Portland Pride Parade, 2019. (Diego Diaz/Icon Sportswire/ Getty) Non-binary people in Oregon will now be able to change the gender marker on their birth certificates to reflect their identity, an appeals court has ruled. The verdict came when Oregon’s Court of Appeals overturned a 2019 decision that barred people from changing their legal gender to
Law
LGBT+ South Africans wave Pride flags at Durban Pride Festival. (RAJESH JANTILAL/AFP/Getty Images) Lawmakers in the upper house of South Africa’s parliament passed a bill Wednesday (July 1) that bars marriage officers from objecting to marrying same-sex couples. South Africa remains an outlier in the patchwork of policies and laws in Africa wired to erase
Ali Bongo Ondimba, President of Gabon. (John Berry/WireImage) In a momentous landslide victory for LGBT+ activists, the upper house of the Gabon parliament, the Senate, voted to decriminalize homosexuality. It comes after lawmakers in the lower house of the west coast central African country voted to reverse a law criminalising same-sex relations that was only
Sarah Hegazy was jailed and tortured for holding an LGBT+ flag. She died by suicide in June 2020. (Twitter) Two Egyptian lawyers are suing Noor Hesham Selim, the transgender son of film star Hesham Selim, for an Instagram post that supported Egyptian LGBT+ activist Sara Hegazy, who died by suicide earlier this month. The lawyers
Vice President Mike Pence arrives at a campaign rally at the BOK Center, June 20, 2020 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. (Win McNamee/Getty Images) Vice president Mike Pence has reacted pretty much exactly as you’d expect to the Supreme Court ruling that you can’t just fire people for being gay anymore. Pence, known for his hardline anti-LGBT+
Donald Trump has said he will “live with” the Supreme Court’s ruling that LGBT+ people are entitled to civil rights protections, despite his administration’s fierce opposition in court. In a landmark 6-3 ruling on Monday, the court affirmed that LGBT+ people are entitled to protection from discrimination based on their sexual orientation and gender identity under Title VII,
Donald Zarda, Aimee Stephens and Gerald Bostock (L-R) have helped secure LGBT+ rights for millions Tributes have been paid to Aimee Stephens, Gerald Bostock and Donald Zarda – the three LGBT+ plaintiffs whose combined discrimination cases led to the US Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in favour of equality. In a landmark 6-3 ruling on Monday,
People attend a Sunday mass in the Sanctuary of Montenero while social distancing on May 10, 2020 in Livorno, Italy. (Laura Lezza/Getty) A group of Italian Catholic bishops has attacked proposed legislation against homophobia and transphobia, claiming it would make “expression of a legitimate opinion” a crime. Employment discrimination based on sexual orientation was made
Donald Trump holds an LGBT+ Pride flag given to him by supporter. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to allow adoption agencies to discriminate against same-sex couples in the name of religion. Department of Justice attorneys submitted a 35-page brief to the Supreme Court asking it to rule in favour
Dr Caroline Norma will appear on a panel discussing “the major concerns around the proposed [conversion therapy] ban”. (CarolineNorma76/ Twitter) Students are revolting at an Australian university after a lecturer signed up to be a panellist at a “unscientific and dangerous” gay conversion therapy forum. Dr Caroline Norma is a lecturer in the School of
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro during a press conference amidst the coronavirus pandemic. (Andressa Anholete / Getty) Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered the release of an expletive-filled video of president and “proud homophobe” Jair Bolsonaro as part of a corruption investigation. When Brazil’s former justice minister Sergio Moro resigned last month, he claimed that Bolsonaro had been
Aimee Stephens outside the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, October 8, 2019. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images) Aimee Stephens, the woman who brought the first-ever transgender civil rights case to the Supreme Court, is receiving hospice care at home after her health took a turn for the worse. Her case was one of a
Jens Spahn, German minister of health, announced the conversion therapy ban on Thursday, May 7. (Maja Hitij/ Getty) Germany has banned traumatising conversion therapy for people under the age of 18, and introduced penalties for adults, putting the UK and US to shame. On Thursday evening, May 7, the Bundestag passed a law which completely
A Florida appeals court has ditched vital LGBT+ discrimination protections in the middle of a global pandemic. Florida’s 1st District Court of Appeals struck down the law, which protected LGBT+ people’s right to public accommodation, employment and housing, in a ruling last Friday (May 1). Plaintiffs in the case argued that the LGBT+ protections, which
Sandra Spagnoli, a police chief who allegedly called a lesbian “gross”, has resigned after an officer claimed he was denied a promotion because he wouldn’t sleep with her. Spagnoli, who is police chief in Beverly Hills, is set to retire on May 15, four years after she was appointed to the post. She became the
Security guards patrol the grounds at an immigration detention centre in Sydney, Australia in 2005. (Ian Waldie/Getty Images) A gay Pakistani couple who fled to Australia have been granted a temporary reprieve after asylum courts initially said their sexuality was “implausible”. Both asylum seekers appealed after their applications for permanent protection visas were rejected, and
HIV-positive former police officer Liam Pierce applied for a job with the Iberia parish sheriff’s office in New Iberia, Louisiana, in 2012. (Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor) A former police officer in Louisiana will get a $90,000 settlement after he was denied a job as a sheriff’s deputy when he revealed that he was
A Colorado lawyer who referred to a judge as a “gay fat fag” has been ordered to undertake cultural sensitivity training. According to documents released from an administrative tribunal, Denver lawyer Robert E Abrams was reported by his own clients in a construction dispute after he sent them an email deriding judge Phillip Douglass, who
In the middle of a global crisis, Republican Idaho governor Brad Little is focusing on attacking trans people In the midst of a global pandemic, Republican Idaho governor Brad Little has effectively declared open season on trans people in his state. On Monday, Little signed two laws that campaigners say effectively make trans people second-class
Tavoy Malcom, charged with conning several elderly women of their savings, is suing the federal federal government for housing her, a trans woman, with male inmates. (Instagram) After her pleas were repeatedly ignored, a trans woman is suing the American federal government after she was raped by two inmates after being housed with men. Tavoy
A lawsuit states that the Trump administration haw ‘unlawful’ plans to strip LGBT+ Americans of vital discrimination protections, threatening access to federally-funded services. (Evan Vucci-Pool/Getty Images) A lawsuit states that the Trump administration has ‘unlawful’ plans to strip LGBT+ Americans of vital discrimination protections, threatening access to federally-funded services. The suit centres on a “notice
Former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. (Ty Wright/Getty) A Kentucky clerk who refused to issue marriage licences to gay couples is now trying to get same-sex marriage outlawed in the United States. Kim Davis, who is a former clerk for Rowan county, is involved with a
One brave 14-year-old has helped secure gender recognition reform in New York state. On Tuesday, it was announced New York will will no longer require medical evidence for gender recognition, and will recognise the legal gender of young transgender people for the first time. The decision comes after Lambda Legal sued the state on behalf
Last week, the UK’s High Court granted a landmark judicial review into whether young transgender people can give informed consent to puberty blockers. The legal challenge is an attempt to force trans teens to go before a judge before being given medical treatment by doctors. But what are puberty blockers? Puberty-pausing medication, known as puberty
Nikki Kuhnhausen, 17, who was tragically killed after her assailant discovered she was transgender (Facebook) Washington has just become the tenth US state to ban the ‘gay panic’ murder defence, passing the measure in honour of Nikki Kuhnhausen, a transgender teen who was killed last year. The controversial ‘gay panic defence’ justifies violence against LGBT+