelbraki Mezin asked me over coffee last week if homophobia was dead in the United States. “I mean, you’ve had marriage equality for almost a year, surely that’s enough time,” the Tunisian human rights defender said. His partner, Bouhdid Belhedi, laughed, adding, “Yes, much like winning the Nobel Peace Prize solved all of Tunisia’s human(…)
Imagine you are a young man alone in a park. Another man approaches you. He flirts with you. You flirt back, flattered that the handsome stranger likes you. He asks you to come back to his place. When you accept the invitation, he slaps handcuffs on your wrists and says you are under arrest.(…)
Last night’s annual ‘Out at the Park’ event turned into ‘Nightmare at Petco Park’ as the San Diego Gay Man’s Chorus took to the field to sing the National Anthem. Instead of their voices, fans of the Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers heard a recorded voice of a woman singing the anthem, and when the(…)
Last October, the anti-LGBT hate group World Congress of Families (WCF) held its ninth international congress in Salt Lake City, a gathering that attracts thousands of anti-LGBT and anti-abortion speakers and activists from around the globe, reports the Southern Poverty Law Center. The gathering traditionally functions as a key site of right-wing strategy development to(…)
San Francisco will have two events to commemorate Harvey Milk Day this year, which falls on Sunday, May 22 and would have been the slain gay supervisor’s 86th birthday. The state of California held the first Milk Day on May 22, 2010 to mark the birthday of the first out politician elected to public office(…)
On Saturday, a report began spreading online that a transgender woman was shot and killed after she followed another woman into a Colorado department store bathroom. “The transgender woman began raising her voice and using explicit language towards [the other woman] while continuing to follow her into the restroom,” the story said. It reported(…)
In another historic moment for the Obama administration, the Senate on Tuesday evening confirmed the long-stalled nomination of Eric Fanning to be Army secretary. Fanning thus becomes the first openly gay leader of any U.S. military service — a milestone not lost on gay rights groups and coming five years after the repeal of “don’t(…)
The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of North Carolina, and Lambda Legal today asked a federal court to order an immediate halt to enforcement of a North Carolina law that targets transgender people for discrimination in single-sex facilities. The three organizations and the law firm of Jenner and Block are challenging the law, House(…)
Germany is set to annul the convictions of gay men under a law criminalising homosexuality that was applied zealously in post-war Germany. Justice Minister Heiko Maas is to overturn the convictions and create a “right to compensation”. About 50,000 men were convicted between 1946 and 1969, under a 19th-Century law that the Nazis had(…)
GLSEN, the leading national education organization focused on ensuring safe and affirming schools for all students, today announced that it will honor Colorado teacher Amber Schweitzer with the Educator of the Year Award and New York City’s Academy for Young Writers Gender Sexuality Alliance (GSA) with the GSA of the Year Award at GLSEN’s Respect(…)