Huge crowds gathered on Saturday to celebrate LGBT rights in London’s biggest Pride parade yet. This year’s theme is Pride Jubilee, marking the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York, regarded as the birth of the Pride movement. Organisers predicted as many as 1.5 million people would attend
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Pride in London parade – in pictures
Huge crowds gather on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots
Continue reading...Taiwan’s marriage law brings frustration and hope for LGBT China
Public acceptance is improving, but in some cases Chinese authorities are moving in the other direction
It was a landmark moment for LGBT rights. When Taiwan passed a law allowing same-sex couples to marry, crowds in Taipei erupted into cheers, chanting: “First in Asia”.
For those watching from across the Taiwan strait in China, where gay couples do not have that right, the moment was heartening but also profoundly sad. Matthew, 27, an LGBT activist in Chengdu, spent the day following the proceedings online on his own. A few days later he flew to Taiwan to watch two male friends register their marriage after 14 years together.
Continue reading...Home Office must help woman unfairly deported to Uganda to return to UK
High court judge rules that gay asylum seeker who feared persecution in Uganda should have been allowed to remain
The Home Office has been ordered to help a woman deported to Uganda six years ago to return to Britain after a high court judge ruled that the handling of her case was “procedurally unfair”.
If the judgment stands, the woman may become the first deportee whose case was processed through fast-track rules operational between 2005 and 2015 to return to the UK and appeal against the decision to deport her.
Continue reading...Love all: how Megan Rapinoe and other gay players are taking sport to a higher level
In the past, queer female athletes all too often had to hide their sexuality. Today, they’re proudly coming out – and challenging bigotry in sport and society as a whole
Women in sport still face a lot of stigma and abuse. One reason for this is the stigma and abuse that women face in general, but added to that is the fact that women in sport are often pegged as lesbians. You’d like to think that women kicking a ball, swinging a bat or hitting a target wouldn’t be so political – yet here we are, still trapped in the patriarchy’s locker room, engulfed in Lynx Africa fumes.
Recently, however, queer female athletes have proudly come to the fore. This week, Belgian tennis players Alison van Uytvanck and Greet Minnen became the first IRL couple to team up at Wimbledon, and called for more support in the sport for same-sex couples – in particular, saying it would help male players to come out.
Continue reading...New York leads way as Pride marches mark 50 years since Stonewall – as it happened
- Rolling coverage of LGBTQ celebrations across the US
- Love and Resistance: priceless pictures of LGBTQ pioneers
- A marvelous party: when gay Harlem met queer Britain
That’s all for today – thanks for reading, everyone. Here’s what happened:
And, before we close down for the evening, a quick look at festivities in Seattle, which also hosted a Pride parade today.
Continue reading...New York leads Pride parades as LGBTQ activists debate state of movement
- Two marches in Manhattan, many more around US
- San Francisco march interrupted by anti-police protesters
- Love and Resistance: priceless pictures of LGBTQ pioneers
New York’s massive LGBTQ Pride march kicked off Sunday with attendees cheering the cast of Pose, the FX show about late-20th century ballroom culture, and a car representing the activists Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson as the procession moved through Manhattan.
Related: We've been to a marvelous party: when gay Harlem met queer Britain
Continue reading...Love and Resistance review: priceless pictures of LGBTQ pioneers
Fifty years after Stonewall, photographs Kay Tobin Lahusen and Diana Davies pin the zeitgeist to the page
Forty-nine years ago, on the first anniversary of the riots outside the Stonewall Inn, thousands of “young men and women homosexuals” from all over the north-east marched from Greenwich Village to the Sheep Meadow in Central Park. As Lacey Fosburgh put it on the front page of the New York Times, they proclaimed “the new strength and pride of the gay people”.
Related: We've been to a marvelous party: when gay Harlem met queer Britain
Continue reading...London gay nightclub XXL faces closure to make way for flats
Club complains of ‘social cleansing’ after being given three months to wind up
One of London’s biggest gay nightclubs is facing closure to make way for a £1.3bn apartment, hotel and office development, in a move that the club’s founder say amounts to “social cleansing”.
XXL is believed to be the last “bear” club in London, and DJ Fat Tony, a close friend of Elton John, regularly performs to 2,000 people a night. This week, developers backed by investors from Malaysia and Singapore gave the club three months to wind up after its owners lost a court appeal. The club has been operating for 19 years and 40 jobs will go.
Continue reading...Why America’s gay bars still matter: ‘Living joyously is still a radical act’ – video
The Guardian visits three gay bars in Texas, Mississippi and Indiana, where the owners and punters share how important those spaces remain for a community threatened by Trump
Israel Folau: Australian Christian lobby hosts new fundraising effort
ACL steps in after GoFundMe pulls plug on former Wallabies star’s online appeal
The Australian Christian Lobby is hosting a fundraising effort on its website for the former Wallabies star Israel Folau after his GoFundMe page was shut down.
As at 7am Tuesday, almost $50,000 had been donated via the link on the ACL site, with the group also committing to tip in $100,000 to Folau’s legal challenge. By 8.30am, $250,000 had been raised.
Continue reading...What has changed since the Stonewall rebellion? – podcast
The Stonewall rebellion in 1969 started a revolution in LGBT rights in the US. Ed Pilkington revisits the story 50 years on with those who were there. Plus: Lucy Seigle on the rise of fast fashion
On the evening of 27 June 1969, gay men and their trans and lesbian peers gathered as usual at a bar called the Stonewall Inn. What followed would change the course of LGBT rights in the US and the wider world. A police raid on the bar in the early hours of the following day descended into violence as supporters came out on to the streets and stayed there defiantly.
The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington has tracked down some of those who took part in the rebellion and joins Anushka Asthana to discuss what happened and the growing recognition of LGBT rights in the decades that followed.
Continue reading...My gay son: ‘The family said we should send him to Syria for conversion therapy’
Could an ‘outrageously heterosexual’ father handle his eldest child coming out at 16?
Sam Khalaf and his son Riyadh used to call themselves the two musketeers. When Riyadh was growing up in Bray, south of Dublin, they were inseparable. Like twins or best friends, they say. So the Iraqi-born, Irish citizen remembers keenly the moment when he realised his eldest child had drifted from him.
“We used to go everywhere together,” 54-year-old Sam recalls. “Every weekend we’d go to a tropical fish shop and pick out which koi carp to go into our pond. The first time Riyadh didn’t come with me, he was about 15. And the lad who worked there said: ‘Where’s your mate?’ I said, ‘He’s grown up now, he’s out with his friends.’ It was a shock to the system.”
Continue reading...‘We gotta keep fighting and yelling’: New York drag queens on the legacy of Stonewall – video
On 28 June 1969, a police raid at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, sparked a rebellion against discrimination – and proved the catalyst for the modern LGBTQ rights movement. Performers Lady Bunny, Peppermint and Sasha Velour discuss what the Stonewall uprising means to them – and what's next in the fight for equality.
Continue reading...Pride sale celebrates 50 years since Stonewall – in pictures
To mark WorldPride and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, Swann Galleries in New York is holding a Pride sale, which explores and celebrates the art, influence and history of the LGBTQ+ community. Books, manuscripts, photographs, archives, art and objects from the last two centuries will be auctioned
Continue reading...Georgia prepares for first LGBT pride amid threats of violence
After being beaten in Tbilisi six years ago, the country’s LGBT activists are ready to be bold
Six years on, the violent scene remains imprinted in the minds of Georgia’s LGBT community: dozens of gay rights demonstrators being beaten in the streets of Tbilisi by black-frocked priests and far-right protesters, some bearing clubs and other weapons. The modern-day pogrom in 2013 seemed like a warning: whatever Georgia’s aspirations to join Europe, its queer community would be left behind.
But this week activists are planning the country’s first LGBT pride events in a gambit to convert the underground explosion of queer culture in Georgia into political change. Arrayed against them are conservative and Christian activists and a police force that says they can’t guarantee the safety of the protesters. Many fear the violence of 2013 could be repeated.
Continue reading...Naomi Wolf faces ‘new questions’ as US publisher postpones latest book
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt had said it would stand by Outrages after row in UK over its historical accuracy, but has now recalled copies from stores
Naomi Wolf’s US publisher has postponed the release of her new book and is recalling copies from booksellers, saying that new questions have arisen over the book’s content.
Outrages, which argues that the Obscene Publications Act of 1857 led to a turn against consensual sex between men and an increase in executions for sodomy, was published in the UK on 20 May. Wolf has already acknowledged that the book contains two errors, after an on-air challenge on BBC Radio 3 during which the writer and broadcaster Matthew Sweet told her that she had misunderstood the term “death recorded” in historical records as signifying an execution. In fact it denotes the opposite, Sweet pointed out, highlighting that a teenager she said had been “actually executed for sodomy” in 1859 was paroled two years after being convicted. Wolf said last month that she had thanked Sweet for highlighting the mistakes, and was correcting future editions.
Continue reading...Backlash in Samoa over ‘hypocritical’ Rocketman ban
Activists accuse censors of ‘selective morality’ in nation where transgender women are widely accepted
The banning of Rocketman, a biographic film about the life of musician Elton John, in Samoa has prompted criticism by human rights activists of “selective morality” in a country where transgender women are widely accepted.
The public found out about the ban through the cancellation of a screening by the only theatre in the country, Apollo Cinemas Samoa, on Monday.
Continue reading...Pence defends Trump’s ban on pride flags at US embassies as ‘right decision’
- Administration stopped US embassies flying LGBTQ flag
- ‘When it comes to the flagpole … one American flag flies’
Vice-President Mike Pence has defended the Trump administration’s decision to prohibit US embassies from flying the rainbow pride flag on their flagpoles during LBGTQ pride month.
Related: Trump v Mueller: how the president won the messaging wars
Continue reading...Samoa bans Elton John biopic Rocketman over gay scenes
Pacific nation’s censor says homosexual activity depicted on screen violates its laws
The Pacific nation of Samoa has banned the Elton John biopic Rocketman because of its depictions of homosexuality.
About 97% of people in Samoa identify as Christian, and the society is generally considered conservative and traditional. Under Samoa’s 2013 Crimes Act, sodomy is deemed an offence punishable by up to seven years in prison, even if both parties consent.
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