Who’s this guy? Queer readers in India and all over the world, know this. We lost another stalwart and role model. He was one of the computer pioneers, the doyen of word processing software in the 80’s. Son of a fiddle-playing farmer Bruce Wayne Bastian was born on March 23, 1948, in Twin Falls, Idaho. […]
An SHO (Station House Officer) and a constable in Rajasthan were suspended on earlier this week in a virtual sex related blackmail incident. The SHO accused the constable of blackmailing him. The men were reportedly in a ‘relationship’. Nagaur superintendent of police Ram Moorty Joshy says the action was taken because the duo ‘harmed the […]
A major concern among non- heterosexual persons and communities is the insensitivity of the press , when it comes to reporting on LGBTQIA issues. As far as mainstream press reporting in India is concerned, in most cases, journalists are not even aware that that are being insensitive. Queer Chennai Chronicles and The News Minute have […]
Last night I got a call from a young brash reporter from a newspaper I was once associated with. Those who know me don’t have to ask which one, but let’s get on with what I have to say. This chap asks me ,’What do you have to say about the latest news about article […]
Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra has changed the composition of the five-judge constitution bench that will examine the legal validity of section 377 of the penal code, a Victorian-era law that effectively criminalizes non-heterosexual relationships, among other types of ‘carnal intercourse against nature’. The question before the court is, whether Article 377 of the […]
The outspoken Laxmi Narayan Tripathy was at her forthright best when she took the stage at the Bihar state-sponsored ‘Kinnar Mahotsav’ (Transgender Festival’), when she pointed out that there were hardly any people from the transgender Hijda/ TG community in the fancy auditorium. While commending the political will of the Bihar government and its department of Sports […]
Tens of thousands of people sashayed through the streets of Taiwan’s capital, Taipei, to participate in Asia’s biggest gay pride parade. Many of those who attended carried placards calling on the government to legalise same sex marriage. Dressed in colourful costumes and carrying rainbow flags, they paraded in front of Taiwan’s presidential palace. Taiwan is more […]
Israel: More than 2,000 persons demonstrated on Thursday evening outside the Be’er Sheva (Beersheba) City Hall building instead of marching in the city’s now-cancelled first ever Pride parade. Beersheba is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the “Capital of the Negev”, it is the centre of the […]
USA President Barack Obama said that his understanding of the Bible and his Christian beliefs led him to issue the directive at public schools calling on students to be allowed to use the bathroom of their choosing regardless of their biological sex. “My reading of scripture tells me that that [the] Golden Rule is pretty […]
Flying in the face of the dastardly IPC 377, South Asia’s biggest rainbow film festival is on! Short-sighted court ‘mis-judgements’ haven’t stopped Mumbai’s Liberty Cinema, Alliance Francaise de Bombay and Max Mueller Bhavan from supporting KASHISH, South Asia’s biggest and India’s only mainstream LGBTQ film festival. The festival will screen 182 films from 53 countries […]
For a decade, Orthodox priest Artyom Vechelkovsky taught at a religious seminary in the city of Samara. He says that his colleagues knew that he was gay, but accepted him and valued his work. But in the current climate of rising antigay sentiment in Russia, church officials suddenly decided to dismiss him, according to a […]
A new study in the Journal of Homosexuality has shown that, of all the world’s religions, Buddhism is the least homonegative. “Homonegativity” is defined as “an aversion to homosexuality as a social practice or way of life.” Although attitudes toward homosexuality have become more liberal, particularly in industrialized Western countries, there is still a great […]
