LGBTQ

With the flood of Bulgarian and Romanian immigrants that the United Kingdom Indepence Party (Ukip) predicted failing to materialise, bigots have found another scapegoats for the actual floods that hit Britain recently. According to David Silvester, a Ukip councillor in Oxfordshire, the floods were a punishment from God for the government’s support for same-sex marriage. He claims he even wrote to David Cameron to warn him of impending disaster. Ukip initially refused to condemn him, saying: “if the media are expecting Ukip to either condemn or condone someone’s personal religious views they...

Trade union and LGBT liberation activists came together on Sunday 8 December to launch the Rainbow International LGBT Activist Solidarity Fund. It is a new initiative which will provide critical financial assistance to frontline LGBT rights activists — principally in the countries where being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender is still illegal — so as to empower individuals and groups to campaign for LGBT rights, sexual liberation, equality, justice, democratic change, and working-class unity. A fundraising target of £10,000 in the first six months was announced at the launch. Applications...

Just over two decades after Ireland decriminalised homosexuality, the Irish government announced on 5 November that it will call a referendum on the issue of gay marriage in the first half of 2015. The announcement follows lobbying from the deputy prime minister, Labour’s Eamon Gilmore, and has been given support by the Fine Gael prime minister Enda Kenny. In April, constitutional amendments to allow gay marriage were overwhelmingly endorsed by the Constitutional Convention, a body established in 2012 compromising mostly of randomly-selected citizens and some politicians from both sides of the...

Recently, there has – quite rightly – been a lot of attention and protest focused on increasing homophobia in Russia. Its much-smaller neighbour, Lithuania, is also facing a rising tide of hostility to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights. I recently attended a European TUC conference on gender equality in Lithuanian capital Vilnius, and took the opportunity to raise the issue of LGBT rights and to visit the Lithuanian Gay League (LGL). The LGL was founded in 1993 — the same year that homosexuality was legalised, and three years after the country declared independence from the...

African LGBTI Out & Proud Diamond Group were joined by RMT union activists and human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell at a demonstration outside the Uganda High Commission in London on 18 November, protesting two anti-gay "show trials" in Uganda and demanding the release of Samuel Ganafa, Bernard Randall and Albert Cheptoyek. Samuel K Ganafa, the Executive Director of Spectrum Uganda and the Chair of Sexual Minorities Uganda, appeared in court on Monday 18 November on charges of "sodomy", under section 145 of the Ugandan penal code. Three other LGBT rights advocates also face charges...

In this two part documentary, Stephen Fry and the director Fergus O’Brien set out to survey what the situation is for LGBT people around the world. A laudable task, and a good way to use your celebrity. In some ways the documentary lives up to its good intentions to expose homophobia across the world; the interviews with victims and survivors of some of the most extreme consequences of homophobia moved me. Fry’s journey surveying the situation for LGBT people took him to the US, Uganda, Brazil, Russia, and India. He did not visit the likes of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan, Yemen or Mauritania...

Content note/ trigger warning for transphobia and sexual violence Though many people in the media and online expressed surprise at Chelsea Manning’s announcement this week, a lot of us in the LGBT+ community have been aware that she is probably a trans woman for quite some time. Rumour was that she went by the name “Breanna”. Actually, Wired published speculation about Manning’s gender way back in 2010. There has been some confusion over how to refer to Manning in conversation and articles, with many news outlets repeatedly using the wrong pronouns. Although before there was some confusion...

In the opening plenary of Workers’ Liberty “Ideas for Freedom” event (20-23 June) RMT Executive and TUC Disabled Workers’ Committee member Janine Booth argued for class-struggle liberation politics to be at the heart of the Marxist project. On 23 June 2012, Steven Simpson, a gay autistic student, was verbally abused, stripped, and his body scrawled with homophobic slogans. He was then doused in tanning oil and 20-year-old Jordan Sheard set fire to his crotch with a cigarette lighter. The flames engulfed his body, his attackers fleeing as neighbours tried desperately to extinguish the flames...

The opening plenary of Ideas for Freedom 2013 explored key "Marxist ideas to turn the tide". Unite activist Elaine Jones discussed the idea of a workers' government, Unison shop steward Ed Whitby explained the meaning of "transitional demands" such as the call for the expropriation of the banks, and Greek revolutionary Theodora Polenta shared recent experiences of struggle and workers' control in Greece. RMT Executive and TUC Disabled Workers' Committee member Janine Booth argued for class-struggle liberation politics - on race, gender, sexuality, and disability - to be at the heart of the...

In a show of solidarity with Uganda’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community and activists, delegates to this year’s RMT LGBT Member’s Conference (Blackpool, May 18th) linked up via Skype video with one of the most prominent and courageous advocates for LGBT rights in Uganda, Frank Mugisha. In an inspiring and moving question and answer session, the winner of the 2011 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award and 2011 Rafto Prize spoke about the advocacy work of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) and the relentless determination of the LGBT community in Uganda, who continue to...