UK: LGBT rights: The brave nurses who supported people who underwent 'gay cures' in post-war Britain

As the RCN celebrates 100 years of the nursing profession, it’s worth pausing to remember the nursing staff who had the courage and compassion to fight back during some of the health service’s darker days.

Homosexual men – and it was predominantly men – were institutionalised in British mental hospitals and given "treatment" for their "condition" – the most well-known being Second World War Code Breaker, Alan Turing. Following his arrest and prosecution for a relationship with another man, Turing was given the "choice" between a prison sentence or oestrogen treatment and died not long after. 

Whilst the majority were enduring chemical aversion therapy, the absence of protocols or medical guidelines for such treatment meant that in some cases homosexual and transsexual men were given electrical shock treatment in the most appalling of circumstances. Refused water and being forced to lie in their own vomit and faeces as matter of course, many likened their experiences to torture. But this wasn’t Nazi Germany – this was post war Britain – a country supposedly entering into a new and brighter future.  Read more via the Independent 

South Africa musician Nakhane Toure tackles gay themes

Nakhane Mahlakahlaka, popularly known to many as Nakhane Toure, is an award winning South African singer-songwriter influenced by Mali's Ali Farka Toure. His 2014 debut album Brave Confusion saw him being crowned newcomer of the year at the South African Music Awards, and he is now working on a new project with popular South African DJ Black Coffee.

He has also come out as gay, something which he has addressed in his music. Read more

India: Old custom, new couples

It’s a custom for which India is well known: arranged marriages, when parents pick appropriate spouses for their children based on caste, class, education and looks. By some counts, as many as three in four Indians still prefer to find a partner this way. “Matrimonial” ads — personal ads seeking brides and grooms — have been common in Indian newspapers for decades, and in the Internet age apps and websites have proliferated around the demand.

Now, an Indian-American is bringing these convenient matchmaking tools to gay men and women around the world — even if India won’t recognize their marriages yet.

“The big step for us was when the United States made gay marriage legal,” said Joshua Samson, the CEO of Arranged Gay Marriage. “We knew there is a huge underground gay and lesbian community in India, and we thought why not spread some light out there, help people who feel like they can never be helped?” Read more via PRI

Middle East, op-ed: The myth of the queer Arab life

For most people in the West life in the Arab world for gay people is hard to fathom. It is, like many other parts of life in this region, complicated. 

One of my favorite television shows growing up was a Ramadan special featuring an Egyptian performer called Sherihan. One year she had a Ramadan special called ‘Sherihan Around the World’, a twenty-minute singing and dancing extravaganza, which had her dressing in exquisite costumes from around the world and performing elaborate song and dance routines. Sherihan was a woman, but she was the best drag queen I had ever seen: camp, self-aware, and fabulous. She had planted in me, without my knowledge, the first seeds of my own gay identity.

Twelve years later, when I was living in Amman, my boyfriend broke up with me. I was becoming too open with my sexuality, he said. I had confided in too many people. Being with me was becoming dangerous. I told him that no one would kill us, let alone threaten us. The Jordanian police don’t have a history of targeting gay men, I reasoned, especially those of our social class. But that wasn’t the danger, he explained. The danger was that being seen with me was making people think he was ‘gay’. And he did not want to be seen as ‘gay’. Read more via Daily Beast

Belgium: Gay couples discuss their experiences with adoption

Tom De Cock launches his new book, in which he shares his personal experience with adoption. Often adoption by gay people is not so positive in the picture, and Tom would like to correct a few things. 

Mexico: Football body urges fans to stop anti-gay chants

The Mexican Soccer Federation launched a campaign on Tuesday urging fans to refrain from anti-gay chants that drew fines from FIFA earlier this year. It may be a tough fight, judging by the plea’s failure to deter fans at a Mexican national team game Tuesday night.

Called “Embraced by Soccer,” the campaign consists of a couple of 30-second videos in which popular stars including forward Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez, captain and defender Rafael Marquez and midfielder Andres Guardado ask fans not to engage in discriminatory behaviour. Announced hours before Mexico hosted Canada in a 2018 World Cup qualifier for the CONCACAF region, the campaign didn’t stop fans at the capital’s Azteca Stadium from making the chants during the nighttime match won 2-0 by the home team. The message was played for the crowd before the game and at halftime.

In a statement, the soccer federation said the videos aim to discourage “a practice that is contrary to respect and the dignity of people.” 

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Russian crackdown on ‘Gay Propaganda’ extends to Calvin Klein Ad

Here are some things that Russian authorities have labeled gay propaganda: holding & signs that say “Gay is OK”; rainbow balloons; a friendship between a captive goat and tiger; and reporting on gay rights. Now, a Calvin Klein ad is being investigated as a potential offender after complaints were filed in the northern town of Arkhangelsk by locals who watched it on YouTube.

The advertisement, which features two men riding on a motorcycle together and two women running behind a fence and flashing freeway drivers, is the subject of a three-week investigation into whether it violates a 2013 law that legally prohibited promoting “non-traditional sexual relationships” to children. The ad also shows two opposite-sex couples kissing.

The 2013 law has had a chilling effect on LGBT rights activists and LGBT people in Russia, who have reported increased levels of harassment and hate crimes. Last month, a proposal to jail LGBT individuals who are open about their identity found support in Russia’s legislature, though the proposal was ultimately rejected. Read more via Foreign Policy

Cook Islands: Drag pageant returns

The Cook Islands have revived its popular transgender pageant the Mizz Jewel competition after a 10 year break as part of a campaign to decriminalise homosexuality.

Organiser Valentino Wichman, who has been awarded a 2016 Commonwealth Queens Young Leaders Award for service to gay rights activism in the Cook Islands, says it's about celebrating diversity and embracing differences.

"I would say socially we are generally accepted but there is still that legal aspect hanging over our heads," he says.

"For us it's about trying to educate them (the public) that we are part of society and we come from normal families."

Hundreds of people packed the national auditorium for the show which featured a dazzling array of talent, evening wear and a creative section. 

Read more

The vatican’s ban on romantic gay drama ‘Weekend’ appears to have backfired

A Vatican ban on romantic gay drama film Weekend appears to have backfired after the film posted the highest per-screen-average takings as it opened in Italy this weekend.

The independent British film, directed by Looking’s Andrew Haigh and released in the UK back in 2011, was restricted to just ten cinemas in the country after the Italian Bishop’s Conference Film Evaluation Commission branded the story about a burgeoning gay romance “indecent” and “unusable”.

Weekend was consequently shunned by the more than 1,100 Catholic Church-owned cinemas, which make up the bulk of Italy’s network of independent movie theatres – but the ban appears to have backfired after the film pulled in more than $6,221 per screen on its opening weekend, well ahead of the The Divergent Series: Allegiant’s second-highest per-screen average of $4,217. Read more via Attitude

Saudis seek virtual freedoms denied in real life

When it comes to freedoms, human rights organisations will tell you Saudi Arabia doesn't have the best track record. And perhaps because compared to elsewhere there is limited personal freedom, defiance across the region has gone digital.

In this part of the BBC's special series "Saudis on social" we tell the stories of three anonymous accounts on Twitter which all tell of searching for virtual freedom in Saudi Arabia. But what impact does this secret life have on those who live this way?
Read via BBC & Watch the videos

This Photographer Is Asking People To Pose Nude In The Name Of Body Love

Anastasia Kuba/Hanna Quevedo / Via nothingbutlight.io

This is artist Anastasia Kuba. A former topless dancer, Kuba had a revelation in her mid-twenties about how society ties the idea of worth to physical appearance, and began using photography to make a change. This spawned Nothing but Light, a project in which Kuba photographs volunteers in the nude to help them reconcile their relationships with their bodies. 

Kuba’s subjects are a mix of folks she knows, and ones she’s found through social media — which, to her delight, have turned out to be an amazing array of people. Read more via Buzzfeed (nsfw)

China: No sex, drugs, witches or gays: Banning ‘morally hazardous’ content from TV

What do teenage romance, extra-marital affairs, reincarnation and homosexuality have in common? They’ve all been banned from Chinese television dramas.

Crime shows that reveal police strategies and tactics have also been banned so that criminals can’t use the information to ‘up their game’.

The government’s ‘General Principle of Television Drama Production Content’, released in December, serves as a “professional guideline” for industry experts, according to Li Jingsheng, chief of television drama under the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television. Read more