What happened

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a 2019 Colorado law barring licensed therapists from using “any practice or treatment” to change a child’s “gender expressions” or sexual orientation. The 8-1 ruling, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, found that the “conversion therapy” ban, as applied to talk therapy, was a “presumptively unconstitutional” and “egregious assault” on First Amendment free speech protections.

Who said what

Every justice but Ketanji Brown Jackson rejected Colorado’s position that its never-enforced law “was not regulating free speech but outlawing substandard medical care — something courts have long allowed,” The Washington Post said. The law “censors speech based on viewpoint,” Gorsuch wrote, and tries to “enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech.”

Jackson warned in her dissent that the ruling could be “catastrophic” for the ability of states to “regulate the provision of medical care in any respect.” Because the court’s “majority plays with fire in this case,” she said, reading from the bench, “I fear that the people of this country will get burned.”

What next?

The Supreme Court sent the case back to the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, but “strongly hinted that the ban would fail” the “more stringent standard of review” Gorsuch laid out in his opinion, SCOTUSBlog said. In other words, CNN said, the “death sentence for the law” will “ultimately be carried about in another court.” About two dozen other states also “ban the discredited practice,” The Associated Press said, and Tuesday’s ruling is “expected to eventually make” those laws “unenforceable” as well.

India has long recognised a “third gender” and was one of the first countries to allow people legally to self-identify as transgender. But its parliament has just passed controversial amendments to such laws, which remove the right to self-identification and narrow the definition of ‘transgender’.

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government got the bill through both houses last week, despite a boycott by opposition parties and widespread protests by the LGBTQ+ community.

Virendra Kumar, minister for social justice and empowerment, says the amendments still protect people who “face severe social exclusion due to their biological condition”. But Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi called it a “brazen attack” on transgender rights.

‘Third gender’

People of a “third gender” have been recognised in India for thousands of years. They feature heavily in Hindu holy texts – the half-male, half-female deity Ardhanarishvara, for example – and were often revered under Muslim rulers of the Mughal Empire.

The most common third-gender group in South Asia are the hijras: often born male, they dress in traditionally female clothing, and many choose to undergo castration; others are born intersex. Hijras were traditionally “treated with both fear and respect”, said Harvard Divinity School but that “did not survive” colonial rule. The British, “shocked by third-gender people”, classified them as criminals in 1871. Criminalisation was repealed shortly after independence, but years of stigmatisation “took a toll”.

Hijras are expected to perform ritual roles at Hindu births and weddings but are otherwise “often treated with contempt” and “almost always excluded from employment and education”. They are “often stricken by poverty” and “victims of violence and abuse”.

But in 2014, India’s Supreme Court “officially recognised third-gender people as being citizens deserving of equal rights”. And that paved the way for the 2019 Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, which included the hijras and the kinnars, another third-gender group, along with transwomen and transmen in a more inclusive definition of transgender people. The act also affirmed the right to self-identify as transgender or non-binary.

‘A major reversal’

The new amendments to the 2019 law remove those rights to self-identify, requiring instead a medical certification of gender reassignment. It also limits the definition of transgender to intersex people and those from socio-cultural groups such as the hijras.

The government argues that the changes protect those facing “extreme and oppressive” discrimination, and strengthen laws against exploitation and trafficking. They say the definition of transgender is “too vague” and makes it difficult to identify the most marginalised; a narrower definition would help welfare benefits “reach those who need them”.

But critics say the new bill will exclude many, and that mandatory medical certification for those undergoing gender transition “undermines dignity and autonomy”. The amendments “appear to contradict the 2014 ruling”, which held that “requiring medical procedures for recognition was both unethical and unlawful”, said Delhi-based journalist Namita Singh in The Independent.

“It has shattered our identity,” transgender rights activist Laxmi Narayan Tripathi told reporters. India’s last census in 2011 recorded nearly half a million people in the “other” gender category. The true number is likely far higher; some estimates reach six million.

If India’s president signs the bill into law, it will be “a major reversal” of “hard-won rights”, said Jayshree Bajoria, Asia director of Human Rights Watch. It also puts people at risk by introducing additional offences of “coercing or alluring” people to be transgender. That’s “reminiscent of the colonial-era laws” that criminalised hijras.

This law, said N Kavitha Rameshwar in The Times of India, “seeks to be that one rogue wave that will wash away” a decade of progress in transgender rights, “as if it were all but a castle of sand”.

‘SpaceX is under a lot of pressure now. It’s not alone.’

Thomas Black at Bloomberg

SpaceX is “under intense pressure to perform this year,” but “it isn’t alone,” says Thomas Black. This year “will be pressure-packed for NASA and most U.S. space companies — whether legacy ones or startups that are struggling to prove themselves.” There is “growing concern, which could turn into alarm, that China will beat the U.S. to the moon.” Just like the “space race with the Soviet Union in the 1960s, this showdown is more about national security than science.”

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‘Conversion therapy kills — put a stop to it, once and for all’

Mark Henson and Hannah Wesolowski at The Hill

Who we are is “not something that needs to be fixed,” say Mark Henson and Hannah Wesolowski. But for “thousands of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender young people across the U.S., conversion therapy continues to send the dangerous message that their identity is a problem.” People “think of conversion therapy as a relic of the past,” but these “discredited and harmful practices are still happening in communities across the country, despite clear evidence of the damage they cause.”

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‘Trump’s proposed battleship is a budget-busting folly that will probably never sail’

Michael Hiltzik at the Los Angeles Times

President Donald Trump “announced a plan to build battleships that would be ‘the largest we’ve ever built,’” and “much of the reportage in subsequent days focused on the impropriety of a president’s naming a military program after himself,” says Michael Hiltzik. But that was “missing the point.” The “cost of the Trump battleships — between $9 billion and $14 billion each — would easily bust the budget for Pentagon procurement,” and would “contradict the Navy’s existing strategic and tactical doctrines.”

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‘After 21 deaths in Uvalde, a jury must weigh one officer’s actions’

Rosie DiManno at the Toronto Star

Everyone is “looking for somebody to blame for the abominable massacre in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, 2022,” says Rosie DiManno. This is the “thrust behind the prosecution” of police officer Adrian Gonzales, who allegedly “didn’t do enough, failed to engage, distract or delay the shooter.” But “falling short of that duty isn’t necessarily a criminal offense. Being a coward isn’t a crime,” and Gonzales’ “defense team is portraying the accused” as a “scapegoat for a much broader failure.”

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What happened

Federal prosecutors Monday announced charges against two Michigan men for allegedly planning a Halloween terrorist attack on LGBTQ+ bars in the Detroit suburb of Ferndale. The criminal complaint alleged that Momed Ali and Majed Mahmoud, both 20, were inspired to violence by the Islamic State group’s extremism.

Who said what

Ali and Mahmoud, arrested Friday along with an unidentified minor, were charged with receiving and transferring guns and ammunition for terrorism. The FBI reported that a search of their homes and a storage unit “turned up tactical vests and backpacks, AR-15-style rifles, ammunition, loaded handguns and GoPro cameras,” The Associated Press said.

The criminal complaint said Ali and Mahmoud were part of a larger group that shared extremist and ISIS-related material in encrypted group chats secretly monitored during a yearlong investigation. They allegedly spent months planning and training for the thwarted attack. “I don’t think there was a planned attack,” their lawyer Amir Makled told the Detroit Free Press yesterday. “These kids are gamers, gamers are weird in the way they talk to each other,” he told the newspaper on Saturday.

What next?

At a brief court hearing Monday, Ali and Mahoud were ordered detained until a Nov. 10 hearing, when “both sides will argue whether they should be released on bond, or remain locked up pending the outcome of their cases,” the Free Press said.

This year marks the centenary of the photo booth, which made its first appearance in 1925 on the streets of New York City. But far from slowing down as they reach their 100th birthday, they’re enjoying a revival as young people flock to use them.

Far from being just a way to get passport photographs or take fun snaps with friends, these booths have played a surprisingly significant part in social history.

‘Gorgeous’ quality

The photo booths that sprang up from the 1920s onwards were totally unlike existing commercial photography in that they “offered everyone the chance to pose without being under the watchful eye of a photographer”, said The Independent. This was especially significant for marginalised communities; “behind the drawn fabric”, same-sex couples were “free to kiss” and, unlike many US states, photo booths “never enforced segregation” or criminalised interracial relationships.

By the 1950s and 1960s, they were a “common feature at fairs, shopping centres and train stations”, wrote the Photographers’ Gallery on Meer. Their simplicity and low cost made them a particularly democratic institution. “Anyone could step behind the curtain, alone or crammed in with friends, put their money in the slot and strike a pose.” Photo-booth snaps were “loved by everyone” from John Lennon and Yoko Ono, to John and Jacqueline Kennedy, and Andy Warhol used them for a “famous series of self-portraits”.

Despite the “gorgeous” quality of their prints, the rise of the digital camera and smartphone displaced the analogue photo booth, which has, “gradually, disappeared entirely”, said The Independent.

‘Curtained privacy’

But now, “restored by dedicated experts”, analogue photo booths are “reappearing in cities across the world” where they are “enjoying a resurgence of interest and delight with modern-day fans”, said Meer. A new exhibition at The Photographers’ Gallery in London, “Strike a pose! 100 years of the photobooth”, celebrates the cultural and aesthetic legacy of photo-booth photography.

A 1970s photo booth in New York’s Lower East Side has been “drawing long lines” of young people who “yearn for a more physical media”, said The New York Times. It’s another example of how younger generations “often feel nostalgic for a time they never experienced” and have “flocked” to various forms of “physical media that some say forces them to slow down and be present”.

“When life is sad or uncertain, we need to feel love,” said The Independent, and that’s when “we crave silliness and joy most”. The “antique charm, curtained privacy and non-judgemental gaze” of photo booths still offers the chance to “experience delight for just a few pounds”.

What happened

Officials in Orlando Thursday criticized Florida's state government for painting over a rainbow-colored crosswalk outside Pulse, the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were shot dead in 2016. The Florida Department of Transportation did not comment on the overnight paint job but Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said on social media that he "will not allow our state roads to be commandeered for political purposes."

Who said what

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer (D) said the Florida transportation department installed the rainbow crosswalk in 2017, and it was a "callous" and "cruel political act" to "hastily" repaint it with no warning or discussion. The crosswalk "not only enhanced safety and visibility" for people visiting the Pulse memorial, he said, it "also served as a visual reminder of Orlando's commitment to honor the 49 lives taken."

The overnight "clandestine repainting" was apparently part of a push by state and federal transportation officials to "wipe 'political banners' from public roadways," the Orlando Sentinel said. After Florida warned cities to erase political or ideological "surface art," U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy nationalized that effort with a "safety initiative" in July. "Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks," he said on social media.

What next?

Orlando officials said they didn't believe the city "has the authority to paint back the rainbow," the Sentinel said. Some residents who gathered outside Pulse Thursday to criticize the rainbow's removal "colored in the crosswalk with chalk," The Associated Press said, "but their efforts were washed away by an afternoon rainstorm."

'If Dave Chappelle is a genius, why does his comedy punch down on trans people?'

Dennis Doyle at USA Today

Dave Chappelle's comedy "too often reinforces the very prejudices it claims to poke fun at," says Dennis Doyle. Chappelle has "shifted his focus toward the LGBTQ+ community, especially transgender people." The "best comedy punches up — it challenges power, exposes hypocrisy and speaks truth." But "when it punches down, it can legitimize cruelty and reinforce systems of exclusion." Chappelle "insists he's just telling the truth. But truth without compassion can sound a lot like contempt."

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'Lagos is surrounded by water — so where are all the beaches?'

Aanu Adeoye at the Financial Times

As "anyone who has ever visited Nigeria knows, hardly anything comes easy," says Aanu Adeoye. Lagos has "washed its hands of managing beaches, leaving private investors to develop resorts with beachfront access that exclude all but the fairly well-off." In a "country with sky-high inflation and acute poverty, the beach has become one more form of entertainment that is prohibitively expensive." Lagos' "lack of free beaches illustrates the way in which the city continues to squeeze its poorer residents."

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'Texas floods teach us how to come together, to really love our neighbors'

Bea L. Hines at the Miami Herald

For "many who were directly affected by the flood" in Texas, these "post-flood days have been like waking up from a horrible nightmare," says Bea L. Hines. In the "aftermath of such tragedy, I am amazed at how fast we Americans can forget our politics and differences." Instead of "fighting among ourselves, people are fighting for a righteous and just cause — that of saving lives, giving comfort and simply loving our neighbors."

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'Bad brains'

James Kimmel Jr. at Slate

Revenge is an "act designed to inflict harm on someone because they've inflicted harm on us," says James Kimmel Jr. The "desire for revenge is the root motivation for almost all forms of human violence." What "what most of us really want is the other person's pain." Perpetrators of "violence almost always believe they're victims seeking justice," and "recent neuroscience discoveries reveal a chilling picture: Your brain on revenge looks like your brain on drugs."

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'A lifeline cut — ending LGBTQ youth suicide support puts lives at risk'

Tamir Aldad at Newsweek

Terminating the "national LGBTQ youth suicide lifeline rolls back a vital lifeline for a group of young people who already experience mental health distress at alarming and disproportionate rates," says Tamir Aldad. Despite the "obvious need for and apparent success of the LGBTQ suicide lifeline, this critical support for LGBTQ kids will be shut down in less than a month." The "youth suicide lifeline service is simply good public health policy" that "supports vulnerable kids and saves lives."

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'The Diddy verdict is the latest gruesome marker of a post-#MeToo era'

Moira Donegan at The Guardian

Even "according to the version of events" that Sean Combs "himself has admitted to, the musician is abusive, cruel, manipulative and violent toward women," says Moira Donegan. It is "almost banal, by now, to observe that we are in the midst of a #MeToo backlash, and that the brief span" when "men were held momentarily accountable for their sexual abuse and exploitation of women has been replaced with a sadistic and gruesomely triumphant restoration of the status quo ante."

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'Democrats should become the pro-porn party'

Elie Mystal at The Nation

Democrats "should embrace pornography and other examples of sexiness and smut under the umbrella of free speech," says Elie Mystal. They "must be the party of free speech and artistic expression. That is the liberal position." Young men have been "led to believe that Republicans are the protectors of free speech." Democrats "can speak to people who honestly believe that freedom of thought and expression are under attack in this country, because it is under attack — from Republicans."

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'Why the US should build data centers in Dubai and Riyadh'

Mohammed Soliman at Foreign Policy

The "UAE and Saudi Arabia, and the broader Gulf region, are positioning themselves as potential backends of AI for emerging markets across Asia and Africa," says Mohammed Soliman. They are "laying the groundwork for a U.S.-aligned model of AI partnerships that could, over time, outpace China in the global AI race." The "U.S.-UAE and the US-Saudi partnerships shouldn't be viewed as offshoring compute capacity — this is capacity that didn't exist in the first place."

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One of the country's most influential religious organizations, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), wrapped up its annual convention on June 11 by voting on several resolutions revolving around issues at the heart of American law. With the meeting now concluded, the measures could put pressure on many politicians, particularly on the Christian right, to follow SBC's lead.

The convention's voting, especially on the issue of same-sex marriage, is significant given its reach: The SBC is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, with nearly 13 million members in 2024, according to the organization. It could be a powerful lobbying force in Washington, D.C.

What happened at the meeting?

During the convention, held in Dallas, the SBC voted on resolutions that included "whether to ban sports betting and pornography, as well as if the church should denounce abortion and transgender rights," said the Houston Chronicle. These ballots "call on politicians to establish laws on a number of items."

The SBC's resolutions for banning sports betting and pornography both passed, while one to prohibit women pastors failed. But the most consequential was the passage of a resolution "supporting a concerted effort to reverse Obergefell v. Hodges as the historic U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage approaches its 10-year anniversary," said USA Today.

That resolution, which also passed without debate, says that politicians should "pass laws that reflect the truth of creation and natural law — about marriage, sex, human life and family." It also says the country should recognize the "biological reality of male and female," among other phrasing related to gender identity. Notably, the same-sex measure doesn't "use the word 'ban,' but it left no room for legal same-sex marriage," said The Associated Press.

What happens next?

While the SBC's resolutions are nonbinding policy suggestions, they could go a long way toward influencing politicians. The "convention has long been a conservative trendsetter of national religious ideology and politics," said the Chronicle. A pair of SBC pastors notably "joined fellow conservative pastors to pray over President Donald Trump in recent months at the White House."

The SBC has made it clear that "evangelicals have long-term ambitions to dismantle an institution that many Americans now accept as a basic right," said The New York Times, even while acknowledging that same-sex marriage has "wide support" in the United States. It also has the same type of "pronatalism that has taken hold in many conservative circles, including those influencing the second Trump administration."

Many analysts believe that the SBC's resolutions are looking to the effort that "overturned the right to legal abortions as a possible blueprint for the new fight," said the Times. The SBC has held votes on same-sex topics before. But this was the "first time that the convention has voted to end the right to same-sex marriage," said The Guardian.

The SBC has notable political ties. Former Vice President Mike Pence spoke to the organization during Trump's first term and appeared at its 2024 convention. Trump looms large over the nation's Christian conservative base, and there is a "confidence that [Trump] will have their backs," said Kristin Du Mez, a Calvin University history professor with a focus on religion and politics, to the BBC. The SBC can "sense that there's been this shift, that there may be a window opening and that they think this is the right time to press this issue."

Less than six years ago and before she became President Donald Trump's pick for Director of National Intelligence, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, then a Hawaii Democrat, ran for the Democratic nomination for president. She had raised her national profile in 2016 as a backer of Sen. Bernie Sanders' (D-Vt.) campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. During that era, Gabbard was known as a critic of U.S. military interventions and domestic surveillance.

Gabbard dropped out of the race after failing to gain traction following her participation in televised debates and endorsed eventual nominee Joe Biden. After leaving Congress, she became a frequent guest on Fox News, where she criticized the Biden administration. In 2022, she left the Democratic Party, saying that it was "now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness." Even before she switched parties, Gabbard was a controversial figure whose frequent ideological shifts have left many observers wondering about the nature of her core principles.

Has a history of hostility to LGBTQ rights

Gabbard's father founded an organization called the Alliance for Traditional Marriage that helped pass a constitutional amendment in 1998 giving the "Hawaii state legislature power to 'reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples,'" said CNN. She continued to oppose same-sex marriage as a member of the Hawaii state legislature. Her past work and comments about LGBTQ issues came under fresh scrutiny during her 2019 run for the White House. She was "viewed suspiciously by many on the left because of her opposition to civil unions for same-sex couples while a state legislator," said The Washington Post.

In January 2019, she posted a video apologizing for many of her past views. "In my past, I said and believed things that were wrong, and worse, they were hurtful to people in the LGBTQ community and to their loved ones," said Gabbard in the video. Gabbard "has repeatedly voted in Congress to protect gay rights," said Politico in 2019 about her record in the U.S. House. Near the end of her final term in the House, she received criticism from trans-rights organizations "after she joined Republican Rep. Markwayne Mullin to introduce legislation specifying that Title IX protections for female athletes are based on "biological sex," said USA Today.

Resurrected anti-LGBTQ rhetoric after leaving the Democratic Party

After switching parties, Gabbard's rhetoric about LGBTQ issues seemed to change again. At the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference, Gabbard "baselessly claimed that the LGBTQ+ community was trying to gain acceptance for pedophiles," said the Anti-Defamation League. In 2022, she backed Florida's controversial parental rights bill that "prohibits schools from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity with students from kindergarten through third grade," said Fox News. Critics dubbed the law "Don't Say Gay."

Connected to a controversial religious leader

Gabbard also has ties to Chris Butler, the leader of the Science of Identity Foundation, who has adopted the name Siddhaswarupananda. The Foundation is "a secretive offshoot of the Hare Krishna movement vehemently opposed to same-sex relationships and abortion, and deeply suspicious of Islam," said The New York Times. Gabbard's parents were "both deeply enmeshed in Butler's movement" and had sent her to a boarding school in the Philippines operated by Butler when she was a teenager, said The Daily Beast. Butler has "a long history of espousing anti-gay rhetoric," said Honolulu Civil Beat. While Gabbard claims to no longer be associated with the group, she included a blessing from Butler in her 2015 wedding ceremony. "Some ex-members describe the Foundation as an abusive cult," said Business Insider.

Held a clandestine 2017 meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad

In 2017, Gabbard participated in a weeklong junket to Syria, which was embroiled in a long-running civil war that had already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. According to Gabbard, she visited "refugees, Syrian opposition leaders, widows and family members of Syrians fighting alongside groups like al-Qaeda, and Syrians aligned with the Assad regime," said the Associated Press. She also secretly met with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whose embattled regime had repeatedly deployed chemical weapons in attacks against Syrian rebels and civilians in an effort to maintain power. Her visit with Assad drew flak from both Democrats and Republicans. Her visit with Assad was "so dispiriting" because she returned to the United States "with an assessment that undoubtedly pleases the Assad regime," said National Review. Gabbard "viewed it all as a 'regime change war' fueled by the West and aimed at removing the dictator from power," said the Independent.

Maintains ties to Hindu extremists

While Gabbard's views on a number of issues have changed over time, "she has held steadfast in her Islamophobia, one of the few consistent commitments in her volatile political career," said Jeet Heer at The Nation. In her campaigns for Congress, Gabbard received "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in donations from supporters of Sangh Parivar, "a network of religious, political, paramilitary and student groups that subscribe to the Hindu supremacist, exclusionary ideology known as Hindutva," said The Intercept.

Hindu supremacists are known for their hostility to Islam, particularly in India, where Muslims constitute a significant and persecuted minority. Gabbard is a supporter of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has been accused of "stoking the othering of Muslims via disinformation, hate speech, opening old religious wounds, manipulating a servile media, silencing progressive voices and empowering Hindu supremacist vigilante groups," said Time.

Shared Russian propaganda

Gabbard shared false claims from her account on X shortly after Russia's unprovoked February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. There are "25+ U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine, which if breached would release & spread deadly pathogens to the U.S./world," said Gabbard in the video. There is no evidence to support these claims, which were "widely debunked and identified as Russian propaganda," said Fox News. "This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia's legitimate security concerns," said Gabbard in a post on X immediately following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a claim that echoed Moscow's rationale for the invasion. Such comments "were taken seriously in Russia, where the state-controlled media has often praised Gabbard," said the Associated Press. In an October 2022 episode of her podcast, Gabbard referred to U.S. backing of Ukraine as a "regime-change war that the United States and NATO are waging via their proxy in Ukraine," said National Review.

Publicly supported leakers of classified information

In 2013, Edward Snowden leaked "a trove of highly classified documents accessed while working as a contractor at the National Security Agency," said The Guardian. Gabbard has repeatedly declined opportunities to denounce Snowden's actions since becoming the nominee to lead U.S. intelligence operations. Snowden currently lives in exile in Russia. Toward the end of her time in Congress, Gabbard cosponsored a resolution with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) asking for all charges against Snowden to be dropped. During her Senate confirmation hearings, a number of senators "pressed Gabbard to call Snowden a traitor. She steadfastly refused," said Time. Instead, she "​​conceded Snowden broke the law and that she would no longer push for his pardon," said Responsible Statecraft.

"It has been a long fight full of tears for us." So said Ann "Waaddao" Chumaporn, the organiser of Bangkok Pride March, after Thailand finally began recognising same-sex marriages last week.

But while "hundreds of couples" celebrate the enactment of the bill by tying the knot, others are asking "the same question" that was heard "throughout the long campaign to get the equal marriage law passed", reported the BBC. "Why Thailand? Why nowhere else, aside from Taiwan and Nepal, in Asia?"

An outlier in the region

For all that Thailand is "famously open to and accepting of" LGBT people, equal rights for same-sex couples still required "a determined campaign to change attitudes", said the broadcaster's Southeast Asia correspondent Jonathan Head. And Thailand, along with Taiwan and Nepal, is "an outlier" in Asia for having legalised same-sex marriage. "Few other countries in the region are likely to follow suit."

Thailand was "already a magnet" for LGBT tourists, said The Times – particularly from far more "restrictive" areas in Asia. In predominantly Muslim countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, LGBT people face "overt discrimination at best and often criminal punishment". In Brunei, the penalty for sex between men is technically death by stoning.

In China, homosexuality is by rights legal but the government has banned same-sex couples and "effeminate men" from television. Although the Philippines has "a large and visible LGBT community", the powerful Roman Catholic church means there is "no apparent prospect of marriage equality". Singapore may have repealed the British colonial-era law criminalising homosexuality in 2022, but it simultaneously changed the constitution to define marriage as heterosexual.

Some Asian commentators have characterised homosexuality as "a Western behaviour, superimposed upon Eastern cultures as a decadent, neo-colonial side effect of globalisation", said Time. But that is "gloriously false" when you look at the history. It was "contact with the West", particularly Christian missionaries and British colonial rule, that "steadily chipped away" at Asia's historic "permissiveness" towards same-sex relationships.

The turning tide

In "largely conservative" southeast Asia, advocating for LGBT rights "can be an uphill battle", said the South China Morning Post. But activists say "people are more willing to come out, talk about and campaign for LGBT issues and rights".

The shift "began about a decade ago but has accelerated in the past five years". There are various suggestions as to why, including the popularity of K-pop, digital platforms connecting communities and an increasing number of straight people showing support.

Thailand's so-called "Boy Love" dramas, which depict affairs between beautiful young men, have also become enormously popular and are now a major export. The way LGBT characters are portrayed on TV dramas has made a huge difference to shifting attitudes, according to Tinnaphop Sinsomboonthong, an assistant professor at Thammasat University. "Nowadays they represent us as normal characters, like you see in real life," he told the BBC. "This really helped change perceptions and values in all generations."

'The Supreme Court just showed us what contempt for expertise looks like'

M. Gessen at The New York Times

Supreme Court justices "probably shouldn't be trying to make a ruling based on medical evidence," says M. Gessen. The "ease with which legislators overrule doctors, and the relatively small amount of attention this overreach received" during the Supreme Court hearing of United States v. Skrmetti, are "symptoms of our times." A "rejection of genuine expertise is both a precondition and a function of autocracy," and there is a "growing intolerance of minorities and, in particular, people who dare to challenge tradition."

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'The real problem at the heart of the Boeing plea deal'

Hui Chen and Todd Haugh at The Washington Post

There is a "morass of misaligned incentives that have weakened the ability" of corporate monitors to "achieve their most critical goal — reducing corporate wrongdoing in the long term," say Hui Chen and Todd Haugh. The "system is so broken that there isn't even a clear standard for judging whether a monitorship has worked," and "there will be no way" to "objectively determine whether Boeing has become more ethical and able to better prevent misconduct."

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'The University of Michigan's shift on DEI is only a start'

National Review editors

The University of Michigan's DEI shun is an "indication that administrators are already hearing the footsteps of Donald Trump," say the National Review's editors. Universities have been "among the most vocal proponents of the divisive DEI ideology, evident in their passionate defenses of racially discriminatory admissions policies." Requiring a "DEI-themed statement for hiring, promotion, tenure, or admission is nothing short of compelled progressive speech," and the "University of Michigan has taken a small step in the right direction."

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'This year, Arab American political power came to the fore'

Rami G. Khouri at Al Jazeera

"One of the major political developments in the United States" is the "success of Arab American political organizing," says Rami G. Khouri. A "new generation of political activists has emerged that has earned representation in unprecedented numbers." It "also put Arab Americans on the electoral map for the first time by launching the Uncommitted movement." Democrats "underestimated the power of this new generation and the intensity of citizen anger, which cost it dearly in the election."

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'How the Thanksgiving holiday can help heal America's political rifts'

Michael Morris at Time

As "Thanksgiving approaches on this election year, many of us can't help but think of politics," says Michael Morris. But "this doesn't mean that our tribal psychology is a curse that ineluctably dooms our democracy." Thanksgiving "can also work to redress our rifts today — in our polarized nation and even in our families." People "can feel at a visceral level the sense of meaning and purpose," Morris adds. Americans "need traditions and tribalism because we need each other."

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'Report from inside the "deep state": We're not going anywhere'

Marc Fisher at The Washington Post

Career employees "stayed with the government for decades because in good times, they are on the cutting edge of progress," and "in tough times, they are the bulwark, the last line of defense against decay and decline," says Marc Fisher. The "deep state is the permanent government, which can be slow and frustrating but is also a bedrock." Federal prosecutors are "determined not to let one four-year patch of trouble change their career plans."

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'The limits of "Black Girl Magic" — why marketing Kamala as a celebrity failed'

Torraine Walker at Newsweek

The election "showed just how little pop culture messaging resonates with the majority of American voters," says Torraine Walker. Kamala Harris "was the political extension of the idea of Black Girl Magic," but "in focusing so heavily on that selling point, the Democrats created for themselves blind spots that ignored the aggressive pushback against Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) from the far-right." Still, Harris' loss is "by no means a repudiation of the concept of Black Girl Magic."

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'JK Rowling and Nancy Mace are right: Women deserve their own safe spaces'

Ingrid Jacques at USA Today

Women "are sick of being treated like their rights don't matter, and they're standing up for themselves," says Ingrid Jacques. The "'female' category is being destroyed, with businesses that don't want to bother with bathroom squabbles offering shared, gender-neutral restrooms." Wherever "clothes are coming off, whether a bathroom or locker room, is a situation where we as women are at our most vulnerable." It's "not bigotry" to "want to preserve that for women."

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Eight years ago, amid his first run for high elected office, then-candidate Donald Trump seemed to buck the prevailing conservative trend at the time by insisting Caitlyn Jenner was welcome to use the women's bathroom at his eponymous Manhattan skyscraper — a sign perhaps that his would be an administration more accommodating to transgender people in light of that year's Republican-led effort to restrict bathroom access in states like North Carolina and Texas. Jenner, one of the highest-profile transwomen in the country at the time, would go on to endorse Trump, only to recant in 2018, claiming that Trump had used the trans community as "political pawns" and "ignored our humanity."

Now, as Trump prepares to return to Washington with a political mandate and congressional majority, he does so in part thanks to eschewing the ambiguity of his 2016 position to wholly embrace an overt streak of transphobia that has come to the mainstream of American conservatism. By ending his campaign with claims that children are indoctrinated into questioning their gender identity at school, and then come "home a few days later with an operation," Trump's vow to get "transgender insanity the hell out of our schools," among other promises, is being taken by many in the LGBTQ+ community as something much more serious than hyperbolic campaign rhetoric.

What have Trump and his allies said they'll do?

At various points on the campaign trail, Trump has "promised to impose restrictions on several aspects of life for transgender people," The New York Times said. Those promises include screeds against "gender indoctrination," as well as vows to "keep men out of women's sports" and "withhold federal funding for Medicare and Medicaid from hospitals that provide gender transition treatment to minors." He also ran on a promise to "seek a federal definition of 'gender' that is restricted to only 'male and female' as assigned at birth," said LGBTQ+ outlet Them. Trump also resumed his attacks on transgender members of the armed forces, ending his campaign with a "spoof video mocking trans people and their place in the U.S. military" that drew "loud boos at his rallies, as do Trump's false claims about female athletes and his mocking impression of what he says is a trans woman lifting weights," said The Associated Press.

What separates this term from his first four years in office is the "precision" with which the planned attacks on transgender communities will be enacted, said Isa Noyola, deputy director of the Transgender Law Center, to USA Today. Trump and his allies "know the inner workings of the bureaucracy enough to now be very targeted, and they're not wasting time. The attacks are going to come swiftly."

How are transgender communities preparing for Trump's second term?

Trump's victory marks an "existential crisis for the trans community," University of Toledo political science professor Jami Taylor said to USA Today. "There's a lot of fear, and it is warranted," said Taylor, who is transgender. "It's bad, and there's no sugarcoating that." LGBTQ+ mental health services hotline The Trevor Project saw "demand increase about 125% on election day through Wednesday morning, compared to normal days," said the Los Angeles Times. "I'm not going to sugarcoat it," transgender writer and activist Erin Reed said to the paper, "I had to talk three or four people down from suicide" on election night. "That's the reality that people are facing right now." Members of the trans community should also spend the interim period before Trump takes office updating or getting a passport, updating "every ID your state allows you to," and stockpiling medication "in case of disruption," Reed said on X.

There is a "hope" within transgender communities in the knowledge that the "president can't do anything on their own," NBC News' Steven Romo said. "There are legislators that people plan to call and write to to try to share what they hope gets done in our country." The transgender community will "continue fighting for our rights, freedoms, and the future we all deserve" by drawing on "strength from the powerful legacy of resistance of our Black and Indigenous ancestors," Transgender Law Center Executive Director Shelby Chestnut said to The Oaklandside.

Perhaps most encouraging is that, in a year "dominated by anti-transgender messaging" from politicians, a "record number of transgender candidates celebrated historic wins across the United States," The Advocate said — a trend that has "sparked hope and optimism among LGBTQ+ advocates who see these results as proof of growing support for equality."

'How Harris can improve on Walz's "liberal" school lunch program'

Michael Pollan at The Washington Post

Offering "universal school lunch — which was national policy during the pandemic — needs to be part of the Harris-Walz agenda," says Michael Pollan, because "offering school lunch on the basis of need stigmatizes eligible children." School-supported agriculture has the "potential not only to improve the health of our children but also to mitigate climate change." It would "also remove the lock that a small handful of food-processing corporations have on the market for school food."

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'It's localization, not globalization, for the health of the US economy'

Christine Ngoc Ngo at The Hill

The U.S. is "undergoing a transformative shift away from the full embrace of globalization, toward a more deliberate focus on localization," says Christine Ngoc Ngo. This is "evident in the economic priorities of both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump through tariffs or industrial strategy." And "despite the contrasting methods by both candidates, localization has become a bipartisan approach to economic nationalism." It also "reflects broader concerns about income inequality and the equitable distribution of economic benefits."

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'The Pentagon is finally giving LGBTQ former service members honor and respect'

Renée Graham at The Boston Globe

Over "800 veterans received honorable discharges years after they were kicked out of the military for being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender," and it is "impossible to explain the indelible harm inflicted on those who were punished simply because they wanted to both serve their country and be true to their authentic selves," says Renée Graham. The Pentagon should "speed up the process of granting honorable discharges to LGBTQ former service members unfairly dismissed."

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'The FTC isn't a tool to enforce "equity"'

Ethan Yang and Ryan Yonk at the National Review

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) "continues to step well outside its legal authority, all the while attempting to broaden its jurisdiction covertly," say Ethan Yang and Ryan Yonk. This "foray into disparate-impact enforcement is especially concerning," as "policing alleged racial bias is not something the FTC is equipped to do." This "would further erode the FTC's nonpartisan credentials," and America is "harmed when it chooses to defy the law in pursuit of matters outside its proper purview."

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What happened

The Pentagon said Tuesday that more than 820 LGBTQ veterans kicked out of the military under the now-defunct "don't ask, don't tell" policy had been upgraded to honorable discharges following a yearlong review ordered by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. About 96% of the roughly 13,500 service members affected by the policy, in place from 1994 to 2011, have now received honorable discharges, the Defense Department said.

Who said what

The U.S. military "will continue to honor the service and the sacrifice of all our troops — including the brave Americans who raised their hands to serve but were turned away because of whom they love," Austin said in a statement.

"Don't ask, don't tell" was former President Bill Clinton's compromise fix for "nearly eight decades of discrimination against LGBTQ members of the armed forces," The Washington Post said. "Up to that point, more than 100,000 people had been kicked out of the military because of their sexual orientation," and Clinton's policy meant gay people could serve, "but only if they kept their sexuality a secret."

What next?

Veterans Affairs Department spokesperson Terrence Hayes said the government is contacting the veterans upgraded to honorable discharges and "will work with each individual to ensure they are getting the full suite of health care and benefits they deserve." The Pentagon has "no formal plans to look into additional cases," The New York Times said, but officials said "anyone who was discharged because of their sexual orientation was still eligible to apply for a review to potentially have their status upgraded."

What happened

President Joe Biden on Wednesday pardoned thousands of U.S. veterans convicted for consensual gay sex between 1951 and 2013, when sodomy was banned under military law. An estimated 2,000 former military personnel are eligible to have their dismissals upgraded to honorable discharges, opening the door to withheld federal benefits.

Who said what

Biden said he was "righting an historic wrong" by pardoning "many former service members who were convicted simply for being themselves." Despite their "courage and sacrifice," he said on X, "thousands of LGBTQI+ service members were forced out of the military," some via court-martial, and made to shoulder "this great injustice for decades."

LGBTQ+ advocates cheered Biden's clemency but said the burden of cleaning the records shouldn't be on the veterans. Former U.S. Air Force officer Steve Marose said to the BBC he was "just glad the day has come," as his late 1980s felony sodomy conviction and discharge have cost him jobs and "kind of just hangs over me."

What next?

Although the pardon proclamation affects "potentially thousands of veterans," The Associated Press said, "it's not clear whether the government will try to find a way to compensate" them for lost benefits, back pay or restitution.

Labour has reaffirmed its commitment to "modernise, simplify and reform" the process of legally changing gender.

The party has said its plans will "remove indignities for trans people who deserve recognition and acceptance" but also provide "protections so you can't legally change your gender overnight".

In response, Tory leadership hopeful Kemi Badenoch, the women and equalities minister, said this would "unravel all the protections in the current system designed to protect women and girls" and create "loopholes for predators and bad-faith actors to infiltrate women-only spaces and put us at risk".

What is Labour's position?

Under existing laws, transgender people wishing to have their new gender legally recognised must obtain a gender recognition certificate (GRC).

Labour plans to remove what it terms outdated elements of this process, including consent from a spouse if the person is married and the requirement to prove the applicant has lived as their preferred gender for two years. This will be replaced with a two-year "reflection" period after the application has been submitted. A panel of doctors and lawyers that currently approves GRCs will also be replaced by a single doctor specialising in gender issues, who will be able to provide a medical report supporting the gender change.

Plans to introduce a controversial self-ID law, which would remove the need for a medical diagnosis altogether, have been abandoned.

Has Labour's stance changed?

The proposals set out this week are "largely the same" as those outlined last year by Labour's national policy forum, said The Guardian. Nonetheless, said The Times, they are "likely to heighten concern among critics over Labour's approach to transgender issues".

Keir Starmer appeared to change his position on transgender rights during Thursday's BBC "Question Time" election special. Last year, the Labour leader said "99.9% of women" do not have a penis and in 2021 stated it was "not right" for Labour MP Rosie Duffield to say that "only women have a cervix". But on Thursday night he said he agreed with former Labour leader Tony Blair's position that "biologically, a woman is with a vagina and a man is with a penis".

In April, shadow cabinet member Louise Haigh suggested Labour should be a "safe space" for gender-critical but not transphobic opinions, amid fresh party tensions over gender in the wake of the Cass review.

Speaking on Times Radio this morning, the shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said: "I think at times in pursuit of inclusion, we've ended up in a position where women have felt excluded, biological women have felt excluded." He added that he was "very optimistic" that Labour could find a way to address both the rights of biological women and trans women in the debate.

How do Labour compare to the Conservatives?

As part of its manifesto, the Conservatives have promised to rewrite the Equality Act so that it only offers protections on the basis of a person's biological sex.

At present, sex, along with race, disability and sexual orientation, is a protected characteristic and the act makes it illegal to discriminate against someone on those grounds. The Conservatives do not want the term "sex" to apply to those who have changed their legal sex, said Context, in order to "protect female-only spaces and competitiveness in sport".

In contrast, Labour has said it supports the Equality Act as it is, "including its exemptions that allow for the provision of single-sex spaces in certain circumstances", said the news site.

The two parties also differ on how children are taught about sex and gender in schools. 

Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson has suggested she would scrap planned Tory guidelines on "gender ideology" in schools. The guidance, which was set to come into effect in the coming months, says pupils should not be taught
"that people can be born the wrong sex and that they can change their identity to the opposite sex or other categories such as 'non-binary'", said The Telegraph.

Responding to accusations that the wording had "drifted far too much into partisan and unnecessary language", Education Secretary Gillian Keegan warned a Labour government "would play politics with the lives of our children by ripping up guidance on gender-questioning children".

This week marks a notable anniversary: 20 years since America's first legal same-sex marriages were performed in Massachusetts. The ceremonies, featuring seven couples, came after the state's top court ruled that the Massachusetts Constitution "forbids the creation of second-class citizens." "That ruling, and the marriages it allowed, represented progress few queer people expected to witness in our lifetimes," Renée Graham said in The Boston Globe.

"Two decades later, what was once the white-hot center of political debate has receded to the background," said The Wall Street Journal. The Massachusetts ruling didn't mark the end of that debate, but it was the beginning of the end. The U.S. Supreme Court settled the issue with its landmark 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized same-sex marriages nationwide. What was once a bitterly divisive issue is now relatively popular: "Polls show nearly three-quarters of Americans, including 49% of Republicans and a majority of regular churchgoers, support it." Does that mean the debate is completely over?

What did the commentators say?

"The past few years have taught us that hard-earned rights should not be taken for granted," Robert B. Hanson, the judge who ruled in favor of gay marriage in Iowa in 2007, said in The Des Moines Register. Same-sex families have blossomed even in red states — Iowa is home to 4,000 such couples, and more than a quarter of those are raising children. But the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 signaled that other rights could be on the chopping block. "There are real threats to this progress, and it's critical that we not lose sight of them."

This means same-sex marriage — far from firmly entrenched in the law — might be on the ballot in 2024. Right now a "majority of justices aren't ready to rule that same-sex marriage is no longer protected," Philip Elliott said at Time magazine. That could change depending on the results of the presidential election. The next president could replace enough Supreme Court justices to "shift that dynamic fairly quickly." Strategists in both parties are trying to avoid discussing LGBTQ+ rights, preferring to focus instead on abortion. That should change. The issue deserves "better attention by the candidates and voters."

What next?

Onetime opponents of same-sex marriage have largely moved on to campaigns against transgender rights, The New York Times said in 2023. After the Supreme Court's ruling in Obergefell, "social conservatives were set adrift." The new focus on transgender Americans, particularly young people, has "reinvigorated a network of conservative groups, increased fund-raising and set the agenda in school boards and state legislatures."

Perhaps that's because conservative fears about the legalization of same-sex marriage "simply have not come to pass," UCLA's Benjamin R. Karney told Newsweek. There were concerns that allowing gay marriage would result in "fewer couples marrying, more couples divorcing and an overall retreat from family formation," he said. Instead, marriage rates went up among both different-sex and same-sex couples, while adoption rates increased. "The only changes we detect," said Melanie A. Zaber, an economist who studied the issue with Karney, "are suggestive of a renewed salience of marriage among the broader public."

What happened

The United Methodist Church's quadrennial general conference voted 692-51 on Wednesday to repeal a 40-year-old ban on ordaining "self-avowed practicing homosexuals" as ministers. The delegates also barred local UMC leaders from penalizing congregations and clergy that facilitate same-sex weddings.

Who said what

It seems like a "simple vote," but Wednesday's motion "carried so much weight and power, as 50 years of restricting the Holy Spirit's call on people's lives has been lifted," said Karen Oliveto, the UMC's first openly lesbian bishop.

The commentary

The new policy does not require or "explicitly affirm LGBTQ clergy" but does mean the global church "no longer forbids them," The Associated Press said. The UMC tightened its ban on LGBTQ+ clergy in 2019, but a quarter of U.S. churches then left the denomination "in anticipation of the loosening of strictures around homosexuality," The New York Times said.

What next?

The ban will be lifted as soon as the meeting ends May 3, though under a plan approved last week to break the global UMC into four semi-autonomous regions, "in practice it may primarily affect churches in the United States," the Times said.

Human rights groups have condemned a bill passed by Iraq's parliament that criminalises same-sex relationships, with jail terms of between 10 and 15 years.

According to a copy of the legislation seen by Reuters, the law aims to "protect Iraqi society from moral depravity and the calls for homosexuality that have overtaken the world".

Amnesty International's Iraq researcher Razaw Salihy said that Iraq had "effectively codified in law the discrimination and violence" that members of the LGBTQ+ community have "been subjected to with absolute impunity for years".

What is in the new law?

As well as a penalty of between 10 and 15 years in prison for same-sex relations, the Law on Combating Prostitution and Homosexuality mandates at least seven years in jail for anybody who promotes homosexuality or prostitution, and between one and three years for anyone who changes their "biological gender" or wilfully dresses in an effeminate manner. 

Doctors who perform gender reassignment surgery, men who "intentionally" act like women and those who engage in "wife swapping" will also face prison terms under the new legislation, said the BBC.

Why has it been introduced now?

Iraq had been among the few Islamic nations that did not explicitly criminalise same-sex relations, but "loosely defined" morality clauses in its penal code have been used to "target" LGBTQ+ people, said The Independent.

The new legislation was backed by conservative Shia Muslim parties that form the largest coalition in Iraq's mainly Muslim parliament. It is "a significant step in combating sexual deviancy given the infiltration of unique cases contradicting Islamic and societal values", Amir al-Maamouri, an independent MP, told Shafaq News.

It is indeed "sweeping", said Pink News, although "less extreme than originally planned", after a clause in an earlier version of the bill that called for the death penalty for same-sex acts was removed due to opposition from the US and Europe.

What has the reaction been?

The amended legislation has sparked condemnation from human rights groups and the international community.

It is "dangerous and worrying", said UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron. A statement from the US State Department said the law "threatens those most at risk in Iraqi society" and "can be used to hamper free speech and expression and inhibit the operations of NGOs across Iraq". The law would also weaken Iraq's ability to diversify its economy and attract foreign investment, the department said.

Data collected in 2022, reported by Pink News, suggested that just 2% of Iraq's population support homosexuality, while 55% oppose it. Ordinary Iraqis interviewed on Sunday expressed "mixed views" on the new law, said The Associated Press. 

What was the law before?

"Public perception and morality clauses in its penal code" mean that LGBTQ+ people have been "routinely targeted domestically and institutionally", said Pink News.

A 2022 report by Human Rights Watch said armed groups in Iraq were abducting, raping, torturing and killing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and accused the Iraqi government of failing to hold perpetrators accountable.

The words "homosexual" and "gender" were banned in the media and on social media platforms in 2023. Officials claimed the move would safeguard societal values and maintain public order.

Over the past year, major Iraqi parties have "stepped up" criticism of LGBTQ+ rights, said Al Jazeera, "with rainbow flags frequently being burned in protests by both governing and opposition conservative Shia Muslim factions".

Renewed outbreaks of violence against Iraq's LGBTQ+ community have seen several people killed, including 28-year-old trans blogger Simsim, who was stabbed to death by unknown assailants in the city of Diwaniyah in February.

The new law "rubber-stamps" the country's "appalling record of rights violations", said Rasha Younes, deputy director of the LGBTQ+ rights programme at Human Rights Watch, marking "a serious blow to fundamental human rights".

What happened

Florida reached a settlement Monday with civil rights groups that challenged a controversial 2022 sex education law dubbed "Don't Say Gay" by its critics. The settlement, filed in federal court, keeps the law in place but clarified it "restricts only classroom instruction" on "sexual orientation" and "gender identity," not discussion of those topics. 

Who said what

The settlement "safeguards against hate and bullying" in school, said plaintiffs' lawyer Roberta Kaplan. "Simply put, the State of Florida has now made it clear that LGBTQ+ kids, parents and teachers in Florida can, in fact, say that they are gay." A spokesperson for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) called the agreement a "major win" because "Florida’s classrooms will remain a safe place" and the law won't be "maligned in court, as it was in the public arena."

What next?

Florida must now make clear to its 67 public school districts that students and teachers can discuss gender and sexual orientation, read and perform literature with LGBTQ themes, and teach anti-bullying lessons, and that school library books can't be banned for LGBTQ content.

'Nikki Haley's narrow path'

Carine Hajjar in The Boston Globe

There's one thing "CNN, MSNBC, Fox, and even the RNC can agree on," says Carine Hajjar. "The race is over for Nikki Haley." Apparently, she hasn't "gotten the memo." The former South Carolina governor has been ramping up media appearances and "poking fun" at GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live. Her persistence "could make sense." Her donors and network give her a path to the Republican nomination — in 2028, when the orange fog lifts.

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'Biden begins to admit defeat on electric vehicles'

Washington Examiner editorial board

The Biden administration bet that electric car sales, "goosed by $7,500 federal tax credits," would take off, says the Washington Examiner editorial board. With unsold EVs clogging dealer lots, "President Joe Biden began to admit defeat for his clean energy agenda this month" by telling the Environmental Protection Agency to roll back the mandate that two-thirds of cars sold be EVs by 2032. Biden finally saw the light when autoworker unions, hurting from production cuts, started complaining.

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'The bullying and death of an Oklahoma nonbinary student just showed us who really isn't safe in school'

Soleil Ho in the San Francisco Chronicle

Oklahoma has imposed policies against non-cisgender students in "the guise of 'making schools safer for kids,'" says Soleil Ho. The recent death of a nonbinary teen, Nex Benedict, who was brutally beaten in a high-school girls' bathroom after a year of bullying showed it's really trans and non-binary kids who are endangered by the "unceasing anti-LGBT demonization in the state" and nation. "Let people be different from you. Better yet, please — let them live."

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'Kamala Harris is an underrated asset'

Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post

"Vice President Harris was never as flawed" as critics claimed, says Jennifer Rubin. She has "bolstered President Biden's fight for voting rights" and taken on "seemingly impossible tasks," while avoiding her "predecessor's cringeworthy fawning." The first woman of color in the job, she has weathered "sometimes petty" attacks from the media and Republicans. But she's really hitting her stride as the campaign's voice on "critical issues such as abortion and her fiery prosecution of the case against Trump."

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What happened?

Greece's parliament late Thursday legalized same-sex marriage in a rare cross-party 176-76 vote, making Greece the first Orthodox Christian country to enshrine marriage equality in law. Same-sex couples now have full parental and adoption rights but can't become parents through surrogacy.

Who said what?

"Greece is proud to become the 16th EU country to legislate marriage equality," center-right Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on X. "This is a milestone for human rights, reflecting today's Greece — a progressive, and democratic country, passionately committed to European values."

The commentary

Polls show Greeks support the marriage reforms "by a narrow margin," The Associated Press said. But the law's approval came only after "weeks of public rancor," The Guardian said. "Orthodox bishops had threatened to excommunicate lawmakers" who voted in favor, and the leader of the far-right Spartans party said the law "would 'open the gates to hell and perversion.'"

What next?

Mitsotakis' support for the bill, despite "significant opposition" from his party, will allow him to "further encroach on the territory of centrists and liberals," Politico said. 

The Vatican said Nov. 8 that transgender Catholics can be baptized and serve as godparents at a baptism, and that nothing in church law prevents gay or transgender people from serving as witnesses in Catholic weddings. The new document, signed Oct. 31 by Pope Francis and Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the new head of the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog, also clarified that the children of same-sex couples can be baptized. There are, of course, caveats and theological fine print.

The document released by the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith, written in Italian and Portuguese, was Fernández's response to six questions from Brazilian Bishop José Negri. The answers reflect Francis' pastoral approach to the papacy and outreach to LGBTQ Catholics, without changing the church's moral teachings on homosexuality and gender.

Updates on baptism

In the Catholic Church, baptism is administered — mostly to young children — to cleanse residual sin and initiate people into the Christian church. Children and adolescents "with issues of a transsexual nature" can be baptized "if well prepared and willing," the document said. And "a transsexual — undergoing hormonal treatment and sex-reassignment surgery — can be baptized, under the same conditions as other faithful, if there are no situations in which there is a risk of generating public scandal or disorientation in the faithful."

"The term 'scandal' in Roman Catholic theology has a specific meaning" that's different than just "moral outrage," NPR reported. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, scandal is "an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil," tempts a person to commit sin or "damages virtue and integrity."

The question of transgender godparents, as it relates to baptism, "is more complicated," Vatican News reported, because "being a godparent is not a right." Transgender Catholics can "be admitted to the role of godfather or godmother," under "certain conditions," the dicastery document said. 

In borderline cases, transgender godparent candidates could be offered another role in the baptism, such as a witness, the document suggested, or "another person from the family circle might act as guarantor of the correct transmission of the Catholic faith to the baptized person."

Updates on marriage

Same-sex couples cannot be married in the Catholic Church, though Francis left a door open in October to priests blessing same-sex couples — so long as it was clear the blessing was distinct from the sacrament of marriage. But gay and transgender people can act as witnesses at Catholic weddings because nothing "in current universal canonical legislation" prohibits it, the new document said.

What does all this mean, practically?

The Catholic Church still holds that "homosexual acts" are "intrinsically immoral" and "contrary to the natural law." And "while any statement about transgender Catholics is liable to stir conversation among Vatican observers and, especially, Catholics on the internet," Religion News Service noted, this new guidance doesn't change any Catholic teaching or even necessarily break any new ground. 

"There are no doctrinal changes here," prominent canon lawyer Nicholas P. Cafardi told The New York Times. On the other hand, this is "an actual document, not just a passing comment" from the pope, Madeline Marlett, a 26-year-old transgender Catholic in Massachusetts, told the Times. "That gave me a little bit of joy and a little bit of hope."

“In many dioceses and parishes, including in the U.S., transgender Catholics have been severely restricted from participating in the life of the church, not because of any canon law, but stemming from the decisions of bishops, priests and pastoral associates," Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest who advocates for more LGBTQ inclusion in the church, told The Associated Press. "The Vatican's statement is a clear recognition not only of their personhood, but of their place in their own church."

The document will make it easier for LGBTQ Catholics to participate in parishes where they are already accepted, and "it's going to be harder for local bishops not to enforce it" in areas where LGBTQ Catholics are not so welcome, Francis DeBernardo, the executive director of New Ways Ministry, told the Times.

Pope Francis is "trying to guide the church into a more welcoming place," Kori Pacyniak, a researcher of the religious experience of transgender Catholics, told The Washington Post. Even though these efforts are "often incredibly slow-going," that "doesn't mean we shouldn't celebrate the small steps along the way."

A prominent activist and Mexico's first openly non-binary judge has been found dead in a suspected murder that has led to "an outpouring of grief" from the country's LGBTQ+ community.

Jesús Ociel Baena, 39, was found at home on Monday "slain with a razor blade", reported Reuters. A person identified by local media as Baena's partner Dorian Nieves Herrera was also found dead. Candlelit vigils and demonstrations have taken place in several cities, where "many shed tears and speakers lashed out at the insults and acts of violence that remain a common occurrence for many gay, transgender and non-binary Mexicans".

The authorities said that Herrera, 37, appeared to have killed Baena before taking his own life. But LGBTQ+ leaders in the country are "questioning whether such a swift assessment fits what they say is a pattern by authorities of effectively dismissing grisly killings involving LGBTQ people as crimes of passion", said The New York Times (NYT).

Baena's death has provoked calls to "determine if the magistrate had been targeted for promoting the rights of nonbinary people".

Who was Jesús Ociel Baena?

Baena, a "pioneering nonbinary figure", made history in 2022 when they became the first openly non-binary member of the Mexican judiciary, said the NYT. Their appointment "was viewed as a breakthrough moment for LGBTQ individuals" in the country, said Al Jazeera.

This year, Baena became one of the first Mexicans to receive a non-binary passport, and the first in their home state of Coahuila to be described as non-binary on their birth certificate. "Deal with it!" they posted on Twitter in May. 

Just weeks before their death, they succeeded in being officially referred to as the gender-neutral "le magistrade" for magistrate, rather than "el magistrado" or "la magistrada".

Baena would "regularly publish photos and videos of themselves in skirts, heels and toting a rainbow fan in court offices", said The Guardian. They said they had regularly received death threats.

What happened?

The bodies of Baena and their partner were found by their cleaner, according to the Aguascalientes state prosecutor, Jesus Figueroa. Baena had suffered 20 cuts from a shaving razor, including one to the neck that was likely to have been fatal. Later, the prosecutor's office said Herrera had "tested positive for methamphetamines", according to The Associated Press.

But many of Baena's friends and family have rejected the state's hypothesis, according to Reuters. "It's not true," said their father, Juan Baena, at the funeral, next to the pair of coffins draped with rainbow flags.

Baena's death could intimidate or even incite violence against other LGBTQ+ people, said Alejandro Brito, director of the LGBTQ+ rights group Letra S. "If this was a crime motivated by prejudice, these kinds of crimes always have the intention of sending a message," Brito said. "The message is an intimidation, it's to say: 'This is what could happen to you if you make your identities public.'"

What is Mexico like for LGBTQ+ people?

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador "has long had a trying relationship with Mexico's LGBT community", wrote Genaro Lozano, professor in political science at Mexico City's Iberoamerican University, in the Americas Quarterly journal in 2020. But his time in office since 2018 "has coincided with unprecedented progress for LGBT rights" in Mexico, despite his attempts to "keep those rights at arms' length".

All of Mexico's 32 states recognise same-sex marriage, as of October 2022, and people can legally change gender and name in 18 states – making Mexico something of an outlier in Central America. Access to antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV has also drastically improved. However, violence connected to the crackdown on the drug trade affects the LGBTQ+ community "in unique and often hidden ways", said Lozano.

In 2019 alone, 117 LGBTQ+ people were killed in Mexico, up almost a third on 2018 and the highest number since 2015, according to Letra S. More than half the victims were transgender women. In 2021, Mexico recorded the highest number of murders of transgender people in the world behind Brazil, according to data collated by Transgender Europe.

Any attack on LGBTQ+ figures "shakes people and instils fear", non-binary activist Alex Orué told the NYT, but Baena's death was "even more painful". 

"If someone with that level of visibility, with that public position being a magistrate, and also with the protection of the state because they were living under threat, has this happen to them, what can the rest of us expect?"

Thousands of people have united in Bangkok, Thailand to celebrate pride and to push for equal rights for LGBTQ+ individuals.

The capital exploded into riotous colour to mark Pride Month, celebrated globally in the month of June. But revellers in the country are feeling “a little more optimistic”, said The Guardian, as they hope same-sex marriage will soon be legalised.

“Now is a time of new hope for the LGBTQ community,” Nahmmoei Pratimaporn, beauty queen and Bangkok Pride ambassador, told the newspaper. “We believe it’s going to happen quicker than we expected. It’s going to create a big wave, a big impact in society.”

Optimism has been buoyed by the attendance of the frontrunner to be Thailand’s next prime minister, Pita Limjaroenrat, leader of the progressive Move Forward party, at the event.

He vowed to create “pride always”, the Bangkok Post reported, by supporting “the Marriage Equality Act and Gender Identity Act”.

The “spirit of Pride is very much alive in the city,” said Time Out. With rainbow flags “soaring high in many places around town”, it is hoped the city will show itself as accepting of diverse sexualities.

Bangkok has touted itself as Asia’s “most open city”, and has recently announced a bid to host WorldPride in 2028, added the South China Morning Post.

But while the country has a visible LGBTQ+ community, some political activists have argued Thailand’s “laws and traditional institutions have yet to reflect changing social attitudes”, the Bangkok Post said.

In November 2021 “the constitution court ruled that only a man and a woman could register a marriage, adding that supporters of gay marriage would need to amend section 1448 of the civil and criminal code”, said the Pattaya Mail. “Gay activists in Thailand are obviously aware of the need to amend the constitution at the time of writing the marriage equality bill, but challenges would be likely to delay the process substantially,” the paper added.

Jakub Jankto, a 27-year-old Czech footballer, has become the first current international in men’s football to come out publicly as gay.

In a short video posted on Twitter on Monday, the Sparta Prague midfielder said: “Hi, I’m Jakub Jankto. Like everybody else, I have my strengths. I have my weaknesses. I have a family. I have my friends. I have a job which I have been doing as best as I can for years, with seriousness, professionalism and passion.

“Like everybody else, I also want to live my life in freedom. Without fears. Without prejudice. Without violence. But with love.

"I am homosexual and I no longer want to hide myself.”

Who is Jakub Jankto?

Jankto was born in Prague, and has a three-year-old son from a previous relationship. He is currently on loan to Sparta Prague from the Spanish side Getafe. Since joining Sparta Prague in August, he has made 10 league appearances, said the BBC. He has scored once and provided one assist.

Jankto has so far spent most of his club career in Italy with Udinese, Ascoli and Sampdoria. He then signed for Getafe in 2021. He has also made 45 appearance for the Czech Republic, scoring four goals since making his debut in 2017. He started for his country in the Euro 2020 group match against England at Wembley in June 2021.

“Jankto is the most prominent active men’s player to come out, by some distance,” said Paul MacInnes in The Guardian. And, he added, Jankto’s “age and personal history” could be “significant in helping change perceptions… within the game”.

The response so far

Jankto’s video had been watched a million times on Twitter within four hours of being uploaded, said The Guardian. It received 100,000 likes in the same period on Instagram.

Sparta Prague released a statement in support of the player, which read: “Jakub Jankto spoke openly about his sexual orientation with the club’s management, coach and teammates some time ago.

“No further comments. No more questions. You have our support. Live your life, Jakub. Nothing else matters.”

Jankto’s Spanish team Getafe likewise said: “Our maximum respect and unconditional support for our footballer, Jakub Jankto.”

Organising bodies such as Fifa and the Premier League, along with many clubs worldwide, also issued statements of solidarity. Uefa, European football’s governing body, wrote: “Well done, Jakub. You’re a true inspiration, and European football is with you!”

Jankto’s statement is “quite significant in the fact he’s 27 years old, he’s already built an image of himself in the mind of the public, in the mind of fans,” Jon Holmes, the founder of the advocacy group Sports Media LGBT+, told The Guardian. “To then break that mould and go against the image that had been created around him is a really significant thing to do.”

The final lines of Jankto’s message – “This is not an entertainment, the purpose of this video is to encourage others” – have been interpreted as a reference to former Spanish internationals Iker Casillas and Carles Puyol making a joke about coming out last year.

“In this space of LGBT representation in sports there are still quite a lot of firsts to be broken and he’s the guy who’s stepped forward to do that today,” Holmes said.

A long way to go for football

Jankto is not the first footballer to publicly come out. He “joins Australian player Josh Cavallo as the only openly gay top-flight male footballers in the world”, said CNN.

Jake Daniels, an 18-year-old striker for Blackpool in England’s second tier, also came out in May 2022. The German midfielder Thomas Hitzlsperger, who played for Aston Villa, came out in January 2014 a few months after retiring.

However, there are currently no active players in the Premier League who have come out publicly.

“Former footballer Clarke Carlisle, a prominent spokesman for player welfare, said eight Premier League players had told him they were gay,” reports The Daily Telegraph. So why have none felt able to come out yet?

While governing bodies have made statements of support many times, some felt they lost some credibility on the matter last year when they asked players to withdraw their promise to wear rainbow armbands in support of LGBT+ rights while playing in Qatar.

Many also remember Justin Fashanu, who came out as the first openly gay professional footballer 32 years ago. Fashanu took his own life in 1998, aged 37, “following years of homophobic abuse”, said the Telegraph. “From primary school onwards, the sport has long been associated with stereotypical, red-blooded male heterosexuality.”

San Diego Loyal midfielder Collin Martin, who came out as gay in 2018, told the Daily Express there are countless reasons why a player will not be open about their sexual orientation. He said it takes time “to work up the courage to come out in an environment where so few have done so before”.

“Between 2016 and 2019, a shaven-headed thug by the name of Adam Graham carried out two violent rapes,” said Julie Bindel in the Daily Mail. He first appeared in court in 2019, but by the time he was convicted last week, “a dramatic transformation had taken place”.

The jury at Glasgow High Court was told that the defendant was now a woman who went by the name of Isla Bryson – and who was duly despatched to a women’s prison, Cornton Vale in Stirling, pending assessment.

‘Sacrifice at the altar of trans rights’

The case caused an uproar, and the Scottish government soon intervened: it ordered Bryson to be sent to a male prison, and the Scottish prison service rules that allow male-born transgender offenders to be housed in women’s prisons are now under “urgent review”. But to many, the case was proof of what they already suspected: that the Scottish legal system is “happy to sacrifice the welfare and safety” of vulnerable female prisoners on “the altar of trans rights”, said the Mail’s Bindel.

The case was shocking, said Alex Massie in The Times. But it wasn’t a one-off. Until last week, Tiffany Scott, previously Andrew Burns, was also due to be transferred to women’s prison, despite being considered one of Scotland’s “most dangerous prisoners”. And none of this was surprising, since exactly the same logic underpins the SNP’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill – which, if passed, would allow anyone over 16 to self-identify as the opposite sex, without needing a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. If you accept the mantra that “trans women are women”, and should be no different, legally, to any others, then this is where you end up. And if not everyone claiming to be a woman can be treated as one, then the self-ID policy “collapses in a heap of its own contradictions”.

‘A conflict of rights’

Clearly, there cannot be “an absolute right to self-ID”, said The Scotsman. It must be a “qualified” one, to take into account cases such as this where a trans woman cannot be treated exactly as a cis woman “because of a conflict of rights”. The Scottish government should have conceded this point, and outlined such qualifications. Instead, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon further inflamed an already fevered debate, describing critics of her self-ID policies as “transphobic... deeply misogynistic... possibly some of them racist as well”. This was a “disgraceful” slur on “feminists and others who have raised potential problems with self-ID”.

A “lessons learnt” review is under way over the Bryson case, said Shona Craven in The National. But here’s a simple general lesson: “don’t dismiss women who raise logical concerns” about trans policy.

Citizens of the world’s youngest nation will welcome the head of one of the world’s oldest international institutions this week when Pope Francis visits South Sudan.

The Pope is joining the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and the Church of Scotland Moderator, Iain Greenshields, on an “ecumenical pilgrimage of peace”. The first stop will be the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The three church leaders will use the visit to the two conflict-ridden countries to “plead for peace in both lands”, America magazine said, and “hopes are high among the people there that [the] visit may kick-start the struggling peace processes in both countries”.

Clash of ideologies

Overshadowing the trip, however, is a clash of ideologies, especially on questions around LGBT rights in South Sudan, a country that was born in 2011 when it gained independence from predominantly Muslim Sudan.

Before the visit, Pope Francis and the archbishop of Canterbury have both “risked angering local political and church leaders”, The Guardian said, with comments about same-sex relationships that “contrast with deeply conservative views that predominate in South Sudan”.

The Pope has said that laws that criminalise homosexuality are unjust and has pledged that the Catholic Church will campaign against them. Sexual activity between men is illegal in South Sudan and punishable with sentences of up to 14 years’ imprisonment, though as The Guardian noted, there is little evidence of those laws being enforced in recent years.

Welby, too, recently said he was “extremely joyful” at the prospect of Church of England clergy blessing couples in same-sex marriages, although he added that he himself will not deliver those blessings.

Responding to his comments, the head of the Anglican church in South Sudan, Archbishop Justin Badi Arama, said Welby was “failing to defend biblical truth”, and his role as moral leader of the global church had been “severely jeopardised”.

Catholicism on the rise in Africa

For Catholics and Anglicans alike, the visit comes at a critical juncture. Most of the current growth in the Anglican church is coming from sub-Saharan Africa. Similarly, Catholicism is witnessing its fastest ever growth in Africa, with recent statistics showing a 2.1% rise between 2019 and 2020.

In recognition of this trend, the Pope “has often spoken of giving Africa a voice in the church and in the world”, said Stan Chu Ilo, a research professor in world Christianity and African studies at DePaul University in Chicago, on The Conversation.

Yet many wonder how successful this effort will be given that African representation within the Vatican has dropped to a 30-year low and “there are many African Catholics, particularly high-ranking church leaders, who are yet to embrace [Francis’s] reform agenda”, Ilo said.

Welby, meanwhile, faces “African anger” as he prepares for the trip, according to The Times. His commitment to backing blessings for gay couples was branded “alienating” by the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches, a traditionalist group that claims to represent 75% of the world’s 80 million Anglicans.

Those criticisms “were led by the Most Rev Justin Badi Arama”, the paper said – the very person who is due to host Welby during the South Sudanese leg of his trip.

Spirit of forgiveness

Despite the controversies, the visit is expected to be an emotional one. In an address to a festival in Belfast last year, Archbishop Welby spoke in moving terms about a retreat he attended in Rome with South Sudan’s warring factions, The Tablet reported.

The retreat ended with Pope Francis bending down to kiss the feet of the South Sudanese leaders in an appeal for them to pursue peace. When he did so, Welby said, “I could see tears running down their faces. Tears were running down every face there, including the BBC cameraman.”

Those tears may prove portentous. Last week, Charles Tai Gituai, head of South Sudan’s Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission – an oversight body established to track implementation of the country’s peace agreement – said that despite the controversies, there is great hope for the trip.

“I hope… the people of South Sudan will find inspiration and a spirit of forgiveness in these visits in order to renew public confidence in the peace process,” Gituai said.

This article first appeared in The Week’s Global Digest newsletter. Sign up for a preview of the international news agenda, sent to your inbox every Monday.

Beyoncé has come in for criticism after she was reportedly paid $24m (£19.4m) for a one-off concert in Dubai to celebrate the opening of a new hotel.

The 41-year-old was applauded by the 1,500-strong crowd as she emerged in a “yellow sequinned gown with a sculptural feathered cape”, said Sky News, opening with a cover of Etta James’s At Last.

It was Beyoncé’s first live stage performance since 2018, but her decision to sing in Dubai – where homosexuality is illegal and considered a crime, technically punishable by death – has been widely condemned.

A ‘huge mistake’

Peter Tatchell, the LGBT rights campaigner, said Beyoncé’s performance in a “dictatorship like Dubai” was a “huge mistake”.

He said she had abandoned “her own progressive values” and “put a money-grabbing pay cheque” before human rights. “Like many of her LGBT fans, I feel betrayed and angry,” he said, adding that “her liberal reputation has taken a hard knock”.

The performance did not contain any material from Beyoncé’s highly acclaimed 2022 album Renaissance, which “purports to be a love letter to Black and queer dance-music pioneers”, said Stereogum. Commenting on the reported omission, Tatchell said: “It looks like she did this to appease Dubai’s homophobic regime.”

Bev Jackson, co-founder of the LGB Alliance, said the Grammy-winning star’s performance in Dubai “casts a shadow over her support for lesbians and gay people”.

“Beyoncé is a huge icon for many gay people,” Jackson told The Telegraph. “LGB Alliance is deeply therefore disappointed that Beyoncé has agreed to give a lucrative concert in Dubai, where same-sex sex acts are a criminal offence, potentially punishable by death.”

‘Inspiring’ and ‘hopeful’

However, said The Times, there was also support from some members of the gay community, who argued that it was “inspiring” and “hopeful” to see a gay icon perform in a country where homosexuality is illegal.

Beyoncé is not the first artist to face criticism over a decision to perform in the Middle East. Campaigners have “long lobbied” artists to cancel concerts in the UAE and Saudi Arabia over the countries’ “respective serious human rights violations”, said The Guardian.

These campaigns have had mixed results: in 2019, Nicki Minaj pulled out of playing Jeddah World Fest in Saudi Arabia but in 2021, Justin Bieber performed in Saudi Arabia despite pressure to cancel.

In November, Robbie Williams defended his decision to perform in Qatar during the World Cup. He was criticised for agreeing to sing during the tournament, due to the country’s human rights record, stance on homosexuality and treatment of migrant workers.

“Of course, I don’t condone any abuses of human rights anywhere,” he told Italian newspaper la Repubblica.

“But, that being said, if we’re not condoning human rights abuses anywhere, then it would be the shortest tour the world has ever known: I wouldn’t even be able to perform in my own kitchen.”

A Qatar World Cup ambassador has described homosexuality as “damage in the mind”, with the controversial tournament set to kick off in just over a week.

The comments made by Khalid Salman, a former Qatari international footballer, have raised further concerns during the build-up to a tournament that is already mired in controversy for its host nation’s stance on same-sex relationships, poor human rights record and mistreatment of migrant workers. The ongoing furore has even left some fans questioning whether they should watch the games at all.

‘Flex and compromise’

Salman told German broadcaster ZDF that LGBTQ+ people attending the tournament in Qatar should “accept our rules” – homosexuality is illegal in the Gulf nation – and claimed that homosexuality was forbidden in Islam because it was “damage to the mind”. The comments have already drawn criticism from human rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch, which said they were “fuelling discrimination and violence”.

World Cup organisers have said that “everyone is welcome” in the country and won’t face discrimination, but last month Qatar’s World Cup chief, Nasser Al Khater, said Qatar would not be changing its anti-LGBTQ+ laws and asked visitors to “respect our culture”, which has done little to quell fears over the safety of LGBTQ+ fans when visiting the country. Last month, the UK’s foreign secretary James Cleverly advised visiting LGBTQ+ fans to “be respectful of the host nation” and to employ “a little bit of flex and compromise” when visiting the country.

“But what does this flex and compromise actually mean?” asked David Aaronovitch in The Times. “That if gay football fans promise not to behave in too Pride-ish a way, then the authorities generously agree not to arrest them or rough them up?” Countries that seek to boost their international standing by holding major international sporting events “need to observe our customs – if by our ‘customs’ we mean observing basic human rights,” he argued. “I wouldn’t dream of going” to Qatar to watch the tournament this year, said Aaronovitch. ”Even watching from afar feels horribly like collusion.”

‘Modern slavery’

The treatment of migrant labourers in Qatar has also been in the spotlight, with Qatar labour practices “compared to modern slavery” said Roger Bennett and Tommy Vietor, writing for CNN. “A reported 6,500 South Asian migrant workers” have died since the nation was awarded the tournament in 2010, with experts suggesting “it is likely a lot of these deaths are related to construction of buildings for the tournament”.

“When you think of Qatar, its leaders don’t want you to picture migrant workers dying in the blistering heat,” said Bennett and Vietor. They want you to remember the “transcendent thrill” of the matches. And that is what is likely to happen unless a clear signal is sent that “autocrats cannot amass soft power through the refracted glow of sports immortality”, they argued.

‘Report not support’

High-profile UK sporting pundits have been forced to defend their decision to commentate in Qatar for the duration of the tournament – Gary Lineker argued on The News Agents podcast that he was “going there to report it, not support it”. But when Gary Neville attempted to employ a similar argument on the BBC satirical panel show Have I Got News For You, a critical Ian Hislop said it was “just not a very good defence”, arguing that Neville could “stay at home and highlight the abuses. You don’t have to go and take the Qataris’ money”.

Players have felt some pressure too, and several national team captains, including England’s Harry Kane, will now wear ‘OneLove’ armbands during matches to “promote diversity and inclusion” said the BBC. But it is “baffling” to pretend that “the odd discreet rainbow armband on a player” can be regarded as “constructive engagement” with the LGBTQ+ and human rights issues raised in the run-up to this “obscene” World Cup, argued Sam Leith in The Spectator. “It’s not too late for musicians, sponsors and even – above all – football players to say: stuff Qatar, and stuff Fifa’s way of doing business.”

Theresa May has said there were times she “would have voted differently” on LGBTQ+ issues during her parliamentary career as she urged the government to ban all forms of conversion therapy.

Writing for the i news site, the former prime minister called on Boris Johnson’s administration to “keep its commitment to consider the issue of transgender conversion therapy”, adding that the matter “must not be allowed to slide” off the political agenda.

May previously voted against reducing the age of homosexual consent from 18 to 16 in 1998 but her attitude towards LGBTQ+ rights has since changed. During her time as prime minister, she promised to ban conversion therapy, a practice that attempts to suppress a person’s sexuality or gender identity.

In March, Johnson dropped plans to ban the practice of all forms of conversion therapy, a controversial decision that led to a “backlash from the LGBT community and negative reaction from Tory MPs”, said The Telegraph.

The PM had previously described conversion therapy as an “absolutely abhorrent” practice that “has no place in a civilised society and has no place in this country”. Pundits suggested his new position was linked to his attempts to “shore up support from the party’s Right” following calls for his resignation as a result of the Partygate scandal.

Johnson later reversed his decision and a subsequent Conversion Therapy Bill, outlined in this year’s Queen’s Speech, indicated that the government would ban the practice in “certain scenarios”, such as trying to change someone’s sexuality, but would not apply to transgender people.

Including gender in the legislation could have “unintended consequences”, said the BBC. This “might affect teachers, parents and therapists helping children who are struggling with their gender identity”.

What is conversion therapy?

Conversion therapy, which is sometimes also referred to as “reparative therapy”, tries to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity. That means that it tries to stop or suppress a person from being homosexual, or from living as a different gender to the sex recorded at their birth.

“It can include talking therapies and prayer,” said the BBC, “but more extreme forms can include exorcism, physical violence and food deprivation.”

The NHS, the British Psychological Society and other professional bodies have said that all kinds of conversion therapy are “unethical and potentially harmful”.

Where is conversion therapy illegal?

Brazil introduced a “trailblazing ban” on conversion therapy relating to sexual orientation in 1999, said the LGTBQ+ rights charity Stonewall. This was the world’s first conversion therapy ban, and it was expanded to cover gender identity in 2018.

Around 16 countries – including Samoa, Fiji, Taiwan, Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador, Malta and Germany – have introduced some form of ban on conversion therapy. And many other states, cities and provinces are introducing legislation, according to the BBC.

New Zealand is the most recent country to pass new laws banning conversion therapy, introducing two criminal offences in February for attempts to change the sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression of anyone under 18.

Meanwhile, countries including Ireland, Israel, Norway, Denmark and Finland are all currently looking at measures to ban conversion therapy, or are launching consultations.

The US Supreme Court’s decision to reverse the landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling guaranteeing the constitutional right to abortion has sparked both jubilation and protest at home and abroad.

The controversial move ensures that abortion will become illegal or highly restricted in half of US states, some almost immediately.

World leaders from countries including France, Spain, Belgium and Sweden have spoken out against the ruling. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described the loss of abortion rights as “horrific”, while Boris Johnson said it was a “big step backwards”.

But the court’s decision was applauded by anti-abortion activists including Dallas-based pastor Dr Robert Jeffress. In an opinion piece for Fox News, Jeffress celebrated “a resounding victory for millions of yet-to-be-born children who will now get to live out their God-ordained lives”.

Pregnancy as ‘punishment’

This “historic ruling is a reminder that elections have consequences”, wrote Jeffress. Donald Trump “kept his promise” to wavering conservative voters in his 2016 presidential campaign to appoint pro-life justices to the Supreme Court.

Other commentators argue that the abortion rights ruling has little to do with democracy, however. Recent polling by The Wall Street Journal suggested that more than two-thirds of Americans wanted to uphold Roe v. Wade, and that most favoured women having access to legal abortion for any reason.

“Those who argue that this decision won’t actually change things much – an instinct you’ll find on both sides of the political divide – are blind to the ways in which state-level anti-abortion crusades have already turned pregnancy into punishment, and the ways in which the situation is poised to become much worse,” said The New Yorker’s Jia Tolentino.

Global ‘wave of repercussions’

The US is “going against the global trend, shrinking rights while the rest of the world expands reproductive freedom”, wrote human rights lawyer Julie Kay in The Irish Times.

America joins Poland, El Salvador and Nicaragua as the only four nations in the world to have rolled back abortion rights over the past quarter-century.

By contrast, at least 59 countries have expanded abortion access over the last three decades, reported Foreign Policy, with recent additions to the list including Ireland, Mexico and Argentina.

But the Population Foundation of India (PFI), a non-profit organisation that works with the government on family planning policy, warned that the ruling “is likely to stigmatise reproductive health worldwide, affecting millions, if not billions of women”, reported The Hindu new site.

"The decision’s implication that reproductive rights are not a part of fundamental rights could lead to similar interpretations in different countries,” added PFI’s executive director Poonam Muttreja.

It is “a decision that will reverberate around the world”, agreed Adva Saldinger on Devex, a media platform for the global development community. “The ruling may fuel local anti-abortion movements, limit campaigns for abortion access, and complicate the politics around women’s rights, prompting abortion-rights advocates to brace for a wave of repercussions”, she wrote.

Saldinger pointed to Bangladesh and Indonesia as just two countries where pro-abortion groups fear a rollback of reproductive rights in the wake of the US ruling.

Amid growing concern across the globe, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed that the Biden administration remained committed to reproductive rights globally.

“Under this administration, the State Department will remain fully committed to helping provide access to reproductive health services and advancing reproductive rights around the world,” Blinken said in a statement just hours after the Supreme Court ruling was announced on Friday.

An Australian newspaper has been accused of “outing” actor Rebel Wilson amid a row over its reporting of her new relationship with a woman.

In an Instagram post on Friday, the Pitch Perfect star said she had found her “Disney Princess” as she shared a selfie with her partner, leisurewear designer Romana Agruma, with her 11 million followers.

A day later Andrew Hornery, a gossip columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald, suggested Wilson had only revealed her relationship after he had approached her for comment for an article he was writing on the pair.

In his “Private Sydney” column, Hornery said Wilson had chosen to “gazump the story” after she went public with her relationship with Agruma on social media. He said that it was out of “an abundance of caution and respect” that he had contacted Wilson’s representatives to give her two days to comment on the relationship before he published his story.

In an apparent criticism of Wilson’s decision to reveal her relationship on social media, Hornery added that “her choice to ignore our discreet, genuine and honest queries was, in our view, underwhelming”.

Social media backlash

The column sparked an angry reaction on social media over the weekend, with many critical of the apparent pressure put on Wilson by Hornery to reveal her relationship status, as well as the tone of the piece.

Speaking to the BBC, a spokesperson for Stonewall said: “Coming out is a deeply personal decision”, adding: “Whether, when and how to come out should be decided by the individual, entirely on their terms.

“It is simply not OK to ‘out’ LGBTQ+ people or put pressure on us to come out. Media outlets should take care not to sensationalise LGBTQ+ lives and relationships.”

Nicky Bath, LGBTIQ+ Health Australia’s chief executive, told The Guardian that Wilson has been put in “an appalling situation” by the Herald. “To have pressure put on you to come out is really unhelpful, and will impact on [people’s] mental health.”

In response to a Twitter post that said it wasn’t the actor’s choice to come out, Wilson wrote that it has been “a very hard situation but trying to handle it with grace”.

Editor denies his paper ‘outed’ star

The Herald’s editor, Bevan Shields, has since published an editor’s note in which he denied the paper had outed Wilson, and said they would have asked the same questions “had Wilson’s new partner been a man”.

He wrote: “Like other mastheads [newspapers] do every day, we simply asked questions and as standard practice included a deadline for a response.

“I had made no decision about whether or what to publish, and the Herald’s decision about what to do would have been informed by any response Wilson supplied.”

Hornery’s original column has now been deleted and instead links to an opinion piece in which the columnist concedes he got it “wrong” and that the tone of his column was “off”.

He said that his email to Wilson’s representatives “was never intended to be a threat but to make it clear I was sufficiently confident with my information and to open a conversation”.

It is not the Herald’s business to ‘out’ people and that is not what we set out to do. But I understand why my email has been seen as a threat. The framing of it was a mistake.”

He added that both he and the paper would “approach things differently from now on to make sure we always take into consideration the extra layer of complexities people face when it comes to their sexuality”.

1. Lawmaker can’t be lawbreaker so Boris Johnson must resign

Daniel Finkelstein in The Times

on an untenable position

“Here’s the fact and we’d better face it,” writes Daniel Finkelstein. “Boris Johnson will not go of his own volition over the parties and it is unlikely that MPs will force him to do so.” Although an exit is “possible” if the eventual Sue Gray report comes after “terrible” local election results, “for now at least it isn’t likely”, argues The Times columnist. “Anybody who thinks he will simply decide that his position is untenable has not been following his career or understood his personality,” he continues. Johnson’s view is that “great political careers require a thick skin, that they go up and down, that political moods change, that you barrel on and provided you don’t look behind you, people will be following”. But should Johnson resign? “My view remains that he should,” he writes, because “ministers set the law and breaking the law is a resigning matter”.

Read more

2. After latest bloodbath, time is running out for Hochul and Adams to save NYC

Michael Goodwin for the New York Post

on another nail in the coffin

“Nobody wants to live in the city New York is becoming,” believes Michael Goodwin. Writing for the New York Post, he says the Brooklyn subway shooting was “another nail in the coffin” because “nothing spreads the determination to escape New York faster than the fear of being trapped in the subway with a madman with a gun and a sack full of explosives and smoke canisters”. He adds that “the 40 or 50 people actually in the attacker’s N-train car are stand-ins for the other 8.8 million people who are now terrified themselves” because “everyone is realizing that they or someone they love could have been there”. He says that if governor Kathy Hochul wants New York to “get back to a safer time,” she’ll have to do better than her current plans, which “don’t even qualify as half-a-loaf and are wholly insufficient to do what’s desperately needed”. He demands more action, too, from Mayor Adams, whose honeymoon is now over, feels Goodwin. Meanwhile, he forecasts an exodus. “The point is that many of those who can leave will leave, including the uber-wealthy, but not them alone,” he writes. “Young families, older couples, singles – they all will take their money, their votes and their stabilizing influences on schools and neighborhoods to safer climes.” Meanwhile, “outside the city and around the world, people who might have come here to visit or live will be frightened away”.

Read more

3. This Ramadan, I refuse to choose between being Muslim and being a lesbian

Anonymous for Indy Voices

on double discrimination

“Ramadan can be a difficult month for LGBT+ Muslims,” writes Anonymous for Indy Voices. “Yes, it’s a month of beauty, but for some of us it’s also a month of mourning: mourning for the traditions you’ve abandoned, for the memories of family iftars that will never compare to sitting alone. Disownment from your community, family, and friends due to their refusal to accept you for who you are.” As a British Pakistani lesbian Muslim woman, she believes that “most of the general public thinks that gay and transgender Muslims don’t exist,” however “we have always been here,” she writes, but just “stay in the shadows to avoid judgement and backlash”. They are also “subjected to double discrimination” because “in both of our communities, we are outsiders”. On one hand, she “had a religious community telling me that if I was gay, I was not a true Muslim” because “being gay is an abomination and a sin”. The “whitewashed LGBT+ community,” on the other hand, made her “believe that religion has no place in the LGBT+ community because it is oppressive and out of date”. She is “proud to be lesbian, Muslim, and Pakistani” and this Ramadan, and this Lesbian Visibility Week, she writes, “I refuse to deny any part of who I am”.

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4. England has left Covid behind

Alex Story for The Critic

on freedom and bondage

“England has left Covid behind,” believes Alex Story. Despite 2,714 people dying of Covid in England last week, the “asphyxiating layer of official cellophane that spread over the whole country and hung over our combined heads for close to 24 months” was “withdrawn” when Health Secretary Sajid Javid said the country will have to learn to live with Covid. “Much of Europe stayed in bondage,” he adds but now, “many European countries have made progress along the road back to sanity, aping (although they wouldn’t like to admit it) Boris and Brexit Britain in the process”. However, “before those who love the idea of being free start celebrating too much about this turn-around,” they should “remember Austrians, Italians and Germans are still required to wear masks, most have to show test results in most public spaces (although a positive test is less freedom-sapping than it once was) and can only travel with proof of either vaccination or immunisation”. He says that “very visible aspects of state-enforced repression are still noticeable, however – hanging over the European populace like a heavy and greyish cloud ready to burst”.

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5. I told Boris Johnson about my husband’s Covid death and saw not a flicker of compassion

Fran Hall for The Guardian

on high indecency

When Fran Hall told Boris Johnson about her husband’s death from Covid, she saw “no flicker of compassion or hurt” behind his eyes. Hall was one of the people invited to go to Downing Street to meet the PM last year as part of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice support group but she detected no humanity in Johnson. Her husband, Steve, died three weeks after they married. For the funeral, they “were only allowed 30 people in a building that held 100, and many friends had to stand outside,” she writes. “We did the right thing, we did what millions of people did to stop the virus from spreading” but now she knows that Johnson was breaking his own social-distancing rules. “I’m not surprised,” she writes. “If he were a decent man he would have resigned a long time ago.” But Johnson, she argues, “made decisions that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands” because “there were so many moments we could have acted earlier – over PPE, over masks, over social distancing”. The same goes for Sunak, she believes. “He knew the pandemic was not over when he encouraged people to eat out and mix in the summer of 2020, leading to the wave of infections that would take my husband. He chose the economy over people’s lives.”

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1. My husband and I want to split on good terms – thanks to no-fault divorces, we finally can

Anonymous in The Guardian

on a new law

An anonymous writer at The Guardian says she and her husband recently decided to divorce after 15 years of marriage. “This was not a spur-of-the-moment thing – we had agonised over it for a long time.” With two sons, “we were determined to live together as a family and for years we muddled along, functioning almost as a business rather than a marriage”. The couple agreed “not to go down the divorce route until we had been separated for two years” – otherwise, under UK law as it then stood, blame would need to be placed on one party for a divorce to proceed. “We didn’t want to place blame or trivialise” the marriage, and the couple felt they had “no choice but to wait”. The change in law in England and Wales to allow no-fault divorce came with a sense of “relief” that was “indescribable”. This “new, kinder form of divorce” has “given us both a sense of control”, meaning “we can divorce mutually and respectfully with our heads held high”.

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2. The true cause of No. 10’s conversion therapy muddle

Isabel Hardman in The Spectator

on drafting legislation

“The government has had to bow to the inevitable and cancel its own international LGBT conference”, writes Isabel Hardman at The Spectator. More than 100 organisations have withdrawn support following the decision not to ban conversion therapy for transgender people. “The die was cast much further back than last week’s botched double U-turn on a ban on gay conversion therapy: it was when ministers committed to the legislation without thinking it through at all,” she continues. This “row” brings to the fore “serious problems with the way Westminster deals with legislation”, its focus “almost entirely upon the principles at stake, rather than the impact of the way the laws are drafted”. The conversion therapy ban “is just the latest example of the Something Must Be Done instinct in all governments”, but “surely we want legislation that works, rather than merely claims to work,” says Hardman. Ministers “often” jump to a policy “without noticing they have made a logical leap to assuming that this is the one Thing that should be done, without checking that it's the right Thing to do.”

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3. President Obama, your country needs you

Dana Milbank in The Washington Post

on political skill

“Retirement has been good to Barack Obama,” writes Dana Milbank at The Washington Post. Obama returned to the White House this week for the first time since he left office in 2017. “Fit and vigorous, if a bit grayer and more wrinkly”, he returned to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. “Obama has been living his best life, even making a podcast and writing a book with Bruce Springsteen.” But “President Obama: your country needs you,” implores Milbank. “Democracy is on the ropes. This is an all-hands-on-deck moment for the ship of state, and no one is better able to help the cause” than the 44th US President. “America desperately needs Obama in the arena – although not necessarily in the Biden White House.” Biden seemed this week to be “playing Obama’s understudy”. “Where Obama was loose, Biden was stiff”, though Democrats “shouldn’t delude themselves into thinking things would be better now if only Obama were in charge”, despite his “political skill”. But Republicans have “gotten worse” and are “taking aim at democracy itself”. Obama is in “an unrivalled position to mobilise Americans in defence of democracy”.

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4. Dear climate activists, stop alienating the public or you might lose the battle

Sophie Church in The Independent

on disruptive tactics

Last year, climate groups “caused general chaos across the UK”, using “disruptive tactics” in an effort to “force the government to make essential climate policy pledges”, writes Sophie Church at The Independent. “The result? To anger a population already close to breaking point”. The latest round of climate protests has seen “newcomers” Just Stop Oil obstruct access to terminals across England, “aiming to put the blockers on new proposed oil and gas projects. Same thing, different day.” They’ve similarly been glueing their hands to the roads and locking themselves to oil drums, with police deployed “to deal with the demonstrations”. “No one is saying their cause is not just,” writes Church, “it’s more the way they are going about it.” For protest groups, spreading awareness and gaining public supporters “can be a route to making effective change. Infuriating those same members of the public, then, can only do the opposite”. She thinks “there must be another way”.

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5. Shambolic Home Office shames Britain and betrays terrified Ukrainian refugees in need of a home

The Sun editorial board

on a ‘broken’ department

The Sun describes the Home Office as “arrogant, complacent, lazy, useless”. It “shames Britain before the eyes of the world”. The department’s “shambolic failure to green-light more refugees is a betrayal not just of those poor, terrified Ukrainians but of the families who have offered them a home and of Europe’s combined war effort”. The government’s “commitment to Ukraine’s forces” is evidenced by its donations of arms, but “Priti Patel’s department lags woefully behind”. A “supposed 24/7 helpline is swamped because just 15 staff are allegedly tasked with handling thousands of calls a day” and visa applications “take an age to process if they are processed at all”. This “is a disgraceful way to handle this emergency, matched for ineptitude only by the Home Office’s simultaneous failure to stop hundreds of illegal migrants arriving daily across the Channel”. The department is “broken” and “must be fixed”.

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Books that touch on race and sexual violence are being banned in Republican-held school districts across the US in the latest battle in the country’s “culture war”.

Literature by authors including Booker Prize winner Margaret Atwood is being vetoed in what The Times described as a “right-wing version of cancel culture”.

Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom, told Axios that never before “had this volume of challenges come in such a short time” during her 20 years with the organisation.

Book banning

The AMA tracked the targeting of 566 books in 2019 and 273 after the pandemic hit in 2020. US classrooms have quickly “become one of the key battlegrounds in America’s culture wars”, said The Times, as “traditionalists” square up against “those with a left-wing agenda”.

Much of the debate on what should be taught in schools is linked to “critical race theory”, a school of thought that argues “racism is deeply entrenched in society”, the paper continued. But the row has recently “spread to the subject matter of some popular children’s novels”.

The books disputes have made “public schools ground zero in the culture wars”, said Axios.

In November, Virginia’s Spotsylvania County School Board ordered staff to dispose of “sexually explicit” books after a parent “raised concerns about their LGBTQ themes”, the news site reported. During a meeting to discuss the book’s removal, a school board member is said to have argued that “we should throw those books in a fire”.

The same month, the Goddard School District in Kansas reportedly demanded that “staff remove 29 books from the district’s school libraries”, including Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.

In December, the Washington County School District in Utah voted to ban The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas and Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez. Both novels tackle the issue of racism and were removed after parents complained of “profanity”.

And Texas school districts “are scrambling” to review the contents of their libraries after the state’s Republican Representative Matt Krause demanded that they confirm whether any books on a list of 850 titles that he has deemed to be questionable are on their shelves.

Literary backlash

Book bans are “catching fire” in US schools, said NBC News, but black authors have argued that the “uproar isn’t about students”.

Children’s author and illustrator Jerry Craft told the broadcaster that he was “caught off guard” when schools in Texas decided to ban two of his books that tell the stories of black students who experience racism.

“Apparently I’m teaching critical race theory,” tweeted Craft, author of award-winning graphic novel New Kid, after being informed that his books had been pulled by Katy Independent School District. The ban was later rescinded.

Tiffany D. Jackson’s book Monday’s Not Coming, about missing girls of colour, was removed from schools in Virginia after parents complained about the novel’s “sexual content”, according to the Loudoun-Times Mirror.

Jackson told NBC: “It’s hurtful to go through this, to be considered such a monster, allegedly corrupting children. I had to go back and reread my own book to determine if we’re reading the same story.”

The book “is not about sex”, she said, adding: “Reading is fundamental, but context is everything, thus it’s sad to see these schools and parents caught in a game of telephone.”

According to author Juno Dawson, 62% of the works on Texas Republican’s Krause ban list – which includes Dawson’s works This Book Is Gay and Understanding Gender – deal with LGBTQ+ themes.

In an article for The Guardian, Dawson said that Krause “only wants liberal, or inclusive, books banned”.

“Few sights are more enduring, or chilling, than the photographs of Nazi youth raiding Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute of Sexology in 1933 and burning the books they found there,” she wrote.

“Book burning remains synonymous with censorship, dictatorship and autocracy. I think it’s up to publishers to decide if they want their name associated with prejudice – even with authors and books I disagree with fundamentally on ideological grounds.”

The New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg warned that the growing push to remove books from schools is “just one example of an aggressive new censoriousness tearing through America”.

The argument over critical race theory has expanded “into a broader push to purge school libraries of books that affront conservative sensibilities regarding race and gender”, she continued.

The “sudden mania for book banning is striking” and this “spreading moral panic demonstrates, yet again, why the Left needs the First Amendment, even if the veneration of free speech has fallen out of fashion among some progressives”.

Parental push

Many of the moves to remove books from school libraries have been triggered by complaints from parents. Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, told Axios that families want teachers to be more receptive to their concerns.

Pointing to books such as George M. Johnson's All Boys Aren't Blue, a memoir about a black teen’s experience of rape and incest, she argued: “Providing pornographic materials to children and then turning around and asking us why we want to ban books is insulting.”

Progressive parents have also called for the removal of titles including Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, owing to the use of racist language and themes relating to “white saviourism”, Axios reported.

But the American Library Association’s Caldwell-Stone said that these efforts pale in comparison to conservative-backed bids to remove books from school shelves.

“There’s always been a steady hum of censorship, and the reasons have shifted over time,” she told the NYT’s Goldberg. But “what we’re seeing is this idea that marginalised communities, marginalised groups, don’t have a place in public school libraries”.

And the spreading support for this idea risks making school libraries “institutions that only serve the needs of a certain group of people in the community”, she warned.

1. We can collaborate in space, so why not save Earth together too? It’s our children’s future at stake

Tim Peake in The Independent

on a bigger perspective

“Waking up on the International Space Station gives you a different view of the world – in more ways than one,” says Tim Peake. Writing for The Independent, the astronaut describes how seeing the “blue oasis of life glowing 250 miles below” makes “you appreciate not only how special our planet is, but how fragile it is too”. He is joining 57m Scouts across the world in calling for world leaders to “urgently reduce greenhouse gases”. And key to achieving that goal is “international cooperation”, he says. Peake recalls his experiences on the ISS, where “you can rub shoulders with Russians, Europeans, Japanese, Canadians, Americans and many more nationalities besides”. We were able to “overcome language barriers, working side by side to solve problems and share what we learn”, he continues. “Replicate that kind of cooperation on a worldwide scale at Cop26, and we’ll see a great result. Only this time, the participants won’t be weightless. On the contrary – they’ll need to have their feet squarely on the ground.”

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2. Will Congress expose Big Oil like it did Big Tobacco in the ’90s?

Patti Lynn and Geoffrey Supran in the Los Angeles Times

on a powerful reckoning

Executives from major oil and gas giants are testifying to Congress today about what Patti Lynn and Geoffrey Supran call “decades of climate denial and propaganda”. The outcome will show “whether the fossil fuel industry’s lobbying-fueled stranglehold on science-based decision-making can be loosened in time to meaningfully confront the climate crisis”, say Lynn, from non-profit organisation Corporate Accountability, and Supran, from the academic Climate Social Science Network, in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times. Nearly three decades ago, similar hearings were held with tobacco industry executives, leading to litigation by 52 US states and territories and industry restitution to the public. “The stakes this time are at least as high: trillions of dollars in predicted loss and destruction from climate change,” the duo write. “Big Oil is due its Big Tobacco moment.”

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3. I long for a day when gay footballers like me and Josh Cavallo don’t need to be so ‘brave’

Andy Brennan in The Guardian

on paving the way

After Adelaide United player Josh Cavallo came out as gay in a social media post this week, Andy Brennan makes a case for why people need to announce their sexuality at all. Statistics and research highlight the need for visibility and representation within LGBTQ+ communities in sport, but it is “stories like Josh’s which can really resonate – stories that can ignite a motivation in people to go against the grain, and so too be brave and courageous”, says former Newcastle Jets player Brennan, who announced he was gay in May 2019. He argues that each and every person who reveals their sexuality “plays an important role in the fight for acceptance and equality within our society”. And with his announcement, Cavallo “has given hope that coming out as gay in such a masculine environment will some day cease to be a no-go”.

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4. George Osborne’s anti-work legacy has finally been banished

Iain Duncan Smith for The Telegraph

on the change to universal credit

Iain Duncan Smith says that after becoming work and pensions secretary in 2010, he wanted to ensure working Universal Credit claimants had their benefits “removed gradually” to guarantee that “going out and earning money left them sufficiently better off as to make the effort and expense involved worthwhile”. Writing for The Telegraph, the Tory MP explains that he wanted a “taper rate” of 55% (meaning that for every pound a claimant earned, their benefits would be reduced by 55p), but then-chancellor George Osborne “wanted a rate of 70%”. Duncan Smith asks: “Would you do your job for the equivalent of only 30p in the pound?” So he was “delighted” to see Rishi Sunak cutting the rate to 55% in the newly unveiled Budget. Critics on the left “find it strange for a Conservative to celebrate a hike in benefits”, he writes, but “this is to misunderstand the fundamentally conservative nature of what Universal Credit achieves”. It exists to “reward grit, determination and hard work”.

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5. No hurry in London for Stormont stability

Newton Emerson in The Irish Times

on tardiness

“Two interlocking threats to collapse Stormont came to a head this week and came to nothing, revealing how cynically and casually such threats are now deployed,” writes Newton Emerson in The Irish Times. The DUP had vowed to pull their ministers out of the region’s power-sharing executive if its demands on the Northern Ireland protocol were not met, while Sinn Fein made a similar threat over the delivery of the Irish language legislation. Meanwhile the UK has yet to pass laws designed to prevent an executive collapse altogether. “The obvious suspicion is the UK government finds Stormont’s fragility useful in negotiations with the European Union,” says Emerson. “‘Serious societal difficulties’ are a trigger to suspend the protocol under Article 16.” Either way, regardless of whether the British government “sees the instability of Stormont as a weapon”, passing its new laws on Northern Ireland “is taking far too long”.

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John McEnroe and Martina Navratilova have staged a protest demanding that the Margaret Court arena in Australia is renamed.

As the Australian Open headed into semi-finals, the tennis legends unfurled a banner with their proposed new name of the second biggest tennis court at Melbourne Park.

They object to it being named after Margaret Court because of her views on LGBT issues and apartheid.

Speaking in 1970, Court, who holds the most major titles of any professional player, said of South Africa's apartheid system: “South Africans have this thing better organised than any other country, particularly America.”

More recently, she described Navratilova as a “great player” but said: “It's very sad for children to be exposed to homosexuality.”

Navratilova and McEnroe’s banner proposed that the court be renamed the Evonne Goolagang Arena. Goolagang is Australian former number one player who is known, says Sky News, as “a trailblazer in indigenous Australian tennis”.

After the conclusion of her veterans doubles match yesterday, Navratilova climbed into the umpires' chair to address the remaining crowd, as part of the protest, described as a “stunt” by the conservative The Australian newspaper.

“I've been speaking out about an issue for a while now and John McEnroe is here to join me and push the conversation forward...” she said, before she was cut off. The pair then unfurled the banner.

Tennis Australia said of McEnroe and Navratilova's protest: “We embrace diversity, inclusion and the right for people to have a view, as well as their right to voice that view. But the Australian Open has regulations and protocols with respect to how any fan, player or guest can use our facility, the event and the global stage it provides.”

On Monday, Court was honoured in a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of her Grand Slam. In a statement, Tennis Australia said it was only honouring her sporting achievement and not espousing her views.

While her views are controversial, Court’s place in tennis history is beyond question. The International Tennis Hall of Fame states: “For sheer strength of performance and accomplishment there has never been a tennis player to match her.” She won all four singles Slams in one year in 1970.

Court, who is now a Pentecostal minister, has not issued any response to yesterday’s protest.

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Angry parents have been permanently banned from protesting against LGBT inclusive education outside their children’s school.

At the High Court, Mr Justice Warby ruled in favour of an exclusion zone remaining around Anderton Park in Birmingham, which has been the scene of protests for months.

During the demonstrations outside the school, in the Sparkhill area of the city, protesters, many of whom are Muslim faith, have gathered to chant “Let kids be kids” and wave placards with the slogan: “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”

Birmingham city council launched the court action to block more protests outside the school after about 300 people gathered at the gates in May.

During the five-day case, the court heard that “untrue” and “harmful” allegations had been made about the school, including a visiting imam telling parents there were “paedophiles” inside the school.

The BBC reports that other claims included that the school had a “paedophile agenda” and staff were “teaching children how to masturbate”.

Delivering his verdict, the judge said: “None of this is true.” His ruling has permanently banned protesters from gathering outside the school.

Speaking after the case, head teacher Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson said staff would be “over the moon”.

Dr Tim O’Neill, director of education and skills at the local council, also welcomed the verdict.

He said: “Protests of this kind only serve to attract fringe elements whose aim is to stoke division and hatred. We would therefore continue to encourage any concerned parents to engage with the school to have constructive discussions and address any issues.”

The general secretary of National Association of Head Teachers, said the verdict made it “abundantly clear” that the school gate was an inappropriate place to hold a protest.

The Department for Education said it wants to “encourage positive dialogue” between the two sides.

However, the lead protestor, Shakeel Afsar, who does not have children at the school, said he was “bitterly disappointed with the decision of the court”.

At a press conference after the verdict, he and the other protesters said they planned to appeal and vowed to continue to protest on the perimeter of the exclusion zone.

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A group of conservative MPs in South Korea have sparked controversy by proposing the removal of multiple protections for LGBT+ people from the county’s anti-discrimination laws.

An amendment submitted this month by a member of the main opposition Liberty Korea party seeks to remove sexual minorities from groups protected by the law.

The amendment said the inclusion of the words “sexual orientation” in the law “legally and actively protects and promotes homosexuality”, according to a report by Seoul-based journalist Raphael Rashid.

Ahn Sang-soo, the MP who submitted the controversial amendment, said that he and other members of his ultra-conservative party want to remove the words from the list of protected groups as they believe that “gender is either (biologically) male or female”, Rashid’s report adds.

Rashid quotes Ahn as saying: “A number of health hazards in the world are occurring, such as the unprecedented surge of new cases of AIDS infections. Any sound criticism or opposition to homosexuality based on freedom of conscience, religion, expression… is considered discrimination and is strictly prohibited.”

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Ahn’s amendment is currently supported by approximately 40 MPs in the 300-member national assembly, The Guardian reports.

Amnesty International has spoken out against Ahn’s amendment, calling it a “shameful move backwards for human rights in South Korea” that will leave LGBT+ people “exposed to discrimination in all factors of their life and make them easy targets for abuse, threats and possible violence, with no recourse to legal protection”.

The Guardian adds that activists have protested outside the assembly building in Seoul and called for the pro-amendment MPs to resign.

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Stephen Bush in the New Statesman

on the Lib Dem identity crisis

Whose party is this anyway? That’s the question gripping Liberal Democrats

“The fear that a minority of Liberal Democrat members have is that the party is losing something of itself, both because of its openness to parliamentary defectors who do not share its values, and because its surging membership – up from around the 50,000 mark to over 120,000 – is turning it into what one activist described to me as “the electoral wing of FBPE”, the social media movement of angry Remainers.”

2. Robert Colville in The Times

on the Brexit revolution

David Cameron stood still as the world changed

“If these feel like revolutionary times, it is because a revolution has indeed taken place. In fact, it is arguable that it took place years ago, it was just that nobody in Westminster really noticed. This revolution is, as they usually are, one that casts our politicians as followers, rather than leaders — either adapting to the way that the public mood has shifted, or finding themselves, like David Cameron, marooned amid the floodwaters, wondering what on earth happened to the world they thought they knew.”

3. John Rentoul in The Independent

on prime ministerial hubris

David Cameron failed because he stuck to what he believed in

“As with so many prime ministers before him, Cameron was brought down by hubris. He did the brave and right thing in allowing Alex Salmond to hold a referendum in Scotland, and won it, becoming over-confident. Just as Gordon Brown was done in by the business cycle he thought he had abolished – 'no more boom and bust', followed by a global financial crash – and Blair brought low by assuming genocidal tyranny could be defeated in Iraq as easily as it was in Kosovo.”

4. Douglas Murray in The Daily Telegraph

on defining gender

Vacuous liberal ‘wokeness’ is now beyond parody

“The commissars of wokeness keep missing something. Which is that we have arrived at equality already. And what we are in now just feels like some horrible over-correction. There was a time when such points needed making. But today, all these efforts to fixate on race, sexuality and gender aren’t bringing us all together. They just keep highlighting differences. Instead of escaping or superseding our characteristics we are being invited to define ourselves by them. Instead of differences being minimised they keep being highlighted. There are many things the next generation should be encouraged to be. Brilliant, exceptional, inventive, remarkable. All of this and more. But one way to stop that happening is by continuing to fragment the most tolerant societies on earth along group identity lines. And then invite people to spend their lives gazing at their navels. Or indeed at their pronouns.”

5. Ross Douthat in the New York Times

on a split in the Catholic Church

The Slow Road to Catholic Schism

“The partway-liberalization of the Francis era has encouraged the church’s progressives to push further, while many conservatives have been flung into intellectual crisis or a paranoia-flavored traditionalism. And the overlap of theological and national divisions means that national churches could evolve away from one another at a rapid pace. But having been alarmist in the past, now that everyone is talking schism I want to be more cautious. The pope has risked a great deal in his pontificate, but he has consistently avoided pushing conservatives into a theologically-untenable position, choosing ambiguity over a clarity that might cleave his church.”

The largest study of its kind ever conducted has debunked the idea that a single so-called “gay gene” exists, instead suggesting our sexual preferences are influenced by a complex mix of our genes, environment, and life experiences.

Looking at the genes of nearly half a million people drawn from existing UK genetic databases, an international team of researchers identified five spots on the human genome that are linked to same-sex sexual behaviour - but none which are reliable enough to predict someone’s sexuality.

The controversial idea of a single “gay gene” dates back to 1993, when a region of the human genome called xq28 was linked to male homosexuality.

“Those research findings have not been replicated,” says The Economist, “But it was never going to be that simple: decades of genetic research have shown that almost every human characteristic is a complex interplay of genes and environmental factors” and the latest study “confirms that this is the case for human sexuality, too”.

The study estimated that about a third of the variation in same-sex behaviour is explained by genetics, which, authors say chimes with previous studies that put the figure at about 30% to 50%, with the rest influenced by environmental and cultural factors.

“The research is the latest effort in a decades-long quest to understand the inherited component of sexuality,” says NPR and “broadly reinforces the observation that both biology and a person's environment influence sexuality, but the results reveal very little about that biology”.

To ensure that their results were not misinterpreted, researchers worked with LGBTQ advocacy groups and science-communication specialists on the best way to convey their findings to the public. “Their efforts included the design of a website that lays out the results — and their limitations — to the public, using sensitive, jargon-free language”, says Nature.

“It found that the sex of your sexual partners is, in fact, influenced by your genes”, writes Dr Steven Phelps and Dr Robbe Wedow in the New York Times. “But it also found that it was not possible to predict your sexual behaviour from your DNA alone. The study suggested, in other words, that while biology shapes our most intimate selves, it does so in tandem with our personal histories — with the idiosyncratic selves that unfold in a larger cultural and social context”.

While researchers agree the findings just scratch the surface, “the most important takeaway from the study is that it should further dispel the harmful narrative of same-sex behaviour being an aberration to be identified and presumably cured — one that’s been fueled by flawed or cherrypicked genetic research,” says Gizmodo.

“Like so many things about people, the authors noted, our sexuality is nuanced and influenced by everything that surrounds us,” says the website.

Equal rights campaigners are calling for action as newly published police figures reveal that reports of hate crimes against transgender people have increased by 81% in just a year.

The BBC, which obtained the data, says 1,944 hate crimes were reported to 36 police forces across England, Scotland and Wales in the last financial year, compared with 1,073 in the previous 12 months. And that latest total does not include figures for the eight forces who did not respond to a freedom of information request.

What is behind the rise?

The Home Office told the BBC that the increase is “largely” down to more people telling police about incidents, and forces more routinely classifying and recording such incidents as hate crimes.

But equal rights charity Stonewall says the increases reflect “a society where transphobia is everywhere”, reports the London Evening Standard. Transgender abuse victim Sue Pascoe, who lives near York, said: “For me, [this is] one of the scariest times I’ve lived through and I’m 59 now.”

Ben Hunte, the BBC’s first specialist correspondent on LGBTQ+ news, says the figures show that transgender people in the UK “currently have it harder than most”.

The vastly increased rate of incidents may be “somewhat due to more people coming forward” but even so, “some may find it shocking that more is not being done to protect these clearly vulnerable individuals”, he adds.

Meanwhile, ongoing media debates about transgender issues – such as those about proposals to make it easier to legally change gender – may increase the risk of attacks by keeping the issue alive, Hunte argues.

What sort of abuse is involved?

Many transgender hate crime victims are physically attacked, but threatening behaviour is also common.

Social housing worker Andi Woolford, from Wakefield in West Yorkshire, told the BBC about how she was approached and abused while simply sitting in her car.

“A guy came out of a block of flats, called me a paedophile, threatened to stab me, smashed my car up, held a dog chain up to my face, just really unbelievable,” Woolford said.

Stonewall estimates that two in five trans people have experienced a hate crime or incident in the past year.

What do police say?

The National Police Chiefs’ Council says officers believe that transphobic attacks have been “significantly under-reported” in the past and that the true scale of the problem is now emerging.

Deputy Chief Constable Julie Cooke, the organisation’s lead for LGBTQ+ issues, said: “We are working closely with trans groups to increase awareness and understanding of our staff, as well as to build confidence and trust in the police by the trans community.”

What can be done?

Campaigners believe a combination of public education, policy change and community efforts is needed to tackle the problem.

Laura Russell from Stonewall said: “We need people to realise how severe the situation is for trans people, and to be active in standing up as a visible ally to trans people, in whatever way they can.”

A leading UN official has urged Scottish ministers to postpone plans to make it easier for transgender people to have their identity legally recognised.

In a 4,500-word letter Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, appealed to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to allow “sufficient time to complete a thorough assessment of all foreseeable consequences”.

What is the current procedure for changing legal gender?

Under the Gender Recognition Act (2004), transgender people across the UK can have their preferred gender legally recognised. To do so, they must satisfy a panel that they have, or have had, gender dysphoria, reports the BBC. Two medical reports confirming the diagnosis are required.

In addition, the applicant must prove they have lived as the gender they wish to have recognised for at least two years, and make a formal declaration that they intend to continue to do so for the rest of their life

What is Scotland proposing?

The Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, which was introduced at Holyrood in October, is set to be enacted by Christmas.

The Times explains that the new law “aims to make it easier for trans people to switch gender through ‘self-ID’ and by lowering the age limit from 18 to 16”.

According to the BBC, the Scottish government views the current process as “intrusive and outdated”, and wants to move to self-declaration. Applicants would no longer need to have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria nor to prove they have lived as their “acquired gender” for two years. Instead, they would have to live in that gender for just six months before being granted recognition.

The plans would have brought Scotland in line with nations including Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Argentina and Iceland, which all recognise self-declared gender identity.

How Scotland’s position differs from England

The Scottish government “says that once people have changed their legal sex, with a gender recognition certificate, human biology becomes irrelevant”, said Iain Macwhirter in The Spectator. Meanwhile, “Rishi Sunak is equally adamant that it does not”.

In England, “self-ID” has been “rejected by a Conservative government that insists on defining women on the basis of biological sex”, Macwhirter said. The upshot is that “we may end up with different definitions of what a ‘woman’ is north and south of the border”.

In the immediate term, “MSPs are braced for the most toxic debate in Scottish politics to get even worse before it gets better”, said The Herald’s political correspondent David Bol.

What do opponents of the plan say?

The new legislation, which is backed by the SNP-Green administration, the Scottish Lib Dems and some Labour MSPs, has been “bitterly opposed” by some feminist groups, said The Times, who have “received strong support from campaigners including JK Rowling”.

Tory MP Maria Caulfield, minister for women at the Department for International Trade, has argued that the concerns of women’s groups are being ignored. These concerns include worries that men who had not had gender reassignment surgery might end up in women’s prisons or in other women-only spaces. It has also been claimed that men might be able to get on to all-women shortlists for jobs simply by declaring themselves to be female.

In her letter to the Scottish government, the UN’s Alsalem echoed this sentiment, writing that the Scottish government’s bill “would potentially open the door for violent males who identify as men to abuse the process of acquiring a GRC and the rights associated with it. This presents potential risks to the safety of women in all their diversity.”

However, The Daily Beast insists that many of the concerns cited by critics of the plan are “shadow arguments” rooted in overblown fears rather than facts. The US-based news site notes that under the 2010 Equality Act, transgender people in Britain already have the right to use their preferred bathroom – apparently without issue.

In Scotland, politicians have voiced concerns that “conflating sex with gender identification affects a wide range of policy and service delivery, including data collection, education, health and social care, justice and sport”, and therefore should not be “rushed”.

Meanwhile, Ireland introduced legislation to allow people to self-declare their gender in 2015. Although there is no quantitative research yet on the outcome, anecdotal evidence from activists suggests the reforms have had “the significant knock-on effect of a reduction in mental distress”, writes Libby Brooks in The Guardian.

The newspaper has not found any evidence that the law change had led to “individuals – in particular teenagers – being pressured to undertake medical transition, or men falsely declaring themselves female in order to invade women-only spaces, as some feminist activists have feared”, Brooks adds.

What next in England and Wales?

In September 2020, the UK government published the results of a public consultation which showed widespread support for all aspects of reform to the 2004 act. This included 64% in favour of removing the requirement for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and 80% in favour of removing the requirement for a medical report.

But, the UK government decided not to change the current law, which was described as “a missed opportunity” by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Modern ideas of gender fluidity have resulted in a cultural “disorientation” that threatens the existence of the family, according to a new Vatican treatise that rejects the trans movement.

The 31-page document, titled Male and Female He Created Them, retrenches the Catholic Church’s conservative positions on gender and sexuality, dashing hopes that Pope Francis might spearhead a more inclusive stance towards LGBTQ+ people.

Although the Pope has reached out to gay people, campaigners may have been unduly optimistic, says The Washington Post. The newspaper notes that in 2016, Francis decried the idea of schools teaching kids that “everyone can choose his or her sex” as “terrible”.

Criticising the new treatise - released during Pride month - the director of DignityUSA, which lobbies the Church to be more inclusive, told the Post: “This casts everything back to the Dark Ages.”

Marianne Duddy-Burke added: “I think it is incredibly insensitive, to be talking still about gender and sexuality as a choice and a momentary whim rather than a fundamental God-given identity.”

Here are five other things the new treatise, issued by the Congregation for Catholic Education, says about gender and sexuality.

Crisis in education

The Vatican document says that the world is facing “what might accurately be called an educational crisis, especially in the field of affectivity and sexuality”, reports The Guardian. The Church, which has a global following of around 1.2 billion people, claims educators who teach gender theory are seeking to “impose a single school of thought” on young people.

Gender fluidity ‘not true’

The treatise says that ideas of a fluid identity are not “based on truths of existence” and that the right to choose one’s gender is in “direct contradiction of the model of marriage as being between one man and one woman”.

‘Confused concept of freedom’

The Vatican News site says the treatise highlights that new gender theory, “especially in its most radical forms”, is based on a “confused concept of freedom in the realm of feelings and wants”. Such theory “speaks of a gradual process of denaturalisation, that is a move away from nature”, the document adds.

Tolerance of those with ‘sexual tendencies’

The Vatican does find some aspects of current gender research that “could provide points of agreement”. One is that children should be taught to “respect every person in their particularity and difference, so that no one should suffer bullying, violence, insults or unjust discrimination based on their specific characteristics (such as special needs, race, religion, sexual tendencies, etc)”.

‘Inestimable value’ of motherhood

The treatise also praises strands of modern gender theory that, it says, highlight the “values of femininity” and the “willingness of women to dedicate themselves in a special way to human relationships”. Motherhood has “inestimable value for the … future of society”, the Church says.

Police in Dallas are investigating the death of the third black transgender woman to be killed in the Texas city in less than a year.

The body of Chynal Lindsey, 26, was pulled out of a lake in northeast Dallas by a local conservation officer on Saturday. Investigators say the body showed “obvious signs of homicidal violence”.

The discovery follows the deaths of Muhlaysia Booker, 23, and Brittany White, 29, “raising the spectre of a spree of violence targeting one of the most marginalised communities in the city”, says The New York Times.

What happened to these women?

White, 29, was found shot dead in her parked car in the southeast of the city in October. Just over half a year later, in May, Booker was found dead from a fatal gunshot wound in a street just a ten-minute drive from where Lindsey’s body was discovered last week.

A few weeks prior to Booker’s death, she had been filmed being assaulted by a mob, with the resulting video footage going viral around the world. Police have made no connection between the earlier attack and her death, however.

Another transgender woman, who has not been named, was stabbed multiple times in Dallas in April but survived the attack.

And in July 2017, the remains of a trans woman were discovered in a field in the region, although the cause of death was undetermined.

That discovery came two years after another member of Dallas’ black trans community, 22-year-old Shade Schuler, was found dead in a field in what is classified as an unsolved murder.

Are the deaths connected?

Police have asked the FBI for help amid “questions about the possibility of a serial attacker”, reports The Guardian.

Asked if the string of deaths could be the work of a single person, Dallas Police Chief Renee Hall said: “Right now we don’t have the evidence to substantiate that.”

However, she warned residents to be vigilant.

Last month, before Lindsey was found dead, police acknowledged there were similarities between the previous attacks. Some of the victims had been in the same neighbourhood shortly before they were assaulted, police said.

”In addition, it has also been determined that two of the victims got into a vehicle with someone. In another case, the victim allowed someone into their vehicle,” police added in a statement.

“People are afraid,” said Lou Weaver, the transgender programmes coordinator for Equality Texas. “We’re wondering if someone is targeting the transgender community.”

Dallas has had a “vibrant” LGBTQ+ community since at least the 1970s, but Booker’s friends say progress has not extended to black transgender women like themselves, Vice News reports.

One friend told the current affairs channel that even Oak Lawn, the city’s historic “gaybourhood, has been gentrified beyond recognition… It makes us feel like we’re not wanted anywhere.”

Are the attacks part of a wider trend?

“Figures show that transgender people, particularly trans women of colour, are disproportionately likely to be the victims of violent attacks in the US,” says the BBC.

At least 26 trans people were killed across the US in 2018, most of whom were African-American, according to LGBTQ rights group Human Rights Campaign (HRC).

“We see this phenomenon far too often, that violence will bubble up in a specific area or state each year,” says HCR press secretary Sarah McBride. “There are concerns around contagion or a copycat effect each time a community witnesses a significant number of cases of anti-transgender violence.”

The UK’s biggest Pride event, Pride in London, will take place tomorrow to celebrate the LGBT+ community and fight for equality.

The 2022 Pride Parade will involve more than 30,000 participants, starting at Hyde Park Corner and ending at Whitehall Place.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the first historic protest in the UK, when “hundreds of queer people marched defiantly through the streets of London to demand that they be treated with respect by a society that loathed them”, said Pink News.

But some of the veterans who took to the streets that day have said the official modern celebrations are a far cry from the protest of 1972.

What was the catalyst for the gay pride movement?

On 28 June 1969, riots broke out in the area surrounding New York City’s Stonewall Inn, a bar on Christopher Street in Manhattan. Disputes remain “about how exactly the riots began, but it is agreed that they were the result of police raiding the bar for activity then considered criminal”, said The Independent.

The clashes continued for more than three days, and heralded “a more militant approach – in a more militant era – in which gay people demanded respect and equality, rather than asking for it, or trying to educate the heterosexual population”, Michael Bronski, a professor in women’s and gender studies at Harvard University, told Newsweek.

Yet “there has always been resistance by LGBTQ+ people against oppression – from the law, the police, government officials, church doctrine”, added Bronski, author of A Queer History of the United States. The academic and activist argued that it is a mistake “to elevate ‘Stonewall’ as the sole example”.

“I think that it is useful not to look at how one or two ‘riots’ – Stonewall, Compton Street – had a big effect, but rather how all of the small manifestations of resistance had an overwhelming cumulative effect on the lives of people and the society in which they lived,” he said.

How did Pride begin?

LGBTQ+ communities across the US immediately latched on to the Stonewall riots as an event that cast a spotlight on their cause. In 1970, a committee was formed to commemorate the New York uprising.

It was committee member L. Craig Schoonmaker who suggested “gay pride” as a slogan for their cause. “People did not have power then – even now, we only have some,” Schoonmaker said in a 2015 interview with The Allusionist podcast. “But anyone can have pride in themselves, and that would make them happier as people, and produce the movement likely to produce change.”

That first weekend of commemorations would eventually turn into a month-long series of events and parades, all under the banner of Pride.

The UK’s first Pride march was organised by the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and held on 1 July 1972. “Our aim was to show that we were proud, not ashamed,” said activist Peter Tatchell in a 2017 HuffPost piece. “Determined to come out of the shadows and stand up for our rights, we wanted to make ourselves visible and demand LGBT liberation.”

Only 700 people turned up to the first march, with most of Tatchell’s friends “too scared” to take part. There was also a “heavy, aggressive police presence”, he added. “They treated us like criminals. It was a bit scary.”

How did the rainbow flag become the symbol?

The movement’s rainbow flag wasn’t introduced until 1978. Before then, the pink triangle had symbolised the LGBTQ+ community.

But “since that image had been used during Nazi Germany to mark ‘sexual deviants’ in concentration camps, plenty of people felt like the triangle wasn’t hopeful enough, or even appropriate”, said lifestyle magazine Bustle.

Artist Gilbert Baker created the first rainbow flag for a San Francisco march organised by a friend, activist Harvey Milk. Baker’s original version had eight stripes rather than the six on the flag today, reported The Washington Post. He explained that he intended each stripe to represent an aspect of the gay identity: “hot pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for art, indigo for harmony and violet for spirit”.

What does Pride mean today?

By the 1980s, most major cities in the US held a pride parade, with the tradition soon spreading to various parts of the globe. Whereas groups had often been organised around the Aids crisis, “the 1990s saw greater media visibility for LGBTQ people in public life, leading to more businesses starting to come on board for Pride participation”, said Time. The next decade then saw “greater campaigning for same-sex marriage”.

Katherine McFarland Bruce, author of Pride Parades: How a Parade Changed the World, told the magazine: “I think Pride is a vehicle for LGBT groups to make the issues of the day heard both in their own community and in the wider civic community to which they belong.”

Speaking to the Press Association ahead of Pride in London 2022, Tatchell said many people were “very concerned” that the main official event has become “too corporate and commercial”.

“It often looks like a huge PR, marketing and branding exercise by big companies,” he told the news agency. “The human rights dimension has been lost. The original Pride was both a celebration and a protest. That’s the way it should be this year as well.”

The government is facing calls to suspend Brunei from the Commonwealth amid growing international condemnation at new sharia laws which introduced the death penalty for gay sex.

Strict new Islamist laws, which include punishments of amputation or death for offences including adultery, sodomy, robbery and rape, came into effect in Brunei on Wednesday, “triggering an international outcry” reports The Independent.

There could be several reasons behind the implementation, but Matthew Woolfe, founder of human rights group The Brunei Project, said it could be linked to Brunei's weakening economy.

“One theory is that it is a way for the government to strengthen its hold on power in the face of a declining economy that could potentially lead to some unrest in future,” Woolfe told the BBC.

“Connected to this is [Brunei’s] interest in attracting more investment from the Muslim world, along with more Islamic tourists… this could be seen as one way of appealing to this market”, although the government might have hoped to get away with the latest roll-out without anyone realising, he added.

Since the story was first broken by Gay Star News on the weekend, numerous celebrities have come out calling for a boycott of hotels owned by the kingdom of Brunei.

CNN says comedian Ellen DeGeneres, tennis star Billie Jean King and actress Jamie Lee Curtis “are just the latest to follow actor George Clooney in condemning the harsh new legislation, urging the public to boycott nine hotels owned by the tiny Southeast Asian kingdom -- three in the United Kingdom, two in the United States, two in France and two in Italy”.

In 2014, when the roll-out of Sharia law in Brunei was first announced, Elton John and Virgin Group founder Richard Branson led calls for a boycott of state-owned businesses and hotels.

Now Labour has gone one step further and called for the foreign office to exert diplomatic pressure on the tiny oil-rich Commonwealth kingdom, and even push for its suspension.

Shadow foreign office minister Khalid Mahmood called the new laws “truly heartbreaking” but added “it is also a clear breach of Brunei’s obligations under the Commonwealth charter in respect of human rights and there surely must be immediate consequences for Brunei if they press ahead of these proposals in terms of membership of the Commonwealth.”

He said the Commonwealth has fought against democratic abuses but it has turned a “blind eye” towards abuses of LGBT people in countries in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. It was now time to draw “a line in the sand” over LGBT rights abuses, Labour said.

SNP MP Martin Docherty-Hughes also urged the government to consider appealing to the Commonwealth to suspend Brunei, in line with Zimbabwe, which was kicked out in 2002, before withdrawing the following year.

He further raised concern at enthusiasm for “Commonwealth 2.0” by some MPs, pointing out there are 35 states in the group which criminalise LGBT people.

The Commonwealth has been touted as a fertile market for post-Brexit trade deals by the government, and there are concerns economic interest could trump ethical considerations when it comes to dealing with some less-progressive former colonies.