Google Singapore has become the first international company to officially support Pink Dot 2011. Fridae speaks with Google's Ann Lavin and finds out how Google Singapore came to support the event, its commitment to workplace diversity and what they really mean when they say "being yourself is a job requirement".
"I think it is important for it to be said here in Singapore that there are gay people everywhere and if suddenly all them stood up and said: 'This is me. It's like left-handedness, it's no big deal. Get over it. Have an aspirin. Have a lie down. You'll feel better tomorrow.' And things will be different." – The Hon. Michael Kirby
Over 50 LGBT activists and their allies held a rally in the Indonesian capital city of Jakarta to call for equality and protection of the country’s LGBT citizens.
A website for Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) in Vietnam was launched this month in Ho Chi Minh City with the support of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).
When queried by France, UK, and other countries, the Singapore delegate at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva reiterates that the Singapore police will not take action "against consenting adult males... unless their conduct breaks other laws, for instance laws against indecent public behaviour or paedophilia."
What has been brewing over two weeks on the internet has now boiled over onto the cover pages of the two most widely circulated English language newspapers in Singapore today.
Civil society groups in Malaysia have blasted the Terengganu Education Department for sending 66 schoolboys with ‘effeminate’ tendencies to a 4-day boot camp held to intervene before the boys “reach the point of no return”, meaning before they "become" gay or transgender.
It is said to be breaking new ground for being Malaysia's first feature film with gay lead characters but members of the LGBT community say the film may in fact perpetuate common misconceptions of gay and transgender people.
The Standards Authority has determined that TV9 had “needlessly violated the right to privacy of individuals with possible alternate sexual orientation, no longer considered taboo or a criminal act”, and ordered the channel to pay a fine and broadcast an apology.
Fridae speaks with Marcel Wiel, a UK journalist and author of Find Love in a Gay Bathhouse, who says his meeting his husband in the steam room of a 24-hour bathhouse provided the impetus to publish the book and that a bathhouse is really not as hopeless a place to meet quality husband material as often thought.
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