A notebook belonging to late British gay codebreaker and computer genius Alan Turing has sold at auction for more than $1 million, according to Pink News. The notebook, which included handwritten notes about computer science and maths, sold at Bonhams in New York in around three minutes. Turing, often hailed as the grandfather of modern computing, was convicted of "gross indecency" in 1952 after having sex with a man; he was later subjected to chemical castration, and ultimately committed suicide at the age of 41.
South African runner Caster Semenya is returning to the track after a series of disappointing seasons following her controversial world debut, the UK Telegraph reported. In 2009, Caster Semenya won gold in the women's 800 meters at the world championships amid accusations that she had an unfair advantage because she had elevated testosterone levels; later, she was subject to gender-verification investigation tests. Semenya's times have never been as good her 2009 time of 1 minute 55.45, but after ditching her coach she hopes to qualify for the world championships in Beijing this August.
Speaking of South Africa, Wolseley guesthouse owners Steph and Marina Neethling were told to apologize to married couple Neil Coulson and Jonathan Sedgwick for not allowing them to make a booking at their establishment because they are gay, according to IOL.co.za. The Equality Court made the ruling following a day of mediation between the two couples. In November 2013, Coulson and Sedgwick were denied the right to book accommodation at the House of Bread in Wolseley, which the Neethlings owned.
The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission ( IGLHRC ) today raised serious concerns about discriminatory provisions in a law Malawi President Peter Mutharika signed, a press release stated. IGLHRC claims the Marriage, Divorce and Family Relations Law allows for legal discrimination against LGBTI individuals. While the law raises the minimum marriage age to 18to combat child marriageit "also promotes a policy of exclusion against LGBTI Malawians that would likely translate into discrimination in education, housing, jobs and elsewhere," the group stated.
In Britain, charities representing LGBT people have criticized UKIP for being the only one of the seven main political parties to not mention gay people in its manifesto, according to the UK Independent. In comparison, the Liberal Democrats dedicated an entire page to showcasing its efforts to support those who identify as LGBT, while the Labour Party has promised to continue tackling homophobia at home and abroad. Earlier this month, UKIP's prospective parliamentary candidate Kendrick "Dickie" Bird was accused of calling former Liverpool and Chelsea Fernando Torres "a gay boy like the rest."
Australia is to lose its last law singling out the deliberate transmission of HIV to another person or persons, Gay Star News reported. The development happens 22 years after the Victorian state government decided that it needed to be treated separately to the deliberate transmission of other serious illnesses. Section 19A of Victoria's Crimes Act punishes the deliberate transmission of HIV with up to 25 years in prison. Once Section 19A is repealed, deliberately transmitting HIV will still be a crime; however, it will be treated the same as deliberately exposing people to other serious health conditions and will attract a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Also in Australia, two men have been sentenced to life in jail with a 21-year minimum for the fatal bashing of a gay man in a public toilet at a Perth reserve, according to ABC.net .au. Mark Taylor and Daniel Wade Jones were found guilty of murdering 48-year-old Warren Batchelor at the Middle Swan Reserve in November 2013. The Supreme Court was told Jones and Taylor, who was with his four children, were camping in the reserve and were angry gay men were using the area for sexual encounters. Batchelor had been having a sexual encounter with another man in a disabled toilet when Jones and Taylor burst in and bashed him.
Gay Jamaica teens thrown out by their families have been chased out of a shelter by a mob in Kingston, Gay Star News reported. Members of a congregation gathered together at a shopping venue in Clocktower Plaza in order to "cleanse" the premises of gay people. It is unknown whether anyone was hurt in the raid.
A Brazilian transgender woman was stripped, and had her head shaved and face disfigured in a brutal police beating, according to Gay Star News. Veronica Bolina was arrested for assaulting an elderly women in her apartment building in Sao Paulo and put in a male prison. The model then got into a fight with a police officer during a cell transfer and bit off half his ear. Images circulating on Brazilian social media show her with cuffs on her hands and feet, head shaved, breasts exposed and face disfigured from the battering she received from several officers.
A Russian man killed two people in a drunken brawl after one of his victims said he "hugged like a gay man," Gay Star News noted. Police in the southwestern Siberian city of Novokuznetsk arrested the 26-year-old man after he killed two and wounded three with a knife. After a woman reportedly compared the young man and his friend to a gay couple, the man went into a rage, stabbing her in the chest. After that, he stabbed another man and a woman.
In England, a drug addict who slit the throat of a man during a sex session and then left him for dead will be jailed for 12 years, according to Kent Online. Shane Dunn, 25, was cleared of attempting to murder 55-year-old Ian Garrod, but convicted of wounding with intent. Using the name Gypsy Boy, Dunn went to the victim's home in the Medway/Swale area last September after contacting him on the gay dating app Grindr. Judge Jeremy Carey said it was only by the skill of a surgeon at Medway Maritime Hospital that the victim's life was saved.
An Indian doctor slashed her wrists in an apparent suicide, blaming the emotional abuse her husband subjected her to after she found out he was gay, according to Gay Star News. Priya Vedi, 31, was found lying in blood at a New Delhi hotel. Her husband, also a doctor at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, has been arrested for abetment of suicide.
A new survey claims that more than 90 percent of Chinese women married to gay men suffer domestic abusebut only 30 percent leave their husbands, Gay Star News noted. "Tongqi," or "homowives," are a widespread phenomenon in China. Leading sexologist Lin Yinhe estimates that there are 20 million gay men in the country, 80 percent of whom marry women. Researchers at Harbin University of Technology, with support from the ministry of education, interviewed 173 such womenwith nine out of 10 saying they suffered some sort of abuse, whether psychological or physical.