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June 15, 2013

Belarus lawmakers deny reports of plans to recriminalize being gay in the country, which have alarmed the local LGBT community

Earlier reports that circulated in Belarus’s media, that plans are afoot in the country's parliament to pass a law that would recriminalize gay sex, were firmly denied.

June 11, 2013

Lawyer for three men pepper sprayed and arrested by New York City police officers maintains all legal options are on the table

Various politicians and organizations stood in front of New York City's police headquarters in support of three men who videotaped an alleged homophobic encounter with an officer.

June 11, 2013

In her career Major Gneral Patricia 'Trish' Rose has directed joint logistics for operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom.

The US Air Force now has the highest ranking out officer in the country's military.

In a late May ceremony, Patricia 'Trish' Rose was promoted to major general. The proceedings were
led by her direct supervisor, General Janet Wolfenbarger, the first female four-star general in the Air Force.

June 10, 2013

As one gay man was taken to hospital due to the injuries from too-tight handcuffs, the three gay men are accusing the NYPD of police brutality

Three gay men are claiming they were the victims of police brutality in New York.

In a video posted today (10 June), Josh Williams, Ben Collins and Antonio Maenza claim a NYPD officer accused one of them of of public urination. Williams says he attacked him and threw him against a police car.

As seen in the clip, the officer was joined by others who pepper sprayed Williams on the ground while he was in handcuffs.

The group of officers then arrested the other two men.

June 3, 2013

Britain’s House of Lords debate same-sex marriage equality with lesbian and gay peers taking a leading part in the debate

Gay people should be denied marriage because it would lead to four-way weddings and for the same reason blind people can’t see, Britain’s House of Lords has heard.

The upper chamber of the British parliament had been debating the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill for England and Wales today (3 June) ahead of a crucial, although not final, vote tomorrow.

Peers have also heard, from supporters of gay marriage, the bill will deliver equality, improve society and send a message of support to LGBT people at home and abroad.

May 31, 2013

Denmark’s capital city continues to surprise and impress with its nordic cool and relaxed charm

There was an enormous and slow-moving queue at the EasyJet bag-drop. I felt quite righteous as I breezed by with my carry-on luggage – channeling my inner-George Clooney (circa ‘Up In The Air’), streamlining my travel and my life to zen-like minimalism.

May 31, 2013

Two policemen didn’t realize they were still on the line when they began ridiculing a lesbian woman and her partner

Two Police Scotland officers were recorded in a voicemail making offensive comments about a lesbian couple.

Earlier this week, an officer identified as PC Murray with Police Scotland made a routine call to Nicola Reilly, a bouncer at Chalmers nightclub in Bathgate, West Lothian, to get her account of a fight she witnessed.

In the voicemail, the officer asked Reilly to call him back, and then neglected to hang up the line before starting a conversation with another man in the background.

May 18, 2013

An employment tribunal ruled this week that detective Kevin Maxwell suffered from homophobic and racist bullying in the police force

A tribunal has ruled that a former police officer was victim to homophobic and racist abuse while on the force.

An employment tribunal found that Kevin Maxwell suffered from ‘an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment’ as a gay black man working as a counter-terrorism officer.

The hearing was held because the Metropolitan Police Service, responsible for law enforcement in greater London, was trying to appeal Maxwell's claims that he was fired unjustly.

May 15, 2013

London Catholic school denies calling a gay rights charity for help after a five-year-old called a student's shoes 'gay'

Stonewall has denied advising a Catholic school on student's 'gay' shoes.

St Mary’s Catholic Primary School in Wimbledon, south-west London, called on Stonewall to help students and teachers about dealing with homophobia.

May 2, 2013

Police constable Ian Ashton has been awarded for helping LGBT members of the UK police

UK’s Lancashire Police Constabulary have awarded their equality and diversity officer for his work on LGBT issues within the police.

Police Constable Ian Ashton received a Regional Commander’s Commendation award presented by Chief Superintendent James Lee.

‘I am extremely proud to have received this and it supports and endorses Lancashire constabulary’s work around LGB&T,’ Ashton told Gay Star News.

The commendation was awarded for Ashton’s work on national and local LGBT issues.

May 2, 2013

LGBT sports organizations around the world continue to play a key role in eliminating homophobia from sport

Continuing our mission to profile the LGBT sports organizations of the world, we meet graphic designer Ricardo Mendi Serrano, communications officer for Elaios LGBT sports club which is based in Spain’s fifth largest city – Zaragoza.

When was the organization established?

Elaios was created after some of us participated at the 2003 edition of Eurogames in Copenhagen.

We wanted to organize something similar in Zaragoza.

April 30, 2013

LGBT football association throws its weight behind calls for FIFA to investigate claims that Nigeria is actively excluding lesbians from the women’s team

While Nigeria’s Football Association has denied claims that lesbians are being excluded from the country’s national team, the International Gay and Lesbian Football Association (IGLFA) is backing calls for international governing body FIFA (the international soccer organization) to investigate.

We spoke with Hans Laursen, IGLFA’s communications officer, to learn more about the organization and their work in tackling homophobia in the sport of football.

Why was IGLFA established?

April 30, 2013

Council of Europe tells 29 member countries coerced sterilization of transgender people is a major human rights abuse, urges action

Twenty-nine countries in Europe are insisting transgender people are sterilized before their true gender is recognized in law.

That represents a major abuse of human rights and must stop, says a new report from the Council of Europe.

In many European countries, sterilization or sex reassignment surgery or both are a requirement for the country to legally recognize a transgender person in his or her new gender.

While gender reassignment surgery may incidentally cause someone to become sterile, some countries also insist on sterilization.

April 23, 2013

Bernard Gaynor, who was deselected as a candidate for senate by Katter's Australian Party, disciplined by the Australian army for anti-Islamic and anti-LGBT comments

Reserve Australian army officer and former senate candidate Bernard Gaynor has been disciplined by the Australian Defence Force (ADF) for comments about Islam and the army marching in the Sydney Mardi Gras LGBT rights parade.

Gaynor said on Facebook yesterday that he had been charged seven times by the ADF for, in his words:

April 5, 2013

Sunil Pant has come along way from not even knowing the word for gay before he was twenty to getting LGBTI rights recognized by the Supreme Court in Nepal, and he's not going to let current troubles hold him back

It's not an easy time for Sunil Pant, founder of the largest LGBT rights group in Nepal, Blue Diamond Society (BDS). A government office has sat on the renewal of BDS's license, holding-up funding so that staff haven't been paid for months. LGBTI activists are also being harassed, which Pant links to the same government officer.

March 28, 2013

Goodluck Jonathan has pardoned a former military officer who was sentenced for sodomizing four teen boys

Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan has pardoned an allegedly gay man who was sentenced to jail for sodomy.

Bello Magaji, a former military officer, was sentenced to five years imprisonment for allegedly raping four male teens.

Magaji was one of a dozen convicts who had earned the president’s pardon after a Council of State meeting, and it is unknown what he did to earn it.

While it is unknown how old the students were, it is understood they were under the age of consent for heterosexual sex, 21. When giving evidence, one of the teens was 17.

March 8, 2013

Texas woman is facing jail time for assault after catching her 15-year-old son in bed with her 18-year-old cousin

A Texas woman is facing jail time after she beat her teenage son with an electrical cord after catching him in bed with another man.

Erica Moore, of Forest Hill, said one night she opened her 15-year-old son’s bedroom door to discover he was not alone, and her teenage male cousin was in the room with him.

CBS-DFW reports as she walked in, she saw her 18-year-old cousin giving oral sex to her 15-year-old son.

March 6, 2013

Over 200,000 people have watched YouTube video of a young man being thrown to the ground while handcuffed by a NSW Police officer at this year’s Sydney Mardi Gras Parade  - which Sydney’s LGBT community plans to protest

Over 200,000 people have watched a YouTube video of Sydney teenager Jamie Jackson being thrown onto the pavement while handcuffed at this year’s Sydney Mardi Gras Parade in less than three days.

A press photographer who took the video claims that he saw Jackson struggling with police officers who had him restrained as he demanded to know why he was under arrest.

March 6, 2013

Jamie Jackson, 18, has said he is not angry with the police force in general, just the officer who threw him to the ground

The 18-year-old who was seen attacked by a policeman at Sydney’s gay Mardi Gras has said he is not angry at the authorities, just the officer.

In the video, which has now been viewed over 200,000 times, Jamie Jackson is seen being held by the throat, slammed to the ground and stood on by a police officer.

Jackson is seen screaming ‘I did nothing wrong!’ as he is arrested by the police.

NSW Police has announced he was charged with assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest and using offensive language in public.

February 21, 2013

Eyewitnesses claim London police officers threw a transgender woman to the ground, handcuffed her and caused deliberate pain while saying she is 'not normal'

A transgender woman was violently handled, abused and arrested by the police, in broad daylight in the heart of London's gay quarter, according to eyewitnesses.

Mr Johnson and his partner Mr Shayan (who prefer to be identified only by their surname) were eyewitness to the incident, taking photos and video footage.

They told GSN that a trans woman, later identied by the police as 49 year-old Jose Dos Santos, was brutally arrested by police officers in Soho, London.

February 18, 2013

GSN heads to Taibach, South Wales to learn about acting icon Richard Burton and to find out about his gay links

‘Famous Welsh actor that was married to Elizabeth Taylor’ was about the extent of my knowledge about Richard Burton.

But it had just been announced he was being given a star on the Hollywood walk of fame, and I was in South Wales near the town where he was born, so it seemed like a good opportunity to learn a bit more about this icon of stage and screen.

Although never having formally trained as an actor, Burton was widely recognised and awarded as one of the leading actors of his generation - let’s re-cap some of the key facts:

February 10, 2013

News report shows the Colorado State Patrol tolerated bigotry and homophobia

A television news investigation suggests there were repeated examples of LGBT discrimination in the  Colorado State Patrol.

February 10, 2013

Chief Warrant Officer Charlie Morgan dies after a battle with cancer

Chief Warrant Officer Charlie Morgan, a vocal opponent against the Defense of Marriage Act, died earlier today (10 January).

'She made an indelible mark on everyone she met with her integrity, her positive outlook, and her unflinching commitment to righting the wrongs visited upon gay and lesbian military families,' said Allyson Robinson, the executive director of OutServe-SLDN, in a statement. 'The fight for full LGBT equality in this country is forever changed because Charlie Morgan took up the cause.'

February 9, 2013

The Police Chief of a small town in Ohio has gone public about the harassment of a gay police officer by the town’s mayor, warning that it could get the local government sued

The Chief of Police of Pomeroy, a small town of less than 2,000 people on the banks of the Ohio River, has gone public about what he says is the homophobic harassment of one of his officers by the town’s mayor – warning that she may be breaching the state’s anti-discrimination laws.

Police Chief Mark E Proffitt accused Pomeroy Mayor Mary McAngus of a homophobic campaign against part time police officer Kyle Calendine who was hired by Pomeroy Police in September.