[Brazil] [Blog/News/Commentary]
Brazilian Prez Fights For The Gays

Yowzers! Major hats off to Brazilian President Luiz Lula, the first president to personally take on homophobia, which he calls "perverse."

[UK]
Thomas Walker (1842 - ?) ship's steward, porter, barman

Mary Walker, in London in the 1860s, became Thomas in order to work. He had worked six years including two as a ship's steward. He had also worked as an errand boy, a porter on the Great Western Railway, a light porter at a cheesemongers in London, and as a barman in a public house in the London Road, Southwark.

[Italy]
Maria Gioacchina Stajano Starace (1932 - ) writer, actor, journalist, painter.

Gioacchino Stajano was born in the province of Lecce in southern Italy. His uncle was the notable fascist, Achille Starace. At age 12, with the fall of fascism, his parents separated and he was sent to a Jesuit school. Then he went to the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, and the architectural university in Rome.

[Hungary]
Sándor Vay (1866 - ?) novelist.

Sarolta Vay was born into an old Hungarian family of eccentrics. Her father brought her up as a boy, Sándor, encouraging muscular activities, riding, driving and hunting. This father also permitted his second son to be a girl and dress as female, but only until he went to a higher school at the age of fifteen.

[Uganda]
Ugandan Government Cracks Down on LGBT Rights

In August radio presenter Gaetano Kaggwa was suspended for hosting a talk show that included lesbian activist Victor Mukasa – yet another development in the widespread crackdown on the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community sweeping Uganda. Two years earlier, Victor, who is chair of SMUG (Sexual Minorities of Uganda), had her home raided by police who confiscated all documents with a homosexual content. A fellow activist from Kenya, Yvonne Oloo, was in the house at the time and was taken to the police station and detained. Members of SMUG believe the raid, and Oloo's detention, was part of an elaborate plan by the Ugandan Government to end LGBT activities.

[Uganda]
Ugandan bishop attacks European attitude towards gays

An Anglican bishop has urged the government of Uganda to keep homosexuality illegal.

Eria Paul Luzinda of the Mukono diocese said that "not all that comes from Europe is superior and must be taken up."

Uganda: Bispo faz declarações contra a homossexualidade

Eria Paul Luzinda, bispo da diocese de Mukono, distrito central da Uganda, fez um alerta ao governo para que este não legalize as atividades homossexuais no país, e descreveu a cultura gay como retrógrada e indigna.

[Canada] [Blog/Commentary]
Perspective of the Oppressor

The conference of the Canadian Professional Association for Transgender Health (CPATH) at the end of June, 2008, is an opportunity to raise the profile of transgender people — CPATH's umbrella term includes transgender and transsexual people — the efforts of true allies and providers of essential services and to point to the many ways Canadian society has yet to measure up to what is needed.

[Canada] [Sports/People]
‘Sports saved my life’

Kristen Worley, a woman who used to be a man, strives to make it to the Olympics, but the Canadian Cycling Association says she hasn't qualified.

[USA]
GLAD Launches Transgender Rights Project

After the first annual New England Transgender Pride ended on Saturday, June 7, the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) launched its Transgender Rights Project at a reception at Bishop's Lounge in Northampton.

[USA]
LGBT Groups Issue Warning To Out-Of-State Couples Marrying In Calif.

Four LGBT legal organizations and five other leading national LGBT groups issued a warning Tuesday to couples planning to go to California to marry that they should not use their marriages to fight for recognition in federal court.