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Russian LGBTQ Activist is Killed after Being Listed on Gay-hunting Website

A Russian LGBTQ activist, Yelena Grigoryeva, was fatally stabbed in St. Petersburg Sunday night after her name was listed on a website that encourages people to “hunt” LGBTQ activists, inspired by the torture-themed film “Saw.” Reports in the Russian newspaper Fontanka said that a suspect, a “40-year-old resident of Bashkortostan,” had been detained by police. Grigoryeva, 41, was active with Russia’s Alliance of Heterosexuals and LGBT for Equality and other activist causes, according to the Russian LGBT Network. Related NBC OUT South Carolina woman is 12th known trans person killed this year According to friends’ and colleagues’ online posts, Grigoryeva was worried about […]

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Japan Elects First Openly-gay Politician to National Parliament

apan on Monday (22 July) elected its first openly-gay politician to the country’s national parliament. LGBTI rights activist turned lawmaker Taiga Ishikawa won a seat for the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ) in the Upper House. ‘I was calling for the acknowledgment of LGBT people in the election’ said after his win was announced, according to Asahi Shimbun. ‘A lot of people all over Japan plucked up their courage to vote for me. This acknowledges that we are here.’ Japan has elected at least eight openly-LGBTI politicians to posts in regional councils and parliaments. Conservative Japan does not allow same-sex marriage. National laws do […]

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Gay Lawmaker Says His Congressional Run against Alleged ‘Homophobe’ is Personal

In heavily Democratic New York City, the toughest part of political elections typically takes place in the primaries, long before the general election. Indeed, after Rep. José Serrano, a longtime congressman representing the southern Bronx, captured the Democratic nomination for New York’s 15th Congressional District in 2018, he went on to beat his Republican opponent with 96 percent of the vote; Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both won the district with over 90 percent of the vote. But Serrano is retiring, and when New York Democrats go to polls in the June 2020 primary for the 15th Congressional District, they […]

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Pence To Hold Fundraiser At Gay-Owned Private Club

The Aspen Times reports: Monday’s $35,000-a-couple fundraiser starring Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to take place at a private club in Aspen owned by two gay men, sources said Friday. The Caribou Club in Aspen’s downtown core is set to host the VIP reception with Pence, according to sources who declined to be named. Billy Stolz, one of the owners of the club, did not return a phone message seeking comment. Bob Jenkins, vice chair of Pitkin County Republicans, said Friday that he expects about 25 couples to attend the $35,000-per-couple VIP reception with Pence starting at 5 p.m. on […]

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Polish Pride Parade Met with Right-wing Counter Protests

A Pride parade in the Polish city of Bialystok was met with counter protests by far-right groups. This was the first ever Pride event to take place in the north-eastern city on Saturday (20 July). About 800 people marched through the streets in support of LGBTI rights in Poland. However, Catholic and nationalist groups began attacking the Pride parade by throwing bottles, stones and firecrackers at the marchers, Irish news-site RTE reports. A number of violence clashes ensued, with riot police attempting to seperate the two groups. Poland is overwhemingly Catholic, and while there has been progress with regards to LGBTI […]

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13 Philadelphia Cops Fired for Homophobic, Racist Messages

The Philadelphia Police Department are set to fire 13 officers for offensive social media posts, which included homophobic and racist sentiments. This discipline was the result of research done by by the Plain View Project. They published thousands of Facebook posts from jurisdictions around the country, including Philadelphia, in June. Following the publication of these posts, the Philadelphia Police Department launched an internal investigations. Overall, the department removed 72 officers from street duty. They gave 13 a 30-day suspension with the intent to formally dismiss them. Four other officers received a 30-day suspension, three received no other formal discipline, and the rest received varying consequences from formal reprimands […]

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These Tech Companies Continue to Donate to Anti-LGBTI Politicians

On Wednesday (10 July), a group of 30 LGBTI advocates sent a letter to dozens of tech companies, urging them to stop donating to anti-LGBTI politicians. These companies include Google, Microsoft, AT&T, Dell, T-Mobile, and Amazon. Tell me more According to Buzzfeed News, the group Zeros for Zeros analyzed the contribution data between 2010 and 2019 of the top-scoring companies on the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) Corporate Equality Index. It found that 49 corporate PACs gave a combined $5,837,331 [€5,171,495.84] to members of Congress who received a rating of zero on the HRC’s legislative scorecard. This includes Texas Rep. Ted Cruz. […]

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Gay Codebreaker Alan Turing to be Featured on British Bank Note

A pioneering British mathematician whose codebreaking helped end World War II but was persecuted under anti-homosexuality laws is to be honored on British bank notes. Alan Turing, credited by many as the father of modern computing, will be featured on the £50 ($63) note starting in 2021, the Bank of England said Monday. “As the father of computer science and artificial intelligence, as well as war hero, Alan Turing’s contributions were far-ranging and pathbreaking,” the bank’s governor, Mark Carney, said in a statement. Turing’s work on codebreaking was instrumental in the Allied victory in World War II, and he was […]

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Russia Fined Thousands of Dollars for Anti-LGBTI Rulings

Russia will pay a price for a series of anti-LGBTI actions thanks to a ruling at the European Court of Human Rights. From 2006-2011 Russia refused to register three LGBTI organizations. Those included Rainbow House, the Movement for Marriage Equality, and the Sochi Pride House. Authorities refused to register the groups, arguing they would ‘destroy the moral values of society’ or ‘undermine [Russia’s] sovereignty and territorial integrity…by decreasing its population’. While homosexuality is not illegal in Russia, the country introduced a ‘gay propaganda‘ law in 2013. It prevents the positive representation of LGBTI issue on any kind of media platform. The government argued it stopped the […]

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U.N. Wants More Urgency in AIDS Fight as Gains and Funding Fade

The global fight against AIDS is stalling due to lower investment, marginalized communities missing vital health services, and new HIV infections rising in some parts, the United Nations warned on Tuesday. More than half of all new HIV infections in 2018 were among sex workers, drug users, men who have sex with men, transgender people, prisoners and the sexual partners of these groups, according to a report by UNAIDS. Many of those populations did not get access to infection prevention services, it said. Progress in some countries has been “impressive,” the U.N. body’s report said, but others are seeing rising […]

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