LGBTQ

Jawhar Edwards. (Screen capture via ABC 7 New York) A gay man was brutally beaten with a metal pipe and robbed of his walker while bystanders ignored him in Brooklyn, New York. More than a month since the attack in his hometown of Coney Island, Jawhar Edwards still has a swollen eye after his eye socket was broken when a man and a woman battered him and threatened to kill him. As he ducked out of a birthday honouring his late godmother, Edwards went to pass out food to the...

Mariah Carey (L) and Jane McDonald are one another's biggest fans. (Getty Images) Mariah Carey and Jane McDonald casually stanning one another is the pure, wholesome antidote to the seething, bleak pit of chaos we call life. Carey, who famously invented the annual tradition of Christmas, beamed on Saturday (11 December) about the cruise ship singer as she reacted to a clip from the British television show Gogglebox. Yes, this is a real sentence. This actually happened. During Friday night’s Gogglebox, the cast tuned in to watch Carey, 52, belt...

A gay elderly man was jailed for years simply for having oral sex. (Stock photograph via Envato Elements) A gay senior with Parkinson’s disease spent 22 months in jail after care home staffers saw him giving oral sex to a fellow resident. At the Southampton Manor Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, Leroy Martin, an 81-year-old Navy veteran, had consensual sex with at least two men during the summer and autumn of 2019. But staffers at the centre saw it differently. They sought to paint Martin as a “sexual...

Madonna (L) sounded out against 50 Cent. (Getty Images) Queen of clapbacks Madonna has slammed rapper and longtime friend 50 Cent for his “fake apology” following his “misogynistic remarks”. The music icons have been at loggerheads since 50 Cent dragged Madonna for posting a series of photographs of herself in risqué lace and leather. One of the photos, of Madonna lying underneath a bed, was ridiculed by 50 Cent, known off-stage as Curtis Jackson. “This is the funniest s**t,” he wrote on Instagram last month, likening her to the Wicked...

Amandla Stenberg is set to star in The Acolyte, a new Stars Wars TV series spearheaded by a gay woman. Written, directed and executive-produced by Russian Doll co-creator Lesyle Headland, the show will focus on the emergence of dark-side powers in the final days of the High Republic, an era that began roughly 200 years before the events of Episode I: The Phantom Menace kicked off the Skywalker saga. Details for Stenberg’s character are yet to be revealed, but it’s reported that the Disney Plus show will bring a much-needed queer perspective...

Grindr serial killer Stephen Port. A jury has ruled that there were police “failures” in investigating Grindr serial killer Stephen Port’s crimes and, had they been avoided, some of his victims may still be alive. On Friday (10 December), an inquest assessing the competency of the Met Police in investigating the murders of his four victims – Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, and Daniel Whitworth, and Jack Taylor – finally came to its conclusion. The jury, having been presented with extensive evidence over the last for 10 weeks, said there were...

Hundreds of members of the LGBT+ community marched through Dundee as part of Trans Pride Scotland 2019. (Photo by Stewart Kirby/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) Trans healthcare in Scotland will get a desperately needed financial boost of £2 million in “crisis funding”, the Scottish government has announced. The money for trans healthcare comes as part of the 2022-2023 budget, which was delivered to Holyrood by finance minister Kate Forbes on 9 December. The £2 million for trans healthcare is part of an interim funding package that aims to relieve pressure...

Samantha Jones in Sex and the City. (Getty) Fans were devastated when it was finally confirmed earlier this year that Samantha Jones, played so brilliantly by Kim Cattrall, would not be appearing in the new Sex and the City reboot. And Just Like That… sees Sarah Jessica Parker (Carrie), Cynthia Nixon (Miranda) and Kristin David (Charlotte) get back together – but Samantha is nowhere to be seen. The first episode, released Thursday (9 December), explains her absence in a way that seems inspired by real-life events, and it seems likely that future episodes will explore...

The Real Housewives of Miami has announced its first out lesbian housewife, who’s married to tennis star Martina Navratilova Julia Lemigova will join the cast in season four when it begins on 16 December. A Russian former model who won the Miss USSR title in 1990, Lemigova is married to Czech-American former professional tennis player and coach Martina Navratilova. The couple married in New York in December 2014.  After an eight-year break, the Real Housewives’ Miami show will return next week, with the Florida cast all looking to dive into...

JoJo Siwa (L) and Laverne Cox. (Getty Images) JoJo Siwa reflected on what it means to be labelled a “gay icon” in an interview with fellow trailblazer Laverne Cox. Siwa, the sugary-sweet bow-wearing social media superstar, beamed as she told E! what an “honour” it is to represent her community. On the 2021 People’s Choice Awards red carpet Tuesday evening (7 December), Cox, an unashamed “superfan” of Siwa, asked the 18-year-old about her stint on Dancing with the Stars. She finished in second place on the show, making history in the process...

Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas has broken United States records (University of Pennsylvania) Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas has broken United States records in two races over the weekend. The 22-year-old student from Austin, Texas, competed in the Zippy Invitational in Ohio where she smashed two records in the 200m and 500m freestyles.  The University of Pennsylvania announced on its website that Thomas had finished “best in the country” in the 500m freestyle on the event’s first day. On the second she “delivered another record-breaking performance” with the 200m freestyle.  Thomas previously...

West Side Story adaptation banned in several Gulf countries due to trans character (West Side Story/YouTube) A Disney remake of West Side Story has been banned in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations over the inclusion of a trans character. The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that Steven Spielberg’s musical adaptation will not screen in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman or Kuwait. In Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, the strictest countries in terms of movie censorship, West Side Story was banned outright. However, in the other Middle Eastern countries,...