Soccer player Shiho Shimoyamada helps blaze trail for Japan's LGBT athletes
Soccer player Shiho Shimoyamada has been encouraged by the response she has received since she became Japan's first openly gay professional athlete in February last year. Now, with this summer's Tokyo Olympics focusing the world's sporting attention on Japan, she is hoping that attitudes towards ...
Actor Hio Miyazawa gives a voice to Japan's LGBTQ community in the new film 'his'
Actor Hio Miyazawa gives a voice to sexual minorities in his latest role in Rikiya Imaizumi's latest film, "his."
'I will continue to fight': South Korea's first transgender soldier vows to oppose dismissal
South Korea's first transgender soldier said Wednesday she would sue the military after it announced it would dismiss her for undergoing gender reassignment surgery last year. Byun Hui-su, who holds the rank of staff sergeant and is stationed in Gyeonggi Province, north of Seoul, had ...
Minato Ward in Tokyo to guarantee LGBT people's right to self-expression through appearance
Minato Ward in Tokyo plans to revise its gender equality ordinance to guarantee the right of LGBT people to express themselves through their personal appearance. According to sources, the ward's plan would mean changing, among other regulations, school uniform rules that require boys to wear ...
Transgender Germans demand compensation for sterilization
When German authorities insisted Tsepo Bollwinkel get sterilized in order to be legally considered a man 25 years ago, he was "eager to follow the rules, even if they sounded insane. Now Bollwinkel, a 58-year-old empowerment coach, wants compensation for himself and potentially thousands of ...
Facebook said on Monday it had removed some ads that contained misleading information about HIV prevention drugs following an outcry from activists, health experts and U.S. lawmakers. The ads linked the drugs, which are known as PrEP and designed to prevent HIV, to severe bone ...
GagaOOLala, Asia's first LGBT-focused streaming service, tackles taboos as it expands across region
A rom-com about a lesbian flight attendant and a romance in a gay spa are among the shows featured on Asia's first LGBT-focused streaming service, which is pushing boundaries in an often highly conservative region. GagaOOLala brings more than 1,000 feature films, shorts, web series ...
Christianity Today's split with Trump highlights deeper issue in white evangelical America
After evangelical publication Christianity Today published a blistering editorial on what it called U.S. President Donald Trump's "grossly immoral character," some church leaders and the president himself denounced the criticism as elitist and out of touch. The Dec. 19 editorial sparked a Christmas holiday debate ...
Disney has cut a lesbian kiss from the latest "Star Wars" movie, Singapore's media regulator said on Tuesday, so that more children can watch it. The two minor female characters embrace but do not kiss in the version of "The Rise of Skywalker" shown in ...
After gay marriage law passes, Taiwan emerges as new market for LGBT+ surrogacy
On Geoffrey Li's 40th birthday last year, he put aside his dream of an early retirement on an idyllic island and instead decided to raise a child in Taiwan using a surrogate in Southeast Asia. Li and his husband — whose twin boys are now ...
Canadian Olympian Marnie McBean calls on LGBTQ athletes to be themselves, reach full potential
Marnie McBean, one of Canada's most decorated Olympians and an athletic mentor, has some pointed advice for young athletes, especially sexual minorities: Have the courage to be authentic to unlock your potential and maximize your performance. McBean took part in a seminar focused on LGBTI ...
Germany moved a step closer to banning so-called gay conversion therapies Wednesday, as the Cabinet backed a law that would punish bogus practitioners with up to a year in prison. Activists hailed the move, saying Germany would become the first major European power to outlaw ...
