Ghana president John Dramani Mahama has pledged to sign into law the “Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill” if it is passed by his country’s parliament. This draconian anti-LGBTQ+ bill punishes queer people for merely existing. The bill calls for a three-year imprisonment for those who identify as LGBTQ+, and a ten-year sentence for […]
On Global Sexual Democracy: The Good Tea
The European Court of Justice ruled that Polish courts had erred in refusing to recognize the legitimacy of a same-sex couple’s marriage performed in Germany. Like Hungary and Slovakia, Poland does not allow same-sex marriage within its own borders, and the ECJ’s ruling does not require EU members to do so. However, if a same-sex […]
America’s Latest Homophobic Antics
The Trump administration continues to target LGBTQ+ folks through a variety of public policy moves, such as its recent demotion of World Aids Day. The state department has directed its employees and funding recipients to “refrain from publicly promoting World Aids Day [December 1] through any communication channels, including social media, media engagements, speeches or […]
Social Media on the Chopping Block for Youth Around the World
Governments are growing increasingly concerned with the effects of social media on children. Heavy participation on social media platforms is being blamed for youths’ struggles with screen addiction and bullying, as well as identified as a conduit for inappropriate explicit (often sexual) content. Australia’s social media ban (the world’s first) for anyone under 16 goes […]
How the Anti-Trafficking Industry Unites Right and Left
Investigative reporter Michael Tracey looks at the anti-trafficking industry. In the wake of the moral panic and conspiracy theories surrounding the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, about whom much still remains unknown, politicians on both the right and left as well as NGOs have exploited the ever-expanding concept of “sex trafficking” to characterize virtually all commercial […]
Mourning Miss Major Griffin-Gracy
This earthly world recently lost a trail blazing social justice warrior. Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a long time trans activist who was known as “mama” to many, was involved in LGBTQ activism since her participation in the Stonewall Uprising in 1969. She died on Oct. 13 at the age of 78 surrounded by loved ones in […]
Gender Trouble Again
Conceiving of gender and sex as binary concepts is a stubborn means of categorization that has long limited human understanding of important aspects of identity and experience. In most cultures humans become binary subjects at birth in two major ways: 1) we are corralled into either male or female sexed body designations based on anatomical […]
25 Arrested for Attending Same-Sex Wedding in Nigeria
The Hisba Board (religious police) in Kano, a mostly Muslim region in Northern Nigeria, have arrested 25 people attending the wedding of two men, accusing them of “organising same sex marriage.” The situation for LGBT people in Muslim countries continues to deteriorate, as we also see with new anti-LGBT legislation proposed by the government even […]
Federal Appeals Court Says Inmates Have No Right to Medical Transition
The federal appeals court for the 2nd circuit overturned a trial court decision to rule that prison inmates “have no clearly established rights to be treated by gender-dysphoria specialists or to receive specific treatments for gender dysphoria.” The case concerned a biologically male inmate serving a 75 year sentence for murder in Connecticut, who sought […]
Filipino Cruise Workers Harassed with False Pornography Charges
We have featured stories in the past where suspicions of sexual immorality are manipulated as excuses to apprehend immigrants. In one of the latest examples of this phenomenon, Customs and Border Patrol agents used trumped-up charges of possessing illegal images of minors to coerce 18 Filipino workers on a Carnival cruise ship, who had valid […]