LGBTQ

Captain Fluke. (Twitter) Trans esports commentator Emi, a.k.a. Captain Fluke, has shared a defiant video about her experience as an LGBT+ esports figure after a deluge of ‘toxicity’ during a livestream. The video, shared on Twitter, was posted after the first day of the Rainbow Six Siege Six Invitational tournament. Previously postponed from February, the event is an international competition taking place in Paris, France. Captain Fluke, who uses she/they pronouns, was commentating during the event and took to Twitter to share her experience in the powerful video.  Just a...

Drag Race Down Under star Art Simone addressed the fan theory that RuPaul didn't film the new series in person and recorded scenes on a green screen. (World of Wonder) Drag Race star Art Simone has dispelled the rumour that RuPaul never actually stepped foot onto the Down Under set. Views of the latest iteration of Drag Race have been sharing the wild theory online that RuPaul didn’t actually film Drag Race Down Under in person and instead recorded scene remotely on a green screen. One person on Reddit said “weird...

ASOS has teamed up with London-based brand OPV Beauty for an edit. ASOS has launched an OPV Beauty edit, teaming up with the brand to highlight some of its best products. Beauty shoppers can now bag an OPV Beauty bargain from ASOS, plus if you’re a member then you can make the most of that next-day delivery perk. The online retailer stocks eyeshadow palettes, eyeshadow pigments, blush palettes, highliters, glitter liners and setting powders. OPV Beauty was founded by sisters Opeyemi and Bukola whose aim is to create an inclusive...

The Vagina Museum team Florence Schechter, Zoe Williams and Sarah Creed (Photo by Angus Young) London’s Vagina Museum is set to reopen this month with an exhibition dedicated to the history of menstruation. The Vagina Museum, which started as a pop-up in 2017, opened as the world’s first museum dedicated to vaginas, vulvas and gynaecological anatomy in September 2019. The bricks-and-mortar museum in Camden market was closed for much of 2020 and 2021 due to the ongoing pandemic, but it’s set to open its doors once again on Friday, 21...

Social media sites are "categorically unsafe" for queer users, the damning report found (Manan VATSYAYANA/AFP/ Getty) Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube are all “categorically unsafe” for LGBT+ people, according to a damning new study from GLAAD. GLAAD had originally planned to give grades for each site as part of a new social media safety index, but this was scrapped when it became apparent “they’d all fail, quite frankly”. “They are categorically unsafe, across the board,” GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in an interview with Axios on...

Pope Francis. (Christopher Furlong/Getty) Catholic churches in Germany have decided to bless same-sex couples despite a Vatican ruling that forbids them from doing so. The Church of St Benedict in Munich and three other churches in Würzburg offered blessings to same-sex couples on Sunday (9 May) in direct contravention of the Vatican’s widely condemned policy. The service in Munich was co-organised by Maria 2.0, a Catholic movement aiming to raise awareness of sexism and the mishandling of sexual abuse in the church. Renate Spannig, spokesperson with Maria 2.0, told DW that “it...

Alireza Fazeli-Monfared was reportedly killed and beheaded by family after they found out he was gay. (Twitter) An Iranian gay man was brutally murdered and beheaded by his family in a horrific “honour killing” after they found out he was gay. Alireza Fazeli-Monfared, 20, was reportedly murdered by his brother and cousins on Tuesday (4 May) after they discovered the Iranian military exempted him from service because of “sexual depravities”. At around 7pm on Tuesday evening, Alireza spoke to his mother on the phone for the last time, his best...

Phyllis Akua Opoku Gyimah during the GAY TIMES Honours 500 at Magazine London on 21 November 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Mike Marsland/WireImage for GAY TIMES) The legendary Lady Phyll opened up about learning to accept herself in a new interview. The co-founder and executive director of UK Blade Pride shared her story on the Mind the Gap podcast, where she reflected on how “trying to be accepted” for who she is “was the hardest thing”. “I didn’t realise that it was about me accepting myself first,” she said....

Alexander Schäfer (L) and Henry Frömmichen (R). (Instagram) A trainee priest has said he was expelled from his seminary because he posed for a selfie with a gay reality television star. Henry Frömmichen was a secretly gay seminarian in the autumn of last year when he spotted Alexander Schäfer, the star of gay reality television series Prince Charming, in Munich. Frömmichen had a “great conversation” with Schäfer on Munich’s Odeonplatz, and the pair took a photo together before parting ways. While “everyone” in the seminary watched Prince Charming – a German version of The Bachelor...

Alleged neo-Nazi Andrew Dymock is on trial for terrorism at the Old Bailey (Getty) A student is accused of promoting a virulently homophobic neo-Nazi group in a bid to start a British “race war” against people of colour. Andrew Dymock, 23, is on trial at the Old Bailey charged with 12 terror offences and three other hate crimes after he was arrested by counter-terror police on his way to the US in June. He promoted the neo-Nazi System Resistance Network (SRN) group through Twitter and a terrorist website while he was...

A new RPG game titled The Division: Heartland will be released toward’s the end of the year and will be free-to-play for fans everywhere, Ubisoft has announced. Tom Clancy’s The Division: Heartland will be a free-to-play standalone game set to be released on PC, PlayStation and Xbox around Q3/Q4. This time around, the game will be developed by Ghost Recon’s studio Red Storm Entertainment instead of Massive Entertainment, who developed The Division 1 and 2.  Luckily for fans of the franchise, players can already put their name down for the playtest. Ubisoft...

Franklin Graham got a frosty response from the Seattle Police Department (CNP/Ron Sachs//Anadolu Agency/Getty) Franklin Graham has insisted he’s “not anti-gay” after Seattle Police refused to attend his dinner because of his homophobic views. The notoriously anti-LGBT+ preacher is hosting the aw enforcement appreciation dinner in Seattle next week, but there’s just one tiny problem: Seattle Police aren’t coming. The force initially accepted the invitation before rescinding it after officers learned the event was hosted by The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. “Based on Graham’s history and affiliations, the has raised concerns...

Sophie Anderson and Rebecca Moore are the Cock Destroyers. (Men.com) The Cock Destroyers may have broken up, fans fear. Since 2018, sex workers Rebecca More and Sophie Anderson have enthralled the LGBT+ community with their truly chaotic energy and brand of unapologetically raunchy humour. But on Thursday morning (6 May), a cryptic pair of tweets from More sparked a wave of speculation that the Cock Destroyers have called it quits. It all began when More tweeted that she has received a “ email from someone who I thought was a friend”. “Showed...

Phelokazi Ndlwana was brutally murdered in South Africa (Facebook/Gay and Lesbian Network) South Africa is mourning yet another LGBT+ murder victim, a 24-year-old lesbian named Phelokazi Ndlwana. Police were called to the crime scene on Mzolxolo Street in the Khayelitsha township on Sunday (2 May), where they found Ndlwana’s body. “On their arrival they were directed by the community to the body of a female who succumbed to death of what appeared to be stab wounds to the chest area,” police spokesperson Andrè Traut told local media. “Police detectives followed...