Archives > June 2005
It's Becoming Harder to Come Out
Hindustan Times - New Delhi, India, June 29, 2005
While the homosexual movement in the West is clamouring for attention, activists in India feel that too much hype has queered the pitch for those who want to come out in the open.
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India Today: Not Happy and Gay
Hindustan Times - New Delhi, India, June 29, 2005
The wheel of time spins at a laggard pace. Decades back when acclaimed Urdu writer Ismat Chugtai penned Lihaf (The Quilt), she ruffled many feathers and her work was immediately labeled as 'feminist postcolonial canon'. The protagonists, a gay Nawab Sahib and his neglected wife Begum Jan, who finds solace in lesbianism, caused a furore in 1941 and subsequently the short story was banned on charges of obscenity.
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MTV Launches New Gay Cable TV Channel
Reuters - India, June 29, 2005
The prospect of a television channel entirely devoted to gay programs for gay people may strike some as unnecessary and others as a sign of immoral times. Media giant Viacom thinks there's money in it.
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Naked Truth
Times of India - New Delhi, India, June 29, 2005
Despite being an international writer -- Nedjma, which means 'star' in Arabic -- still lives in anonymity. No photographs, 'real' name not revealed. "It's a veil, it's a privilege that nobody can identify me.
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Status of Homosexuals Worldwide
Hindustan Times - Delhi, India June 28, 2005
The Indian Penal Code - Chap. XVI, Sec. 377 "Unnatural offences" 377. "Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine."
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Sexual Harrassment Outlawed Under New Chinese Amendment
Allheadlinenews.com - Beijing, China, June 27, 2005
State media reports sexual harassment offenses face criminal charges under changes to laws aimed at protecting women's rights. The amendment will also say, for the first time, equal rights for women are part of state policy.
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Sex and the Youth: Ignorance is Still Bliss
Expressindia.com - Chandigarh, India, June 27, 2005
Adolescence is a stage when reproductive health is a major issue of concern, but surprisingly puberty remains an alien concept for a large number of city teens.
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Gay March in Kolkata Clamours for Legal Rights
IANS Kolkata, India, June 26, 2005
About 200 lesbians, gays, bisexuals and trans-genders (LGBT) marched through the streets of Kolkata on Sunday, demanding the scrapping of anti-homosexuality laws.
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Out and Proud - Understanding the Filipino Lesbian
Manilatimes.net - Manila, Philippines, June 25, 2005
Men: they don't hate you and they don't envy your penises. Women: there's nothing to fear from them. Parents: it's not your fault and it's not a fault.
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Chinese Gay Web Site Reopens
PlanetOut.com - China, June 24, 2005
A Web site aimed at the lesbian and gay communities within China has been re-opened, after being closed by the government earlier this year. According to the Kyodo Japanese news agency, www.gaychinese.net has reopened with information on sexual health and the Chinese Pride events.
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Mumbai’s Bar Show Goes on For Now
Inter Press Service - New Delhi, India, June 23, 2005
Hundreds of thousands of women who sing and dance in the bars of the western Indian state of Maharashtra are likely celebrating the survival of their means of livelihood. On Thursday the governor returned unsigned an ordinance intended to ban the dance bars.
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2005 International Women's Rights Prize Honors Work in Burma
Yahoo News - USA, June 23, 2005
The Shan Women's Action Network (SWAN), which runs community-based programs for refugee women and children who have fled the civil war in Burma's Shan State, and the Women's League of Burma, an association of eleven women's groups that SWAN helped to establish, have been selected by an international panel of experts to receive the 2005 Women's Rights Prize of the Peter Gruber Foundation, and its accompanying $200,000.
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Sex Workers to Form Nationwide Coalition
Korea Times - Seoul, South Korea, June 23, 2005
Sex workers in red-light districts plan to form a nationwide organization to claim their occupational rights. Some 5,000 sex workers from brothels across the nation will hold a massive meeting at Olympic Gymnastics Stadium in Chamsil, southeastern Seoul, on Wednesday, according to a committee preparing to launch a pan-national sex workers' coalition.
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Family a Major Influence on Gender Attitudes: Study
The Hindu - Chennai, India, June 23, 2005
A study conducted among school-going adolescent students in the city on their attitudes towards gender and sexuality has revealed strong gender discrimination in the perception of boys and girls regarding work participation, their roles and responsibility in society. The study has shown that the gender conditioning adolescents received at home was a major influence in shaping their perceptions about the roles that men and women were expected to play in society.
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Pakistan Sex Workers in India to Learn About HIV Prevention Programme
AFP/Yahoo News, June 22, 2005
Pakistani sex workers have toured the brothel district of the eastern Indian city of Kolkata for tips on how to organize and to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS.
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Sex Workers Unite to Fight AIDS
India Daily.com - India, June 20, 2005
The India-Pakistan bonhomie isn't limited to diplomacy and cricket alone. Now sex workers from across the border are forging ties to fight HIV/AIDS and building bonds with their compatriots in West Bengal.
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Sexually Exploited Women in Conflict
Ohmynews.com - Nepal, June 19, 2005
Thousands of women forced to join Nepal's Maoist insurgency are exploited sexually. Sexual violence in the conflict presents evidence of a horrific scenario. Nepal's 10-year-long Maoist war has been marked by an extraordinary level of brutal women's rights abuses, including sexual violence.
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Most Malaysians Ignorant About Sexual Health, Says Doc
Malaysia Star - June 17, 2005
Malaysians are largely ignorant about their reproductive and sexual health. This included youths' lack of knowledge about the subject and women's ignorance about access to reproductive and sexual health services.
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City Homosexuals to Say it in Films
Expressindia.com - Kolkata, India, June 14, 2005
In a show of strength to make their presence felt in Kolkata, the gay and lesbian community of the city are organizing a four-day Siddharth Gautam Film Festival that will start on June 20.
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Activists Hail High Court Ruling
Taipei Times - Taipei, Taiwan, June 14, 2005
Gay rights groups yesterday hailed a Taiwan High Court decision, which ruled in the favor of a radio station that was fined by the Government Information Office (GIO) for airing a program involving homosexual issues.
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Little Sex Knowledge Means More Abortions
Englisheastday.com - Shanghai, China, June 9, 2005
More than half of the women in Shanghai who had abortions last year did not use any reliable form of contraception.
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Social Taboos Pressure Lesbian Love
BBC News - Allahabad, India, June 6, 2005
Throughout South Asia, homosexuality has been a taboo subject. There are signs in some areas that gay people are now becoming more open - but that is not always the case. In the latest in a series of articles from the region, Sutapa Mukerjee looks at a problematic lesbian relationship in Allahabad, India.
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Sexual Warmongers
Taipei Times - Taipei, Taiwan, June 8, 2005
It is utterly laughable and contemptible how the Taiwanese authorities recently allowed to be shown in public a film (The Wayward Cloud) in which a man has fellatio performed on him, yet these same authorities cracked down on a gay and lesbian bookstore owner for selling "indecent" material ("Activists blast bookstore verdict," Date page 2). The owner is being subjected to the clutches of homophobic and patriarchal laws that are clearly outdated.
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Just a Step
Calcutta, India, June 10, 2005
Governments are addicted to bliss, that is why they carefully practise the art of ignorance. There is absolutely no reason why successive governments should have remained in innocent darkness about the perverse orientation of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act. This law, meant to protect women either engaged in sex work or being sold into it, has traditionally punished them instead.
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Is MSU Blind to Eve-Teasing on Campus
Times of India - New Delhi, India, June 5, 2005
Eve-teasing in the campuses is common, but the recent survey conducted by a MSU faculty definitely does not hint at harmless pranks of youngsters on the campus, but at the dangerous tendencies amounting to sexual harassment.
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Activists Blast Bookstore Verdict
Taipei Times - Taipei, Taiwan, June 5, 2005
Gay and lesbian activists have decried a court verdict against the owner of a Taipei bookstore last week, calling it a setback for the rights of Taiwan's homosexual community.
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Asian Female Artists Reflect on Women's Sexuality, Body
Korea Times - Seoul, South Korea, June 5, 2005
Female artists from seven Asian countries will gather in Seoul to present works that deal with the issue of sexuality and the female body.
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Get the Whole Picture
Tehelka - India, June 4, 2005
A homosexual swimming champ, a lesbian couple, a legislator who happens to be a eunuch. Sexual minorities move from the margins to centrestage on the Indian screen. "Films like My Brother Nikhil, Shabnam Mausi and Sancahrram have given visibility to sexual minorities," says gay rights activist Ashok Row Kavi.
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