‘Do you know how many LGBTIQ+ folks live in Australia? It turns out no one does, and we’re not about to find out in the upcoming census.’ Courtney Act, an Australian drag queen and television personality, made this point on Facebook last week as part of Equality Australia’s push to have LGBTIQ+ people counted in…
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You might not think purple is your colour, but you should don some of the hue this Friday. Wondering why we here at Lip so concerned about what you’ll be wearing for once? Well August 29 is Wear it Purple Day, an initiative to recognise and support sexuality and gender diverse young people in their…
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As you are most likely aware by now, this week the world lost Robin Williams, the great comedian and activist, to apparent suicide. Williams was 63 years old and was found dead by his personal assistant in his California home on Monday. News of his death has launched a stream of tweets, posts, and story…
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GaymerX is a convention for LGBT gamers and allies with the aim of making everyone in the community feel welcome and accepted. Like any other gaming convention, GaymerX is full of panels, parties, devs and publishers showing off their games. How it differs to other cons is in its focus on inclusion; things like gender…
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A teenager from Massachusetts recently discovered on her MacBook that Apple had defined the word “gay” as ‘foolish, stupid or unimpressive’. Stating that she was ‘in disbelief’, Becca Gormon immediately sent an email to Apple chief executive Tim Cook, who is openly gay and frequently lobbies for equal work rights for homosexuals. While the entry…
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Gay marriage will be in the next printed edition of the Oxford English Dictionary as a secondary definition. It will read: ‘(in some jurisdictions) a union between partners of the same sex.’ The primary definition remains ‘the formal union of a man and a woman, typically as recognised by law, by which they become husband…
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On this day in 1990 the World Health Organisation removed homosexuality from the International Classification of Diseases. How kind of them. To mark the occasion I thought I would take a look at a few ladies who liked to like other ladies back when homophobia was really taking off. 1. Sarah Jewett Jewett was an…
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Canada did it; the Netherlands did it; even Portugal, Spain and South Africa did it. New Zealand did it and, more recently, France did it. These countries are on a list of 14 whose governments have legalised what could arguably be one of the most contentious political issues of our times – marriage equality. No…
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A Catholic high school in Columbus, Ohio fired physical education teacher Carla Hale last month, days after her mother’s obituary “outed” her. Hale had been teaching for 19 years. An anonymous parent identified Hale’s partner as a woman (Julie) mentioned in the obituary. Within days, Hale was fired. She told reporters: ‘Bishop Watterson [High School]…
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There were jubilant scenes throughout New Zealand and across Australia last night as NZ became the 13th country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage. The legislation, which passed 77-44, redefines marriage as a union between two people, and opens the door for adoption by same-sex couples. Labour MP Louisa Wall, who introduced the Bill,…
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The French senate passed an article of the bill to legalise same-sex marriage on Tuesday night, redefining the union as between “two individuals of different sex or of the same sex”. The article is a key element of the bill that also legalises adoption by same-sex partners. After lengthy debate, the article was passed with…
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Days after visiting Tunisia and praising the Islamist government’s efforts towards gender equality, feminist author and activist Nawal El Saadawi has been condemned in an article published by the State’s newspaper. Al-Fajr, the African nation’s ruling party’s paper, labelled the activist a ‘promoter of prostitution and homosexuality’. She had been in Tunisia to meet with…
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By now you’ve probably heard of Julie Burchill’s column and the subsequent outrage it provoked. The piece, which was published in print and online, attracted more than 2000 comments before it was removed from The Guardian’s website. In essence, Burchill—a freelance writer and feminist—outright attacked transgender people in her article ‘Transsexuals should just cut it…
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Shawnee McPhail and her wife, Arielle, were the targets of a quiet but nauseating act of homophobia last month in the US state of North Carolina. The couple had just finished lunch at The Sting Ray Cafe, and were holding hands on their way to the car, when the restaurant owner, Ed McGovern, approached them…
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