Category Archives: LGBTQ+ rights

Minns backs LGBTQ+ reforms but students and teachers at religious schools could still face discrimination

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Independent Alex Greenwich says ‘heartbreaking’ to lose his proposed laws governing treatment of gay students and teachers but ‘it’s not over’

Transgender people in New South Wales could soon be able to change their sex on their birth certificates without getting surgery, but gay teachers will still be able to be fired from some schools after a watered-down proposal received the premier’s support.

The premier, Chris Minns, will this week ask the Labor caucus to back independent MP Alex Greenwich’s equality bill after a raft of amendments were made, including dropping changes to the Anti-Discrimination Act governing schools.

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Georgian president refuses to sign anti-LGBTQ+ rights bill into law

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Salome Zourabichvili opts not to advance bans on same-sex marriages and on adoptions by same-sex couples

Georgia’s president has refused to sign into law a bill aimed at severely curtailing LGBTQ+ rights, weeks after the controversial legislation was passed by the country’s parliament.

Last month Georgia’s parliament was heavily criticised after it approved the legislation, which sets out sweeping bans on same-sex marriages, adoptions by same-sex couples and curbs on gender-affirming treatments.

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Labor’s 11th-hour decision on LGBTQ+ census questions prompted weekend scramble, documents reveal

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Australian Bureau of Statistics officers cancelled media briefings and social media promotion after Albanese government’s last-minute decision

The Albanese government’s last-minute rejection of proposed questions on sexuality and gender diversity in the upcoming 2026 census sent bureaucrats into a weekend scramble, new documents show.

In the late hours of Friday 23 August and Saturday 24 August, officials at the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) agreed to cancel a scheduled media briefing on Monday 26 August and the rollout of its “large-scale” test census to 50,000 households from Tuesday 27 August as a result of the 11th-hour decision.

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Concerns over Gender Queer book dismissed by Australian classifications board as anti-LGBTQ+, court hears

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Barrister acting for Bernard Gaynor says board failed to engage with submissions – but counsel for minister of communications suggests some lacked context

The Australian classifications board made a “broadbrush dismissal” of over 500 submissions calling for a ban of the book Gender Queer by labelling those submissions as anti-LGBTQ+, a court has heard.

In July last year, the Classification Board rejected calls to restrict access to a memoir about gender identity that was the target of conservative campaigns to have it banned in the US, and found the content was appropriate for its intended audience.

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ABS warned Albanese government that excluding LGBTQ+ questions risked the success of census

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Australian Bureau of Statistics also told MP Andrew Leigh not including questions on sexual orientation and gender would do ‘damage’

The Albanese government was warned that excluding questions on sexual orientation and gender identity from the census could increase feelings of exclusion in the LGBTQ+ community and even risk the success of the data collection exercise, newly released documents reveal.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics raised concerns in ministerial submissions about strong public criticism to scrapping the proposed questions, potential “damage” to relationships with LGBTQ+ expert groups advising on the census and limitations in the quality of data the census collects.

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Four teenagers arrested amid investigation into alleged homophobic attacks involving dating apps in WA

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Detectives charge boys with armed robbery offences after app allegedly used to arrange meetings

Police investigating a series of alleged homophobic assaults have accused four Western Australian teenagers of assaulting two men they separately arranged to meet via an online dating app.

The arrests came after police said they were investigating incidents in which men had agreed to meet someone they connected with on a dating app, and had then allegedly been assaulted by several males while being subjected to homophobic slurs.

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NSW police reopen two investigations after landmark gay hate crime inquiry

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Police commissioner Karen Webb hopes new technology and fresh eyes lead to breakthrough in two of state’s 854 unsolved murders

New South Wales police have reopened active investigations into two of the state’s 854 unsolved murders as part of their response to a landmark inquiry that found they failed to properly investigate dozens of potential gay hate crimes over 40 years.

The two murders are being investigated while detectives look at a further 213 case files prioritised by a special unit of the state’s police force – Taskforce Atlas - which was launched to oversee the implementation of the gay hate crime inquiry’s recommendations.

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Religious groups ‘spending billions to counter gender-equality education’

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Report reveals how US Christians, Catholic schools and Islamists fight sex education, LGBTQ+ and equal rights

Extreme religious groups and political parties are targeting schools around the world as part of a coordinated and well-funded attack on gender equality, according to a new report.

Well-known conservative organisations aim to restrict girls’ access to education, change what is on the curriculum, and influence educational laws and policies, according to Whose Hands on our Education, a report by the Overseas Development Institute.

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‘I’m a new racist’: Michigan judge suspended after insulting gay and Black people on recordings

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Court worker secretly recorded calls in which Kathleen Ryan made homophobic slur and called Black people lazy

A suburban Detroit judge is no longer handling cases after a court official turned over recordings of her making anti-gay insults and referring to Black people as lazy.

Oakland county probate judge Kathleen Ryan was removed from her docket on 27 August for unspecified misconduct. Now the court’s administrator has stepped forward to say he blew the whistle on her, secretly recording their phone calls.

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Census questions on trans and gender diverse people ‘critical’ and not too complex, health institutes tell Labor

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Health bodies say the questions are needed to fill gaps in much-needed research

Leading health experts have criticised the federal government for suggesting proposed LGBTQI+ questions should be excluded from the census because they were “too complex” – arguing similar questions are already used elsewhere.

Versions of the proposed questions have been answered by 85,000 Australians in existing health surveys administered by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

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‘We are seeking to discriminate’: lesbian group wanting to exclude trans women compares itself to Melbourne gay bar

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Australian Human Rights Commission says Peel hotel’s right to refuse heterosexual people was granted to help gay men achieve equality

A lawyer for a Victorian lesbian group that wants to exclude transgender and bisexual women from its public events has compared its request to a Melbourne gay bar that was granted the right to refuse heterosexual people.

But a lawyer for the Australian Human Rights Commission said the Peel hotel’s exemption had been granted under Victorian state law to help gay men achieve equality, unlike the Lesbian Action Group’s application, which discriminates against transgender women.

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Questions on gender and sex variations ‘too complex’ for census, social services minister Amanda Rishworth says

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It’s the third explanation government ministers have given since last Sunday, while Coalition senator Andrew Bragg says questions are ‘reasonable’

The social services minister has offered up the latest explanation for why proposed questions on gender and sex variations were dumped from the next census, claiming they were too complicated.

In an interview with Sky News on Sunday, Amanda Rishworth gave a new reason for why new questions had been ditched from the census planning, saying the government had been shown “questions that were very complex in the census”.

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Sex discrimination commissioner urges Labor to reverse decision excluding gender and sexuality census questions

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Anna Cody worries the Albanese government’s backflip could ‘strengthen the voices of discrimination’

The sex discrimination commissioner has called on the Albanese government to put gender and sexuality questions in the census, as the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, appeared to open the door to revising the controversial decision to exclude them.

On Thursday Anna Cody wrote to the government warning backtracking on a commitment to ask about gender and sexuality “carries serious implications for the health, wellbeing and general equality of LGBTIQA+ Australians and their families”.

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‘Impossible’ to make policy for LGBTQ+ community without extra census questions, crossbenchers say

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Crossbench MPs demand explanation for government’s decision to drop proposed ABS questions about sexuality, gender diversity from census

Crossbench MPs are seeking an urgent explanation from the Albanese government about why it dumped new topics on sexuality and gender diversity from the next census – a decision that left the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras “deeply concerned and disappointed”.

The move, confirmed by the assistant minister for the Treasury, Andrew Leigh, on Sunday, comes more than a year after the Australian Bureau of Statistics issued its statement of regret over the distress felt by the LGBTQ+ community as a result of being left out of the census.

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Dozens of UK school librarians asked to remove LGBTQ+ books, survey finds

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Index on Censorship said 53% of librarians polled had been asked to remove books – and that in more than half of those cases books were taken off shelves

More than two dozen school librarians in the UK have been asked to remove books – many of which are LGBTQ+ titles – from school library shelves, according to new survey data.

The Index on Censorship survey found that 28 of 53 librarians polled – 53% – said that they had been asked to remove books. In more than half of those cases books were taken off shelves.

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Inquiry into Mexico’s ‘dirty war’ obstructed by military and other agencies, board says

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Report details years of abuse in 90s during authoritarian one-party system, but says its inquiries were often stymied

An independent commission charged by Mexico’s president with documenting human rights atrocities committed by the state has accused the country’s military and other government agencies of obstructing their investigation and threatening the country’s transition towards justice and democracy.

A blistering report released on Friday details years of abuses committed by Mexico’s government and its armed forces between 1965 and 1990, a period known as the country’s “dirty war” when it was ruled by an authoritarian one-party system which violently repressed any form of dissent.

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Custody ruling in same-sex case hailed as LGBTQ+ milestone in China

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Woman wins visiting rights to see daughter, but not son, in first recognition that child can have two legal mothers

A woman fighting a landmark LGBTQ+ custody battle in China said she “still has faith for the future” after winning the right to make monthly visits to her daughter.

Last month, Didi, who is 42 and lives in Shanghai, travelled to Beijing to visit her seven-year-old daughter, who lives in the capital with Didi’s estranged wife and their other child. It was the first time Didi and her daughter had seen each other in four years.

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Olympic ‘drag queen scene’ DJ files legal complaint after torrent of online abuse

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A DJ and LGBTQ+ activist who performed during a controversial scene in the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony has said she is taking legal action after becoming the target of “an extremely violent campaign of cyber-harassment and defamation”.

Barbara Butch, who calls herself a “love activist”, had been “threatened with death, torture and rape, and has also been the target of numerous antisemitic, homophobic, sexist and body-shaming insults”, her lawyer said in a post on her Instagram page.

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Woman loses appeal over child’s birth certificate after ex-wife had sex with donor

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Judge dismisses challenge over removal of woman’s name and warns against risks of informal conception arrangements

A woman has lost a court of appeal challenge over her name being removed from a child’s birth certificate after her ex-wife admitted she secretly had sex with their sperm donor.

The “unprecedented” and “unusual” case centred on the question of who were the legal parents of a girl, now aged six.

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Transfemicide becomes a crime in a ‘watershed’ moment for Mexico City

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Galvanized by the 2016 murder of trans sex worker Paola Buenrostro, activists applaud law as critical for feeling safe

When the trans sex worker Paola Buenrostro was killed by a client in Mexico City, her friend Kenya Cuevas grabbed the man to stop him fleeing and recorded the scene as police arrived amid sirens, screams and red and blue lights.

Despite the footage and witness testimonies, a judge considered there was insufficient evidence to hold the man and released him after 48 hours, since which time he has been on the run.

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