[França]
França quer descriminalização mundial da homossexualidade

Atualmente à frente da presidência rotativa da União Européia, a França pretende defender, no próximo semestre, a "descriminalização universal" da homossexualidade, segundo informou a secretária de Estado de Direitos, Rama Yade.

[Bélgica]
Bruxelas celebra 13ª Parada Gay com 10 mil pessoas

A 13ª Parada do Orgulho Gay de Bruxelas foi celebrada no último sábado, dia 17, pelas ruas do centro da capital belga e reuniu, segundo números da prefeitura, cerca de 10 mil pessoas.

[Latin America]
Latin American Countries Launch Programs To Improve Health Care For Sexual Minorities

Several Latin American countries have launched new programs to improve health care for sexual minorities, including homosexuals and transsexuals, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). The programs focus on reducing stigma and discrimination against sexual minorities and are part of larger efforts to boost HIV prevention and treatment.

[Cuba]
Cuban TV shows Brokeback Mountain as part of anti-homophobia drive

Governments local and national marked the International Day Against Homophobia on Saturday.

Cuba took the lead, with the largest meeting of gay activists in the island's history.

Cuba registra a maior manifestação contra homofobia de sua história

A maior manifestação contra homofobia da história de Cuba aconteceu no último sábado, dia 17 de maio. O Dia Mundial de Combate à Homofobia reuniu as principais autoridades da ilha no centro de convenções de Vedado, em Havana.

[Russia]
Gays appeal to Medvedev for Russian parade

Gay rights activists in Moscow said they have asked Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for permission to have a gay-pride parade on federal property.

[Philippines]
Sex change illegal, appeals court says

THE Court of Appeals has rejected a transsexual's plea to change his name and gender to female on grounds no law allows the change of name and sex of a person who has undergone sex-change surgery.

Sex change not valid basis for new name, gender

"Sex reassignment" or sex change is not a valid ground to change the name and gender of a person, the Court of Appeals has ruled.

[Canada] [Commentary]
The journey from man to woman

A new blog has been launched on montrealgazette.com offering reflections of a Gazette copy editor's transitional journey through the wide world of transgenderism to womanhood. The following is the first instalment as it appears online. The blog, called Patent Pending, details an often humorous, but quite serious, coming-out process.

[USA] [News/Commentary]
Critics Slam Boston Doctor Who Offers Sex Change Treatment to Kids

Boston's Children's Hospital bills itself as the hospital for children — and now it's also the hospital for children who want a sex change, a procedure some critics are calling "barbaric."

[USA] [Commentary]
Zucker's GID therapy - DSM implications and deflections

Here we find an odd article by Zucker and Spitzer. It should be noted, that the great majority of those presenting with extreme boyhood femininity in childhood do NOT grow up to be transsexual. This has been noted by Richard Green, Collette Chiland and suggested earlier by Ethel Person & Lionel Ovesey, Irving Bieber, Charles Socarides and Susan Coates. In the great majority of cases, these children when not treated, still do not become transsexual, but instead become gay. Thus, Zucker's therapy is not preventing transsexuality based upon their clinical presentation, since most of these types of boys would not develop into transsexuals, but are instead prototypical pre-homosexuals. If Zucker is not averting adult transsexualism as an outcome in the vast majority of these boys, since they are not pre-transsexual boys, but instead are pre-homosexual boys, what is Zucker's therapy doing? If these boys still become gay without therapy, can we also state that they would be gay even with Zucker's therapy? Again, what is Zucker actually achieving here, and where are the data which support his claims of the effectiveness of his therapy? If the great majority of boys who get diagnosed as having gender identity disorder of childhood and adolescence are pre-homosexual, then stating as do Zucker and Spitzer, that the clinical researchers had merit, in placing this diagnosis in the 1980 edition of the DSM (DSM III), is a "sin of omission". Why haven't subsequent "experts" included a disclaimer, in recent DSM editions, which states that this disorder is a misnomer, as gender identity is likely not what is affected?