The deaths of almost 100 gay men between 1970 and 1990 have been directly linked to hate crime by one of Sydney’s largest LGBT health charities.
Police had previously discovered 88 cases where gay men had died under suspicious circumstances between 1970 and 1990.
However, a new report from ACON, an LGBT health and advocacy charity in New South Wales has concluded that many of these deaths can be linked to both homophobia and inadequate investigations by police at the time.
In 2017, authorities began to re-examine 87 other cases, some of which were listed as suicides by police at the time.
The ACON report individually examined the 88 suspected anti-gay killings and found that there were multiple underlying themes in many of the attacks – determining that homophobia was a clear motivating factor in at least 50% of the cases.
As many as 30 deaths of gay men who died in Sydney and the surrounding area remain unsolved.
The report called ‘In Pursuit of Truth and Justice: Documenting Gay and Transgender Prejudice Killings in NSW in the Late 20th Century’ aimed to highlight both the deaths as a whole as well as the issues that have remained in the 40 years since these killings began.
The report found evidence of serial killings by groups of young men at the time, as well as highlighting the influence of the AIDS crisis and suggested a link between the large stigma surrounding HIV in the 1980’s and the attacks.
ACON CEO Nicolas Parkhill stated that the report was an important step in bringing a community perspective to a dark time in Sydney’s LGBT history.
(Don Arnold/Getty Images)
Parkhill said: “We know that a wave of violence swept through Sydney between the late 1970s and early 1990s, which claimed the lives of some gay men.
“We also know that many more, including transgender women, were brutally assaulted and terrorised and some of these cases remain unsolved.”
“Hate crimes hurt both physically and emotionally and affects individuals as well as the entire community. This independent and community-led report is an important step in the long road to justice and healing.
“By exploring the past, we hope to deepen our understanding of these events, which will help us improve current responses to LGBT hate crimes, enhance the criminal justice system and further develop violence prevention strategies.”
Parkhill then stated that it was important to note the progress that had been made in the last 40 years.
He added: “It is important to note these events occurred in a time when homophobic and transphobic prejudice and hate permeated our society, thriving in many environments including government agencies, public institutions, courthouses, workplaces, communities, schools and homes.
“The relationship between LGBT communities and NSW Police has moved forward in the last 40 years.”
And according to local publication The Nation, Thailand may beat Taiwan to that deadline.
The justice minister is set to present the final draft of the bill to the Cabinet for approval after a subcommittee is done with creating it, a source at the ministry’s Rights and Liberties Protection Department said.
It is expected to be passed before the next general election, which is set to be held in February 2019.
Ratthanan Prapairat, 38, said he had been with his partner for more than 20 years, and that together, the two men have bought a house and run a clothing business.
Prapairat said he would register under the proposed law, adding: “It is a must-have that should have been in place years ago as it would be very helpful in protecting the rights of same-sex couples.
“Same-sex couples are no different from straight couples. We have accumulated a lot of assets and heritage together. This law will be great for us.”
After 50-year-old Vitaya Saeng-aroon’s partner was taken into hospital earlier this year, he didn’t know of his death until a relative let him know.
(Taylor Weidman/Getty)
Saeng-aroon said the legislative shift would give same-sex couples the right to have a say over their partner’s medical care, and to be present with them in the hospital.
“I was not permitted to sign any document after he went into a coma,” he said. “I was not his relative, even though I had been taking care of him for over a year.
I had to wait for his brother from upcountry to show up. After a week in ICU, he passed away peacefully,” he added.
“I did not know about his death until his brother called me.”
He said that the law would legitimise same-sex relationships, and the LGBT people in general.
“It’s not only about equality, but also about humanity,” said Saeng-aroon.
“Gay people need to be recognised as common couples in every supporting aspect. That will bring wider understanding towards the true meaning of diversity.”
The unions carry some of the same benefits as marriage, especially relating to housing and hospital visits.
The city of 1.5 million people, located on the northern coast of the island of Kyushu, was the seventh city or ward in the country to legalise same-sex partnerships.
To coincide with this, a protest will take place on 19 April at 1pm in front of Marlborough House, London.
37 countries still have a gay sex ban
‘It’s outrageous that in 2018 Commonwealth leaders are still refusing to even discuss LGBT human rights,’ Peter Tatchell, whose foundation helped to launch the petition, told Gay Star News.
‘It’s never been on their agenda in six decades. Millions of LGBT people live in countries where being gay is a crime. That’s a violation of the Commonwealth charter and international law.
‘The fact the Commonwealth colludes with homophobic, biphobic and transphobic discrimination is truly appalling.
‘This petition is to tell the Commonwealth leaders that time’s up on blocking the debate and refusing to remedy the gross persecution of LGBT people in 37 member states.’
Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, co-founder of UK Black Pride, told GSN it’s important to question why these sodomy laws exist.
‘This is about colonialism,’ she said.
‘For me rejecting an MBE was not down to “I didn’t care”, I rejected it because LGBT people in Commonwealth countries are still tortured, persecuted, criminalized, imprisoned – they lose everything.
‘How could I possibly elevate an award over people I set out to serve?’
‘Britain should apologize’
S Chelvan, the International Rights Officer for UK Black Pride, was born in Sri Lanka.
For the past 16 years, he has worked with many people from Commonwealth countries who have fled persecution on the basis of their sexuality or gender identity.
‘Britain should apologize,’ he told GSN, adding it should avoid ‘neo-colonialism’.
‘[The government should] ask the activists how they want to address the inequalities in their countries,’ he added.
‘Listen to the activists, create the safe spaces, and take their directions on what they want us to do. We want to provide solidarity.’
Demands for Commonwealth’s 37 countries that ban homosexuality
These are the four demands of the petition to the leaders of all Commonwealth nations:
Decriminalize same-sex relations
Prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity
Enforce laws against threats and violence, to protect LGBT+ people from hate crimes
Consult and dialogue with national LGBT+ organizations
The petition is supported by: The Commonwealth Equality Network, Kaleidoscope Trust, Peter Tatchell Foundation, UK Black Pride, African Equality Foundation, Equality Network, African Rainbow Family, Movement for Justice, House of Rainbow, Out & Proud African LGBTI, Micro Rainbow, Africa Advocacy Foundation, Rainbow Across Borders, African Eye Trust. Manchester Migrant Solidarity and Care2.
A hairdresser has been handed a life sentence with a minimum term of 12 years at Brighton crown court after deliberately trying to infect 10 men with HIV.
Daryll Rowe, 27, from Brighton, showed no emotion as he was sentenced for five charges of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and five of attempting to do so.
After being diagnosed in April 2015 in his home city of Edinburgh, Rowe met men on gay dating app Grindr and had sex with eight of them in Brighton, East Sussex, between October that year and February 2016, before fleeing to the north-east where he went on the run from police, targeting two more men.
His six-week trial heard he embarked on a cynical and deliberate campaign to infect men with HIV, refusing treatment and ignoring advice from doctors.
He insisted on having unprotected sex with men, claiming he was “clean”. When they refused, he tampered with condoms, tricking them into thinking he was practising safe sex.
Afterwards Rowe would become aggressive and taunted some of the men in text messages. He repeatedly lied to authorities and would use aliases with his victims.
Judge Christine Henson QC, sentencing, referred to his crimes as a “determined hateful campaign of sly violence”.
“You are the first individual to be sentenced for section 18 offences in the context of infecting others with HIV,” she said.
“With the full knowledge of the risk you posed to others and the legal implications of engaging in risky sexual practices, you embarked on a deliberate campaign to infect other men with the HIV virus.
“Unfortunately for five of the men you met your campaign was successful.”
The judge added: “They describe living with a life sentence as a result of your cruel and senseless acts. Many of those men were young men in their 20s at the time they had the misfortune to meet you.
“Given the facts of this case and your permissive predatory behaviour I cannot see when you would no longer be a danger to gay men.
“In my judgment the offences, taken together, are so serious, that a life sentence is justified. You will potentially remain a danger to others for the rest of your life.”
Prime Minister Theresa May said on Tuesday she regretted Britain’s role in anti-gay legislation across its former colonies, seeking to address criticism of the Commonwealth at its gathering in London.
May is looking to reinvigorate the Commonwealth, a 53-country network of mostly former colonies, as Britain seeks new post-Brexit ways to project its influence in the world and establish a role as a leader of free trade.
Speaking on the second day of a week-long meeting in London, May addressed a wide range of humanitarian and environmental issues, including laws which outlaw same-sex activity in 37 of its 53 member nations.
“I am all too aware that these laws were often put in place by my own country. They were wrong then and they are wrong now,” May said.
“As the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister I deeply regret both the fact that such laws were introduced and the legacy of discrimination, violence and even death that persists today.”
London’s hosting of the summit has also been clouded by an official admission that the British government had treated migrants who arrived from Caribbean countries more than 50 years ago in an “appalling” way by incorrectly identifying them as illegal immigrants.
Speaking alongside May, Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness drew loud cheers from the audience as he urged May to speedily respond to the issue.
“It is only fair,” he said. “It will lead to security, certainly for those who have been affected, and it is the kind of inclusive prosperity for which we stand as Commonwealth peoples.”
May herself apologised over the harsh treatment of the so-called “Windrush generation,” whose parents were invited to Britain to plug labour shortfalls after World War Two, later to be caught up in a tightening of immigration rules overseen by May in 2012 when she was interior minister.
China’s Sina Weibo’s on Monday reversed a decision to remove gay content after outcry among gay Chinese who say the company had smeared homosexuality by lumping it with pornography as it tried to meet government censorship directives.
China’s Twitter-equivalent Weibo said on Friday it would remove pornographic, violent or gay videos and cartoons in a three-month campaign, singling out a genre of manga animations and comics that often depict raunchy gay male relationships.
In response, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) advocates poured online to criticise the decision using hashtags, open letters and even calls to dump Sina shares.
On Monday, Sina said the clean-up would no longer target gay content.
The outcry reflects a fear that growing censorship tends to ban all gay content as “dirty”, a setback for efforts to carve out an online space of tolerance for homosexuality in China’s traditionally Confucian society, LGBT advocates say.
It was unclear whether Sina’s measure was a direct result of a censorship directive from the government or an initiative taken by the company itself. Sina did not respond to a request for comment.
The official People’s Daily newspaper of the ruling Communist Party on Sunday encouraged tolerance towards gay people, but added that “vulgar” content must be removed regardless of sexual orientation.
Chinese LGBT advocates hope to promote gay rights by educating society about sexual preferences and pushing back against traditional pressures to marry and have children.
RECLAIMING “BATTLE GROUND” FOR ADVOCACY
Social media is a key “battle ground” where LGBT advocates take on conservative celebrities who dish out popular dating advice, such as saying that the best couples marry early, produce sons and are straight, according to Xiao Tie, head of the Beijing LGBT Centre.
“The problem with the policy is that it equates LGBT content with porn,” Xiao said on Sunday, adding that she believes the government is not actively anti-LGBT. Just that it has no clear idea how to deal with the issue.
“But the bigger problem is the culture of strict censorship,” she added. “Social media used to be an open space, but in the last year things have started to change.”
Sina said the campaign is to ensure that the company is in line with online content regulations released in June last year that lump homosexuality in with sexual abuse and violence as constituting “abnormal sexual relationships”.
The fight against Sina’s decision saw LGBT groups, advocates and gay Chinese speaking out through letters and hashtags.
The tag “I am gay” was viewed nearly 300 million times on Weibo before being censored on Saturday.
Beijing-based advocacy group PFLAG China on Sunday called on Sina’s shareholders to punish the “evil” acts of the NASDAQ-listed company by “voting with their feet” and selling shares.
Other gay Chinese are wrote their own stories in letters to the CEO of Sina, Charles Chao.
Hao Kegui, one such writer, came out as a lesbian in an open letter published on social media last year where she describes how she had felt pressured into marrying a man to please her parents.
“The main concern for me is that, because China is very big, and places outside big cities are quite conservative, there are lots of gay people who only learn about their sexuality online,” Hao told Reuters.
“I worry the censorship will cause more people to just live in the closet and never come out.” (Additional reporting by Cate Cadell and Pei Li; Editing by Nick Macfie)
Portugal has passed a law that allows transgender people to change their legal gender under a “self determination” system.
The new law, which makes Portugal the sixth European country to adopt a “self-ID” gender recognition law, passed through the country’s parliament on Friday by a reported vote of 109-106.
It removes a medical diagnosis requirement for transgender people to have their gender legally recognised, and instead allows them to change their legal gender through a procedure based on self-determination.
The new gender recognition law removes hurdles to transition that have faced criticism, and instead respects that trans people themselves know best who they are and how they identify.
Legal gender recognition will also be extended to over-16s.
Malta, Norway, Denmark, Ireland and Belgium have all adopted the self-ID system of gender recognition.
Katrin Hugendubel of ILGA-Europe said: “ILGA-Europe are very relieved that the law based on self-determination was adopted and that it will be accessible to everyone over 16.
“We are also encouraged that politicians (despite the fact that some parties’ commitment to equality seemed to be wavering in the past few weeks) ultimately voted in favour of respect and common sense.
“We congratulate Portugal – and look forward to celebrating with our members and friends at the 2018 IDAHOT Forum taking place in Lisbon next month!”
The country was also praised for outlawing controversial “corrective” surgeries performed on intersex babies who are born with a mixture of male and female sex characteristics.
Ms Hugendubel added: “Portugal is really making history today – this law will make Portugal only the second country worldwide to outlaw medically unnecessary treatments on intersex kids.”
Isabel Moreira of the country’s Socialist party told DN that the move was “a historic step towards the right to self-determination of gender and sexual equality”.
Sandra Cunha of the Left party added that it shows “the suffering that young people suffer in their day to day life is not tolerable in this parliament and in this country”.
The law was supported by members of parliament this afternoon, following two years of very hard work by LGBTI activists in Portugal.
Similar proposals were tabled by the UK Parliament’s Women and Equalities Committee in 2016.
But despite securing the apparent backing of Prime Minister Theresa May at the PinkNews Awards, the UK government appears to have abandoned plans for a consultation on the issue amid a media backlash.
Prominent columnists claimed the proposals will make rape shelters unsafe for women, and lead to people with beards flashing their penises in women’s toilets across the country.
Irish government data released last year showed that 240 GRCs have been issued in the country – a modest takeup in a country of 5 million people.
All of the evidence to date suggests the only impact of the law has been affording vital legal recognition to the country’s trans community.
Speaking to PinkNews, Sara Phillips of the Transgender Equality Network Ireland, explained that there has been “no evidence of the system being abused”.
She added: “Most recent figures suggest a slower uptake than expected. The applications have been steady, which would suggest the community are utilising the system as they need it.
“There is no doubt that the change in legislation has had a larger impact than the practical implications of accessing change of gender on our documentation.
“Onerous application systems only impact negatively on one’s mental health and do not serve to provide any benefit to the state.
“The right to self determine our gender speaks volumes to trans people being recognised, respected and included as citizens of our country. This [has been] a very positive step for the trans community.”
The Irish government has not flagged any issues with the self-declaration law in the two years it has been in operation.
Another murder charge was laid Wednesday against Bruce McArthur, bringing the number of people he is alleged to have killed to seven.
McArthur, 66, appeared in court via video this morning to face his latest first-degree murder charge in the death of 42-year-old Abdulbasir Faizi, one of three missing men at the centre of Project Houston.
The College Park courtroom was moderately full, mostly with media there for McArthur’s appearance. He appeared via video dressed in an orange jumpsuit, standing close to the camera.
Faizi’s family has known about his death for two weeks, a relative told the Star. On March 29, his brother Farid Faizi changed his Facebook cover photo to a yellow candle in the corner of a black rectangle. Written across it in bold white font is the Quranic verse that Muslims read on the occasion of someone’s death: “Surely we belong to Allah and to Him we return.”
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT. Toronto police have released a photograph of a man who is believed to be a victim of alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur. Det. Sgt. Hank Idsinga says releasing the image is a “last resort” to find the man’s identity. (The Canadian Press)
Faizi was an immigrant from Afghanistan. He worked as an assistant machine operator at a now defunct, printing company in Mississauga. He was last seen leaving his workplace on Kitimat Rd., at about 7 p.m. on Dec. 28, 2010. He was reported missing to Peel Region police the next day.
Faizi lived in Brampton with his wife and two daughters. His last known location was in the Church and Wellesley Sts. area.
His car, a 2002 Nissan Sentra, was found abandoned on Moore Ave., near St. Clair Ave. and Mount Pleasant Rd. — a short drive away from where McArthur worked as a landscaper.
The charge comes just hours before Toronto police are scheduled to provide an update on the ongoing investigation.
Police are expected to update the public at 1:30 p.m. on three aspects of the investigation.
The latest news comes one month after police took the rare step of releasing a photograph of a deceased man who investigators alleged was a victim of McArthur’s. The photo was released with the hope that a member of the public may be able to identify him.
McArthur, a self-employed landscaper, was arrested on Jan. 18 and was previously charged in the deaths of Selim Esen, Skandaraj “Skanda” Navaratnam, Andrew Kinsman, Majeed Kayhan, Soroush Mahmudi and Dean Lisowick.
Police have recovered the remains of seven people from planters found at a home in midtown Toronto where McArthur worked and stored equipment.
Police told the media earlier that they had identified three sets of remains from McArthur’s clients’ house so far: Kinsman, 49; Mahmudi, 50; and Navaratnam, 40.
In the wake of this case, the Toronto police board voted unanimously to commission an external investigation into how the force conducts missing-persons probes.
The independent investigation, initiated by groups within the LGBTQ community and brought forward by Mayor John Tory, comes in the wake of escalating questions about police action — or inaction — in the disappearances of the missing people from Toronto’s Gay Village.
But the review will not directly address police conduct connected to the ongoing McArthur investigation or any past police contacts with the accused killer, due to the ongoing investigation and future trial.
Questions have been mounting in recent weeks about past interactions between McArthur and police, following revelations that police questioned McArthur in 2016 in connection to an alleged assault on another man. He was let go.
The following year, McArthur is alleged to have killed Kinsman and Esen; police allege he killed Lisowick between April 2016 and March 2017.
The 2016 interaction was the second time police spoke with McArthur in the years before he was charged with murder. McArthur was questioned around the time Toronto police launched Project Houston, sources have told the Star.
Project Houston was the Toronto police investigation into three men who went missing between 2010 and 2012 — Navaratnam, Faizi and Kayhan. That probe ended after 18 months when police could find “no evidence to suggest criminal activity.”
Two Indonesian men have been arrested for having gay sex.
The university students had their rooms raided by residents in Aceh, the only region of the Muslim-majority country where Shariah law is in effect and gay sex is illegal.
Condoms and mobile phones belonging to the 21 and 24-year-old were handed over to police.
Indonesian gay man gets caned for having sex (Getty)
If found guilty, the men face being sentenced to 100 lashes at a public caning.
Marzuki, head of the Aceh Provincial Sharia Law Department, told local reporters that one of the men had ‘confessed’ to the charges.
Gay men in Indonesia being led to be lashed 83 times (Getty)
Marzuki said then that residents in the local area had been suspicious of the men because they of their apparent intimacy, and deliberately set out to catch them having sex.
While homosexuality has never been illegal in Indonesia, attitudes towards LGBT people have become steadily more extreme across the country in recent years despite a growing gay population.
The Indonesian Psychiatrists Association classifies homosexuality, bisexuality and being transgender as illnesses.
The raid on salons was called “operasi penyakit masyarakat,” which translates as “community sickness operation”.
The police chief in Aceh said his officers also humiliated the trans women “by way of having them run for some time and telling them to chant loudly until their male voices came out.”
A bill with the support of most of the country’s main political parties is making its way through the legislative process.
Amendments have been accepted by the House of Representatives, but the whole Parliament must sign off on the bill before it makes its way to the President’s desk.
(Getty)
Andreas Harsono of Human Rights Watch said the new law “will create new discriminatory offences that do not exist in the current criminal code.
“It will slow down Indonesia’s efforts to develop their economy, society, knowledge [and] education … if law enforcement agencies are busy policing morality.
“It’s sounding like the Acehnese sharia code,” he added.
Comedian Eddie Izzard has been appointed to the Labour Party’s governing body.
The comedian and political activist, who previously identified as a transvestite but has since started using the umbrella term “transgender”, has vowed to become one of the first trans people elected to Parliament.
Earlier this year he failed to win election to the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee, just missing out to candidates from the party’s hard left Momentum faction.
However, this week he landed a spot on the body after all, as Momentum director Christine Shawcroft stepped down over an anti-Semitism scandal.
Eddie Izzard sits on a bench (Photo by Matthew Horwood/Getty Images)In a statement Izzard said: “Although this isn’t the manner in which I had hoped to join the NEC I’m honoured to step up and represent Labour members at the heart of our Party.
“This is a very important time for the Labour Party and we must stamp out completely the stain of anti-Semitism from a minority of members.
“It has no place in our Party. I have campaigned against hate my whole life and will continue to do so wherever it rears it’s ugly head. We must make amends and repair the damage with the Jewish community as Jeremy Corbyn has promised to do.
“We must get past this, for the good of the people Labour seeks to represent. We must unite our Party around the platform of hope that Jeremy Corbyn has built so that we can kick out this terrible Tory government and build a Britain for the many not the few.”
The comedian had missed out in January’s election to the NEC, picking up 39,508. The three available spots went to the Momentum-backed candidates, who picked up 65,163, 62,982 and 68,388 votes respectively.
The NEC is a crucial body that effectively controls Labour Party rules and policy.
Izzard previously vowed: “I’ll continue to do all I can to campaign for an open and welcoming Labour Party and to campaign with fellow Labour activists across the country to help Labour win the next election and put Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street.”
He added: “This election has been an opportunity to talk about some of the important issues facing our Party and country, and I’m proud to have run a positive, energetic campaign with ideas on how to open up politics and give excluded groups in society more of a voice in our Party and country.”
(Matthew Horwood/Getty Images)
Izzard had said previously: “Being an actor and performing stand-up is what I do for a living, but being an activist has been part of me for a long time.
“I have always fought for the campaigns that I believe in, even when they are unpopular or I’ve been advised against it.
“I came out in 1985, joined the Labour Party in 1995 and I have now campaigned for LGBT rights, for the Labour Party, for Europe and have run marathons for charities for many years.
“I have campaigned against racists and fascists all over our country and around the world and I want all of our members to feel welcome in the Labour Party.”
(Photo by Matthew Horwood/Getty Images)
Izzard has pledged to make Labour more diverse.
“I have been a Labour Party activist for many years,” he said in a video, “now I’m standing for an open and welcoming Labour Party to get people from many different backgrounds into the Labour Party, and to fight this narrow minded Tory government.
“To get the Labour Party in, winning at the next general election and Jeremy Corbyn as the Prime Minister.
“I have the energy and the drive to represent labour party members on the NEC.
“I believe in doing politics differently and I want people from diverse and different groups to be part of the Labour Party and part of our political system.”
The ambitious comic had previously teased a run as the Labour candidate for Mayor of London – but given the incumbent Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan is hugely popular, it’s highly unlikely there’ll be a vacancy in the post anytime soon.
In an interview in the Guardian, Izzard – who identifies as transgender – suggested he now plans to run for Parliament instead at the next election, currently scheduled for 2021.
He said: “The plan was always to run [for office] in 2020, though Theresa May has changed that with her failed power grab. So now it’s the first general election after 2020.”
The star added that he would give up performing entirely if elected.
The comic said: “I would. It’s like [former MP] Glenda Jackson; she gave up acting for 25 years to concentrate on it, then she turns up back as King Lear.”
In the same interview, Izzard opened up about coming out as trans.
The comic explained that coming out as trans was by far one of the scariest things he could do, and in turn that made other obstacles less threatening.
“I think coming out as transgender allowed me to put myself in other terrifying situations and work them out once I was in them.
“I knew I would get through the bad, terrifying bit – and there was a lot of that when I was a street performer – and eventually get to a more interesting place.”
Izzard sometimes presents as male and sometimes as female.
Eddie Izzard (Photo by Matthew Horwood/Getty Images)
Opening up about his gender in 2016 during a marathon challenge, he said: “I use it as a badge of identity – I am a transgender guy who came out 31 years ago.”
The star went on to explain that he often identifies as female and male – but that he felt society should not become so “obsessed” with gender.
“I’ve got boy genetics and girl genetics. We get obsessed by it in humanity. We’ve been obsessed for 5,000 years of civilisation and people are still being murdered – in Uganda they were trying to sentence people to death.
“If you look at a tiger, you go ‘ooh, tiger!’, we don’t go ‘girl tiger’ or ‘boy tiger’. We are obsessed by the genders because we grow up in one gender or another. No other animal is obsessed by our gender – they don’t give a monkeys about our gender.”
Izzard added that sexuality and gender identity should not matter, but rather what you do in life should be what defines a person.
“No matter what sex or sexuality, how you self-identity, or who you fancy, matters not one whit – what do you do in life? What do you make? What do you add to the human existence? That’s what’s matters.
“It all comes back to Nelson Mandela: Try and put something into the world, and leave something positive.
“The confidence that it has given me, coming out 31 years ago in 1985, is immense – but it was a very hard journey. Very hard.”
