For the first time, Şişli, Istanbul, Municipality initiated free health care services for the LGBTI communities. LGBTI individuals will be able to benefit from health care services for free and, if they would like to do so, using nicknames rather than disclosing their identities. Read More
Half of HIV+ Gay Men Don’t Take Life-Saving Drugs
A survey from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) shows dramatic deficits in treatment among those at highest risk of HIV infection. The reasons why men don’t get—or stick with—treatment range from cost to misperceptions about the toxicity of current drug therapies to the enduring stigma of HIV. Read More
Surveying Nepal’s Sexual and Gender Minorities: An Inclusive Approach
In a recent survey of sexual and gender minorities in Nepal over 60% of respondents reported experiencing abuse or discrimination.
The survey utilized Nepal’s inclusion of a third gender category in its national census, the first such attempt in the world. LGBT people in Nepal face many obstacles, including widespread bullying in schools, lack of protection from discrimination by employers, paucity of programming for reproductive health of lesbians, and the lack of sensitive HIV healthcare for transgender women and gay men who are at exponentially higher risk of HIV infection than the general population. Read More
Can the Catholic Church Help End HIV?
This year National Latino AIDS Awareness Day coincides with new conversations happening around two very important areas of HIV prevention for Latinos: PrEP and stigma. A shift in tone from the Catholic Church could result in how Latino families embrace their loved ones who happen to be gay, lesbian or transgender.
What does this mean for Latinos and HIV?
It means that the stigma around being gay may be coming to an end. It means that Latino men and women may feel safer to come out of the closet to their family, their community and to a church that will not only tolerate them, but embrace them. It means that we may be closer than ever to ending HIV by reducing the stigma surrounding what it means to HIV-positive. Read More
Young U.S. Catholics overwhelmingly accepting of homosexuality
Fully 85% of self-identified Catholics ages 18-29 said in a 2014 Pew Research Center survey that homosexuality should be accepted by society, compared with just 13% who said it should be discouraged. Older age groups are less likely to favor acceptance. But even among Catholics ages 65 and older, 57% say that homosexuality should be accepted. Read More
Meanwhile, antigay politician Rick Santorum claims young people support LGBT rights only because gay activists have kept them from hearing the alternative view. Read More
Conservative Cardinal Who Clashed With Pope Francis Confirms He Has Been Ousted
A top cardinal told BuzzFeed News that the worldwide meeting of church leaders coming to a close in Rome seemed to have been designed to “weaken the church’s teaching and practice” with the apparent blessing of Pope Francis.
Internal discontent among conservatives inside church leadership began to simmer over in the weeks leading up to the synod. In an apparent attempt to mollify anglophone conservatives, the Vatican released a new translation of the report that changed the phrase “welcoming homosexual persons” to “providing for homosexual persons” and made other small changes, while leaving the versions in all other languages unchanged. Read More
Church should not fear change, pope says at synod close
Pope Francis has closed an assembly of Catholic bishops that revealed deep divisions on how to respond to homosexuality and divorce, saying on Sunday the Church should not be afraid of change and new challenges.
The working session of the gathering ended on Saturday night with a final document that reversed a historic acceptance of gays by the Church made just a week earlier -- a result some progressives see as a setback for Francis. Read More
Woman Slit Lesbian Sister's Throat after She Refused to Stop Dating Women
Azerbaijani police have arrested a woman who killed her sister after she found out she was a lesbian. LGBT Azerbaijan Alliance has called the incident “a hate crime against LGBT people.” Read More
Activists condemn Singapore court gay ruling
Human rights groups have condemned a Singapore court's decision that a law banning gay sex is constitutional. Under Section 377A, men who engage in "gross indecency" privately or publicly can be jailed for up to two years. Singapore, which largely remains conservative, has seen intense debate in recent years over gay rights.
Human Rights Watch called the decision "a major setback for equal rights", adding that it "tramples upon basic rights to privacy, equality and non-discrimination" and "gives carte blanche for discrimination and reinforces prejudice". Read More
Fire Sweeps Through Kiev's Oldest Movie Theater During LGBT Movie
A fire has swept through the landmark Zhovten movie theatre in Ukraine's capital Kiev during the showing of an LGBT movie. Initial media reports cited movie-goers as saying the fire may have been started by arsonists who were outraged by the screening of the gay-themed film. Others suggested a connection with a business dispute that saw the movie theater fighting to avoid eviction from its building. The theatre, opened in 1931, suffered severe damage in the incident. Read More
Dozens of anti-gay Russian nationalists swarm three gay rights activists
Two young women and a man campaigning for gay rights in Russia were met with about 100 nationalist protesters on Sunday, who threw tomatoes and shouted anti-gay abuse.
Dozens of nationalists gathered in the southern city of Lipetsk over the weekend to oppose a rally of three gay rights activists, a news report said.
Two young women and a man met Sunday in Lipetsk and walked to the city's central Sobornaya Ploshchad, where their demonstration for LGBT rights had been expected to take place, local news site LRNews reported. The rally was greeted by about 100 nationalists and conservative activists, as well as police officers deployed to prevent violence, the report said.
One of the rally participants, who gave her name as Reida Linn, said she and her friends wanted to draw public attention to “fighting homophobia, discrimination and violations of the Constitution and of the rights of LGBT people,” LRNews reported. Read More
Jamaica: Unchecked Homophobic Violence
LGBT Jamaicans are vulnerable to both physical and sexual violence and many live in constant fear, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. They are taunted, threatened, fired from their jobs, thrown out of their homes, or worse: beaten, stoned, raped, or killed.
The 86-page report, “Not Safe at Home: Violence and Discrimination Against LGBT People in Jamaica,” documents 56 cases of violence in which victims reported they were targeted because of their actual or perceived sexual identity. Read More