Around the world, the first generations of openly LGBT+ people are arriving at a point in life where nursing homes and geriatric care become a real issue.
Category: LGBTQ Plus
In Bogotá, a transgender girl and her family are, with their openness, helping similar people take their rightful place in society.
Older LGBT people have lived to see dramatic improvements in how society treats sexual minorities. But scars remain.
BPOs (business process outsourcing) companies are booming in the Philippines, and providing safe workplaces for transgender women to present themselves in their authentic gender identity.
Blame for the failure to take legislative responsibility for LGBT rights must be squarely divided among political parties across the spectrum.
‘Alternative’ sexuality is despised in the traditionalist, native or Afro-Caribbean communities of northern Colombia. The choices for gays and lesbians tend to be harsh: face down your family and neighbors, or leave.
Businesses in Colombia have been invited to display gay-friendly signs as a traditionalist society, slowly, grows more tolerant.
Perception (and treatment) of gays and lesbians may be different from transgender people — but in different ways, depending where in the world you are.
As Germany legalizes gay marriage and Ana Brnabic becomes Serbia’s prime minister, Worldcrunch celebrates openly gay heads of government around the world.
From shock therapy treatment to nausea pills to fake marriages, Chinese gays, lesbian and transgender are targeted by clinics and family trying to turn them straight.
WARSAW — Jakub Kwiecins and Dawid had been together for nearly seven years, living rather anonymous lives as a couple in Warsaw until their 15 minutes of Internet fame arrived last July after posting their own version of Roxette’s hit “”Some Other Summer“”. And while the exuberant clip prompted articles in the international LGBTQ media, […]
-Analysis- BOGOTÁ — A majority of gay and lesbian students in Colombia feel unsafe in school and almost a quarter of them miss classes because they fear getting bullied, a survey by two non-profits found. Sixty-seven percent of LGBT secondary schoolchildren feel unsafe at school, according to the poll by advocacy groups Colombia Diversa and […]
-Essay- BERLIN — My body is that of a man but I am a woman and I want to live my life as a woman. In our minds, our bodies define who we are. We are either male or female. This belief makes me a person that should not exist. I did not question this […]
After the Indonesian defense minister compared LGBT people to a nuclear threat, Islamists targeted a gay community that used to be widely tolerated.
LAHORE — Over the past few months, the prestigious Al-Hamra Theater in this Pakistani city has been staging a first-of-its-kind play, one that very much pushes cultural boundaries in the conservative Muslim society. The play, called Teesri Dhun, focuses on the discrimination transgender people endure in Pakistan, where they are often shunned by families, schools and employers. Not only that, but the actors themselves are members of the transgender community. “The play highlights the problems transgender people face here,” says Neeli Rana, 40, who plays the lead role in Lahore. It’s a story line that resonates with Rana. “In 2006 […]
Geraldine Roman, a 49-year-old former journalist, survived a brutal campaign to win a seat in the national legislature — and a place in Filipino history.
ISTANBUL — Pride Week traces its roots back 47 years to a New York bar called the Stonewall Inn. On June 28, 1969 in response to a sudden police raid, gays who no longer wanted to cope in silence with the social pressure, violence and discrimination trapped the police officers that assaulted them in the […]
Chased from their homes and communities, many transgender women in Colombia seek refuge in a four-block area in Santa Fe, in downtown Bogotá.
Attitude, July 2016 issue Prince William will be on the cover of Attitude, the top British LGBT Lifestyle Magazine for the July issue. The Duke of Cambridge is making history as it is the first time that a member of the Royal Family will appear on the front-page of a gay publication. The prince revealed […]
STOCKHOLM — Ing-Britt Akerberg, 70, receives us in front of paintings of nymphs and a beautiful Persian carpet. A swaggering spaniel licks her toes. “I live in the apartment below,” she explains. “But I’m keeping my friend’s three dogs; she went to town to do a bit of shopping.” The apartment building is squeezed between […]
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Being Gay And Muslim In France
MARSEILLE — Saïd* carries the dishes to the living room table as guests arrive in dribs and drabs with more food in their arms. The atmosphere is cheerful as greetings, kisses and the latest family news are shared with smiles. Earlier in this just-concluded holy month of Ramadan, the members of the Homosexual Muslims of […]
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On Being Transgender In Egypt
CAIRO — Aisha was sleeping when her apartment was raided. She and three other friends had just moved in when the police came by asking if they had weapons or anything illegal. They said no, and were asked for their identity cards. Aisha and her friends are transgender women, but their identity cards say they […]
Cuban gays and lesbians once hid from police. But today, with help from the president’s daughter, Mariela Castro, LGBTs in Cuba are fighting for their rights.
CHAMBÉRY — Seen from afar they might be mistaken for a father and son. Dominique is 56. Mohammed is 23. But talking to them and seeing how they interact, it’s clear they’re a couple in love. They agreed to meet early in the morning, in a fast food restaurant in the Landiers industrial zone in Chambéry, southeastern France. It’s an impersonal place, where people come and go without paying much attention to others around them. Dominique and Mohammed prefer it that way. The couple shows up late, which somehow makes sense. It’s their privilege. They’re in love. The rest of […]
Gays and lesbians rarely come out of the closet in a society that has more generally been ‘anti-sex’ since the Communists took over.
JAKARTA — In a suburban part of Jakarta, we’re walking down a dirt road up to a very small pink house at the end of an alley. There are chickens running around, and children playing. It’s here that Indonesia’s first retirement home for transsexual and transgender people — known as waria in Indonesia — is being built. In the doorway, two elderly transgenders whose teeth are missing call out “good morning.” Inside, Yulianus Rettoblaut peers into a mirror while a friend goes about the daily ritual of applying her heavy makeup — thick white foundation, fake eyelashes, bright red lipstick […]
For those in the gay, lesbian and transgender community rejected by their own loved ones, a shelter in the Colombian capital offers comfort, but also practical support to build a new life.
KARACHI – Begging and sex work are what transgender people in Pakistan too often end up doing. But this also means that they are more likely to have information about the dark world of child sex trafficking. Bindya Rana had the idea of tapping into this connection to find missing children. “We are provided with pictures of the missing child, which we pass on to the transgender people in the areas where they beg and live,” Rana explains, noting that some 2,000 transgender are on the case. “We direct them to search, and if they get any information to let […]
BOGOTA — The LGBTI community (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual/Transgender and Intersexual) in Colombia has suffered disappearances, forced migrations, mutilations, humiliation and abuse. The phrase “damaged bodies, silent crimes’ has come to be used by this community to describe their suffering often made even worse by the civil war that has torn Colombia apart over the […]
KIEV – The way his dad found out was not good. On the other hand it was his own fault. He’d left his laptop open, and when his father came to visit him at his student apartment he started clicking around on it and found pictures of him kissing his boyfriend Petja. First reaction – […]
The German travel company Dertour, one of the world’s leading tour operators, publishes catalogues covering many different countries and themes each season. Now for the first time, a catalogue is out called ‘Gay Travel,’ with some offers