Queer Notes columnist Elise presents a bird’s-eye view of the advances and retrogressions in the struggle for freedom of LGBTQI+people worldwide, from Uganda and South Africa to Indonesia, from Poland and Czech Republic to the U.S. and Canada.
same-sex marriage
Queer Notes: May-June 2023
June 8, 2023Takes up: Uganda’s President Museveni who signed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023, which includes the death penalty; That supporters of drag story time at Middlesex County Library in Parkhill, Ontario, Canada, protected the storytellers and attendees from 40 anti-gay protesters; and Namibia’s Supreme Court ruled that the Ministry’s lack of recognition of same-sex marriages conducted in other countries undermines the dignity and equality of the appellants.
Queer Notes: January-February 2022
February 7, 2022Queer Notes on Nobody’s Darling, a new Queer bar in Chicago; the death of Rebecca Juro, radio host and advocate for Trans rights; LGBTQ+ reaction to the election of Gabriel Boric in Chile; and LGBTQ+ discrimination in South Korea.
Queer Notes: November-December 2021
November 19, 2021Trans people in Puerto Rico; a counter-protest led by Rainbow Coalition, protector of Trans children in Canada; and a protest at Chicago’s Benet Academy against the firing of soccer coach Amanda Kammes.
Queer Notes, September-October 2020
August 29, 2020Camila Falquez’s photo manifesto of Trans and Queer Black and Brown people; the arrest in Poland of Transgender rights activist Małgorzata Szutowicz, and the rally to support her; Mexico City’s outlawing of conversion therapy; and a remembrance in Allentown, Pa., for 20 Black, Transgender and Indigenous people murdered for being who they were.
Queer Notes: May-June 2019
May 6, 2019International Transgender Day of Visibility; Puerto Rico bans gay reparative conversion therapy administered to minors; a Catholic hospital’s discrimination against Oliver Knight; and Chuck Kramer’s exhibit, “Faces Out & Proud.”
Queer Notes: November-December 2018
December 2, 2018“The Orlando Traveling Memorial” commemorates those murdered and those who aided the victims of the 2016 Orlando Pulse shooting; Transgender woman Aimee Stephens’ successful employment discrimination lawsuit; protesters decry Trump administration proposal to define gender as fixed at birth; Romania’s referendum defining a family as composed on one man and one woman fails.
Queer Notes: May-June 2018
May 3, 2018A roundup of GLBTQT news including: Trinity College Dublin students march for quality healthcare for Transgender people; study reveals that Bisexual female youth are more subject to depression and suicide than straight women and Lesbians; Lesbian refugees living in an East African refugee camp will soon have a chicken farm; Queer people and their supporters in Bermuda want tourists to support their businesses, rather than boycotting them.
Queer Notes, Jan.-Feb. 2018
January 31, 2018Queer notes on pastor Judy Peterson suspension; nonessential travel banned to Mississippi over anti-LGBTQ law, and Women of the Kenwood Ladies’ Pond Association in Hampstead Heath, Britain, welcoming Trans women.
Queer Notes: March-April 2017
March 21, 2017News on LGBTQ struggles: the first judge to rule for equal protection for Gay women and men, dies; Lebanon Judge rules that courts must protect homosexual people; a fundraiser for Chicago LGBT Asylum Support Partners; Tennessee legislators introduce several anti-Queer bills; the Center for Victims of Torture provides therapy for victims of torture, including LGBTQ people.
Editorial: Homophobic mass murder in Orlando
July 9, 2016Domestic terrorist Omar Mateen’s killing and injuring of Queer people in Orlando exposes racist and anti-Muslim sentiments but also, in reaction to his act, solidarity with the Queer community worldwide. The challenge is whether humanity will create a truly human society where Queer people are considered human.
LGBTQ gains in Africa
September 3, 2015A roundup of progressive legislation and legal victories involving LGBTQ people in Mozambique, Kenya, Botswana, and Zambia.
Queer Notes, July-August 2015
July 3, 2015A roundup of news on queer rights including: The naming of The Up Stairs Lounge Arson as the 2015 Book of the Year; the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights that Turkey cannot force Transgender people to receive any Transgender-related medical treatment; and other actions in North Carolina, Michigan, Vietnam, and Oregon.
Queer Notes, November-December 2014
November 24, 2014Kyrsten Sinema, out Bisexual, elected to Congress in Arizona; Alison Bechdel and Mary L. Bonauto are among the 2014 MacArthur Fellows; same-sex marriage bans upheld in some states and struck down in others, makes it likely that the Supreme Court will have to decide.
Same-sex marriage
May 20, 2014Roundup on advances and resistance on same-sex marriage in churches and states.
Queer Notes, Nov.-Dec. 2013
November 30, 2013Queer Notes: Discrimination in Russia; Intersex in Germany; no prison for rape in Iowa; transition surgery in Iran; Lembembe murdered in Cameroon.
Obama’s re-election doesn’t end clash of two worlds
November 26, 2012by Franklin Dmitryev
The two worlds of the rulers and the ruled shone through the suffocating blanket of propaganda surrounding the election in which Barack Obama won a second term. A pronounced gender gap and long lines at the polls in African-American and Latino areas reflected the determination to defeat the reactionary Republicans and retain the [=>]
Boycott Chick-fil-A
October 8, 2012Photo by Bob McGuire for News & Letters
Chicago—Picketers gathered in front of the only Chick-fil-A in Chicago to protest the company CEO using his chicken joint as a bullhorn to attack marriage and other civil rights for Gays. We were outnumbered by the customers who had streamed in for Chick-fil-A “Customer Appreciation Day,” [=>]