Asia
ietnam: Marriage, authoritarianism, and social control
Can the recent LGBT pride parade and announcement by Vietnam’s Justice Minister that the communist country may consider same-sex marriage be taken as signs of social liberalisation and/or progress on gay rights? Scott Long, a Visiting Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program has more. Hanoi held its first LGBT Pride on August 5,… Read more »
Will Gay Marriage Be a Reality in Vietnam, or Is It a Distraction? An Interview With Nguyen Qui Duc
Recent news that Vietnam might consider legalizing same-sex marriage, a move that would make Vietnam the first Asian country to do so, stirred up quite a bit of debate among the diaspora of Vietnamese people in many countries, as well as in the gay community. Although the discussion of whether to legalize same-sex marriage won’t… Read more »
Gay Couple Married in US Feted at Malaysia Banquet
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (AP) – A gay pastor who married his musical producer boyfriend in New York last year has fulfilled a vow to hold a wedding banquet in his native Malaysia in what they believe is the first such event in the Muslim-majority country. Malaysian-born Ngeo Boon Lin and African-American husband Phineas Newborn III,… Read more »
The warias of Indonesia in disaster risk reduction: the case of the 2010 Mt Merapi eruption in Indonesia
This field note draws upon the concepts of vulnerability, marginalisation, and capacity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people to face natural hazards. As a case study, this paper highlights the response of warias, members of the LGBT community in Indonesia, during the 2010 Mt Merapi eruption. Through key informant interviews and observation of… Read more »
Vietnam Considers Legalizing Gay Marriage
Vietnam’s Communist government is considering whether to legalize gay marriage. If approved, Vietnam would become the first country in Asia to do so. The AP reported that the country’s Justice Ministry is considering including gay couples in its overhaul of Vietnam’s marriage law. “I think, as far as human rights are concerned, it’s time for… Read more »
New Chinese Dictionary Leaves Out Colloquial Term for ‘Gay’
A new edition of a Chinese dictionary omits the definition of a word that is commonly used to describe homosexuals, reports China’s state-run news agency Xinhua. The sixth edition of the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary does not define the word tongzhi (‘comrade’ in English), which is the colloquial term widely used in China to refer to… Read more »
Chinese dictionary leaves out popular word for ‘gay’
The Chinese gay community’s most popular word to refer to themselves has been left out of a new Chinese dictionary, sparking criticism A new edition of a modern Chinese language dictionary has been criticized for leaving out the most popular term used by Chinese gays to refer to themselves. The compilers of the Contemporary Chinese… Read more »
Malaysian Opposition leader says gays should be discriminated against
Malaysian Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has told the Malay High Court that homosexuals should be prosecuted despite having twice defended sodomy charges against himself Malaysian Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has told a Malay court that homosexuals should be discriminated against, despite past comments to the BBC in which he called the country’s sodomy laws archaic… Read more »
Lesbian Buddhist Couple To Exchange Vows In Taiwan
A lesbian couple will tie the knot next month in what is being described as the first gay Buddhist wedding in Taiwan. Fish Huang and You Ya-ting, both 30, will exchange vows on August 11 at a Buddhist monastery in north Taiwan’s Taoyuan country. “We decided to get married last year,” Huang told the AFP.… Read more »
Lao and proud: LGBT rights in Laos
Gay Star News talks to a prominent LGBT rights activist Anan Bouapha in the sleepy South-East Asian nation of Laos At the end of last month Laos celebrated its first gay pride with an event at the US consulate. Lao LGBT rights activist Anan Bouapha was one of the organizers. He talks to Gay Star… Read more »
China lifts ban on lesbians donating blood
Lesbians in China can now legally give blood – although the ban on sexually active gay and bisexual men remains. The Ministry of Health announced last week that the ban on lesbians donating blood would be lifted immediately. State media suggested that celibate gay men would also be able to donate blood, as the wording… Read more »
Singapore: 15,000 gather to show support for LGBTs at Pink Dot rally
It is a record turnout for Pink Dot, the only public rally to advocate LGBT acceptance in Singapore, and which has even inspired similar events around the world. Watch the video here. Singapore’s Hong Lim Park turned into a sea of shimmering pink lights on Saturday night as 15,000 people gathered to show their support… Read more »
New Regional Community Youth Leader And Policy Briefing Paper Announced
(Bangkok) The Asia Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health (APCOM) has been a leader in mobilising attention and action to promote the health and human rights of men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender people since 2007. Today, APCOM reaffirms its commitment to working with young MSM and transgender people by supporting… Read more »
Gay Mongolians see flickers of progress amid fear and ostracism
LGBT community manages to grow quickly despite threats from nationalist gangs who see homosexuality as a western import On a Friday night in June, Ulan Bator’s only gay bar is a dark building in a sea of dark buildings. Its shades are drawn, its door shut tightly. But inside, the 100% Bar is flush with… Read more »
Historic Petition: Armenians Support LGBT Rights in Armenia
The Armenian Gay and Lesbian Association of New York has sponsored the following historic petition that is co-signed by 20+ leading Armenian cultural figures who have unified their voices to support human rights in Armenia. This is the first time such a petition has been created in support of LGBT human rights in Armenia. Please… Read more »
Historic Petition: Armenians Support LGBT Rights In Armenia
We, the undersigned, write to support democratic and human rights for all in Armenia. We are disturbed by the May 8 firebombing of the gay-friendly bar DIY and the subsequent vandalism of the space. Attacks on the May 21st Cultural Diversity march in Yerevan by a few hundred “neo-fascists,” some wearing swastikas, lead us to… Read more »
Gay activist Alex Au wins Singapore Humanist of the Year award
Alex Au, a Singapore gay activist, social commentator and former Fridae columnist, has been awarded the Humanist of the Year 2012 by the Humanist Society (Singapore) for being a “vocal defender of Singapore’s secularism and an outspoken critic of religious extremism, pseudoscientific institutions and creationism.” Alex Au, a well known figure in LGBT activism in… Read more »
China LGBT Community Leader Conference debates Future of LGBT Movement
On June 16 to 17, 2012, the China Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender (LGBT) Community Leader Conference successfully took place in Beijing. In a historic first, the conference managed to gather a varied selection of Chinese LGBT movement leaders. Emphasizing the participation of communities whose voice remains largely underrepresented in China’s LGBT movement, representatives of… Read more »
Homoerotic traditions in pre-modern Asian & Pacific Island societies
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer identities are commonly thought of as relatively recent, western, social constructs… but what do we know about non-heteronormative expressions of sexuality in historical Chinese, Korean, South Asian and Southeast Asian cultures? There is a very wide misconception that ‘lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender’ (LGBT) constitutes a purely modern phenomenon… Read more »
Proud to be ourselves
On Saturday, June 23 at 1530 the U.S. Embassy is sponsoring an event called “Proud to be ourselves.” The purpose is to celebrate diversity, promote tolerance, and raise awareness of sexual and emotional health issues among youth (especially in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community) in Vientiane. This event is being coordinated with… Read more »
The Universal Periodic Review and LGBTI rights : Indonesia
Indonesia – Yuli Rustinawati, but most of her friends call her Ye, is one of the founders and chairpersons of Arus Pelangi, a national LGBT organization in Indonesia, and one of the national leaders of Forum LGBTIQ Indonesia. She holds a degree in economics and has been a member of the Indonesian Legal Aid and… Read more »
Sri lanka gay rights group launches petition to repeal gay sex laws
Sri Lanka’s LGBT community, long struggling for acceptance, celebrate their eighth Pride Festival this week and are featured in a special issue of Sri Lanka’s Life Times in which it declared: “Life Times Sri Lanka supports the decriminalisation of private acts between consenting adults, gay or straight!” With Colombo Pride in full swing, Sri Lanka… Read more »
Situation of LGBT persons in Georgia
Read the entire article here Source – Women.ge
Conditional Spaces: Hong Kong lesbian desires and everyday life
Dense living conditions in Hong Kong do not provide much privacy for lesbians living with their families. As a result, lesbians often locate alternative spaces to develop support networks with other women. Denise Tang’s new book maps the effect Hong Kong’s spaces have on the lesbians who inhabit them, and the psychological and institutional spaces… Read more »
LT Magazine goes Gay for Colombo PRIDE 2012!
Equal Ground is proud to have collaborated with Life Times Magazine to publish Chasing Rainbows and dismissing Stereotypes”. As Radhika Philip, the Editor of Life Times says: “Why we would dedicate so much of our June publication to celebrating PRIDE comes down to this: because we can. We think its the right thing to do.… Read more »
Welcome to Gay China TV
Gay Star News talks to Xiaogang Wei, founder of Queer Comrades, China’s online LGBT TV channel It’s a depressing thought, but to a certain extent TV defines who we are as a society. Is the increase of gay characters on TV shows in the West a reflection of greater tolerance? Or is society more tolerant… Read more »
On ’100% Thai manliness’ and the reality of LBGT in Thailand
On Wednesday, a rather confusing headline made the rounds when a Thai actor told that the country’s Ministry of Culture (or as we call it here “ThaiMiniCult”) ordered TV executives to ensure that “100 per cent male” actors should not play transgender roles on TV. Naturally, such a bold statement caused at least befuddlement and… Read more »
Love and survival through Khmer Rouge years
Alex Au and other LGBT activists from Cambodia’s Asean neighbours recently heard the stories of lesbian couples hailing from the deep provinces of Cambodia who survived the Khmer Rouge years about survival, staying together, and raising children and granchildren by adopting children – some from their own brothers and sisters, others anonymously. The above picture… Read more »
Double pride in Phnom Penh
Alex Au, who was part of a 3-member contingent from Singapore, reports on the Cambodia ASEAN Pride festival held last month that hosted activists from its neighbours in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), which effectively made it the first ever ASEAN Pride event. It was an audacious idea, to say the least.… Read more »
India sees young LGBTs as a group for the first time
India has announced a draft youth policy that will regard the LGBT community and HIV/AIDS patients as groups that face stigma and need policy help The Indian government is trying for the first time to focus on the problems of transgenders, gays and lesbians as a group that needs suitable policy interventions to deal with… Read more »
Discomfort over homosexuality helps spread HIV in China
Stigmas about homosexuality have kept people from seeking HIV testing, leading to a dramatic increase in the number of cases among gay men China’s discomfort over discussing sex, and especially homosexuality, is a major problem when it comes to HIV, according to a scientific journal. A consortium of six researchers in China point out in… Read more »
Gay and out in China
As society in China modernizes, its gay community is less mysterious and increasingly part of the country’s fabric, pursuing dreams and happiness like other citizens. Before setting out to document this story, I had a somewhat stereotypical image of gay Chinese – that they lived colorful and comfortable lives, with prominent members often active in… Read more »
Parallel Battles for Burma and Asean’s Human Rights Commission
The Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) will meet in Rangoon starting this Sunday to finalize the draft of the long-awaited Asean Human Rights Declaration (AHRD). Held in a country that has for the past year made headlines in the international media for its reforms, this event might be seen by some as evidence… Read more »
A new name in Hong Kong activism: Pink Alliance
Hong Kong’s Tongzhi Community Joint Meeting (TCJM for short) has decided to adopt a working name called Pink Alliance for its activities whilst keeping the TCJM name for its legally established and registered non-profit NGO. Fridae’s Hong Kong Correspondent Nigel Collett has more on the group’s history and new developments. The Tongzhi Community Joint Meeting… Read more »
South Korea celebrates gay pride
This Saturday sees the 13th annual Korea Queer Love Festival in Seoul South Korea will celebrate gay pride on Saturday with the Korea Queer Love Festival (KQLF) in Hanbit Media Park in central Seoul. According to the website, this is the 13th KQLF in Seoul. Indicating the stigma around homosexuality in South Korea, people at… Read more »
In Myanmar, Stigma and Neglect Add to HIV Misery
Yangon (Reuters) – The mother and child who touch hands in an overcrowded Yangon hospice are not family, but their tragic history begins in the blood. Jam, 42, a mother of six, and Kanama, aged 2, are both HIV positive. Abandoned by their families, they must now find comfort in each other, although Jam still… Read more »
Thailand: Trans woman becomes the first to win elections to public office
A trans woman has won a historic seat in local elections in Thailand, thereby becoming the first openly transgender person to hold public office in the country. Yonlada Suanyos, a PhD candidate who also runs a satellite television station, in addition to running her own jewellery business, has defeated two other male candidates to become… Read more »
Gaga in Asia
Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Ball premiered in Singapore last night. This marks the last stop of her multi-city Asian tour, due to the official cancellation of her Jakarta performance. Ng Yi-Sheng looks back at a month of pride and protests. For one month now, Lady Gaga has been hurtling like a fireball through Asia,… Read more »
Gay wedding becomes talk of town in southern Vietnam
A same-sex wedding attended by hundreds has drawn the attention of many in Kien Giang province and beyond Two men publicly tying the knot nearly two weeks ago in the southern province of Kien Giang in Vietnam have remained a hot topic among local townspeople. At noon of May 16, Truong Van Hen and Nguyen… Read more »
Feature: The truth about gay life in Azerbaijan outside of the Eurovision Song Contest
As Baku celebrates the end of the Eurovision Song Contest, which saw Sweden’s Loreen win with her song Euphoria, we examine the realities of life of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people are forced to lead in oppressive Azerbaijan. ‘Welcome to the Eurovision Song Contest, from Baku in Europe!’ greeted star-eyed host Eldar ‘Ell’ Gasimov,… Read more »
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