Josh Milton

/ /

Many US states still criminalize HIV transmission. NJ is about to break away

,

New Jersey is set to decriminalise HIV transmission, ending an historic law that “fuels stigma”. Under current New Jersey law, a person who engages in sexual penetration by any body part without disclosing they are HIV-positive could face up to five years in prison. For other sexually-transmitted infections, the sentence is limited to 18 months. On Monday (10 January), state senators voted 26-11 to pass a bill, S-3707, that would put an end to this. The bill would still criminalise the transmission of non-airborne infectious or communicable diseases, but will no longer target those living with HIV or STIs. “This legislation is […]

/ /

Senegalese lawmakers draw up chilling new law for LGBT+ people and allies

,

Anti-LGBT+ lawmakers in Senegal are seeking to toughen the west African nation’s already horrific repression of queer citizens. A bloc of National Assembly members have drafted a bill that would lengthen potential jail terms for those convicted of same-sex acts. The penalty is already up to five years imprisonment for “acts against nature” – but lawmakers hope to stretch this out to a decade, they announced Monday (13 December). And in disturbing parallels to Ghana, lawmakers even hope to make simply advocating for LGBT+ a punishable offence, 76 Crimes reported. People who write, speak or finance any form of advocacy in favour of […]

/ /

Navy veteran jailed for almost two years for having consensual sex in nursing home

,

A gay elderly man was jailed for years simply for having oral sex. (Stock photograph via Envato Elements) A gay senior with Parkinson’s disease spent 22 months in jail after care home staffers saw him giving oral sex to a fellow resident. At the Southampton Manor Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, Leroy Martin, an 81-year-old Navy veteran, had consensual sex with at least two men during the summer and autumn of 2019. But staffers at the centre saw it differently. They sought to paint Martin as a “sexual predator” by phoning the police on him because he is […]

/ /

Gay man brutally beaten with metal pole and robbed of his walker

,

A gay man was brutally beaten with a metal pipe and robbed of his walker while bystanders ignored him in Brooklyn, New York. More than a month since the attack in his hometown of Coney Island, Jawhar Edwards still has a swollen eye after his eye socket was broken when a man and a woman battered him and threatened to kill him. As he ducked out of a birthday honouring his late godmother, Edwards went to pass out food to the homeless on the boardwalk by 19th and 21st Streets on 4 November at around 12:30am. That’s when two people […]

/ /

Tragic 12-year-old boy dies by suicide after relentless anti-gay bullying

,

A 12-year-old boy took his own life after being tortured by bullies and told he would go to Hell because he is gay. Eli Fritchley was a seventh-grader from Shelbyville, Tennessee, who adored Spongebob Squarepants and played the trombone. He died by suicide on 28 November, no longer able to bear the “pain and torture” from kids at his school, his parents said. Eli was never afraid to be himself, Debbey and Steve Fritchley told WKRN-TV, and they were in awe at his bravery in the face of bullies at his school, Cascades Muddle School in Bedford County. “He was told because he […]

/ /

Young woman ‘with so much life ahead of her’ shot dead. She’s the 50th trans person killed this year

,

Nikai David, a “sweet”, spirited Black trans woman, has been shot dead in the US. She was 33. The model, described by those who knew her as a “happy, fun person”, was killed in the early hours of Saturday (4 December) in Oakland, a port town in California. Local law enforcement responded to a report of shots fired at 4am on Castro Street, West Oakland. David was found suffering from a gunshot wound only to die at the scene, FOX KTVU2 reported. The Oakland Police Department said that there is no evidence of a hate crime. An aspiring social media influencer who hoped to […]

/ /

LGBT+ football fans ‘will be welcome’ in Qatar for World Cup, FA insists as criticism mounts

,

LGBT+ football fans “will be welcome” at next year’s World Cup in Qatar, England’s Football Association chief has insisted. Qatar, chief executive Mark Bullingham said, has made “strong progress” in addressing a raft of human rights issues that have battered FIFA. The 2022 World Cup will be the first one held in the Arab world and has been a hot-button issue since Qatar won the hosting rights in 2010. Among them in the last decade of controversy and scandal: accusations of corruption, the cost, the emirate’s treatment of migrant workers, women and LGBT+ people. But for queer football fans, they […]

/ /

NHS gets green light for game-changing HIV treatment injected just six times a year

,

People living with HIV could be at long last “liberated” from a “burdensome” daily pill regimen, as a new long-lasting injectable is approved for use in Britain. In news dubbed “brilliant” by a leading HIV activist, the NHS has been given the go-ahead to roll out injections taken every two months to manage the virus. Currently, people living with HIV are offered antiretroviral medicines that must be taken every day to suppress the virus – usually one to four daily pills. Effective treatment reduces a person’s viral load – the amount of virus in their blood – to an undetectable level. When the […]

/ /

After deadliest year on record, yet another trans woman is slain in the US

,

Just days after 2021 became the deadliest year on record for anti-trans violence, yet another trans woman, Jenny De Leon, has been slain in the US. De Leon, a 25-year-old with a “bright soul”, was murdered in Tampa, Florida, on 2 November. With her death comes a grim realisation for activists. That 2021 is the deadliest year for fatal violence against trans folk since national record-keeping began – and with six weeks of the year left, the figure will only continue to climb, they warn. The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT+ campaign group that has documented trans killings since 2013, says […]

/ /

Four gay men beaten, banished and arrested in Ghana for ‘just trying to live’

,

Four men were brutally beaten with sticks and banished for being gay in Tamale, Ghana, capturing the rising tensions – and fears – over an anti-LGBT+ bill. The men, according to graphic video footage seen by activists, were violently battered by a Choggu community leader as a crowd gathered to watch on Tuesday (19 October). According to Pulse, a Ghanian news outlet, a gay couple in the town attacked his ex-partner with a machete. The pair were later interrogated, where the local authorities came to realise the men were gay, the outlet claimed, and named two other gay men involved in the scuffle. They […]

«‹ 3 4 5 6›»