Retired Olympic swimmer Martha McCabe has come out as a lesbian, saying she hopes her own visibility will encourage other sports stars to do the same.
The Canadian Pan Am Games medallist specialised in the 200-metre breaststroke and placed fifth in the London 2012 Olympics, but it wasn’t until after she stopped competing that she began to explore her sexuality.
In her eight years on Canada’s national team McCabe estimates she had at least ten LGBT+ teammates. She believes that knowing more out sportswomen could have helped her understand her identity earlier on.
“I think because I didn’t see it in people I looked up to, the thought never crossed my mind. I didn’t question the norms society had built around me because I didn’t even realise there was something to question,” she told CBC.
McCabe now hopes to serve as a role model for increased LGBT+ representation in swimming, specifically on the women’s side, where she says it is severely lacking.
“I want to be an example to young female swimmers and help ones who are struggling with this, so they can see it’s normal,” she said.
At least four transgender people lost their lives in the space of a week, as trans homicides in the US reach the highest pace ever.
According to The Human Rights Campaign, at least 21 transgender or gender non-conforming people have been killed by violent means so far this year, nearly matching 2019’s total of 27.
The organisation says it has “never seen such a high number at this point in the year” since they began tracking this data in 2013, and other advocates across the US are horrified by the pace of “rampant and repeated” murders.
“It is ridiculous that we have to continue to hashtag our friends’ names and add them to a list of names to be memorialised every year, and that we expect it,” Carter Brown, executive director of National Black Trans Advocacy Coalition, told USA Today.
“We expect it because too many trans women of colour are continuously being murdered and beaten with minimum or no consequence being brought to the assailants.”
The deadly week began with the loss of Merci Mack, a 22-year-old Black transgender woman shot in the head in Dallas, Texas on June 30. She was initially misgendered and deadnamed by police and local media.
Mack’s death was followed by that of Shaki Peters, a 32-year-old Black transgender woman found dead in Amite City, Louisiana on July 1. Then came the murder of Bree Black, a 27-year-old Black transgender woman who was shot dead in her home in Pompano Beach, Florida, on July 3.
The fourth killing was that of Summer Taylor, a 24-year-old white non-binary person who was hit and killed by a car while participating in Seattle’s Black Femme March on July 4.
Transgender women of colour are known to suffer the highest levels of violence as they fall at the unfortunate intersection of transphobia and racism.
Systemic problems like homelessness, unemployment and lack of access to healthcare make trans people more susceptible to violence, but the actor and trans activist Laverne Cox believes the stigma around cis men’s sexual attraction to trans women is also a part of the problem.
In an interview with Buzzfeed last year, the Orange is the New Black star said: “I think the people who are attacking trans women, what I say to men, is that your attraction to me is not a reason to kill me.
“There’s this whole myth that trans women are out there tricking people and deserve to be murdered, and that’s not the case.
“There’s been a market for trans women in the realms of dating and sex work for a very long time, we don’t have to trick anyone.”
She encouraged cis women to have conversations with the men in their lives about trans people: “We have to lift the stigma around attraction to trans people, and we have to lift the stigma around trans people existing,” she said.
Instagram is taking a hard line on conversion therapy, announcing that it will block all posts promoting the abhorrent practise.
Attempts to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity have been rejected by every mainstream medical and mental health organisation for decades and are linked to higher risks of depression, suicide, and drug addiction.
Instagram’s public policy director Tara Hopkins acknowledged the harm it causes as she explained how the company is changing the way it handles conversion therapy content.
“We don’t allow attacks against people based on sexual orientation or gender identity and are updating our policies to ban the promotion of conversion therapy services,” she said, speaking exclusively to the BBC.
She continued: “We are always reviewing our policies and will continue to consult with experts and people with personal experiences to inform our approach.”
Earlier this year Instagram banned the promotion of conversion therapy in ads. From Friday (July 10), any content linked to the practise will be banned across all posts on the platform.
The company stresses that it will take time to update all of its policies to reflect this blanket ban, so while some content that users flag may not immediately be removed, over time that should change.
But conversion therapy is still legal in the UK, despite the government promising to eradicate it two years ago in its July 2018 LGBT+ Action Plan.
Campaigners are now urging the government to make good on its promise, with Elton John, Stephen Fry, Munroe Bergdorf and Dua Lipa joining over influential public figures in calling for a ban.
“Theresa May, as prime minister, vowed to eradicate this “abhorrent” practice in 2018 and since then the British public has been waiting expectantly, not least the LGBTQ+ community,” they write.
“The government has said recently that conversion therapy is complex, which it undoubtedly is, and although we acknowledge this issue is nuanced we strongly believe that effective legislation, supported by a programme of work to help tackle these practices in all their forms, is possible.
“Any form of counselling or persuading someone to change their sexual orientation or behaviour so as to conform with a heteronormative lifestyle, or their gender identity should be illegal, no matter the reason, religious or otherwise — whatever the person’s age.”
For the first time Norway will prioritise LGBT+ asylum seekers as part of a new post-coronavirus refugee scheme.
Announced on July 5 by the Storting, Norway’s federal government, the new policy will give LGBT+ refugees priority both as individuals and as a group.
The three-year scheme was introduced in coordination with the UN after the outbreak of coronavirus disrupted the international settlement of many refugees.
“Unfortunately, in many countries, it is not so that you are free to love who you want,” said the state secretary for integration affairs in the ministry of education, Grounds Kreek Almeland, in a press release.
“In nearly 70 countries, homosexuality is a criminal offence and those who violate gender and sexuality norms may be subject to persecution and discrimination in their home country.
“We are now changing the guidelines for the work of transfer refugees so that persons who are queer should be given priority.”
The scheme applies only to transfer refugees — individuals who have been registered by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and transferred from one asylum country to another for permanent resettlement.
With the exception of a few urgent cases, the pandemic forced the UNHCR and the United Nations International Organisation for Migration to temporarily halt all refugee travel.
Norway will now kick-start the resettlement with a yearly quota of 3,000 transfer refugees. The quota is flexible, meaning that that if fewer refugees are settled in a one-year period then more can be accepted in the years after.
Like much of Scandinavia, Norway prides itself on being one of the most LGBT-friendly countries in the world.
In 2012 Norway reformed its asylum policy with a Supreme Court ruling which stated that potential LGBT+ asylum seekers did not have to be living in the closet in their home country to be considered for resettlement.
Montenegro has just voted to legalise same-sex civil partnerships, becoming the first European country outside of Western Europe and the European Union to do so.
Lawmakers in the small Balkan country reached the decision on Wednesday (July 1) after the law received 42 votes in the 81-seat parliament.
Montenegro’s prime minister Duško Marković called it “a great step in the right direction for Montenegrin society, its democratic maturity, and integration processes”.
President Milo Đukanović also welcomed the move, declaring on Twitter that Montenegro is now “one step closer to joining the most developed world democracies”.
“[It is] a confirmation that our society is maturing, accepting and living the differences,” he added. “Born free and equal in dignity and rights!”
Unfortunately, that’s not strictly true: although Montenegrin same-sex couples are granted almost all the same rights as heterosexuals, they are still unable to adopt or foster children.
Lesbian couples are not able to undergo IVF in the country and surrogacy is banned for all couples, regardless of sexual orientation.
Nevertheless, the important move towards equality is being celebrated by the Montenegrin LGBT+ community .
The advocacy group LGBT Forum Progres, Montenegro’s first and oldest LGBT+ organisation, described the passage of the bill as “an immense step forward for Montenegrin society”.
Police in Russia have detained over 30 people for protesting the arrest of Yulia Tsvetkova, an LGBT+ and feminist activist charged with spreading ‘gay propaganda’.
Yulia Tsvetkova, 27, faces a six year sentence for running a social media page called Vagina Monologues, which encouraged people to share artistic depictions of vaginas to “remove the taboo”.
She was charged with the distribution of “criminal pornography” under Russia’s gay propaganda law, which prohibits the positive depiction of LGBT+ people.
On Saturday (June 27) more than 30 people, mostly women, gathered in in central Moscow to stage separate one-person protests against Tsvetkova’s charges.
Participants stood in line to picket one at a time, with one holding a placard that read: “Today they send [us] to prison for pictures, tomorrow they will send [us] to prison for letters? Freedom for Yulia Tsvetkova!”
According to the OVD-Info group that monitors political arrests in Russia, at least 38 people were detained and taken to a police station. It was not clear if they would be charged.
Russian law usually permits single pickets to be held without permission, but in recent weeks there have been numerous cases of police arresting protesters on the grounds that they violated the ban on mass gatherings imposed during the pandemic.
Police declined to comment on the arrests when questioned by The Guardianon Saturday.
Russia is currently in the midst of a referendum a package of constitutional amendments that will take Russia’s opposition to homosexuality a step further by enshrining traditional “family values” as part of the constitution.
Among the amendments proposed by Putin is one that would legally define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Russian LGBT+ activists fear that, if passed, it would permanently block same-sex marriage or adoption from ever being legalised in the country.
The referendum has been accompanied by a wave of homophobic rhetoric and viral campaign ads denouncing the LGBT+ community.
Over 3,500 people have backed a petition to replace a New Jersey city’s Christopher Columbus statue with one of Black trans activist Marsha P Johnson.
The Christopher Columbus statue has stood in Marsha P Johnson’s home town of Elizabeth, New Jersey since 1971, but petitioners say a tribute to her would be far more fitting in light of the explorer’s problematic history.
Johnson left the town in her late teens with nothing but a bag of clothes and a few dollars to her name. She moved to New York where she became one of the central figures of the LGBT+ rights movement, and many locals feel it’s time her achievements were recognised.
“I’ve always said that Marsha was more recognised in New York City and around the world than she is in her own hometown,” her nephew, Al Michaels, told CNN.
The petition was created by 19-year-old Celine Da Silva, who also grew up in Elizabeth.
“We should commemorate Marsha P Johnson for the incredible things she did in her lifetime and for the inspiration she is to members of the LGBT+ community worldwide, especially Black trans women,” she wrote on Change.org.
“It tells me that times are changing. People are becoming more accepting to people who identify as LGBT+,” she said. “It tells me that people are realising how whitewashed our history is and how some figures that we learn about, we don’t learn everything about them.”
The nearby New Jersey towns of Camden and West Orange both moved to take down memorials to Christopher Columbus earlier this month, with the mayor of Camden saying the statue had “long pained the residents of the community.”
Both communities are still working out what should be erected as a replacement. Da Silva says local minority heroes like Marsha P Johnson are the perfect choice, and plans to bring her request to the city council.
“Obviously we’re not asking the city council to consider putting up a statue. This is a demand,” said Da Silva’s boyfriend Daniel Cano, who helped form the petition.
“Ultimately, a statue is going to come up no matter what. And we’re going to honour Marsha in the way that she deserves to be honoured.”
Police have launched an investigation after a vandal attacked a local LGBT+ community centre on Pride weekend, leaving staff and volunteers stunned.
At around 10.05am on Saturday (June 27), bystanders watched in horror as a man with a golf club smashed the windows of Oakland LGBTQ Community Centre in California.
Described as “a young skinny white male”, he is said to have yelled expletives while striking the building before fleeing the scene on a bike when confronted by nearby vendors.
The all-inclusive centre was founded by two gay African American men, who have described the attack as a hate crime.
“Our organisation is Black lead and queer,” they wrote on Facebook. “We have a large banner on our window that says Black LGBTQ Lives Matter Too!
“We are clear that this was a hate crime that could have caused us to be targeted because we are Black and because we are LGBTQ.”
They said the attack has “rattled” the team, but added: “We will get through this.”
One eyewitness, Cosmos Ozansi, told ABC7 News that he was setting up his jewellery stand on the street outside the centre when he saw the angry-looking man striking the windows.
“[I yelled] ‘Stop, stop!’ as loud as I could, then he saw me.” He says the man turned and rode away on his bike.
Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf was outraged by the act of vandalism. “I am furious that anyone would commit this kind of act at this sanctuary of love, pride and family,” she said.
Oakland Police say they are actively investigating the incident.
Oakland LGBTQ Community Centre has thanked those who arrived to help them clean up the mess, as well as “everyone offering support to us through this difficult and emotional time. We appreciate you so much.”
The group has requested donations via their website, and urged people to contact the local police department and ask them to make hate crimes against Black and LGBT+ people a priority in Oakland.
The president of Poland Andrzej Duda has pledged to ban LGBT+ education in schools, as well as blocking the legalisation of same-sex marriage and adoption.
President Duda ramped up his homophobic rhetoric on Wednesday to jump-start his re-election campaign, which had been interrupted by to coronavirus.
In an apparent pitch to his conservative base, he signed a ‘family values’ declaration that vows to “protect children from LGBT+ ideology” and prohibit the teaching of LGBT+ inclusion by public institutions.
“Parents are responsible for the sexual education of their children,” Reutersreported him saying. “It is not possible for any institutions to interfere in the way parents raise their children.”
His proposals include the preservation of special benefit schemes for families and pensioners, alongside the promise that same-sex couples will never be allowed to marry or adopt children.
“It’s a foreign ideology. There is no consent for this phenomenon to happen in our country in any way,” he said.
Trzaskowski belongs to the main centre-right opposition Civic Platform (PO) party and has drawn criticism from religious conservatives for introducing LGBT-inclusive education in Warsaw schools.
Meanwhile, Duda is backed by the far-right nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which won last year’s parliamentary election with a campaign based on a staunch opposition to LGBT+ rights.
PiS is keen to secure Duda’s re-election as it would cement the party’s grip on power, allowing it to complete reforms to the judiciary that have been challenged by the European Union for violating standards on democracy and rule of law.
The party’s leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski has previously claimed that “the affirmation of homosexuality will lead to the downfall of civilisation”, while other officials have compared homosexuality to “paedophilia, necrophilia and zoophilia”.
Goldman Sachs has reached a settlement with a former vice president who says he was fired after being told he “sounded too gay”.
William Littleton was fired in 2019 after eight years of positive performance reviews at the banking giant. He filed a lawsuit claiming that he had been discriminated against on the basis of his sexual orientation and subjected to homophobic retaliation.
The court papers alleged numerous examples of discrimination, including a time when he was excluded from a client call because his voice “sounded too gay”.
In another incident, Littleton said he was asked by a supervisor: “What’s wrong with you? Do you act this way because you’re gay?”
When he complained about his colleagues’ repeated discrimination, he was fired.
The complaint, filed in New York state court, claims that “despite years of ‘outstanding’ performance reviews filled with near-endless praise regarding Mr Littleton’s bright future at the Bank, he was abruptly fired by those who he complained engaged in discriminatory conduct.”
Goldman Sachs argued Littleton was fired because of his job performance, not his orientation. The bank said he Littleton held a “relatively junior position” and had become uninterested in the work.
This, they said, made him the subject of complaints from other employees, including allegations that he berated a subordinate.
Goldman Sachs earned a perfect score on the Equality Index
U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in Manhattan on Monday said the parties had agreed to a settlement in principle and dismissed the case. Terms were not disclosed.
According to Littleton’s attorney, David Gottlieb, his client’s termination from Goldman is not an isolated incident at the bank or on Wall Street more broadly.
“Wall Street continues to struggle to create an environment that is inclusive and accepting of LGBTQ+ employees,” Gottlieb said in a statement.
Despite this, Goldman Sachs recently scored a perfect 100 on the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index, which measures a company’s overall support of LGBT+ staff.
