International

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 The number of young gay and bisexual adults has doubled in four years in UK

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The UK’s respected Office for National Statistics says that the number of young people (aged 16-24) who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual has almost doubled in just four years. It’s risen from 4.1% in 2016 to 8% in 2020. The figures come from an analysis of the country’s large-scale Annual Population Survey, which surveys around 320,000 households annually. Breaking down that 8% figure, 2.7% of 16-24 year-olds identified as gay or lesbian, and 5.3% as bisexual. Looking more broadly at all age groups, the proportion of all adults identifying as LGB stood at 3.1% in 2020. This is an increase from 2.7% in […]

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An unlikely queer hero dodges bombs to deliver aid in Ukraine

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A pair of vans, cosmetically weathered but carrying an unmeasurable amount of personality along with over 12,000 lbs of food, medicine, and hygiene supplies, were used by a motley group of heroes to deliver critical supplies to two towns still under attack in northeast Ukraine. Agatha Williams, a metal fabricator from Denver, Colorado turned front-line aid worker aiding civilians amid the Russian invasion, joined the relief effort for the first time. Piloting one of the vehicles, Williams, who goes by the pronouns they/them and identifies as queer, left the United States for the first time to make a difference in […]

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Ukraine’s ‘unicorn’ LGBTQ soldiers head for war

As volunteer fighters Oleksandr Zhuhan and Antonina Romanova pack for a return to active duty, they contemplate the unicorn insignia that gives their uniform a rare distinction — a symbol of their status as an LGBTQ couple who are Ukrainian soldiers. Members of Ukraine’s LGBTQ community who sign up for the war have taken to sewing the image of the mythical beast into their standard-issue epaulettes just below the national flag. The practice harks back to the 2014 conflict when Russia invaded then annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine, “when lots of people said there are no gay people in […]

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LGBTQ lawmakers in Latin America pledge to end conversion therapy in region

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Openly LGBTQ lawmakers from across Latin America who gathered in Argentina’s capital last week agreed to work together to ban so-called conversion therapy in the region. The second meeting of the Global Equality Caucus’ Latin America chapter took place in Buenos Aires. Those who attended agreed the effort to ban conversion therapy in the region would begin in countries where openly LGBTQ people have been elected to public office and where allies can be identified. “Efforts to correct sexual orientation and gender identity (ECOSIG), also misnamed ‘conversion therapies,’ lack scientific support and are based on prejudices contrary to the human […]

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Political Rights for Cubans Should Not Start with a Marriage Equality Referendum

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Cubans might have a chance this year to do something they’ve done very rarely: cast a meaningful vote. The government, which rarely consults its people, says it will allow Cubans to “have their say” in a referendum, with respect to whether same-sex couples, a minority, can marry. Cuba’s government has a well-documented history of violating citizens’ right to vote in free and fair elections and to take part in public affairs. The Communist Party, the only one allowed in the country, has governed since the 1959 revolution without giving citizens the option to vote its leaders out of office—or even to protest their actions. […]

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U.K. reveals rainbow coin to mark 50th anniversary of Pride

Britain’s Royal Mint unveiled a special new commemorative rainbow-colored 50 pence coin on Wednesday as a tribute to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Pride UK movement. The coin, designed by east London artist and LGBTQ activist Dominique Holmes, uses state-of-the-art printing technology to emboss it with the colors of the Pride progress flag.https://iframe.nbcnews.com/zUt216w?_showcaption=true&app=1 “It humbles me greatly that the words that I coined for the brand — protest, visibility, unity and equality — will be on an actual coin, opposite the queen,” Asad Shaykh, director of marketing and communications at Pride in London said. “This queer brown immigrant has […]

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Tough Territory for Transgender People in the Middle East and North Africa

Transgender people, whose assigned gender at birth does not match their gender identity, face a grim reality in much of the Middle East and North Africa region, including daunting obstacles to legal gender recognition. To get a better sense of these obstacles, I reviewed existing legal frameworks and case law, and conducted interviews in Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, talking to activists and experts as well as transgender people about their experiences. Building on existing research on violence and discrimination against transgender people in the region, this analysis summarizes what I found. Legal gender recognition for transgender people refers to the official recognition of their gender […]

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It is illegal to be LGBTQ in these countries

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In 71 countries, being queer makes you a criminal. In 11 of them, the punishment is death. Some countries differentiate between having gay sex and actually being gay, but the result is discrimination no matter the reasoning. America’s religious right is clamoring for crackdowns on gender expression and LGBTQ rights similar to the laws enforced in less advanced countries. Some prominent Republicans and pastors have gone so far as to suggest America should be a theocracy like some countries on the list. Iran, parts of Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Brunei, Mauritania, Pakistan, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates proscribe the death penalty for […]

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One in three LGBT+ Brits abused by their family, disturbing report finds

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One in three LGBT+ people in Britain have been abused by their relatives, a study by Galop has found. The LGBT+ anti-abuse charity found that of the 5,000 people surveyed, nearly one third (29 per cent) had experienced abuse by a relative, most often their own parents. Galop reported that the abuse ranged from verbal harassment to threats of homelessness and physical violence. Five per cent of respondents had been subjected to conversion therapy “through a family member attempting to change, ‘cure’ or suppress their sexual orientation or gender identity”. Sixty per cent of respondents who had experienced abuse from their family felt […]

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Gay couple to tie the knot in first-ever same-sex wedding in British Antarctic Territory

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Two polar research ship crew members are set to become the first ever same-sex couple to get married in British Antarctic Territory. Eric Bourne and Stephen Carpenter have been together for 20 years, having first met on the RFA Sir Percivale before being deployed in the Gulf war. Since then, they have travelled the world’s oceans, and currently work together on the polar research ship RRS Sir David Attenborough, which is on its maiden voyage in Antarctica. The couple plan to tie the knot either on Sunday (24 April) or Monday (25 April) depending on the weather, with temperatures predicted to be […]

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