Category Archives: LGBTQ+ rights

Malaysian musicians prepare lawsuit against the 1975 over festival cancellation

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Authorities cancelled the Good Vibes festival after frontman Matty Healy criticised the country’s anti-LGBTQ+ laws, leading musicians and food vendors to seek damages

A group of Malaysian musicians and festival vendors are preparing a class action lawsuit against the 1975 after frontman Matty Healy’s onstage criticism of the government’s anti-LGBTQ+ at the Good Vibes festival saw the entire event cancelled.

On Friday, Healy paused the band’s set at the Kuala Lumpur event to admit that he hadn’t looked into the country’s punitive LGBTQ+ laws before agreeing to perform there. “I don’t see the fucking point, right, I do not see the point of inviting the 1975 to a country and then telling us who we can have sex with,” he said.

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Vladimir Putin signs law banning gender changes in Russia

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Legislation outlaws medical interventions ‘aimed at changing the sex of a person’ and altering gender details in public records

Vladimir Putin has signed legislation that bans people from officially or medically changing their gender, representing a further blow to Russia’s embattled LGBTQ+ community.

The act, passed unanimously by both houses of parliament, bans any “medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person”, as well as banning changing a person’s gender in official documents or public records. The only exception will be medical intervention to treat congenital anomalies.

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Malaysia’s gay community fears backlash after Matty Healy’s outburst

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The 1975 singer’s onstage condemnation of homophobic laws has angered conservatives and left some LGBTQ+ people uneasy

The 1975 frontman Matty Healy’s recent appearance at a festival in Kuala Lumpur – where he criticised Malaysia’s homophobic laws and kissed a male bandmate on stage – has strongly angered conservatives in the country.

Members of the LGBTQ+ community have also expressed unease over his actions, fearing that the episode risks further exacerbating the hostilities they face.

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Labour vows to ‘modernise, simplify and reform’ Gender Recognition Act

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Party chair says since act was passed by party in 2004, there is now a ‘much better understanding of the barriers trans people face’

Labour will overhaul an “outdated” law to make it easier for transgender people to transition while maintaining protections for single-sex spaces, the party’s chair and shadow equalities secretary has said.

Writing in the Guardian, Anneliese Dodds accused the Conservative party of seeking to stoke “culture wars” by pinning its hopes for electoral success on “demonising vulnerable LGBT+ people”.

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LGBTQ+ military charity backs proposal for Alan Turing statue on fourth plinth

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Trafalgar Square monument would stand in ‘stark contrast’ to treatment codebreaker received in his lifetime

An LGBTQ+ armed forces charity has backed proposals to erect a statue of the second world war codebreaker Alan Turing on Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth – a high-profile platform for contemporary art commissions.

The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, originally made the suggestion in the House of Commons last week in response to an independent review into the service and experience of LGBTQ+ veterans who served under the pre-2000 ban on homosexuality in the armed forces.

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In reversal, California school district adopts curriculum on LGBTQ+ figures

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Governor Gavin Newsom welcomes news after district voted Friday to accept curriculum following a lengthy meeting

A school district in southern California has decided to adopt the state’s new social studies book and curriculum after previously rejecting it for its reference of LGBTQ+ figures in history.

The Temecula Valley unified school district voted to accept the curriculum following a lengthy meeting on Friday where parents, teachers and community members spoke for and against it. The decision has been welcomed by Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, for thwarting an attempt to “whitewash history” and removed the threat of sanctions against the school district for not adopting the curriculum.

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Malaysia bans the 1975 after Matty Healy defies anti-LGBTQ+ laws with stage kiss

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Singer’s protest kiss with bandmate and criticism of anti-homosexuality law leads to ban and festival cancellation

The English band the 1975 have been banned from performing in Malaysia after their lead singer criticised the country’s anti-LGBTQ+ laws on stage.

The group, fronted by Matty Healy, were playing at the Good Vibes festival in Kuala Lumpur on Friday.

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How Spain’s conservatives joined forces with far-right Vox

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Some in Extremadura region see local outcome as latest example of People’s party putting pragmatism over principles

Towards the end of last month, María Guardiola, who leads the conservative People’s party (PP) in the Extremadura region of south-west Spain, gave a speech in which she tore into the far-right Vox party for its denial of gender-based violence, its demonisation of migrants and its attacks on the LGBTQ+ community.

Guardiola was far from alone in her aversion to Vox’s views and tactics. The party’s most recent stunt in the run-up to Spain’s general election this Sunday – which could put the far right in government for the first time since the return to democracy after the Franco dictatorship – had been the unveiling in Madrid of a massive banner showing a giant hand tossing symbols representing feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, Catalan independence, environmental programmes and communism into a bin.

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‘Gut-churning’: anger as Hungarian president addresses major women’s rights conference

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Katalin Novák, an anti-abortionist and promoter of pro-natalist policies, spoke at the opening of the Women Deliver conference in Rwanda

Some leading delegates at a women’s rights conference in Rwanda have expressed shock at the appearance there of the Hungarian president, an anti-abortionist criticised for an anti-equality stance.

Katalin Novák, an important player in the international “anti-gender movement”, was invited by the Rwandan government to speak at the Women Deliver conference in Kigali this week, where reproductive rights is one of the areas under discussion.

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Tory MPs condemn delay to ban on LGBTQ+ conversion practices

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Letter from cross-party MPs and campaigners says slow progress on legislation is a ‘moral failing’

Senior Conservative MPs have accused the government of a “moral failing” for delaying the long-promised ban on conversion practices that they say damage the lives of LGBT+ people.

In a letter to Rishi Sunak, a cross-party group of politicians and campaigners criticised the slow progress in bringing forward new legislation since the pledge was made five years ago.

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Obscure Iowa non-profit produces new flyer calling Trump ‘trailblazer for trans’

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Second flyer sent to households in state by mysterious political group seeks to portray former president as LGBTQ+ advocate

An obscure non-profit political group in Iowa that has been attempting to portray Donald Trump as an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community is doubling down on its unlikely claim, producing a second flyer condemning the former president for “fighting conservatives” over trans rights.

The mailer repeats the messaging from the original communication that the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for next year’s election is a “trailblazer for trans”.

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Religious groups march in Malawi before court case on LGBTQ+ rights

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Faith leaders say the proceedings, brought by a transgender woman, are an attempt to legitimise ‘sinful acts’

Scores of religious groups and churches took to the streets of several cities in Malawi on Thursday to denounce same-sex marriage before a constitutional court hearing next week.

The court is expected to sit for two days from 17 July to consider a case brought by Jana Gonani, a transgender woman who was charged with “unnatural” behaviour.

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Wisconsin teacher fired for criticizing school district ban of song Rainbowland

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Melissa Tempel dismissed after she tweeted frustration at ban of Dolly Parton and Miley Cyrus song exalting virtues of inclusivity

A teacher in Wisconsin has been fired from her job after she criticized her public school district’s decision to ban the song Rainbowland, which exalts the virtues of inclusivity, from a children’s concert at her campus.

The members of the board governing public schools in the solidly Republican community of Waukesha voted unanimously to dismiss Melissa Tempel from her job on Wednesday, saying the teacher’s defense of the Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton duet violated district policy because she did not speak to her supervisors first.

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Hungarian bookstore fined for selling LGBTQ+ novel in youth section

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Heartstopper by Alice Oseman was on shelves for young people and did not have closed packaging as required by controversial law

A government office in Hungary has levied a hefty fine against a national bookseller over a LGBTQ+ graphic novel series, saying it violated a contentious law that prohibits the depiction of homosexuality to minors.

The bookseller, Líra Könyv, is Hungary’s second-largest bookstore chain. It was fined 12m forints ($36,000 or £27,400) for placing Heartstopper by the British author Alice Oseman in its youth literature section, and for failing to place it in closed packaging as required by a 2021 law.

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Queensland Uniting church minister opposed to same-sex marriage loses unfair dismissal claim

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Fair Work Commission rules Hedley Wycliff Atunaisa Fihaki was not employed by the church but sacking would remain valid even if he had been

A Uniting church minister who was sacked for public statements opposing the church’s position on same-sex marriage has lost his unfair dismissal claim.

Hedley Wycliff Atunaisa Fihaki was inducted as a minister of the Mooloolaba Uniting church in 2013, but was dismissed after anti-same-sex marriage statements in social and mainstream media between January 2019 and August 2021.

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Hungarian bookseller wraps LGBTQ+ books in plastic to stop people reading them

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Libri bows to pressure to comply with ‘child protection’ law after takeover by foundation linked to PM

Hungary’s largest bookseller has started wrapping books that feature LGBTQ+ characters in plastic to prevent customers from opening them in stores after it was taken over by a private foundation with close ties to Viktor Orbán.

Libri, which is also the country’s largest publisher, said in an email that the packaging was a request from the Hungarian consumer protection authority to follow the controversial “child protection” law that came into force in 2021.

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US religious right at center of anti-LGBTQ+ message pushed around the world

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American groups have helped to establish global web who share ideas and funding in bid to restrict gay and trans rights

When the US evangelical preacher and anti-LGBTQ+ crusader Scott Lively landed in Uganda in 2009 to warn of the “gay agenda”, he was arriving after a series of culture-war defeats at home.

More and more US states were recognizing same-sex marriage, and opinion polls were showing fewer and fewer Americans objected. Lively was there to offer Uganda’s lawmakers some advice on how to drum up outrage. “Emphasize the issue of the homosexual recruitment of children,” he advised.

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Intel executive ‘actively responsible’ for driving anti-LGBTQ+ agenda in Africa, say campaigners

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Greg Slater is co-founder with his wife Sharon of Family Watch International, a US group accused of financing propaganda about sexual and gender diversity

A group of human rights organisations in Africa renewed their calls this week for the American multinational Intel Corporation to dismiss a senior employee over his alleged involvement in fanning the growing anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment in several countries, including Kenya and Uganda.

In a change.org petition, supported by more than a dozen organisations, the rights groups claim that Greg Slater, Intel’s vice-president of global regulatory affairs, has been “actively responsible for exporting, financing, and spreading hate, homophobia” on the continent for decades, through the American conservative organisation, Family Watch International.

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Mermaids v LGB Alliance: who was involved in tribunal case?

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As judges rule trans children’s charity cannot challenge charitable status of gay rights organisation, we look at decision

A tribunal has ruled that the law does not allow the transgender children’s charity Mermaids to challenge the charitable status of the gay rights organisation LGB Alliance. Who was involved?

LGB Alliance was founded in October 2019 to campaign for the rights of same-sex attracted people by two veteran lesbian activists: Bev Jackson, a founder member of the Gay Liberation Front in 1970, and Kate Harris, who was previously a volunteer fundraiser for the leading gay rights organisation Stonewall. They were concerned at the implications of Stonewall’s decision to alter its definition of sexual orientation in 2015 from “same-sex attracted” to “same-gender attracted”.

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Influencer Dylan Mulvaney condemns Bud Light’s response to transphobia

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Trans social media star says company largely abandoned her amid bullying responses to beer promotion

Dylan Mulvaney has spoken out against Bud Light, criticizing the brand for not supporting her amid transphobic backlash to an advertisement featuring the influencer.

In a TikTok video captioned “Trans people like beer, too”, Mulvaney, who is trans, called out Bud Light for largely abandoning her after she was bullied for posting a sponsored video to Instagram with the beer brand.

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