LGBTQ

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. (Getty) Turkey’s fiercely anti-gay president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has claimed that there is “no such thing” as LGBT+ people. Erdoğan has positioned himself as an ardent opponent to LGBT+ rights, with tensions rising in recent days following student protests in Istanbul. The president doubled down on his anti-LGBT+ views on Wednesday (3 January), according to SBS. “The LGBT, there is no such thing,” Erdoğan reportedly said. “This country is… moral, and it will walk to the future with these values.” Erdoğan’s comments come after protests erupted...

Kamala Harris has paid tribute to the "boundary-breaking" Pete Buttigieg (Twitter/Pete Buttigieg) Kamala Harris has paid tribute to the “boundary-breaking” Pete Buttigieg, as he is sworn in as Joe Biden’s secretary of transportation. With his husband Chasten at his side on Wednesday (3 February, Pete Buttigieg was officially sworn in on his family Bible by Kamala Harris, officially making him the first openly gay person to hold a full-time, Senate-confirmed cabinet position. The vice president, no stranger to breaking barriers herself, took a moment to acknowledge the historic nature of...

The US state department’s official spokesperson Ned Price has spoken about the importance of LGBT+ representation. The Biden administration official, who is the first ever openly gay man to be named spokesperson for the US department of state, led his first televised press briefing on Tuesday (2 February). LGBT+ activists say the appointment of the 38-year-old gay former CIA official to serve as the country’s voice on international issues sends a clear message to the 70 countries where homosexuality remains criminalized. Innanoshe Richard Akuson, a Nigerian LGBT rights activist, told...

Former Labour MP Maureen Colquhoun, the first out lesbian to sit in the House of Commons, has passed away at the age of 92. The vocal LGBT+ and women’s rights campaigner, who served as Member of Parliament for Northampton North from 1974 to 1979, passed away on Tuesday (2 February). Labour MP Angela Eagle, who followed in Colquhoun’s footsteps as only the second out lesbian MP, was among those to pay tribute, saying: “This is very sad news. Maureen Colquhoun was a feminist pioneer and paved the way for all...

John Weaver, a former adviser to the late GOP senator John McCain, helped set up the Lincoln Project in 2019 Moderate conservative campaign group the Lincoln Project has denounced its founder, John Weaver, after he faced sexual harassment allegations from 21 men. Weaver, a former adviser to the late GOP senator John McCain, helped set up the Lincoln Project in 2019 – with the group’s videos challenging an extremist drift in the Republican Party quickly earning viral success ahead of the presidential election. The veteran strategist, who has a wife...

Humza Yousaf put forward the proposed amendment to his hate crime bill. (Getty/Fraser Bremner) The Scottish government has pulled an amendment that sought to exempt “criticism of transgender identity” from hate crime laws. The country’s justice minister Humza Yousaf announced via Twitter on Monday (1 February) that he had pulled a planned amendment to the proposed Hate Crime and Public Order bill, which seeks to modernise and consolidate hate crime laws in Scotland. Yousaf apologised “for any hurt caused” by the “freedom of expression” amendment put forward in his name...

One Million Moms has accused dating website eHarmony of “brainwashing” children for featuring a lesbian couple eating ice cream in its latest ad. The puritanical campaign group, which is operated by the anti-LGBT+ American Family Association, has turned its fire on the formerly straights-only dating service over its “Here for Real Love” ad campaign. The ad, launched in November, features two women cooking together and, after a disaster in the kitchen, sharing a pint of ice cream and a kiss instead. A voiceover explains: “Real love is daring to impress....

Nicholas Hewlett. (Screen capture via YouTube) A headmaster in Britain is set to make “education history” by coming out as gay during an online school assembly Monday (1 February) – and he knows he’s going to cry. Nicholas Hewlett, who leads St Dunstan’s College in the Catford neighbourhood of southeast London, said a conversation with a student who spoke about being gay bolstered him to do the same. In doing so, The Times reported, Hewlett is thought to be the first acting headteacher to come out in front of his students...

Gary Barlow. (Toni Anne Barson/FilmMagic) Picture it: You’re in a cavernous sports stadium, coronavirus is a distant dream, and the lights begin to dim – Little Mix, the Spice Girls and the Sugababes emerge to rapturous cheers and screams. But nobody is here to see the holy trinity of pop. Nope. They’re here to see Gary Barlow – they’re just his backing singers. The sinful scene could be a reality after it emerged that the former Take That singer, the creator of dozens of pop earworms eternally hummed by your 40-something...

Uche Maduagwu. (Instagram/@uchemaduagwu) Uche Maduagwu, a celebrated fixture of Nollywood and famous social media rouble-rouser, has come out as “proudly gay”. The Nigerian actor, known for taking swipes at politicians and celebrities with his trouble-making Instagram account, came out as gay on Thursday (28 January). In a series of Instagram posts, Maduagwu implored followers to live their truths while calling on US president Joe Biden to challenge Nigeria’s “inhuman laws against law-abiding homosexuals”. In Nigeria, queer locals spar with the looming threat of 14 years imprisonment and the death penalty,...

Demonstrators wearing masks hold an LGBT+ flag during the demonstration at Boaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey. (Tunahan Turhan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) Four students were detained Saturday (30 January) and dubbed “deviants” by Turkey’s interior minister over a piece of artwork that reportedly depicted rainbows alongside the Kaaba. The Kaaba is the most sacred site in Islam, being a building in the centre of the Masjid al-Haram mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Tensions have simmered at Boğaziçi University in Instanbul after a supposed loyalist of Turkey’s governing party, the Justice and Development Party, was appointed...

Juan Orlando Hernandez, president of Honduras. (Getty/ Sean Gallup) The conservative Central American country of Honduras has amended its constitution to make legalising marriage equality and abortion almost impossible. Although homosexuality was legalised in Honduras in 1899, same-sex marriage has been banned in the country since the constitution was amended to explicitly forbid it in 2005. This amendment also prevented same-sex adoption and the recognition of same-sex unions in other countries. But on Thursday (28 January), the Honduras legislature voted to change the number of votes need to reform the...

A quarter of British people have been body-shamed on dating apps or social media. (S3studio/ Getty/ Yu Chun Christopher Wong) The dating app Bumble has banned body-shaming, which it says includes “fatphobic, ableist, racist, colourist, homophobic or transphobic” language. From Thursday (28 January), the popular dating app will ban any derogatory comments about appearance, body shape, size or health, either in users’ profiles or in Bumble’s chat function. Research by Bumble found that a quarter of British people have been body-shamed through dating apps and social media, while half said...

New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Texas senator Ted Cruz. (Getty/ Alex Wroblewski and Alex Wong) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shut down anti-LGBT+ Trump supporter Ted Cruz, telling him he “almost had her murdered” three weeks ago during the Capitol riots. Ocasio-Cortez took to Twitter on Thursday (28 January) to condemn the app Robinhood, which banned users from purchasing Gamestop stock in the ongoing battle between hedge fund managers and lay investors using the “WallStreetBets” sub-Reddit. But when anti-LGBT+ senator Cruz quote tweeted her to say that he “fully agreed” with her...