Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender History Month UK

London Fashion College Goes Gay for IDAHO

Westminster City Council, Amnesty International, IDAHO, LGBT History Month, Schools Out, and the University of Arts are combining to organize a major event May 17 at the London College of Fashion that commemorates IDAHO, the International Day Against Homophobia. Ealier this year, a competition invited the students of the University of Arts (London) to design posters marking LGBT History Month and the International Day Against Homophobia. The 4 winning posters (two in each category) can be seen here.

www.ukgaynews.org.uk/Archive/07/May/1101.htm
www.247gay.com/article.cfm?section=66&id=14655

Awards for ALL LGBT people in Wales

The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Cymru Helpline has received a grant of £4,000 from the lottery-funded programme “Awards for All Wales”. The grant will assist the Helpline in its work with training volunteers, developing its website, promote and market this very much needed service for LGBT communities as well as assist the Helpline expanding the geographical coverage of its recently launched free of charge professional counselling service, which has already proved to be a huge success.

This funding will allow the LGBT Cymru Helpline to grow into a corporate entity to provide not just emotional counselling and support but also information on “gay friendly” goods facilities and services such as traders, lawyers, holiday cottages as well as providing expertise services, training, advice, and support on sexual orientation and gender identity issues to small and large business.

The new company will be called the LGBT Excellence Centre (Wales) Ltd, which, the Helpline will become a subsidiary of. It will be launched as the only social enterprise in Wales to provide advice and support services to Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender people through a more entrepreneurial and business-minded approach that will allow it to eventually become self-sufficient and independent from very limited public funding.

Federico Podeschi, newly appointed Managing Director of the LGBT Excellence Centre Ltd and former Law Discrimination Officer for Stonewall Cymru, said: “We are delighted that the Lottery has allowed us to achieve even more for LGBT people in Wales. Timely with the introduction of legislation that protects LGBT people from discrimination in employment as well as in the provision of goods, facilities, and services, we are very proud to now be able to support the our community as well as all sorts of organisations working towards achieving equality for all LGBT people” .

www.lgbtcymruhelpline.org.uk

Canterbury Pride on hold for at least the next 6 months

The organisers of Pride in Canterbury are feeling let down by several key partners in the organisation of the event and therfore have decided to take some time out from the project for 6 months and consider their position. Their sad and angry statement is available from their website (Scroll down to "REVIEWING THE SITUATION").

www.prideincanterbury.org.uk

Stand up and be counted

When Stephen K Amos hit the stage, people roared. Then he 'came out' and black audiences fell silent. In a new documentary, on channel 4 he explores the homophobia that still blights the African-Caribbean community. By Mary O'Hara

http://www.guardian.co.uk/gayrights/story/0,,2017238,00.html

Amnesty International "breaks the silence"

On February 27th Amnesty International will be celebrating ten years since the publication of the ground-breaking book ‘Breaking the Silence’, which was the first to research and expose the abuse of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people’s rights all over the world, and the tenth birthday of Amnesty’s LGBT Network, set up to campaign for gay people’s human rights.

http://uk.gay.com/headlines/11109

Gaydio Time Capsual

Over its month long broadcast, Manchesters LGBT radio station, Gaydio is asking people what items they thing represents LGBT life in 2007. On the final day of the current broadcast they will be creating and burying a time capsual in Sackville Gardens, in the Heart of Manchesters Gay Village. Visit Gaydio.co.uk or listen to them on 87.7fm

Last chance to save feminist library

The management committee of the Feminist Library is calling an emergency meeting on Saturday 24th February 2007 to decide whether to close the library for good. This meeting is a last ditch attempt to rally feminists to support the library and, if no solution is found, to discuss finding another suitable home for the collection. The collection now also includes 75 boxes of material that was the Women's Health Library that was rescued from being thrown in a skip over the summer.

For a number of years the Feminist Library has existed in a state of permanent emergency, with a dwindling number of volunteers to take part in running the library, a precarious financial situation, uncertainty about its location, and a lack of womanpower to pursue crucial funding applications.

The current group of volunteers is no longer able to sustain the situation, and the library will be forced to close without an injection of new volunteers. Therefore the meeting will have a dual function: to decide on whether or not the library will continue to stay open, and to gather experience, advice and new volunteers to reinvigorate the management committee, or help the committee find a suitable home for the collection if the decision is taken to close.

The meeting will take place at 11am at the Feminist Library on Saturday 24th February. There will be the opportunity to look around the library and to chat to us, followed by a more formal discussion.

As a basis for discussion at the meeting, the management committee are preparing a short document on the library's current plight and what the future options could be. If you would like to receive a copy before the meeting, or have other questions, or are considering volunteering, please contact them by email or post (Feminist Library, 5 Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1 7XW ). If you wish to speak to them by phone, include your phone number in your message and they will get back to you as quickly as possible, although it may take a few days.

NGOs around the world celebrate historic UN statement on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

NGOs from around the world welcomed a landmark statement on human rights, sexual orientation and gender identity, delivered last Friday, December 1 at the United Nations Human Rights Council by Norway on behalf of 54 States. Read more on:

http://www.ilga.org/news_results.asp?LanguageID=1&FileID=945&FileCategory=44&ZoneID=7

Almost half of the next generation do not believe gay people deserve the same rights as heterosexuals, a global poll has revealed Click here (external link)

Louis-Georges Tin, the President of the Committee of the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) has launched a global petition for a proposed United Nations resolution in favour of the universal decriminalisation of homosexuality. In more than 70 countries, homosexuality is a crime by law, and punishable by death in 12 of them.

Michael Cashman, President of the Europarliament’s Intergroup on Gay and Lesbian Affairs spoke of the group’s unanimous support for the campaign , and expressed the hope that it will go far. He added “We hope it will bring strong pressure to bear on the UN, We invite everyone who supports fundamental human rights to support this petition and to ask their friends and co-workers to do so too.”

Alice Nkom, the African human rights lawyer who defended the 11 young men arrested earlier this year in Cameroon and imprisoned for homosexuality said, “This proposed resolution gives us immense optimism and we ardently hope that Louis-Georges Tin and the IDAHO Committee achieve their goal. This is a fight for liberty, and for human rights”.

Tin explained that the campaign had two main components, Firstly an external media campaign to raise awareness amongst public opinion and government, including the signing of the petition, and secondly the lobbying of members of the newly formed UN Council of Human Rights. Tin has already had talks with the government of South Africa, who have expressed an interest in proposing the resolution. He cited previous United Nations rulings such as Toonen v Tasmania, (where the arrest of a citizen of Tasmania was declared by a committee of the UN to be “a breach of human rights” ) and the more recent ruling by a UN working group that the imprisonment of gay men in Cameroon was an “arbitairy deprivation of liberty”, as “encouraging signs”.

VIP’S around the world have given their support to the campaign, and have already signed the petition. Derek Lennard, who is the UK Coordinator of IDAHO, commented about the broad range of support of first signatures, which include Jacques Delors , Cyndi Lauper, Desmond Tutu, David Bowie,

ex French Prime Ministers, Michel Rocard and Laurent Fabius .and film director Bernado Bertolucci. In the UK, Elton John, Michael Palin, Neil McKenna, Tom Stoppard, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, have joined campaigners and organisations such as Pride London, School’s Out, LGBT history month, Outrage, GALHA , the George House Trust, and politicians such as Chris Bryant, Lord Lester, Lord Chris Smith and Lord Ali have also signed up. The Green Party of England and Wales has been the first political party to support the campaign, but Lennard said he expected the other main parties to declare their support soon.

The petition can be accessed via www.idahomophobia.org The first few days have seen over 2,000 people signing up to it.

Tin added “Gays and Lesbians around the world cannot wait any longer for their love to cease being made a crime. Many are in jail or at risk of being killed. This has to stop now”

The International Day against Homophobia is marked on May 17^th every year in over 50 countries. In the UK this year there were over 40 events-please refer to www.idaho.org.uk

Trans Inequalities and Discrimination Survey

Dr Stephen Whittle, Professor of Equalities Law at Manchester Metropolitan University and Dr Lewis Turner, both of the FTM Network UK and Press for Change are leading a small (and short) research project for the Equalities Review.

If you are trans identified in anyway, then this survey is for you. It is fully inclusive of all types of trans identity from crossdresser through to transsexual, including agender and polygender.

This survey is only for those people living (or recently living) in the UK, in relation to your experiences in the UK. But, your age or type of gender difference does not matter.

Please would you take the time to complete the online survey, by clicking or copying into your web browser at http://FreeOnlineSurveys.com/start.asp?sid=oqvgxd119hst5a1208381

The results of the project will inform the Equalities Review which is a government-led programme to develop new ways of promoting equality. The three main objectives of this survey are:

1. The extent and types of inequality and discrimination people experience because they are Trans

2. The areas of life where trans people have experienced being treated unequally or have been discriminated against

3. To establish the 'trigger points' which have led to a trans person experiencing inequalities or discrimination

4. To make recommendations for future research

It will take you around 35 minutes and it will be completely confidential.

We have tried to be comprehensive for the purposes of the research, but please bear in mind there are limits due to language, and also to the number of questions we dare ask you.

Please ask all of your trans friends, including part-time cross dressers, transgender, transsexual, a-gendered and poly gendered people - and anyone in between to complete this questionnaire, but each person must only complete it once.

Any questions email eqreview@yahoo.co.uk