Like India and Pakistan, Bangladesh also its colonial era Indian Penal Code “Section 377″, although it hasn’t been enforced for the last two decades. What is life like for its LGBT communities?
With 162 million inhabitants, Bangladesh is the seventh most populous nation in the world. Until 1971, it was “East Pakistan,” until neglect and nationalist […]

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Polygamist B.C. religious leaders Winston Blackmore and Jim Oler for polygamy may not face further criminal charges, after B.C. Supreme Court Judge Sunni Stromberg-Stein decided that ex-provincial Attorney-General Wally Oppal had no standing to have lawyer Terry Robertson appointed as a special prosecutor. This appointment was in itself illegal and Mr. Robertson’s consequent prosecution “was therefore unlawful,” she wrote in a 34-page decision released today.
The […]

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Indonesia has two hundred and thirty million people, six hundred and seventy ethnic groups, and an estimated ninety percent of the population is Muslim, although significant Hindu and Buddhist minorities exist on some of its six thousand inhabited islands. The archipelago has had a troubled history. For its first two decades of independence from Dutch […]

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In Serbia, a planned Belgrade Pride march has been called off. Serbia’s prime minister Mirko Cvetkovic had urged organisers to change tomorrow’s planned rally from the Serbian capital, but the proposal was “unacceptable”. President Boris Tadic supported the march and said that he would  protect the participants, however, which is an advance from the Milosevic regime of the nineties.  A […]

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There are many new works of exquisite creative brilliance emanating from the contemporary multiple-personality movement. Puyseger Seamount looks set to become a classic work from their perspective.
More so than Aotearoa/New Zealand’s own Bacchante Inferno (2021)? Well, yes. As much as I admired the deliberate revival of classical Greek choral polyphonic drama in that work, it […]

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According to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Elton John is a “sinner!”
After the gay singer was  told he was ’too old’ to  adopt a 14-month-old boy from the country, he was criticised by the religious group who have “thanked God” he won’t be allowed to parent. UOC spokesperson Father Georgy Gulyaev of the Donetsk Diocese stated in Britain’s Daily Mail that:“Thank God it’s impossible under […]

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As I sit here, awaiting the end, I wonder if Michael or Jessica will be waiting for me at the other side. To those who find my entombed remains and the body beside me, my name is Judith Whittaker. I was a microbiology grad student at Saviour University in Orange County, California.
And yes, I did […]

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In China’s Guangzhou city, its local gay community is taking a collective stand against being moved on while engaged in the act of cruising, which tends to be their only way to meet others away from the prying eyes of family members or from expensive existing gay venues.  Around fifty gay men have refused to accept ongoing […]

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Human Rights Watch has uncovered the latest depradations of the Mahdi Army Shia Islamist militia against besieged Iraqi LGBT communities- use of the Internet to track, torture and kill them.
A chilling Guardian article opens with one Amid Hamizi (22), a computer science grad, monitoring local Iraqi LGBT websites to uncover and out local Iraqi LGBT communications. […]

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Although the Shia Islamic Republic of Iran is a nightmare for lesbians and gay men who live under its interpretation of shariah law, its brand of Shia Islam is surprisingly humane when it comes to Iranian transpeople.
Iran allows state subsidised gender reassignment surgery, and there are even supportive theological opinions that allow transpeople to […]

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