LGBTQ+

‘Could the refusal to accept the existence of bisexuality be a root cause of homophobia?’ is the intriguing question that motivated the ‘not-very-bisexual’ Zan Christensen to pull together this colourful comics anthology exploring people’s diverse experiences of ‘non-binary sexuality’.

A gay man, he had read an article in the New York Times concerning a psychological experiment suggesting that over 20% of self-identified ‘highly straight’ people secretly harbour some same…

Publication of this book was rushed to coincide with the Sochi winter Olympics, and it shows. It shows, because – and the editors admit this – the spectrum of experiences is limited to mostly well-off Russian gays and lesbians, mostly couples with higher education and the ability to travel abroad. The publication of the book is a response to a wave of state-sponsored homophobia in Russia, culminating in a bill banning 'propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations' - often narrowly…

I want to give a warning shot to anti-oppression trainers and activists. My bottom line is this: we need to stop applying theory onto people’s experiences, wielding it like a weapon to describe what we believe whether we actually see it in a room or not. It’s not smart organising, creates intense backlash, and shrinks – not grows – our movements.

An organiser recently shared with me an example of what I’m talking about.

He was working in a union that represents workers at a…

PN readers may recall that I’m a big fan of Laurie Penny (aka Penny Red). I’m an equally big fan of feminism, so I was keen to read Meat Market, her series of essays on the subject.

Penny is a serious and passionate writer, and there’s a lot to commend in this book. The opening chapter on sexualisation demonstrates how disempowering the supposedly ‘liberating’ raunch culture actually is, and how it serves commercial rather than individual interests.

Similarly, the…

After two gay men were ejected for kissing from the John Snow pub in Soho, central London, on 13 April, gay rights activists organised a mass “kiss-in” outside the pub two days later. Inspired by the kiss-in, Lauren Beamen threatened to call a mass feed-in at the King William IV pub in Hampstead, north London, after being ejected on 16 April for breastfeeding her seven-month-old baby.

On 13 March, Respect Renewal MP George Galloway commented in relation to the now-halted deportation of a gay Iranian man, Mehdi Kazemi: “All the papers seem to imply that you get executed in Iran for being gay. That's not true.”
Kazemi's boyfriend was hung by the Iranian regime but Galloway maintained this was “not for being gay”, but for “committing sex crimes against young men.” He offered no evidence for this allegation.
The MP's comments were denounced by gay rights activist…

PN How does GALZ struggle for equal rights for LGBT people in Zimbabwe?

KG Recently, with the introduction of repressive legislation coupled with rising poverty and unemployment, GALZ has concentrated on assisting its members and embedding itself in the broader human rights movement in Zimbabwe.

We have various services for members: the Women's Scholarship Programmes; Skills for Life, providing vocational training for our members; and Positive Image, an access-to-affordable-…

Did the perpetrators who kidnapped Israeli Defence Force soldier Cpl Gilad Shalit anticipate the collective punishment that would be meted out to Palestinians? Perhaps they hoped it would provoke a greater uprising, or that their (changing) demands would actually be met. Or perhaps the consequences were in fact unseen.

It has been argued that the kidnapping was in reprisal for the assassination of Hamas government official Jamal Abu Samhadana; whatever, the fact is that the Israeli…

The Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) started in 1990 and rose to international prominence in 1995 when it applied to attend the Zimbabwe International Book Fair which had as its theme that year “Human Rights and Justice”. The government banned the group's appearance and, at the opening of the fair, President Mugabe, uttered the first in a long line of vitriolic attacks on gays and lesbians which include the famous epithet, gays are “worse than dogs and pigs”. GALZ stood its ground and…

I can't offer a historical analysis of the situation for the gai or lesbian community in prison. I do not have any statistical information regarding the total number of lesbians and gais in prison, neither information about their sentences, nor information about their crimes, and even less information about the law. The only resources I have to draw on are from Amnesty International and other human rights groups.

Editors note: before reading this article you might find it helpful to…