LGBTQ

Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual rights

older

Anti-LGBTQ law mooted in Georgia

Mamuka Mdinaradze, chair of the parliamentary faction of the ruling Georgian Dream party, said on 3 May that “the majority will not consider a bill to ban LGBTQ propaganda in Georgia.” The project was initiated on May 2 by the anti-gay “Conservative Movement” party with the TV company “Alt-Info”, which is seen as pro-Russian. The party had proposed to amend the law “On meetings and demonstrations” to prohibit “propaganda of non-traditional sexual orientation”. It wanted to: • Ban meetings and demonstrations where propaganda of a non-traditional sexual orientation may take place. • Prohibit...

Telegraph gets it wrong

An open letter to the Telegraph , signed by over 40 academics, has condemned Oxford University Student Union for disinviting the Oxford Union debating society from the annual freshers’ fair. The letter claims the move had been motivated by the Oxford Union’s upcoming event with former academic Kathleen Stock, known for her denunciations of pro-trans-rights groups like Stonewall. This open letter gets a number of significant details wrong, largely as a result of a misleading article in the same newspaper a couple of days prior. Oxford SU did vote to disinvite the Oxford Union (a private...

"Safe with me": for how long?

The right-wing think tank Policy Exchange says schools are becoming unsafe for children because teachers accommodate our LGBTQ+ students

Trade Unions for Trans Rights launches

About a hundred people attended the Trade Unions for Trans Right launch event at the TUC headquarters in London on 29 April. Workplace and branch activists, national officers, union staffers and two general secretaries were joined by other left-leaning trans rights campaigners. Despite a lot of speakers, there was – refreshingly for a TUC-linked event – lots of time for contributions from the floor. There was useful discussion about issues including: changing and strengthening unions' positions; producing and centralising resources for union activists; taking up these questions in a variety of...

EHRC flies a kite for Tory “culture-war”

In February, equalities minister Kemi Badenoch asked the “Equality and Human Rights Commission” (EHRC) for guidance on changing the Equality Act 2010 define “sex” as “biological sex” rather than “gender”. EHRC has responded (3 April) that “[o]n balance” using “biological sex”, rather than “gender” would be an improvement. Purported advantages include making it easier to exclude trans women — even those with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) — from being categorised as lesbians, from women’s groups (like book clubs), from women’s spaces (like hospital wards), from women-only shortlists...

Remembering Eden Knight

On 24 March about 200 people, mostly young Saudi trans, non-binary, and queer people, protested outside the Saudi Arabian Embassy in London about the treatment of a 23 year old trans woman called Eden Knight. Eden Knight died by suicide on or around 12 March. In her final tweet, she explained that she had been living in America when she met “fixers” who coerced and tricked her into returning to Saudi Arabia. She later found out they had been paid by her parents. Once home she was forced to detransition. She felt life was not worth living in these circumstances and killed herself. A lot of the...

Motions to Unite policy conference

Unite the Union’s policy conference takes place in Brighton, 11-14 July 2023. It’s immediately preceded by its rules revision conference (9-10 July), motions at which may include proposals for disaffiliation from the Labour Party – but they haven’t been published yet. However the motions to policy conference have been. Here are some highlights. The deadline for amendments (each branch, etc, can amend one motion) is 21 April. The full motions document from which the page references below are taken is here . Strike strategy There’s not a lot of motions about strike or broader industrial strategy...

How doctors are organising

Manchester-based junior doctor and British Medical Association (BMA) activist Grace Allport spoke to us about junior doctors’ strikes over pay. Here we publish some more from the discussion. I work in Wigan. I started my activity with the BMA as a medical student at Manchester University, which was a good place to get involved because it was quite a political campus and a very big one in terms of medical students. That meant we also sent big delegations to the medical students conference and the ARM [Annual Representative Meeting, the BMA’s national conference]. After graduating I sat on the...

Strike to save the NHS!

The past few months have seen the biggest strikes by nurses in the history of the NHS. The RCN began its action in December, though has (at the time of writing) suspended action around negotiations. Unison, GMB and Unite have called out paramedics. Meanwhile, the BMA’s thumping victory in its national ballot has brought Junior Doctors into the dispute. As in the broader strike wave, pay is the core issue of the dispute. With inflation soaring, and after more than a decade of pay cuts, nurses were awarded a miserable £1,400 for 2022-23. This situation, combined with the wider crisis in the NHS...

Hookers against hardship

This article is based on campaign materials by Hookers Against Hardship. For more information on the campaign and ways to show support visit: decrimnow.org.uk/hookers-against-hardship • Donate to sex worker-led organisations which support sex workers in crisis: here . The cost of living crisis has hit everyone hard, and sex workers are in an especially precarious position. Many are experiencing a sharp fall in income as customers cancel appointments and workplaces close. Unlike most other workers, sex workers are denied basic labour protections, such as paid sick leave, maternity pay and...

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