Hong Kong court denies male status to three transgender men
Hong Kong’s High Court has refused to allow three transgender men to be recognized as males on their official identity cards because they have not undergone full sex-change operations.
The Feb. 1 ruling was seen as a blow to the fledgling LGBT movement in the semiautonomous Chinese city of 7.4 million people, which is preparing to host the 2022 Gay Games.
The three, identified as Henry Tse, Q and R, are shown on their ID cards as having been born female, but are undergoing hormone therapy. A full sex change would require the removal of female sexual organs.
The decision follows a recent ruling by Japan’s Supreme Court upholding a law that effectively requires transgender people to be sterilized before they can have their gender changed on official documents.
Greek bishop convicted over comments attacking gays
A Greek court has convicted a prominent Orthodox Church official of violating laws against racism and abusing his office over an anti-gay blog posting.
Amvrossios, Bishop of Kalavryta and Aigialeia in the southern Peloponnese region, received a seven-month sentence, suspended for three years.
Amvrossios urged readers in his 2015 posting to “spit upon” homosexuals, adding: “They are not human beings, they are rejects of nature.”
The three-judge court in the southern town of Aigio unanimously found against the bishop, who is one of the most conservative in the powerful Church of Greece. A lower court had acquitted him, but the case was appealed.
Lawyer Kleio Papandoleon, representing a group of citizens seeking legal action against the bishop, hailed the Jan. 28 ruling, saying it set limits to “inflammatory and racist speech.”
Cuban evangelicals push back against gay marriage
A Cuban government push to legalize gay marriage has set off an unprecedented reaction from the island’s rapidly growing evangelical churches, whose members are expected to widely reject a state-proposed constitutional reform in a nationwide referendum this month.
The reform is almost certain to pass by a broad margin of Cuba’s seven million voters — language opening the door to gay marriage is only one element of the reform — but the evangelical vote could shave hundreds of thousands of votes from its victory.
With many pastors promoting “no” votes from the pulpit, the swelling evangelical rejection of the constitution is a novel development for a state that prides itself on projecting an image of ideological unanimity. Cuban government-endorsed candidates and proposals typically receive “yes” votes well above 90 percent.
Noted Indian transgender activist shakes up Hindu festival
Indian transgender activist and Bollywood TV star Laxmi Narayan Tripathi has shaken up the male-dominated monastic orders that run the Hindu Kumbh Mela festival — held from January through March in northern India and is expected to draw as many as 150 million pilgrims.
The Kumbh takes place every three years at one of four sites Hindus consider sacred. It’s a series of ritual bathings led by 13 all-male Hindu monastic orders.
Though Hinduism’s ancient Vedas scriptures describe transgender people as integral, for centuries they have been marginalized, forced to leave their family homes as children and often sold into sex trafficking.
Tripathi is capitalizing on the ruling Hindu nationalist party’s emphasis on India’s Hindu roots to claim a place for transgender people among the nation’s religious elite.
Former landscaper pleads guilty to eight murders in Canada
A former landscaper charged with killing eight men with ties to Toronto’s gay village is said to be pleading guilty.
The former landscaper, Bruce McArthur, said Jan. 29 that no one is pressuring him to enter the guilty plea to eight counts of first-degree murder.
The police last year found the remains of seven of the men in large planters at a property where McArthur had worked. The remains of the eighth victim were found in a ravine behind the same property in midtown Toronto.
The 67-year-old McArthur was arrested after an investigation into several disappearances in a gay neighborhood of Toronto.
Compiled by Larry Nichols