Harry's Place

As an occasional trans-sartorial sapphist gender-fucker, I know more than many that – in the words of my colleague Carol Hanisch, the “political is personal”, and the personal should be kept that way. My identity as a male-dressing transegender feminist woman who chooses sex with femininist women is not one which I am happy to be appropriated by [...]

A comment in Comment Is Free today by Charlie Condou, who plays “Marcus Dent” in the British soap opera Coronation Street”,  has prompted me to say something about the issue of religious opt out.  He said:
There remains the problem of the opt-out: individual churches can “opt out” of gay marriage on grounds of religious “conscience”. Does this mean that if we get [...]

I agree with William Hague, Theresa May and George Osborne – for once. I also (much less unusually) agree with Norman Geras who asserts that there are no sound reasons for opposing gay marriage. The Telegraph seems to attract a disproportionate (and, to be fair, unearned) number of bigoted commenters on all topics, and the thread [...]

There is nothing beautiful about the Sapphire Salon and should be driven to bankruptcy.
The people who own it should be scratching their heads, driving themselves mad with worry about how they’ll pay the rent as the dust piles up on their salon chairs.
Why? Well, the salon refused a booking by a gay couple. They quite literally turned [...]

Following in the wake of regional anti-LGBT legislation, Russia’s Duma looks set to make similar laws binding at a national level.  Depressingly, only one parliamentarian voted against this measure at its first reading on Friday, and 86% of Russians apparently support the bill. 
The draft law, submitted in March 2012, details that the “promotion of homosexuality” [...]

Dropping the death penalty component to the upcoming anti-homosexual bill – but retaining the implicit approval for life threatening violence and intimidation – has not molified funding groups towards Ugandan institutions.
Britain’s only private university, the University of Buckingham previously had been in partnership with the newly-formed Victoria University in Kampala, and accreditted most of its [...]

A lot of what Biscuit Barrel (the commenter formerly known as Flaming Fairy) predicted in the New Year thread seemed entirely plausible:
My prediction is that here in the UK, equal marriage will become a reality and the sky won’t fall in as a result. Boy will still meet girl and marry her, but all that [...]

Even if I supported their cause (based on the claim that Israel is engaged in “pinkwashing,” i.e., using its reputation as a gay-friendly country to cover up its alleged crimes), I’d wonder how this would actually persuade anyone.

The most dramatic moment occurs at about 0.27 seconds, when a man and a dog walk by [...]

One of the most repeated arguments against allowing people of the same sex to marry is that this will involve a “redefinition” of marriage. This is a nonsensical argument.
When a gay couple announce they’re getting married and to expect a wedding invitation in the post, their friends and family do not stare uncomprehending into the [...]

From the Peter Tatchell Foundation
While the world is focused on Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” bill, the Nigerian House of Representatives has unanimously approved even more sweeping and draconian homophobic legislation, the “Jail the Gays” bill. It could become law within weeks.
The Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Bill, which now moves forward to the next parliamentary stage, criminalise [...]