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”.

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”.

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."

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."

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?

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. 

A judge in Scotland has declared that the UK government acted lawfully in blocking Holyrood's gender recognition reform bill.

Legislation introducing a self-identification system to allow people to change their legally recognised sex was passed by the Scottish Parliament late last year.

But in January Scottish Secretary Alister Jack used section 35 powers from the Scotland Act 1998 – the legislation that established the Scottish Parliament – for the first time to stop the bill receiving royal assent, over fears it would impact on UK-wide equalities laws.

Now in a ruling that The Guardian said will "disappoint LGBTQ+ campaigners and offers a boost to Rishi Sunak at the end of a difficult week", Lady Haldane at the Court of Session in Edinburgh rejected the Scottish government’s petition to rule the UK government’s section 35 veto as unlawful.

While the challenge to the veto failed, Haldane said that "in so concluding it is important to recognise the novelty and complexity of the arguments and the sophisticated manner in which those arguments were presented before me and from which I derived considerable assistance".

Jack welcomed the decision. "I was clear that this legislation would have had adverse effects on the operation of the law as it applies to reserved matters, including on important Great Britain-wide equality protections," he said.

But Colin Macfarlane, director of nations at LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall, said the organisation was "disappointed" with the ruling. "This unfortunately means more uncertainty for trans people in Scotland, who will now be waiting once again, to see whether they will be able to have their gender legally recognised through a process that is in line with leading nations like Ireland, Canada and New Zealand."

The Scottish government "has the right to appeal the case further through the Scottish courts, and ultimately to the Supreme Court in London", said Sky News.

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.

Governor Ron DeSantis has taken over Disney World’s self-governing district in central Florida after the corporation opposed his “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

Since 1967, the Reedy Creek Improvement District, home to the Disney World theme parks, has had its own government to allow infrastructure to be put in place without state approval.

But on Monday, DeSantis signed a bill that will end Disney’s control of Reedy Creek and hand it to the Florida state government.

The move is viewed as “punishment” for Disney after their former chief executive, Bob Chapek, publicly opposed the Florida governor’s bill that “prevents the teaching of sex and gender identity from kindergarten to the third grade”, said Sky News.

The new bill allows DeSantis to appoint five members to supervise the district. These new members will “be in charge of the district’s long-standing powers to tax, build and borrow money for projects and services”, reported CNN.

Martin Garcia, a Tampa-based lawyer whose firm donated $50,000 to DeSantis’s re-election campaign, is one of the governor’s appointees. Bridget Ziegler, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, a conservative organisation, will also be a supervisor.

Disney is one of Florida’s biggest employers and its single biggset taxpayer. But, as DeSantis put it when speaking at Reedy Creek fire station on Monday: “There’s a new sheriff in town.”

But while the move was “celebrated by conservative media”, several of DeSantis’s rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination have been critical, said CNN. Former vice-president Mike Pence said the new bill was “beyond the scope of what I as a conservative, limited-government Republican would be prepared to do”, while New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu told CBS News that to punish a company for perceived “woke” business practices set “the worst precedent in the world”.

The bill is scheduled to take effect in June. In a statement to CNN earlier this month, Jeff Vahle, the president of Walt Disney World Resort, said the company was “ready to work within this new framework”, while continuing to “innovate, inspire and bring joy to millions of guests”.

Disney is playing a waiting game, according to Democratic state senator Jason Pizzo. He told Insider he believes Disney will “challenge the law in court, and then resolve the problem” when DeSantis likely runs for the presidency in 2024.

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”.

Read more

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”.

Read more

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.”

Read more

Debates over gender and identity are now among “the most heated in our politics”, said Robert Colvile in The Sunday Times. That’s why “all hell broke loose” last week when the Government indicated it was planning to U-turn on its promise to ban all types of “conversion therapy” – whether aimed at changing a person’s sexual orientation or their gender identity. It finally settled on a compromise: to outlaw gay therapies, but not trans ones.

Its reasoning is as follows. Imagine two children: the first develops feelings for someone of the same sex, and is dragged by their conservative parents before an “authority figure” to “crush” their inclinations; the second is unhappy in their gender, but their “tolerant” parents still want them to wait before having irreversible medical treatment. The Government is keen to “prevent the first scenario without criminalising the second”. And polls show this is in line with public opinion. Most people support trans adults’ right to identify “as they wish”, but feel changing gender should be a considered process. We may not live in a utopia for LGBT people, but neither the public nor the Government is “viscerally hostile to trans rights”.

In which case, why is the Government willing to let trans people undergo conversion therapies, said Jayne Ozanne in The Guardian. As one who suffered nearly 20 years of “healing prayer” and even exorcisms to purge my attraction to women, I know how harmful such therapy can be. It’s even worse for trans people: the Govern­ment’s own 2018 LGBT survey found they’re nearly twice as likely as lesbians and gays to be offered and to undergo interventions; and these interventions, it found, may include beatings, deprivation and verbal abuse.

Trans conversion therapy is banned in Brazil, Switzerland and Germany, said Emma Flint on The Independent. Here, however, the Tories regard the desire to transition as they once viewed homosexuality: as a disease that needs to be cured.

But it’s wrong to treat gay rights and trans rights as equivalent, said Lucy Bannerman in The Times. No one in the gay rights movement has sought to redefine “who is gay and who is straight”. By contrast, “extremists in the trans movement”, by prioritising “gender identity” over biological sex, have tried to reclassify “how humans are categorised” in various walks of life. Some charities may see no problem in setting trans-identifying young people on a path of “experimental hormone treatments and lifelong medication”, but it isn’t abusive for professionals to question such practices even if others choose to call such questioning “conversion therapy”. On this difficult issue, “a variety of clinical opinions” should be encouraged, not proscribed.

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”.

Read more

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.”

Read more

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”.

Read more

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”.

Read more

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”.

Read more

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.”

Read more

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.”

Read more

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”.

Read more

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”.

Read more

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”.

Read more

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

1. Rachel Sylvester in The Times

on how the Labour leader must take on the hard-left

Keir Starmer should finish the purge of Corbynism

“Brand matters in politics at least as much as it does in business. That is why both Tony Blair and David Cameron were so determined to detoxify their parties. Their aim was to change perceptions and reach out to new audiences rather than simply reinforce preconceptions. For Mr Blair that meant adding an element of the Tin Man to Labour’s Scarecrow, and for Mr Cameron that required giving the Tory party a heart as well as a head. Their electoral fortunes depended largely on how far they succeeded. Sir Keir is currently trying to broaden Labour’s appeal: his refusal to back the toppling of Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol reflects the views of voters more than his party’s left wing... To return to the Yellow Brick Road, the Labour leader now needs to look to the Lion. Having shaped his shadow cabinet in his own image, and brought in a new, more moderate general secretary, he must next find the courage to take on his left-wingers over policy and dump the unrealistic pledges that made the party so unpalatable to the voters at the last election.”

2. David Lammy, shadow justice secretary, in The Guardian

on getting serious about Black Lives Matter

Britain needs leadership on race inequality. Not just another review

“We do not need another review, or report, or commission to tell us what to do. I personally made 35 recommendations in the Lammy report on inequality in the criminal justice system. There are 110 specific recommendations in the Angiolini review about disproportionality in deaths in custody. There are 30 recommendations in Wendy Williams’s review about the Home Office’s failure in the Windrush scandal. There are 26 specific recommendations in Ruby McGregor-Smith’s review about discrimination in the workplace. If Boris Johnson is serious about responding to the Black Lives Matter movement that has inspired people from all races and all backgrounds, he does not need to announce another commission on the back of a fag packet. Yet that’s what he did, as an aside in his Daily Telegraph column today about the Winston Churchill statue. We do not need a repeat of Theresa May’s 2017 race audit. It is time for action on the countless reviews, reports and commissions on race that have already been completed.”

3. Tom Peck in The Independent

on data privacy in the age of coronavirus

I will not be downloading the NHS tracing app. This government cannot be trusted not to abuse our data

“I have thought about it, long and hard, and I have decided that I will not do it. It is not 2013 anymore, and I do not trust my government with my data. Pardon the pun, but to trust the people running the current government to look after your data would be like trusting the cookie monster to look after your cookies. Questions of this nature tend to be hypothetical. Civil liberties campaigners who have objections to ID cards, or large health databases and so on, tend to do so, at least in this country, on moral rather than practical grounds. You might agree to carry an ID card now, on the watch of a moderate, benign government, but how might those powers be used in the future by more sinister forces? This is not a conceptual or hypothetical question anymore, however. It is a real one. This country has an entirely malignant, entirely untrustworthy government. It is being run by the unsackable Dominic Cummings, whose own behaviour while running Vote Leave is a matter of public record.”

4. Celia Walden in The Daily Telegraph

on looking back wincingly at our forebears

For all those thinking they are doing the right thing today, the next generation will find it wrong

“In all the recent acknowledgements of our past wrong-doings, we’ve never stopped to question our present mistakes - let alone how wincingly regressive some of the ideologies, thoughts and actions of 2020 will look to future generations. Although some of the steps we’re taking to right past wrongs, such as the systemic racism that resulted in the death of George Floyd, are crucial and long overdue, I doubt our decision to allow children and adults to spend hours a day inhaling the toxic fumes of social media will look very enlightened to our great-grandchildren. They will likely look upon that with the same appalled disbelief as we now do the legal use of opium. They will gawp, too, at the notion that fat women were once ‘shamed’ for wanting losing weight, and shake their heads in astonishment when they read about how, as Britain tried to recover from a global pandemic, the re-opening of high-street clothing shops was deemed more pressing than the re-opening of schools. In our breathtaking arrogance, we have cocooned ourselves in our own convictions.”

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––For a round-up of the most important stories from around the world - and a concise, refreshing and balanced take on the week’s news agenda - try The Week magazine. Start your trial subscription today –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

5. Michelle Goldberg in The New York Times

on a landmark Supreme Court decision

Surprise! Justice on L.G.B.T. Rights From a Trump Judge

“Before Monday, you could legally be fired for being gay, bisexual or transgender in 26 states. Now the court has ruled that gay and transgender people are protected by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sex. The decision has extra cultural force because it was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, and joined by the conservative chief justice John Roberts... The phrase ‘But Gorsuch’ is shorthand for how conservatives justify all the moral compromises they’ve made in supporting Trump; controlling the Supreme Court makes it all worth it. So there’s a special sweetness in Gorsuch spearheading the most important L.G.B.T. rights decision since the 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which established a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. This isn’t simply Schadenfreude. The fact that this momentous ruling was written by a right-wing judge sends a message that progress on L.G.B.T. rights will be very hard to reverse.”

The Canadian government has introduced new legislation to criminalise LGBTQ conversion therapy, as Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party moves to keep an attention-grabbing election promises.

If it passes, causing a person to undergo conversion therapy will become an offence, Reuters reports, as will advertising and profiting from conversion therapy and removing a minor from Canada to undergo the treatment.

However, the legislation will not criminalise personal views expressed in private conversations by individuals looking to provide support to those struggling with their sexual orientation or gender identity.

“Conversion therapy has been discredited and denounced by professionals and health associations in Canada, the United States and around the world. It has no basis on science or facts,” said David Lametti, minister of justice and attorney general of Canada.

Conversion therapy is “any practice designed to change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual, to change a person’s gender identity to one that matches the sex assigned at birth, or to repress or reduce non-heterosexual sexual attraction or behaviours, according to the legislation”, The Guardian says.

While many forms of conversion therapy are simply talk therapy techniques, some counsellors have used extreme “aversion treatments” such as electric shock treatment and medication.

A study in Canada found that one in six LGBTQ men have been subjected to sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression change efforts, the country’s iPolitics website reports.

Conversion therapy is already banned in some Canadian cities, such as Vancouver and Calgary. Ontario was the first Canadian province to outlaw the practice in 2015.

Several US states, including California, Colorado, New York and Washington, have banned conversion therapy.

In 2018, Theresa May’s government announced an action plan that “sets out 75 steps to help improve the lives of LGBT people”, including measures to ban conversion therapies.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––For a round-up of the most important stories from around the world - and a concise, refreshing and balanced take on the week’s news agenda - try The Week magazine. Get your first six issues for £6–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

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.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––For a round-up of the most important stories from around the world - and a concise, refreshing and balanced take on the week’s news agenda - try The Week magazine. Start your trial subscription today –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

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.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––For a round-up of the most important stories from around the world - and a concise, refreshing and balanced take on the week’s news agenda - try The Week magazine. Start your trial subscription today –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

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.”

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

For a round-up of the most important stories from around the world - and a concise, refreshing and balanced take on the week’s news agenda - try The Week magazine. Start your trial subscription today –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

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.

Donald Trump is reportedly launching a campaign to end the criminalisation of homosexuality around the world, in a move that critics claim is merely a smokescreen to target Iran.

This week, the US ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, the highest-profile openly gay person in the Trump administration, hosted LGBT activists from around Europe. He outlined a strategy that was believed to include working with global organisations such as the United Nations and European Union to decriminalise homosexuality worldwide.

According to 2017 statistics from the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, 70 countries around the world still criminalise homosexuality, with the majority in the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean.

“While on its surface, the move looks like an atypically benevolent decision by the Trump administration, the details of the campaign belie a different story” says Mathew Rodriguez in Out magazine.

“Rather than actually being about helping queer people around the world, the campaign looks more like another instance of the right using queer people as a pawn to amass power and enact its own agenda.”

The Independent says the campaign “comes in stark contrast to President Trump’s treatment of LGBTQ+ citizens and their rights in his own nation”, while Pink News notes that the US “does not intend to address issues such as marriage equality, same-sex adoption and anti-LGBT discrimination laws in countries where being gay is illegal”.

Vox says it may even be a way to “highlight Iran’s human rights abuses”.

“The Trump administration has made getting tough on Iran the centerpiece of its foreign policy, and it has often called out the oppression of the regime” says the news site, adding that the new campaign “appears to have been inspired, at least in part, by a report of a gay man who was publicly hanged in Iran in January”.

Grenell, who is leading the decriminalisation drive, has also been “an outspoken Iran critic and has aggressively pressed European nations to abandon the 2015 nuclear deal and re-impose sanctions” says NBC News’s Josh Lederman.

He adds: “Reframing the conversation on Iran around a human rights issue that enjoys broad support in Europe could help the United States and Europe reach a point of agreement on Iran, yet by using gay rights as a cudgel against Iran, the Trump administration risks exposing close US allies who are also vulnerable on the issue and creating a new tension point with the one region where Trump has managed to strengthen US ties: the Arab world.”

Chief among these is Saudi Arabia, whose human rights record is already under international scrutiny following the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and where homosexuality can be punishable by death.

“From the report, it does seem like it’s quite an instrumentalized move - if it’s true - around Iran,” Graeme Reid, director of the LGBT rights programme at Human Rights Watch, told The Daily Beast.

He warned that if the campaign is motivated in part out of a desire to persuade European nations to join the US in opposition to Iran, it could actually backfire on LGBT people in the Middle Eastern country, who are already at risk of being killed due to their sexual orientation.

“Grenell’s meeting on Tuesday appears to be a first step toward any action,” says Vox, “but it’s still unclear how aggressive, broad or sustained this campaign might be, either in Iran or the rest of the world.”

A leading exponent of “gay conversion therapy” has announced he has divorced his wife and is seeking to date men.

David Matheson, from Utah, “was the creator of widely maligned and discredited courses that claimed to be capable of changing the sexuality of those who studied them”, reports Sky News.

But over the weekend the LGBTQ nonprofit Truth Wins Out obtained a private Facebook post made by “conversion therapy” advocate Rich Wyler, which stated that Matheson “says that living a single, celibate life ‘just isn’t feasible for him,’ so he’s seeking a male partner.”

Matheson then confirmed Wyler’s assertions this week on a Facebook post of his own. “A year ago I realized I had to make substantial changes in my life. I realised I couldn’t stay in my marriage any longer. And I realised that it was time for me to affirm myself as gay,” he wrote.

Matheson, who was married to a woman for 34 years and is now divorced, also confirmed in an interview with NBC News that he is now dating men.

In that interview he acknowledged his work had hurt some people, but he would not fully renounce “conversion therapy”. Instead, he blamed what he referred to as the “shame-based, homophobic-based system” of the Mormon church in which he was raised.

“I know there are people who won’t be satisfied by anything less than a complete and unequivocal renunciation of everything,” Matheson said. “That’s hard, because I want people to feel the genuineness of my change of heart, but people need to understand that there is more than one reality in the world.”

To those who feel harmed by his past work, Matheson relayed a message: “I unequivocally apologise.”

Truth Wins Out founder Wayne Besen, a longtime anti-conversion-therapy activist and former investigative journalist, referred to Matheson as a figure who many in the “conversion therapy” movement looked to as “the intellectual godfather.”

“When they wanted an expert, they would go to him,” Besen said, “and when your expert is now coming out of the closet and dating men, I think that speaks volumes about how reparative therapy is damaging and ineffective.”

“Conversion therapy employs guilt and shame to browbeat desperate and vulnerable people into renouncing their humanity. This is the latest evidence that conversion therapy is consumer fraud and ought to be outlawed in all 50 states,” he added.

Earlier this month, the state of New York “became the fifteenth state in the US to pass bills banning gay conversion therapy”, reports the London Evening Standard.

In July of last year, Theresa May announced that the practice would also be outlawed in the UK as part of a plan to “improve the response to hate crime and to improve diversity in education institutions”.

A national survey of 108,000 members of the LGBT community in the UK suggested 2% have undergone the discredited therapy with another 5% having been offered it.

A popular Nigerian police chief has warned homosexuals to flee the country or face the prosecution, according to reports.

Chief Superintendent Dolapo Badmos, spokesperson for the Lagos State Police Command, also called on Nigerians with evidence of homosexual activity to come forward.

The message was posted on her personal Instagram account - which is set to private but has around 125,000 followers - and cites a 2014 law signed by former president Goodluck Jonathan that criminalised same-sex marriage and public displays of affection between gay people.

“If you are homosexually inclined, Nigeria is not a place for you. There is a law (Same-Sex Prohibition Act) here that criminalises homosexual clubs, associations and organisations with penalties of up to 15 years in jail,” Badmus wrote.

“So, if you are a homosexual in nature, leave the country or face prosecution. But before you say, ‘does this matter?’ Kindly note that anything against the law of the land is criminal and all crimes will be punished accordingly no matter how small you think it is.”

She added: “Anyone convicted of entering into a same-sex marriage contract or civil union faces up to 14 years imprisonment. All LGBT candidates in Nigeria should beware.”

Her warning is the “latest reminder of the challenges facing members of the LGBT community” in Nigeria, where the anti-gay law “enjoys broad support among its citizens”, CNN reports.

A recent report by The Initiative for Equal Rights (TIERs) found that around 90% of Nigerians support the continued enforcement of the 2014 law.

Badmos’ post has been liked more than 2,000 times, although not everyone is supporting her stance.

Some commenters “condemned the police for going after homosexuals and ignoring more pressing issues”, reports Nigerian newspaper The Punch.

Others accused the police of being partial, and claimed that “a cross-dresser, who now identifies as transgender, had become a celebrity but was left alone because he was rich”.

Responding to those claims, Badmus posted a message that said: “In view of my last post about homosexuals and the law banning them, some people have been mentioning one particular name (very risky though) to be one.

“Kindly be informed that if you have any evidence or exhibits that can establish the case against him/her, please don’t hesitate to bring it up for a comprehensive investigation.”

Taiwan has become the first country in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage following a landmark vote by lawmakers last Friday.

In 2017, the island’s constitutional court ruled that same-sex couples had the right to legally marry, and gave the parliament a two-year deadline to pass the changes.

CNN reports that “thousands of people” took to the streets in the Taiwanese capital Taipei to celebrate the outcome after the decision was announced.

“It's important to note that Taiwan really is at the forefront of Asia on these sorts of issues,” says NPR. “If you look at things that are sort of like measures of traditional society structure - family structure - such as childbearing outside of marriage, cohabitation, Taiwan is way out in front.”

However, the move has also paved the way for an ugly dispute between Taiwan and the People's Republic of China, which considers Taiwan part of its territory despite having no control over the island.

The Japan Times notes that the Communist Party of China has “shown no interest in legalising same-sex marriage” and “launches periodic crackdowns on gay content online or elsewhere”.

Taiwan is one of 30 countries that have either legalised gay marriage or are planning to in the near future.

Which country was the first to legalise gay marriage?

Although the Danish are officially the pioneers of marriage equality, the Scandinavian nation’s Registered Partnerships Act of 1989 did not treat same-sex unions as “marriages” and therefore cannot qualify.

The Netherlands was actually the first country to put same-sex marriage on a par with heterosexual partnerships, with legislation introduced in 2001.

A spokesperson for the Dutch Embassy told The Washington Post: “We were always a bit ahead of other countries. We had those discussions years before other countries even started.”

Marriage equality achieved another major milestone in 2015 when the US Supreme Court ruled that gay marriage would become legal nationwide. At the time, 14 US states had bans on same-sex marriage. The announcement was met with joy by campaigners outside the court, who responded with “tears, hugs, and cheers of ‘USA USA USA!’”, the BBC reported.

Have there been any repeals?

While nations across the globe have followed suit, the road towards same-sex marriage has not always been a smooth one.

Bermuda became the first nation to repeal gay marriage rights last year, when the government announced that it would overturn a 2016 court decision that legalised same-sex marriage and introduce domestic partnerships for gay couples instead.

The decision prompted international criticism and calls for boycotts on travel to Bermuda. Cruise line Carnival Corp, one of several Bermuda-registered ships that had been performing same-sex marriages, provided “financial, public relations and civic support to [campaign group] OutBermuda in its efforts to challenge the island’s same-sex marriage ban”, according to NBC News. Amid mounting pressure, the ban on gay marriage was swiftly overturned.

So where is gay marriage legal?

Here is a complete list of the countries where same-sex marriage has been or is soon to be legalised:

Legal:

Australia (2017)

Malta (2017)

Germany (2017)

Columbia (2016)

United States (2015)

Greenland (2015)

Ireland (2015)

Finland (2015)

Luxembourg (2014)

Scotland (2014)

England and Wales (2013)

Brazil (2013)

France (2013)

New Zealand (2013)

Uruguay (2013)

Denmark (2012)

Argentina (2010)

Portugal (2010)

Iceland (2010)

Sweden (2009)

Norway (2008)

South Africa (2006)

Spain (2005)

Canada (2005)

Belgium (2003)

The Netherlands (2000)

Austria (2019)

Taiwan (2019)

To become legal:

Costa Rica (2020)

The debate over popular Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie’s sexual orientation has been reignited, following an interview with a former writer for the show who said the roommate puppets were “a loving couple”.

In an interview with Queerty, former writer Mark Salzman said that he “always felt that without a huge agenda, when I was writing Bert and Ernie, they were [a couple]. I didn’t have any other way to contextualise them”.

Salzman said he loosely based the writing for Bert and Ernie on himself and his partner, film editor Arnold Glassman, drawing on the friction between their own personalities to provide inspiration for the Sesame Street characters.

However, shortly after Salzman’s interview was published and his comments widely covered in the mainstream media, Sesame Workshop – the organisation behind the television show – issued a statement contradicting Salzman’s claim.

In the statement, Sesame Workshop said Bert and Ernie “do not have a sexual orientation”, adding: “They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves.”

Speculation over the puppets’ sexual orientation has “long created friction between grown-up Sesame Street fans and the show’s makers”, The Guardian says, adding that Sesame Workshop “shot down” an online petition calling for them to marry in 2011.

The BBC says that Bert and Ernie “have become icons in the gay community over the years”, since first appearing on the show’s pilot episode in 1969.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has expressed support for same-sex marriage ahead of a planned referendum on the issue.

The country will vote on a number of changes to the constitution in February 2019, including a proposal to define marriage as a union between “two people,” instead of “a man and a woman”.

President Diaz-Canel, who took over from Raul Castro in April, said he backed the proposal in an interview with the Venezuela-based television station Telesur.

“The approach of recognising marriage between two people, without limitations, responds to a problem of eliminating all types of discrimination in society,” he said.

The definition of marriage in the proposed constitution and the president's support “represent seismic changes” for the Cuban government's attitude towards gay people, says Voice of America.

In the decades after the 1959 Cuban revolution, members of the LGBT community were routinely persecuted, with many forced into exile and some sent for re-education at labour camps.

A lack of opinion polling makes it difficult to measure current public support for gay marriage, says Maria Isabel Alfonso, co-founder of the not-for-profit group Cuban Americans For Engagement.

But “acceptance of homosexuality, both within the government and in civil society, has grown appreciably,” the professor of literature and cultural studies writes in The Conversation.

Experts say the shift in public attitude is largely thanks to efforts by Raul Castro's daughter Mariela, a staunch LGBT rights advocate who first proposed the constitutional change.

But the move has been met with fierce opposition from conservative groups, especially evangelical Christians, “who have gained influence since religious freedoms were expanded in the 1990s,” says Ruben Gallo, a scholar and expert on Cuban culture and society.

“In recent weeks, five evangelical churches released a joint statement opposing the proposal, prompting protests by LGBT activists,” he writes for the New York Times.

Despite this, it is “widely expected that the draft constitution will be approved in the coming months, making Cuba one of the most progressive nations in the Americas in its protection of LGBT rights,” Gallo says.

A court in Uganda has dismissed the first case brought to trial under its strict Anti-Homosexuality Act, revealing a justice system “strained by political pressure, public fear and inconsistent enforcement”, said Deutsche Welle.

The East African country introduced the legislation in 2023, despite pressure from Western governments and human rights groups. “One of the world’s harshest laws targeting the LGBT community”, it carries a sentence of life in prison for same-sex intercourse, with the death penalty an option in cases deemed “aggravated”, said Reuters.

But from the outset there has been “a lot of confusion, even among prosecutors” about the law, said Juliet Kanyange, the lawyer representing the man, aged 20 on arrest in August 2023, whose case was dropped this month. Dismissing the case, the court said the accused was “mentally unstable” and would be unable to understand a trial. His defence team says he developed psychosis and schizophrenia after spending more than a year in prison on remand.

There are 65 countries that still criminalise homosexuality, according to Erasing 76 Crimes, a news site that tracks anti-LGBTQ+ laws and efforts to repeal them. Of these, 12 countries – Iran, northern Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Brunei, Mauritania, Pakistan, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Uganda – retain a possible death sentence for private, consensual same-sex sexual activity.

Here are the countries where homosexuality is still criminalised:

The Americas

• Grenada (male only)
• Guyana (male only)
• Jamaica (male only)
• St Lucia
• St Vincent and the Grenadines

Gay rights are constitutionally enshrined in most of South and North America, with most exceptions in the “conservative Caribbean”, said The Associated Press. Even so, last summer St Lucia’s Supreme Court ruled consensual same-sex intimacy legal in private settings, and more and more countries in the region have “struck down colonial-era” laws that criminalise same-sex relations. Barbados, and St Kitts and Nevis repealed their laws in 2022, following similar moves by Belize, and Trinidad and Tobago, but the latter reinstated the country’s buggery and gross indecency laws in March 2025.

Europe

Most countries in Europe have no laws preventing homosexual activities. But Hungary in 2021 passed the Hungarian Child Protection Act, which bans “the portrayal or promotion of homosexuality among under-18s”, the BBC said. Hungary does not recognise same sex marriage, has banned same-sex couples from adopting children and passed a law preventing people from legally changing their gender.

In November 2024, the European Court of Justice began hearing a case brought by 16 of 27 EU member states, which claimed the law was in breach of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. A non-binding opinion from the court’s advocate general, Tamara Ćapeta, issued in June, concluded Hungary had violated fundamental rights of human dignity, respect for family life and non-discrimination. The hardline Hungarian government of Viktor Orbán has stuck firm, however, and in April last year passed a constitutional amendment codifying a ban on Pride events.

Africa

• Algeria
• Burkina Faso
• Burundi
• Cameroon
• Chad
• Comoros
• Egypt (de facto)
• Eritrea
• Eswatini (male only)
• Ethiopia
• Gambia
• Ghana
• Guinea
• Kenya (male only)
• Liberia
• Libya
• Malawi
• Mali
• Mauritania
• Mauritius
• Morocco
• Namibia (male only)
• Nigeria
• Senegal
• Sierra Leone (male only)
• Somalia
• South Sudan (male only)
• Sudan
• Tanzania
• Togo (male only)
• Tunisia
• Uganda
• Zambia
• Zimbabwe (male only)

“Across much of Africa, gay people face discrimination, persecution, and potentially even death,” Newsweek said. Homosexuality carries a sentence of capital punishment in Mauritania, Sudan, southern Somalia and northern Nigeria.

Amnesty International has warned that “legal rights are diminishing for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people across the African continent”. In September 2025, Burkina Faso became the latest country to adopt anti-gay laws, adding to what The Washington Post called a “near-unanimous block of intolerance” across the continent.

Asia and the Middle East

• Afghanistan
• Bangladesh (male only)
• Brunei (male only)
• Indonesia (in some areas)
• Iran
• Iraq (de facto)
• Kuwait (male only)
• Lebanon (male only)
• Malaysia
• Maldives
• Myanmar (male only)
• Oman
• Pakistan (male only)
• Qatar
• Saudi Arabia
• Sri Lanka
• Syria
• Turkmenistan (male only)
• United Arab Emirates
• Uzbekistan (male only)
• Yemen

In the overwhelmingly Islamic Middle East, it is quicker to highlight the countries that do not currently have anti-gay laws than those that do. In several nations, same-sex relations are punishable by death.

Bahrain, Israel and Jordan are the only countries in the region that do not outlaw homosexuality. Even in these countries, police protections offered to sexual minorities are minimal and vigilante justice often prevails.

Asia has a mixed record on gay rights. Many countries on the continent have never passed any form of anti-gay legislation, including Cambodia, South Korea, Taiwan, Laos and the Philippines. Japan decriminalised homosexuality almost 140 years ago.

Oceania

• Kiribati (male only)
• Papua New Guinea (male only)
• Samoa (male only)
• Solomon Islands
• Tonga (male only)
• Tuvalu (male only)

Oceania is a continent of sharp contrasts when it comes to anti-LGBT laws. Six of the 14 countries of the continent have passed anti-gay legislation. Kiribati and the Solomon Islands are the harshest enforcers of these laws, with sentences of up to 14 years for homosexual acts.

The Cook Islands repealed its anti-gay laws in 2023, having “rarely, if ever” enforced them, said Reuters.

Two women have been caned in a Malaysian courtroom for “attempting to have lesbian sex”.

The pair, aged 22 and 32, “were seated on stools facing the judges and given six strokes from a light rattan cane on their backs by female prison officers” this morning, the Associated Press reports.

The women, dressed in white gowns and headscarves, apparently remained silent during the lashing, which was carried out in front of several dozen spectators, including members of the public.

Sharia law enforcement officers arrested the two women in a compromising state inside a vehicle in the conservative north-eastern state of Terengganu in April this year, says The Guardian.

On 12 August they were found guilty of “musahaqah”, sexual acts between women, in the Terengganu sharia high court and sentenced to six lashes each, in addition to a 3,300 Malaysian Ringgit (£620) fine.

Under the Malaysian legal system, Muslim citizens are subject both to secular criminal and civil law and to sharia laws governing religious adherence, while the sizable Buddhist, Christian and Hindu minorities have no obligation to obey Islamic law.

The caning “occurred amid a climate of fear and discrimination against Malaysia's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community”, says the Associated Press, and drew criticism from LGBT and human rights activists.

In a statement, Amnesty International Malaysia said that people “should not live in fear because they are attracted to people of the same sex” and decried caning as “a form of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment”.

“The Malaysian authorities must immediately repeal repressive laws, outlaw torturous punishments and ratify the UN Convention Against Torture,” the group said.

However, the judge who presided over the caning dismissed the idea that it was a harsh or torturous punishment.

“Under syariah [shariah], caning is not meant to hurt or torture the offender,” Judge Kamalruazmi Ismail told the courtroom following the execution of the sentence.

He said that the sentence was “a lesson, a reminder and deterrent to the offenders and society not to commit it in the future”, Malaysian daily newspaper The Star reports.

Australian actress Ruby Rose has deleted her Twitter account following a backlash over the news she is set to play Batwoman, the first openly gay superhero lead on TV.

The new series due to premiere on the CW network in 2019, focuses on Kate Kane: “first created by DC Comics in the 1950s as a love interest for Batman, before being reintroduced in 2006 as a gay woman of Jewish descent”, reports The Independent.

The choice of Rose has been met with mixed reactions, with some fans taking against the casting of a non-Jewish actor in the role and prompting a #RecastBatwoman hashtag to circulate on the social media site.

But it seems Rose's Twitter deletion may have particularly been motivated by accusations she shouldn't play a lesbian character - despite the actor having been out since the age of 12.

The actress took to Twitter one last time before exiting saying: “Where on earth did ‘Ruby is not a lesbian therefore she can’t be batwoman’ come from — has to be the funniest most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read. I came out at 12? And have for the past 5 years had to deal with ‘she’s too gay’ how do y’all flip it like that? I didn’t change. I wish we would all support each other and our journeys.”

Rose's removal of her Twitter account prompted people in the LGBT community to reiterate that it is no one’s place to define someone else’s identity.

In her Twitter statement, Rose continued saying: “When women and when minorities join forces we are unstoppable… when we tear each other down it’s much more hurtful than from any group. But hey/ love a challenge I just wish women and the LGBT community supported each other more, My wish was we were all a little kinder and more supportive of each other…Sending everyone my love and gratitude, it’s been a rollercoaster of a year, this month especially.”

Rose's Batwoman will be introduced to US audiences on The CW network in a December crossover episode featuring its other DC Comics properties, including The Flash, Arrow, and Supergirl.

“The Bat is out of the bag and I am beyond thrilled and honored," Rose wrote on Instagram after news broke she'd been cast. "I’m also an emotional wreck. Because this is a childhood dream. This is something I would have died to have seen on TV when I was a young member of the LGBT community who never felt represented on tv and felt alone and different. Thank you everyone. Thank you god.”