28% of Gen Z identify as LGBTQ in the U.S.

The report, titled “A political and cultural glimpse into America’s future,” released by the Public Religion Research Institute, sought to highlight the cultural and political views of Gen Z adults, compared with older Americans. 

About 20% of Americans are Gen Z, which the survey’s researchers specify as those ages 18 to 25, 

28 percent of Z adults in the U.S. identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer, dwarfing the percentages of LGBTQ Americans in older age groups, according to a report 

The report found about 10% of all adults, 16% of millennials, 7% of Generation X, 4% of baby boomers and 4% of the Silent Generation identify as LGBTQ. 

Besides, 20 percent of Gen Z adults say they have personally experienced hostility or discrimination based on their race, age, gender or gender expression, religious beliefs, or sexual orientation. 

Check the report here.

New trailer of Challengers, starring Zendaya

 

The new trailer of Challengers, a queer romantic sports comedy, starring Zendaya (Euphoria), Josh O’Connor (The Crown), and Mike Faist (West Side Story), has been released.

Directed by film director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name) and written by American playwright and novelist Justin Kuritzkes. In the film Zendaya, O’Connor, and Faist play members of a love triangle.

The synopsis reads, “Tennis player turned coach Tashi (Zendaya) has taken her husband, Art (Mike Faist), and transformed him into a world-famous grand slam champion. To jolt him out of his recent losing streak, she makes him play a “Challenger” event —close to the lowest level of pro tournament— where he finds himself standing across the net from his former best friend and Tashi’s former boyfriend (Josh O’Connor).”

Challengers is scheduled to be released in the United States on April 26, 2024, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer through Amazon MGM Studios.

Watch the trailer below:

37 schools across Ireland awarded for completing LGBTQ+ Quality Mark programme

37 schools across Ireland have been awarded for championing LGBTQ+ inclusion. The post-primary institutions are the first cohort to complete Belong To LGBTQ+ Quality Mark programme, and received their accreditation.

The initiative saw the participating schools supported in implementing evidence-based actions across key areas, which have been proven to benefit the wellbeing and safety of LGBTQ+ students. 

These include ensuring that staff are equipped to support queer pupils, creating a safe and inclusive school culture and environment with student input, developing and implementing effective policies, plans and curriculums that champion diversity and respect, and working with parents, community organisations and LGBTQ+ youth projects or groups to promote inclusion.

Moninne Griffith, CEO of Belong To, stated: “Today is about celebrating 37 brilliant schools who have shown leadership and outstanding commitment to LGBTQ+ inclusion through participation in the LGBTQ+ Quality Mark. I want to thank the entire school community in each of these schools and, in particular, recognise the incredible efforts of each LGBTQ+ Quality Mark Coordinator and Principal. Thank you for showing up for LGBTQ+ students and for demonstrating commitment, courage and leadership. Congratulations on being the first schools in Ireland to receive the LGBTQ+ Quality Mark!”

Congratulations!!!

Congratulations Vanity Fair for the anniversary... and for Keoghan's appearance

 

For the 30th annual Hollywood issue of Vanity Fair, the publication created an in-motion cover featuring several A-list Hollywood stars. The cover includes Bradley Cooper, Natalie Portman, Pedro Pascal, Colman Domingo, Jodie Foster, Lily Gladstone, Greta Lee, Charles Melton, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Jenna Ortega, and Barry Keoghan.

Keoghan’s in-motion Vanity Fair cover appearance is standing out for obvious reasons: the actor appears bare-ass naked in it. After making a huge splash with his performance as Oliver Quick in Saltburn, Keoghan has been having a moment as The Internet’s Boyfriend. 

Congratulations Vanity Fair!!!

Watch the Vanity Fair's cover below:

'Close to you' with Elliot Page

 

Close to You is Dominic Savage and and Elliot Page’s improvisational drama about a transgender man named Sam (Page) who, after being invited to his ageing father’s birthday party, makes his way back to his small home town for the first time since coming out.

His well-meaning family try to make him feel welcome, but misgendering and mistakes follow. It’s a story that those in the LGBTQ community know all too well, but there is a salvation: Sam manages to reconnect with his closest friend from school days, played Hillary Baack, in a moving reunion.

With an honest and fully felt performance, Page shows us Sam’s fraught process of trying to reconnect with the people he grew apart from as he became more himself, and coping with the dread of returning to a space that never felt fully welcoming to begin with. 

Watch the interview below:

Greece approves same-sex marriage and adoption

Greek Parliament voted to legalize same-sex marriage and adoption, with 176 members in favor, 76 against, and two abstaining, major media outlets report.

Greece “is proud to become the 16th European Union country to legislate marriage equality,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis tweeted after the vote. “This is a milestone for human rights, reflecting today’s Greece a progressive, and democratic country, passionately committed to European values.”

The nation has offered civil partnerships to same-sex couples for a decade, but those came with parental rights only for the biological parents of the couple’s children. 

Now both spouses will be legally recognized as parents. But same-sex couples still won’t be able to access surrogacy in Greece, although they can be legally recognized as parents of children born by surrogacy abroad.

Polls indicated a majority of Greeks supported marriage equality, but there was strong opposition from conservative lawmakers and the Greek Orthodox Church.

Congratulations, Greece!!!

Polish TV host issues apology over state media’s anti-LGBTQ broadcasts after 8 years of right-wing government

A host on Polish state television has apologised on air for homophobic propaganda aired by state media.

During the eight years of rule by the national conservative Law and Justice party, state media promoted the party’s line that LGBTQ people were threats to Polish families.

Poland’s right-wing government became increasingly anti-LGBTQ and same-sex couples or LGBTQ activists were not allowed to be shown on the TV stations.

Last October 2023, the majority of voters in Poland’s general election supported opposition parties that promised to reverse democratic backsliding and repair the nation’s relationship with allies, including the European Union and Ukraine.

The approach has changed under a new centrist government led by Donald Tusk, elected by Poland's Parliament in December 2023, who moved quickly to eject the Law and Justice supporters from positions of power over state media.

Two LGBTQ activists were invited on air when the state TVP host Wojciech Szeląg apologised to them for the rhetoric directed at their community. Bravo!!!

Watch the historic moment below:

Houthis sentence 13 to death on homosexuality charges in Yemen

A court of the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen has sentenced 13 people to public execution on homosexuality charges. Another 35 people have been detained for similar charges.

The ruling was made in Ibb, a Houthi-controlled province from which the jihadist group has been launching attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea. 

According to Amnesty International, the rebels continue to target LGBTQ people with arbitrary arrest and torture, including rape and other forms of sexual violence. 

A UN Security Council report in 2023 relayed that the Houthis are reportedly detaining children as young as 13 years old, some of whom are accused of 'indecent acts' for their alleged homosexual orientation.

In addition, the Houthis continues to ban women from travelling without a male guardian. The restrictions on travel have affected women’s ability to work, resulting in many being unable to access healthcare.

Iran also executes gay men on homosexuality charges.

NFL team up with GLAAD for ‘A Night of Pride’ ahead of Super Bowl 2024

The NFL and GLAAD hosted a Night of Pride ahead of Super Bowl LVIII, designed to showcase the NFL’s commitment to the LGBTQ community and welcome gay, lesbian, bi, trans and other queer fans.

Several hundred people attended the celebratory event, hosted in the Legends Lounge in Caesar’s Palace. The event included music superstar and West Hollywood impresario Lance Bass, in addition to other people across sports, entertainment and social media. 

NFL Chief Diversity and Inclusion officer Jonathan Beane, as well as GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis, welcomed the crowd.

Also featured was CBS Sports’ LGBTQ flag football segment Football For Everyone that will be airing on the CBS Sports Network this weekend, and which has garnered acclaim, including former Dallas Cowboys player Jeff Rohrer calling it “well done” at the event.

Over 250 teams across 27 cities in the U.S., united by a love for the game.

Greeks mostly accept marriage equality, new poll shows

Greeks appear to be accepting the marriage of same-sex couples. The findings of a recent poll shed light on the legalisation of civil marriages in Greece.

A percentage of 62 per cent is in favour, with only 36 per cent opposed, indicating that same-sex marriage is now widely accepted.

The poll results show that Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ legislative initiative, which has divided his party New Democracy, encounters clear and majority acceptance from society on the issue of civil marriage.

The analysis of attitudes based on the political self-placement of respondents shows that, concerning rights issues, the left-right axis aligns with the progress-conservative axis.

Acceptance rates are much higher among those who identify as left-wing (81 per cent) and center-left (75 per cent), while declining in the center and center-right, although remaining clearly in the majority.

Only those choosing a “pure” right-wing identity are majority opposed.

It's time Greece!!!

62% to 36% support marriage equality in Greece

Shamefully, wearing rainbow earrings means a jail sentence in Russia

A Russian court has sentenced a woman to five days in jail for wearing rainbow earrings as the country’s absurd crackdown on the so-called “international LGBT movement” ramps up.

A court in Nizhny Novgorod, east of Moscow, sentenced a woman to five days of detention for reportedly wearing frog-shaped earrings with an image of a rainbow.

The woman was charged and found guilty of publicly displaying “the symbol of an extremist organization.” The judge explicitly cited the Supreme Court’s November ruling.

Remember that Russia’s Supreme Court banned what it called the “LGBT movement” last November, designating it as “extremist” and “banning its activities on the territory of Russia”.

In Putin's Russia, any and all queer expression is effectively against the law. The country passed its infamous laws banning “promotion of non-traditional sexual relations” in 2013 and expanded them in 2022.

Shame on you Putin!!!

Justin Trudeau says Alberta policies are the ‘most anti-LGBT in the country’

 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that Alberta’s new proposals on the treatment of transgender youth are the “most anti-LGBT of anywhere in the country.”  

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith  announced earlier this week her plans to change rules for transgender children in Alberta. She said the fall sitting of the legislature would bring a ban on gender reassignment surgery for those 17 and under. And there would be no puberty blockers or hormone therapies for the purposes of such surgery for anyone 15 and under, unless they’ve already begun such procedures.

Smith said the changes are to protect children from the consequences of choices they may later regret. It’s also to preserve the role of parents in the lives.

Some parents of transgender children say the Alberta government's policy changes affecting transgender and non-binary youth will interfere with the medical treatment their children need.

And The Alberta Medical Association's pediatric section says there are benefits for patients to start puberty blockers as soon as they show signs as it will make future surgeries less invasive. Bottom surgery is always performed on patients 18 and older. 

Besides, the province would clamp down on transgender female athletes competing in women’s and girls’ sports.

Trudeau had a different assessment. “Danielle Smith has now moved forward with the most anti-LGBT policies of anywhere in the country,” he said. 

Sebastian, a frank depiction of gay sex work

 

Sebastian is a sensual and soul-searching story with the emerging Finnish writer-director Mikko Mäkelä and Ruaridh Mollica, the film’s 24-year-old Scottish-Italian star.

Mollica plays Max, a young hotshot writer with a book deal and a cushy gig at a literary magazine. But, by night, he’s “Sebastian,” a male escort who uses a website to set up appointments with clientele who are frequently older. 

Sebastian’s sexual exploits become fodder for Max’s writing, but no one in his life, not his editor, his family, or his best friend knows that Max is actually writing about himself.

As the lines between fact and fiction blur, Max navigates his sexuality and what he really wants out of life, and Mäkelä’s films probes ideas around identity, authorship, gay shame, and inter-generational differences within our community.

The movie premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the most important platform for independent films.

Watch the trailer below: