When Leyla arrived in the United States after being smuggled over the Mexican border, she showed her passport to the Border Patrol officers who found her. Then she said one of the few words she knew in English: “Asylum.” The border guards may not have known it at the time, but the passport wasn’t just a travel document; it was stark evidence that Leyla needed refuge.
Sergey Piskunov can count at least 10 friends and acquaintances in Russia who were killed because they were gay. It wasn’t always dangerous to be queer in Russia. In the early 2000s, there were gay pride parades in his hometown. People felt more comfortable coming out and living in the open. Piskunov, who is 36 years old, lived as an openly gay man for 15 years and had a successful career in Moscow.
Gay men who were convicted of same-sex offences in Scotland before laws against homosexuality were dropped are to receive full pardons. The BBC understands the Scottish government will announce a new bill next week. If approved in parliament it would mean that all convicted gay men in Scotland would receive the formal pardon.
The High Court of Justice rejected on Thursday a petition by the Israeli Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Association to recognize same-sex marriage. Justices Elyakim Rubinstein (former deputy to the president), Neal Hendel and Anat Baron rejected the claim that according to interpretations of the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, same-sex marriage should be recognized. They said there is no contradiction in the state’s current position regarding this issue.
Depending on where LGBTQ community members and advocates live in the U.S., political progress can either seem full-steam-ahead or agonizingly slow. For Louisianans, it’s still the latter. This year, Louisiana saw some hope-inducing forward steps and some predictable stagnancy: it became the 49th state to protect same-sex couples from dating and domestic abuse, but also failed to pass a bill that would have prohibited worker’s discrimination on the basis of sexuality or gender identity.
It is to be made easier for gay, lesbian and transgender people from Chechenya to claim asylum in the Netherlands, junior justice minister Klaas Dijkhoff has told parliament. The minister said he had taken the decision based on information which shows gay people face ‘systematic persecution’ in the country. Political activists and other people who criticise the Chechen government will also be eligible for a residency permit in the Netherlands, Dijkhoff said.
U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) released a statement over the weekend on President Donald Trump’s decision to no longer allow transgenders to serve in the military. “It would be a step in the wrong direction to force currently serving transgender individuals to leave the military solely on the basis of their gender identity rather than medical and readiness standards that should always be at the heart of Department of Defense personnel policy,” McCain wrote on his official Senate website.
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