Openly gay Australian diver Matthew Mitcham called UK Telegraph columnist Miranda Devine an expletive-filled term after she criticized the decision to suspend Australian rugby player Mitchell Moses after he used the same phrase, according to Outsports. Devine said that the suspension was "paying obeisance to homo-fascism," and that what Moses said was not an anti-gay slur. In response, Mitcham tweeted, "Miranda Devine is a "f...ing gay c..." & I can say that b/c it's neither homophobic nor sexist, according to her."
A 5-year-old British boy was kicked out of an after-school program because he likes to wear princess dresses, according to NewNowNext.com . Romeo Clarke of Rugby, about 75 miles outside London, was made to leave the Buzz Children's Club after-school program ( which is run by the Rugby Christian Fellowship ) because his attire was reportedly "confusing" the other children. Club organizer Bex Venable said the boy is only being "asked to wear clothing of the gender stated on his registration form, which states male."
In Denmark, Copenhagen Health Minister Nick Haekkerup has been called by six political parties to revise a ban against men who have sex with men ( MSM ) from donating blood, Pink News reported. Enhedslisten, Denmark's most left-wing political party, said lifting the ban would help increase blood stocks. Haekkerup said he is ready to discuss the issue with the other parties. In 2011, England, Wales and Scotland introduced a one-year deferral for gay and bisexual men who wish to donate blood.
A Ugandan court started hearing the case against two Ugandans accused of engaging in gay sex—the first such trial since a severe law was enacted in February, LGBTQ Nation reported. Gay businessman Kim Mukisa, 24, and Jackson Mukasa, 19, a transgender woman, pleaded not guilty on Feb. 6, after being accused of "living as husband and wife." Ugandan police arrested the couple in January as they fled an angry mob, said the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum.
A group of infectious disease experts is pushing back against Canada's justice system, arguing that non-disclosure of HIV infection to a sexual partner should not be grounds for criminal prosecution, according to CityNews.ca. In a consensus statement presented at the Canadian Conference on HIV/AIDS Research in St. John's, the six HIV experts said the latest scientific evidence shows the risk of sexually transmitting the virus varies from low to zero in many cases. There have been more than 150 cases in Canada in which people with HIV have been charged, mostly with aggravated sexual assault, for not disclosing their infection.
In Ireland, a 16-year-old who is accused of assaulting and robbing a man in an anti-gay attack is seeking bail, according to Pink News. The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared at Dublin Children's Court charged with assaulting a man and robbing him of a watch, two phones and money. An objection to bail claimed that the boy had told police he "hated" members of the gay community. The boy has been accused of knocking the man to the ground and then stomping on him.
One of the many eye-catching acts that this year's Eurovision Song Contest ( this time in Copenhagen, Denmark ) was winner Conchita Wurst—the bearded drag-queen alter ego of 25-year-old Austrian Thomas Neuwirth, according to Yahoo! News. Wurst got audiences' attention by challenging stereotypes of masculine and feminine beauty with the song "Rise like a Phoenix." Russian legislator Vitaly Milonov accused the Austrian performer of "blatant propaganda of homosexuality and spiritual decay." Although Wurst identifies strictly as a drag queen, there had previously been trans performers in the contest, including Israel's 1998 winner Dana International, who had male-to-female gender-reassignment surgery several years before competing.
Three same-sex Russian couples have been married in civil ceremonies in the Danish capital Copenhagen and pleaded for tolerance back home, BBC News reported. The Danes were the first in the world to permit same-sex marriages, and promoted gay equality as they hosted the recent Eurovision song contest.
Hundreds of thousands of gay rights supporters—many wearing elaborate colorful costumes—marched through the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo on May 4 in one of the world's biggest gay-pride parades, according to Voice of America. Some of the outfits celebrated Brazil's hosting of soccer's World Cup next month, but there was an undertone of seriousness as organizers demanded that Brazil pass laws making homophobia a crime, including discrimination against LGBT people. While Brazil's supreme court legalized same-sex marriage in 2011, conservative lawmakers and religious leaders opposed federal legislation granting more rights to gay people.
In a related development, fewer than two months before the World Cup begins, a Brazilian apparel company is selling T-shirts that use a gay slur to refer to certain soccer players, according to ThinkProgress.org . One of the shirts says plainly that "C. Ronaldo is gay," referring to Portugal star Cristiano Ronaldo. Another calls Argentina legend Diego Maradona a "maricon," a slang Portuguese and Spanish term for "faggot." Sergio K, the company responsible for the shirts, has reportedly maintained that the shirts are "irreverent" and "inoffensive."
Swiss artist Hans-Ruedi ( H.R. ) Giger has died at the age of 74, according to Mashable.com . Best-known to the public for designing the Alien creature ( or Xenomorph ) from the Alien movie franchise, Giger was a painter, sculptor and set designer. IO9.com noted that he also designed several "Giger Bars" throughout his career ( with two still in Switzerland ), including one in New York City's famed Limelight nightclub during 1998-2002; however, this VIP room was lost when Limelight shuttered its doors.
An HIV-positive gay teenager has written an open letter calling the UK government to make sex education compulsory, according to Gay Star News. Luke Alexander, 19, discovered he had HIV a year ago, and said he received "absolutely no information" about it when he was at school, adding that he may have avoided becoming infected if he had. A survey that the Sex Education Forum carried out in 2011 found one in four young people learned nothing about HIV at school.
