Pink News

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UK Anti-LGBT+hate crimes surged after COVID lockdown lifted, figures show

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There has been an alarming surge in the number of homophobic and transphobic hate crimes recorded by UK police forces since the COVID-19 pandemic began. According to new figures, after lockdown restrictions were eased this summer, anti-LGBT+ hate crime numbers soared to the highest level since the beginning of the pandemic. Between January and August this year, at least 14,670 homophobic hate crimes were recorded in the UK. During the same period in 2020, there were 11,841, and the first six months of 2019 saw 10,817. The third national lockdown began in January, 2021, and from January to April there […]

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

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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 […]

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Supreme Court abortion case could lead to more attacks on LGBT+ rights

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This week, the US Supreme Court will hear Mississippi’s case for overturning the Roe v Wade decision that federally guaranteed the right to an abortion. Mississippi is asking the Supreme Court to uphold the state’s ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy by overturning Roe v Wade, potentially devastating reproductive rights across the US. It is also looking for the courts to overrule the Planned Parenthood v Caseydecision, in 1992, which prevents states from banning termination before the point of viability (a foetus is only viable outside of the womb when a pregnancy has reached around 24 weeks). The Supreme Court has never ruled in favour […]

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President Biden’s World AIDS Day message proves he’s a very different president than Trump

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oe Biden has promised tackle LGBT+ health inequality in his World AIDS Day message, proving once again that he’s a very different president to Donald Trump. Ahead of World AIDS Day (1 December), the president issued a proclamationin which he said his administration was “focused on addressing health inequities and inequalities and ensuring that the voices of people with HIVare at the centre of our work to end the HIV epidemic globally”. Biden “honoured and remembered” the “36 million people, including 700,000 Americans” that have been lost since the start of the AIDS crisis, and noted the impact of COVID-19 on access to HIV-related healthcare. […]

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Parents sue school for letting kids use chosen name and pronouns without their permission

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A group of parents in Wisconsin, US, have filed a lawsuit against their children’s school over a policy that allows students to go by their chosen name and pronouns without telling their parents. The parents claim that by allowing children to use different pronouns or a different name, the school has violated their “fundamental constitutional right” to “raise their children”. Studies have found that consistently using the correct name or pronouns for young trans people reduces the likelihood they will become anxious, depressed and suicidal. Attempting to persuade a child not to be trans, also known as “conversion therapy”, has the opposite […]

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Texas’ only gender clinic for trans kids closes after campaign of hate

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The only public gender clinic for young trans people in the US state of Texas has closed after attacks by anti-trans activists. The move comes amid rising tensions in the state over gender-affirming care for young trans people, with transphobic activists targeting officials at the hospital where the gender clinic was based and accusing them of promoting child abuse. Last month, Texas became the 10th US state to sign into law a transphobic bill banning trans students from playing school sports on the teams corresponding to their gender. The GENder Education and Care, Interdisciplinary Support program (GENECIS) was the first clinic of its kind in […]

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Cis people get gender-affirming healthcare over the counter. Why can’t trans folk have the same?

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Gender-affirming healthcare for trans and non-binary people is being attacked, legally and politically, in the UK. We’ve seen this with Keira Bell’s well-funded court case, which almost succeeded in making it so that trans kids needed court approval to get puberty blockers; we see it with the fact that the trans healthcare crisis means that a trans person in London going to their GP today for a referral to a gender clinic might wait as long as 26 years for a first appointment, going by the current rate of intake; and we see it every time a politician bleats about “only women having […]

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The terrible, brutal history of Margaret Thatcher’s homophobic Section 28

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It is 18 years today since the controversial and homophobic legislation known as Section 28, introduced under Margaret Thatcher, was repealed in England and Wales. The clause – an amendment to the Local Government Act 1988 – banned local authorities and schools from promoting homosexuality and was brought forward by Thatcher’s government. The legislation has been labelled “toxic and regressive” by deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey, who introduced the clause that led to its repeal, and told PinkNews that Section 28 left young people feeling “alone and vulnerable”. “I am proud to have moved the clause that abolished Section 28 […]

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

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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 […]

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

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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 […]

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