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Kuwait: Quash Conviction Against Transgender Woman

A Kuwaiti court has sentenced a transgender woman to prison for “imitating the opposite sex” online, Human Rights Watch said today. Such laws violate the rights to free expression, privacy, and nondiscrimination under Kuwait’s constitution and international law. The authorities should immediately release her and quash the conviction. The court on October 3, 2021, sentenced Maha al-Mutairi, 40, to two years in prison and a fine of 1,000 Kuwaiti dinars (USD 3,315) for “misusing phone communication” by “imitating the opposite sex” online under article 70 of the telecommunication law and article 198 of the penal code. She has been arrested multiple times […]

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Victims of transphobic hate explain why they don’t report to police

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AL, who is trans, non-binary and genderqueer, has been assaulted twice on public transport in the last 18 months – but they didn’t report either incident to the police. “The first time, I was on a bus in east London,” they say. “It was quite crowded, and the woman who was sitting by one of the last two free seats had a bunch of flowers on it. When I asked her to move the flowers aside, she got very aggressive; she yelled at me that I was a disgusting pervert and a f****t, and when I tried to sit at […]

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Rep. Jim Banks suspended from Twitter for misgendering Dr. Rachel Levine

Twitter suspended the account of Indiana Rep. Jim Banks on Saturday after the Republican congressman intentionally misgendered Assistant Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine, the first transgender person to hold an office that requires a Senate confirmation. Banks, who represents the northeastern corner of the state, was responding to the news that Levine became the first woman to be awarded the title of four-star officer, saying the title was taken and honor were taken by a “man.” Twitter said the comment violated its hateful conduct policy, which prohibits the “targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.” The platform temporarily locked Banks’ […]

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Politicians and senior LGBT+ figures stand with Stonewall in wake of BBC attack

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Politicians and senior LGBT+ figures have rushed to defend Stonewall in the wake of a BBC “investigation” into the charity. On Friday (15 October), the BBC published an article headlined Stonewall’s influence on BBC and Ofcom revealed“. Based on a 10-part investigative podcast by the Stephen Nolan programme released on Wednesday (13 October), its purported revelations are that Ofcom continues to submit information to the charity’s Workplace Equality Index program, despite having exited its Diversity Champions Scheme; and that the BBC’s Diversity and Inclusion department has worked closely with Stonewall, Europe’s largest LGBT+ charity. It noted that a “senior figure in […]

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Gay couple’s son finally granted citizenship in landmark Namibian ruling

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The High Court of Namibia has granted citizenship to the son of a gay couple after a long, arduous fight. Namibian Phillip Luhl and his Mexican husband, Guillermo Delgado, fought for years to have their son Yona Luhl-Delgado recognised as a legal Namibian citizen. Yona was born via surrogacy in South Africa in 2019 but Namibian authorities initially refused to accept the birth certificate, insisting on a DNA test to prove a biological link to his father. On Wednesday (13 October) High Court judge Thomas Masuku finally ruled that a paternity test is not needed to prove that Yona is their son, […]

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Latina woman named as 41st trans person tragically killed in the US this year

A “deeply loved” Latina woman was tragically killed in Seattle, Washington, making her the 41st trans person murdered in the US this year. Zoella Rose Martinez, a 20-year-old known by her friends as Zo Zo or Zoey, was shot in a nature area north of Maple Valley in late August. At around 8.45pm on 31 August, Martinez met Jacaree Rashad Hardy, 24, a man whom she believed had stolen $1,000 from her bank account. She agreed to meet Hardy in a parking lot at the Belmondo Reach Natural Area, King’s County prosecutors said according to The Seattle Times. Martinez had alerted […]

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Lesbian sues federal government after being rejected by foster agency

A Tennessee woman is suing the Department of Health and Human Services after a federally funded foster care agency rejected her application because she is a lesbian. Kelly Easter, who is from Nashville, wanted to apply to become a foster parent of an unaccompanied refugee children, according to her lawsuit, filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement directed her to Bethany Christian Services, the only entity participating in the program in her area and a sub-grantee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), which receives federal funds to provide […]

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LGBTQ people are being hunted down in Afghanistan

Kabul was known as one of the few “liberal” cities in Afghanistan. The word liberal is in quotation marks, and inflected, because it is liberal compared to the rest of the country. Now that the Taliban has taken over, most people who expressed themselves differently and openly are forced to adhere to Sharia law, completely change their ways, hide their identity, or be killed. The U.S. State Department reported in 2020 that even before the Taliban took power in August, LGBTQ people in Afghanistan faced “discrimination, assault and rape” and “homosexuality was widely seen as taboo and indecent.” Laws against lesbian, gay and transgender people made their […]

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Ambitious, mesmerising’ young woman is 40th trans person violently killed in 2021

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In yet another frightening attack, an “ambitious, mesmerising” Black woman was brutally slain in Florida, making her the 40th trans person murdered in the US this year. Royal Poetical Starz, 26, was fatally shot in Miami Gardens, a city in the north-central Miami-Dade County, on the afternoon of 2 October. According to local law enforcement, the shooting took place between Northwest 18th Avenue and 183rd Street at approximately 12:51pm. The shooter sped off in a getaway vehicle, police added whole both misgendering and deadnaming the victim, only to crash into a tree mere blocks away from the scene. The killer fled on […]

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Netflix refuses to fire vice president over anti-LGBT+ remarks, fires whistleblower instead

Newly leaked documents show that Netflix investigated one of its top executives for “aggressive and intimidating” behaviour that was not inclusive of the LGBT+ community. The internal investigation was triggered by claims made against vice president for original content in Spain and Portugal, Diego Avalos, via an anonymous tip-line. The inquiry, which concluded this spring, found his actions to be “deeply concerning”, according to documents procured by Bloomberg. A report stated that Avalos “used language or demonstrated an attitude in various meetings that was not inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community and/or employees with children”. In a letter sent on 9 April, […]

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