Sian Thompson

/ /

LGBTQ+ book shop ‘blown away’ by support after ‘transphobic attack’

,

An LGBTQIA+ bookshop in Glasgow has been left “completely blown away” by an outpouring of love and support from its community after one of the shop’s windows was smashed in what the owners have described as a “transphobic attack”. Queer News. Straight Up. The LGBTQ+ stories you don’t want to miss, delivered to your inbox daily. Category Is Books in Govanhill was vandalised on 5 September, with a section of the shop window where the word “TRANS” was painted being smashed. In a 9 September GoFundMe post, the owners said the location of the damage made the attacker’s alleged transphobic […]

/ /

63 detained after gay bars and LGBTQ+ groups raided in Turkey

,

Turkish authorities have detained at least 63 people in a nationwide crackdown targeting LGBTQ+ organisations, activists and businesses across some of the country’s biggest cities. Police raided gay bars, organisation offices and activists’ homes in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and Mersin on Sunday (13 September). Current and former members of LGBTQ+ rights and HIV awareness groups were among those targeted.  Several organisations had their websites blocked in the days leading up to the raids, Al Jazeera reports. Turkey’s Justice Minister Akin Gürlek said in a social media post on Sunday that prosecutors were investigating 162 suspects, nine associations and 13 businesses as part […]

/ /

Two men charged with brutal assault of trans woman face up to 20 years in prison

,

Two men are facing multiple felony charges after allegedly attacking a trans woman at a University of Wisconsin – Madison campus pier in what prosecutors describe as a violent attempted sexual assault. Yorfred Gutierrez, 31, and Arturo Santos Albujas, 27, were arrested at the scene and are each charged with attempted second-degree sexual assault and battery, as well as strangulation, suffocation and false imprisonment as a party to a crime. According to a criminal complaint filed in Dane County Circuit Court on Tuesday (1 September), the woman met the men on Madison’s State Street in the early hours of Saturday morning (29 […]

/

San Diego repeals bathhouse ordinance passed during HIV/AIDS crisis

,

San Diego has officially removed a decades-old ordinance that targeted LGBTQ+ people from its books. The San Diego City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday (1 September) to repeal a bathhouse ordinance originally passed in 1988 and amended in 1991, during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis. The law explicitly sought to regulate bathhouses in an effort to prevent gay and bisexual men from having sex and transmitting HIV, as reported by KPBS. The ordinance had effectively been sitting unused for years. Council President Joe LaCava’s office brought the repeal forward after a staffer stumbled across it while searching the city’s municipal code. LaCava said the law […]

/ /

Nepal LGBTQ+ group marks Pride with vigil for flood victims

,

Nepal’s Blue Diamond Society (BDS) chose to pause its usual Pride and Gai Jatra celebration this year, instead marking the occasion with a candlelight ceremony in solidarity with a nation facing devastating floods. In an Instagram post on 30 August, BDS said it wanted to “remember, mourn, support and care together” rather than hold its usual celebration. The organisation gathered to remember members of Nepal’s gender and sexual minority communities who had died over the past year, while also mourning those killed in the recent floods, including Nepali citizens and foreign tourists. The candlelight ceremony honoured those who lost their lives, while […]

/ /

Trump administration report links trans support to political violence

,

The Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services has released a new report claiming that support for transgender rights is associated with “left-wing authoritarianism” and a greater willingness to justify political violence. Critics have dismissed the 20-page report released on 27 August as “junk science” and accused the administration of using taxpayer money to manufacture a justification for targeting trans people and their allies. The Human Rights Campaign released a statement the same day as the report, writing: “The entities that conducted the supposed ‘research,’ the Manhattan Institute and the Network Contagion Research Institute, are both known conservative-leaning think tanks with track records of producing reports that […]

/ /

Five LGBTQ+ Democrats advance after winning Florida primaries

,

Florida voters delivered a series of wins for out LGBTQ+ candidates Tuesday (18 August), with five out Democrats advancing in races for the Florida House as LGBTQ+-backed candidates also made gains in school board contests across the state. The five candidates, Jane Aman, Felipe Sousa Lazaballet, Samuel Vilchez Santiago, Luis Salazar and Todd Delmay, were among the candidates endorsed by Equality Florida, whose political arm reported that 81 percent of its endorsed candidates won their races. Equality Florida Action PAC celebrated the results as a sign that voters are pushing back against the state’s increasingly conservative political landscape. “Last night, Florida voters […]

/ /

New study challenges trans ‘advantage’ argument in women’s sports

,

A new scientific study is challenging one of the central arguments used to justify bans on transgender women and girls competing in women’s sports. The argument that transgender women retain an inherent physical advantageover cisgender women after undergoing hormone therapy is being challenged by researchers in Brazil who pooled the results of 52 studies involving thousands of participants to compare the physical characteristics and fitness of transgender women and cisgender women following hormone therapy in a study published this year. The researchers found that transgender women generally had greater lean muscle mass, but that difference did not translate into a clear advantage in […]

/ /

Massachusetts vows to fund trans kids’ healthcare after Medicaid ban

,

Massachusetts has vowed to assume the full cost of gender-affirming healthcarefor transgender children and teenagers covered by the state’s Medicaid and CHIP programs if a new Trump administration rule takes effect this October. The federal rule, finalised Tuesday (11 August), would prohibit Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program funds from being used for gender-affirming healthcare for people aged 18 and under. The Trump administration’s Medicaid administrator, Dr Mehmet Oz, described the treatments as harmful and “sex-rejecting procedures” in a statement, while major medical organisations continue to support gender-affirming care as appropriate treatment for some transgender young people. The federal government currently covers around 50 per cent […]

/ /

Extreme ballot measure could force anatomy inspections for girls’ sports teams

,

The debate over transgender student-athletes is heading directly to voters this November, with a surprising and extreme ballot measure in Washington state seeking to restrict trans girls from participating in school sports that align with their gender identity. IL26-638 would apply specifically to girls’ sports teams, creating certain eligibility requirements for K-12 athletes.  As a result, female students would have to prove their sex assigned at birth, and criticism has emerged regarding the enforcement provisions outlined in the bill’s literature. Under the proposal, female students would need to have their sex assigned at birth verified through genetic screening, testosterone level […]

1 2 3 4›»