LGBTIQ

Mexico is leading a campaign to demand the World Health Organization declassify transgender identity as a mental disorder in its global list of medical conditions. The petition is based on a study published on July 28 in The Lancet Psychiatry Journal. After more than two years of research, it concludes that transgender people are not “mentally ill”.

Bolivia has approved a new law that allows transgender people to change their name, sex and gender on birth certificates and other official records. LGBTI rights activists in Bolivia see the law as a groundbreaking sign of growing tolerance in Latin America. Forty people began the process to change their personal information on identity documents and bank accounts, and alter their professional titles on the day the law passed.

On Tuesday August 16, the University of Sydney will experience the most exquisite celebration of love as the Rainbow Campus campaign unites rainbow couples to show Australia what it is missing.

Supporters of equal marriage rights will again take to the streets in Sydney and Melbourne on August 13. The date marks 12 years since the John Howard government — with Labor support — passed laws banning equal marriage. In the past 12 years, thousands have mobilised across the country demanding an end to the ban.

Sonia Kruger criticised the idea of scholarships for LGBTQI high school students on August 1 and even went so far as to refer to the scholarship program as “reverse discrimination”. Her comments were in response to the Australian Business and Community Network (ABCN) Scholarship Foundation targeting high school students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual transsexual, queer and/or intersex (LGBTQI) for financial and mentoring scholarships. These comments came after other recent controversial comments from the TV host that Australia should stop all Muslim immigration.

Veteran gay rights campaigner Rodney Croome has quit as national director of Australian Marriage Equality (AME), which he founded in 2004, to lobby MPs to block the equal marriage plebiscite. Croome said those who believe a plebiscite is inevitable are “lacking political imagination” and declared blocking it could force a free vote in parliament on the issue. He said there was “no split in the movement” but rather “a spectrum of different approaches to a very difficult situation”.

US soldier Chelsea Manning, jailed for handing over classified files to pro-transparency site WikiLeaks, was hospitalised, her attorney said on July 6. The comment came after media reports that Manning had attempted suicide. One of Manning's attorneys, Nancy Hollander, said she was outraged over the release of her client's confidential medical information to the media.

Pauline Hanson is back in the Senate after 18 years, riding the wave of anti-Muslim hatred spawned by various confected Wars on Terror™. But liberal commentators are warning we should take her more seriously this time. She and her 10% are “not just racists” they say. And they're right. Since the election, Hanson has made it clear that she has two major priorities this time around: protecting Christian fish'n'chips from Middle Eastern halal fast food, and tender-hearted men from the feminist Family Court.

1000 people marched through the streets behind a banner which read "Safe Schools - Marriage equality - Legalise it now".

At the Perth Vigil for Orlando on June 15, our community stood in unity and mourned the lives lost. By candlelight we stood together in the Perth Cultural Centre and listened to heart-warming speeches from our queer siblings, as well as from the Socialist Alliance, the Greens and the Labor Party, before observing two minutes of silence to remember the 49 lives lost.

Reactions by politicians and the media around the world to the horrific mass murder at an Orlando LGBTI club on June 12 have largely focused on the attacker’s alleged links to Islamic extremists — despite the killer pledging allegiance to both the Islamic State group and its nemesis Hezbollah.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump reacted to the June 12 Orlando shootings, in which 50 people were shot dead at the Flordia gay club Pulse, with evidence that they can agree on at least one thing: bombing people. Both presidential candidates called for an escalation of the US-led bombing campaign against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. “We have generals that feel we can win this thing so fast and so strong, but we have to be furious for a short period of time, and we’re not doing it!” Trump complained on Fox & Friends on June 13.