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Here’s What It’s Like To Go Through Gay Conversion Therapy In Australia

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Lane Sainty

BuzzFeed News Reporter, Australia

 

Conversion therapy is all but dead in Australia – but what will it take to kill it?

Candelight

“Please take this from me, I don’t want to be gay.”
Brisbane man Johann De Joodt knows first hand the horrors of gay conversion therapy.
A participant in numerous programs designed to purge his homosexuality during his twenties and thirties, De Joodt adopted a traumatising routine of church, sin and repentance that looped on repeat every week for 15 years.
“Sunday, I was going up to the altar, crying out to God,” he said. “Monday, I would sin by having sex with another man, and then beat myself up to a pulp so by Saturday I was suicidal. I’d manage to get myself to church on Sunday and then do it again, every week.”

“That was basically my life.”

“When a church leader says being gay is an abomination, people say, ‘you’re talking about my uncle who I love very much.’”

The question of whether conversion therapy works was answered long ago: it doesn’t. Leading psychological associations in Australia and around the world have denounced therapy that attempts to change sexual orientation. Earlier this year, a report from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called for nations to ban the practice, describing it as “unethical, unscientific and ineffective and, and may be tantamount to torture”.
Partly as a result of these strident denouncements, the prevalence of such therapy has significantly declined in Australia. Around 40 providers across the country in 2000 have dwindled to just a handful still in action today.
“There’s very little left. It’s in disarray,” says former pastor Anthony Venn-Brown. Venn-Brown, who has himself been through reparative therapy, is the most prominent voice on conversion therapy in Australia. He now works as the founder and CEO of Ambassadors and Bridge Builders International (ABBI), a group that works to combat ignorance and hostility between the LGBT community and churches.

Anthony Venn-Brown. Hadden Motion Pictures

Speaking to BuzzFeed News at a cafe in Waterloo, Sydney, Venn-Brown suggests another part of the decline is due to a growing acceptance of gay people in wider society – which, of course, includes churches too.
“More people are out, churchgoers have got gay sisters, brothers, colleagues, friends,” Venn-Brown says.
“When a church leader says being gay is an abomination, people say, ‘you’re talking about my uncle who I love very much.’”
The most thriving ex-gay programs are in Queensland, where Liberty Incorporated runs alongside the smaller Triumphant Ministries Toowoomba. Sydney-based Living Waters, one of Australia’s longest-running ex-gay programs, closed down last year.
There are also groups that advertise themselves as providing pastoral counselling on dealing with same-sex attraction, but clarify they do not attempt to change sexual orientation. These groups include Liberty Christian Ministries in NSW, and Renew Ministries in Victoria.
However, perhaps due to the stigma now attached to conversion therapy, there is little public information available about the funding, treatment methods and numbers of clients for each of these organisations. While Venn-Brown estimates that the programs would get “very few referrals” these days, their relative invisibility serves as a shield to such information. “We’ll never know the exact numbers,” he says.
At the heart of religious conversion therapy is “a strong belief in an all powerful God”, says Venn-Brown. Programs use a number of methods to exploit this belief, convincing participants that homosexuality is not what God wants for them. Venn-Brown went through dramatic exorcisms, where he convulsed on the floor for hours as pastors gathered around him, screaming for the demon of homosexuality to exit his soul.
Other methods include group and personal counselling, where homosexuality is posed either as a shameful habit that can be broken or an affliction, harking back to the days when it was considered a mental illness.

Brendan Hoffman / Getty Images

Johann De Joodt bristles at the description of gay conversion therapy as “nearly dead”.
“Conversion therapy hasn’t ended in Australia,” he says. “It is alive and well.”
De Joodt came to Australia from Sri Lanka in 1984. A few years later, he found himself heavily involved in the Assemblies of God Pentecostal church movement – now known as Australian Christian Churches – and struggling with his sexuality.
“I went to confess my sin of homosexuality to my pastors,” he says. “I was pretty involved in church life, and the pastor recognised that there were a few other people in the church who were struggling with their sexuality as well.”
De Joodt started the Living Waters ex-gay program in 1990. This was the first of many programs he went through, and when his weekly routine of church, sin, and self-loathing began. It wouldn’t end until 2005.
For years, De Joodt prayed the gay away as various pastors attempted to cast the demons of homosexuality from his soul. He was told his sexuality was a habit that could be broken and changed, that he was gay because he had been sexually assaulted as a child and lacked a decent father figure. He enrolled in courses on self-esteem, and learning how to say no, and did hours of counselling. He prayed, week after week after week.
Unsurprisingly, Johann stayed gay. But the years he spent in therapy ate away at him in other ways. “My health…” Johann starts, then pauses. “I am on antidepressants. Everything I’ve been through has stuffed up my mental health.”

 
Since 2000, twelve peer-reviewed, primary research studies have found conversion therapy is harmful to mental health. A Columbia Law School project collating conversion therapy research found that among people who had undergone the treatment, there was a prevalence of depression, anxiety, social isolation, decreased capacity for intimacy, and suicidal thoughts and behaviours. “There is powerful evidence that trying to change a person’s sexual orientation can be extremely harmful,” the researchers concluded.
“People have taken their lives, they are now on pensions because they can’t function in everyday life,” says Venn-Brown. “There are PTSD issues, they’ve been harmed mentally, they’re traumatised.”
This manifest trauma and pain is why Venn-Brown has devoted his life to combating ignorance between the LGBT and faith community through ABBI. His daily grind is a softly-softly approach that coaxes people of faith and the LGBT community closer together. “The biggest challenge is fear,” he says without hesitation.
In the past – and in conversion therapy – being gay and being a Christian were seen as incompatible. Venn-Brown says that when he was going through therapy in the 1970s and ‘80s, there was “nobody who believed there was such a thing as a gay Christian”.
“You were either Christian and heterosexual or you were gay and going to go to hell,” he explains. “The gay Christian movement was just beginning to grow then.” After coming out in 1991, he left the Christian faith for six years – but then returned to it after realising being a gay Christian was possible. “There are things [in Christianity] that I can take, that are very real for me,” he says. “Forgiveness, sowing and reaping, having purpose.”
As attitudes have changed and churches become more permissive, many LGBT Christians have been able to reconcile their faith with their sexuality and gender identity. However, a damaging rift still exists between the two communities, with years of betrayal from religious organisations leaving LGBT people fearful and unwilling to engage. Those hurt most by the hostility are LGBT Christians, who are often left feeling as though they belong in neither camp.
“Just as Christians have stereotyped all LGBT people, some LGBT people have stereotyped all Christians,” says Venn-Brown. “We get called perverts, abominations, they get called bigots and haters. And that doesn’t get us anywhere, just sitting back in our camps, our tribes, throwing barbs at each other.”
It’s obvious the division is unhelpful – but is being called a pervert really on par with being called a bigot? Venn-Brown pauses before answering, in short, no.
“It’s about the perception – we will often hear, a Christian like [Australian Christian Lobby Managing Director] Lyle Shelton or [Christian Democrats leader] Fred Nile say ‘I am not homophobic’. But everything that comes out of their mouth is completely homophobic. They just don’t understand what homophobia is, because they’ve never experienced it,” he says.
“We come from our own hurt, and our own pain. And we react, as any human would, when cruel and nasty and insensitive things are said by these people.” He switches into the second person, speaking directly to those who have hurt him. “You don’t know what that does to us, because you’ve never experienced that. You don’t know what it feels like.”
But matters of blame and hostility aside, Venn-Brown is convinced his approach of “dialogue and respect” is best. He knows both the LGBT and the faith community intimately, and says church communities do not respond to “aggressive” activism.
“I introduced [Hillsong Pastor] Brian Houston to a guy in his church who had been referred to somebody [for conversion therapy],” says Venn-Brown. “I got him and his parents to write a letter, Brian met with him.”
Later, it emerged that Houston had issued a directive to all Hillsong staff to never refer anyone to these programs.
“I’ve talked with people who are major religious leaders in Australia. It’s been a journey of ten years for some of them,” Venn-Brown says. “I’ve seen progress, but not where I would want it to be. In every human rights movement, it’s taken decades to shift. If you’re not in it for the long haul, it’s not going to work.”
 

However, politicians involved in LGBT law reform say a legal approach to ending conversion therapy is complex.
“There’s not much that can be done to target these organisations specifically at a federal level, other than continuing to tighten anti-discrimination legislation and look at the applicability of consumer law,” Greens senator Robert Simms tells BuzzFeed News.
If providing the therapy was considered a breach of the Sex Discrimination Act, it’s likely that the religious exemptions in the Sex Discrimination Act would protect conversion therapy providers. Under Australian consumer law, the religious and not-for-profit aspects of most conversion therapy programs would mean they are not considered “commercial in nature”. While such laws could be tweaked, says Simms, it’s unlikely they could be used as a mechanism to eradicate the therapy altogether.
Graham Perrett, a co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of LGBTI People Working Group, says a federal law banning conversion therapy may be unconstitutional.
“In terms of section 51 on the powers of the parliament, I can’t see any head of power that would give the federal parliament any capacity to make gay conversion therapy illegal in Australia,” he says.
There are some legal avenues under state and territory law as well, with acts in all jurisdictions outlawing advertising of health services that are deceptive or misleading. It could also be possible to lodge a complaint with the Australian Psychological Society that their code of ethics has been breached.
However, there is no black and white policy solution to immediately ending conversion therapy.
“It’s all just prejudice welded onto quackery packaged by a religious organisation,” says Perrett.
“I think education is the best antidote.”

Sebastien Bozon / AFP / Getty Images

De Joodt’s conversion journey reached a fork in 2005. His conversion counsellor at the time, CEO of Liberty Incorporated Paul Wegner, told him “I can help you suppress your sexual desires, but I can’t help you change your sexual orientation”.

“I was like, ‘Well, what’s the point?” says De Joodt. “If you take a ball and try to push it in a bucket of water and let go, it’s going to eventually pop up.”

He came out, lost “a lot of people”, and left his Pentecostal church. He went to the LGBT-friendly Metropolitan Community Church for a few years, and then stopped that, too. But God is still in his life.
“I have days where I feel like a Christian, and there are other days where I feel like I hate God,” he says.
“I think I’ve resolved my sexuality with my faith. If people want to be so small-minded as to think that you have to be straight to get into heaven then I think they’re going to get a big shock when they do get to heaven.”
A pause, and then: “I think God is bigger than the box you put God into.”
It’s because of this new understanding of faith, says De Joodt, that he doesn’t relapse into wanting to be straight again. “I’ve come to a point where I believe I need to be honest before myself, and before my God.”
“There’s a famous saying, isn’t there?” He thinks aloud. “Change what you can change and leave the rest to God? Or something like that. Accept the things you can’t change?”
A quick Google search later, it becomes apparent De Joodt was trying to recall the words of the Serenity Prayer, brought into popular culture by its widespread use in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change / The courage to change the things I can / And the wisdom to know the difference.
It took years of anguish, but finally, De Joodt has been granted that serenity. He knows the difference, too.
“If God wanted just another heterosexual, God could have created one, but instead God created me fabulous,” he says.
“My sexual orientation is something I cannot change.”
A spokesperson for Liberty Christian Ministries declined a request to be interviewed for this piece. Requests sent to Liberty Incorporated and Triumphant Ministries Toowoomba were not responded to.

Lane Sainty is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Sydney, Australia.
Contact Lane Sainty at lane.sainty@buzzfeed.com.

Here’s What It’s Like To Grow Up Gay And Indigenous In Australia

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Allan Clarke

BuzzFeed News Reporter, Australia

 

Indigenous people who identify as LGBT are more likely to suffer from some form of mental illness.

“At 16 the boys would call me abo, faggot, poofter. That was really detrimental to my psychological health and really played a huge role in my depression”, says Matthew Shields, 30.

Shields, a successful actor, dancer and registered nurse has suffered from chronic depression for years.

“When I was 14, the gay thing was kept a secret in me. I didn’t tell anyone. It was absolutely terrifying. I mean it was [the NSW country town of] Walgett 15 or 16 years ago, when homosexuality wasn’t even accepted in mainstream culture, imagine being in a small country town in western NSW,” he says.
Shields says homophobia and racism crippled him emotionally, and he often turned to self-harm.
“I felt extremely isolated. I used to self-harm a bit, just placing the pain somewhere else. I didn’t cut myself. I would, for example, walk along the wall and scrape my hand on the wall or punch the wall to place the pain somewhere else”.
Shields credits finding a supportive group of friends with helping him to overcome depression, but says he still has dark days.
“For me living with depression is an exhausting journey that feels like you’re in a dark place, and it’s really exhausting and constant sadness.”

Indigenous people coming to terms with their sexuality are often told that being gay is not a part of traditional culture, a notion that experts say is incredibly dangerous.

Indigenous people coming to terms with their sexuality are often told that being gay is not a part of traditional culture, a notion that experts say is incredibly dangerous.

Gregory Phillips (Photo by John Couch)

“When I was coming out and trying to reconcile being gay with my Aboriginal culture I was told by an elder very close to me that being gay didn’t exist traditionally. He told me it’s bad and all these awful things would happen to me,” Gregory Phillips tells Buzzfeed News.

Phillips is the author of Addictions and Healing in Aboriginal Country and an academic specialising in Indigenous health. He says it’s dangerous for the mental health of young people to hear that homosexuality has no place in their culture.
“Homophobia and stigma within our community are the biggest problem and the myth that homosexuality is a white man’s thing, well actually, homosexuality is a part of every culture and homosexuality appeared here before colonisation”.
Homophobic attitudes within the Indigenous community can be largely attributed to Christian missionaries who forbade Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders living under the church’s care, under government orders, from practicing traditional culture. It was from this period that the idea of homosexuality being sinful became a common view within the Indigenous community – one that still prevails today.
In 2013, boxer Anthony Mundine created controversy when he expressed disgust about the plot of ABC drama Redfern Now, which featured a homosexual Aboriginal relationship.
“Watching Redfern Now and they [sic] promoting homosexuality! (Like it’s ok in our culture) that ain’t in our culture and our ancestors would have their head for it! Like my dad told me God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve,” he wrote on Facebook.
“Mundine’s comments are completely ill-informed and he’s confused about his own identity and religion. Mundine is quoting the bible while he is a Muslim all while presenting as a traditional Aboriginal, so I don’t know what he’s doing, it’s rubbish and damaging,” Phillips says.

As a young Aboriginal boy growing up in the small town of Deniliquin in regional New South Wales, Steven Ross always knew he was different.

As a young Aboriginal boy growing up in the small town of Deniliquin in regional New South Wales, Steven Ross always knew he was different.

Steven Ross (Stelios Papadakis)

“On this particular summer day, after my father had been looking after me (I sat in the corner of the local TAB while he bets on the horses), we arrived back home to discover he’d left the house keys inside. He ordered me to climb through the window to open the door, but I refused,” Ross wrote in a personal essay for Archer Magazine last year.

“His response was to verbally abuse me. For the first time in my life I was called a ‘poofter’. I didn’t know what this word meant, but considering the tone of its delivery, I knew it couldn’t be a good thing,”
“When I came out to my father, he told me he used to bash people like me. Whenever we fought, homophobic insults were not off limits”.
It was Ross’s mother who allowed him to be proud of his sexuality.
“I really think racism and homophobia are just colonial processes, to be honest. They are social diseases and I felt like I had people around me immune to that,” Ross tells BuzzFeed News.
Ross hopes his writing will inspire other young gay Aboriginal people and believes it’s essential to raise awareness of the damage homophobia can cause.
“Like most cultures we [Indigenous people] are able to change and recognise difference, and I believe that gay identity has always been part of Aboriginal culture,” Ross says.
“It defies logic that there were no gay Aboriginal people before 1788. It might not look like what the LGBT community looks like now. The stigma can be devastating and lead to high suicide rates and depression”.

Steven’s sister Laura Ross is a mental health worker in regional NSW, she says the health system is ill-equipped to deal with the Aboriginal LGBT community in remote and regional areas.

Steven's sister Laura Ross is a mental health worker in regional NSW, she says the health system is ill-equipped to deal with the Aboriginal LGBT community in remote and regional areas.

Laura Ross (Supplied)

They grim reality is suicide, depression, drug and alcohol abuse and risky sexual behaviours are much higher amongst the Indigenous LGBT community experts say.

“You never really know what the response is going to be from your treating team. There are still old-fashioned views out there and if you couple that with being Indigenous and from the country and gay or transgender you are really on the back foot,” Laura tells BuzzFeed News.
Laura, who is also gay, says that in some cases people seeking help in the bush are slipping through the cracks.
“If a client was to disclose that they were transgendered or gay the resources we have in the community are just never going to meet the needs of these clients,” Laura says.

Casey Conway, 30, is the first Aboriginal male model to lead a campaign for swimwear label Sluggers. He’s now proudly, openly gay, but as a teenager all he wanted to do was suppress his sexuality.

Casey Conway, 30, is the first Aboriginal male model to lead a campaign for swimwear label Sluggers. He's now proudly, openly gay, but as a teenager all he wanted to do was suppress his sexuality.

Casey Conway in the Sluggers campaign (Sluggers Swimwear)

“I was probably in my late teens and finishing up high school and I was with a really nice girl for a couple of years and I felt something wasn’t quite right,” Conway tells BuzzFeed News.

“When I started to realise that I was sexually attracted to guys it really did freak me out and I went through a phase where it was going to be my big dark secret forever”.
Conway would go on to become a successful rugby league player, but was plagued with worry about the potential backlash he would receive if he came out as gay.
Today Conway is a not only a model but also a youth worker advocating for open and honest discussion around mental health issues within the Indigenous community. He says that encouraging young people to be proud of their identity and sexuality is imperative.
“Working in the youth sector I see a lot of kids, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous trying to come to terms with it and I always say to them, “there is always someone to help you if you reach out and there have been people who have walked this path before you, you’re not alone.”

To learn more about depression, check out the resources at BeyondBlue Australia or ReachOut. If you are dealing with thoughts of suicide, you can speak to someone immediately at Lifeline Australia on 13 11 14.

If you are based in 

Northern Ireland

You are not alone, if you want to talk to someone then you can contact:

  • Carafriend Telephone – 0808 8000 390 FREE – Free from landlines and most mobiles: 3, EE, O2, Virgin and Vodafone

  • NIGRA – 07719576524 and we will ring you back to take the call charges

 

United Nations claims homophobia costs global economies billions (VIDEO)

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United Nations claims homophobia costs global economies billions (VIDEO) · PinkNews
The United Nations anti-LGBT discrimination campaign ‘Free & Equal’ has released some startling statistics that show that homophobia and transphobia are still major problems across the world.
The video, titled ‘The Price of Exclusion’, focuses on the cost of global discrimination financially and to the people who suffer under social and legal discrimination due to their sexual and gender identities.

Openly gay Star Trek actor Zachery Quinto narrates the video, and reveals the uncomfortable reality of being LGBT in the world today, including how 40% of homeless youth in major US cities identify as LGBT.
Bullying and family rejection are cited as some of the causes of this high rate of LGBT homelessness.
“For the individuals in question, these are personal tragedies,” Quinto says in the video.
“For the wider community they represent an enormous waste of human potential, of talent, of creativity and productivity that weighs heavily on society and the economy”.

Citing a world bank pilot study, the video claims that global LGBT discrimination could cost a country the size of India $32 billion a year.
On top of this, the video also says that young lesbian, gay and bisexual people are four times more likely to attempt suicide, with the number rising to ten times more likely for young transgender people.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has said that the video aims to “challenges the myth that the impact of LGBT discrimination is small, or marginal, or confined to only a small part of the community.
“It’s not only LGBT people who pay the price; we all do. Every trans kid thrown out of home or forced out of school is a loss for society. Every gay or lesbian worker denied work or driven to emigrate is a lost opportunity.”

The ‘Free & Equal’ campaign was first launched by the United Nations Human Rights office back in 2013 and has released a number of videos in the past including a Bollywood style LGBT equality music video.
Back in August, the members of the UN stripped LGBT eqaulity from its historic global developement goals agreement.
Watch the video below.

“We Know Who We Are” Vid Supports LGBTs in World’s Most Homophobic Countries

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BY LES FABIAN BRATHWAITE
NOVEMBER 19 2015
we_know_who_we_are

 

The new track by Steven James and Quentin Sound raises money and awareness for those suffering from homophobia in Russia, Uganda and Jamaica.

In a powerful new music video, Steven James and Quentin Sound send a message of hope and support to LGBT people living in some of the most homophobic nations in the world: Jamaica, Russia and Uganda.
In Jamaica, sexual acts between men are punishable with up to ten years in prison, while Human Rights Watch documented 56 cases of anti-LGBT violence in 2013—only four led to arrests or prosecutions
Russia’s rampant homophobia has been well-documented. Though there are no laws criminalizing same-sex activity, a law passed in 2013 banning the spread of propaganda of “non-traditional” sexual relations among minors has led to an increase in homophobic violence.
Uganda’s so-called “Kill the Gays” bill drew interntaional ire, and though the country’s parliament didn’t succeed in passing the death penalty for homosexual acts between men, “carnal knowledge against the order of nature” carries a potential life sentence in prison.
Check out the video for “We Know Who We Are” below (which features some distrubing imagery of homophobic violence) and buy the single here on iTunes. 50 percent of proceeds from “We Know Who We Are” will be donated to LGBT youth organizations in Russia, Jamaica and Uganda—Children-404, JFLAG and Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), respectively.
https://youtu.be/9F5tJWBYVWg
 
 

Is there a homophobia problem in PE classes?

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Snap 2015-11-16 at 17.42.04

Homophobic remarks are flung around on a regular basis”

“Homophobic remarks are flung around on a regular basis”

A new article, part of a PE and school sports series by the Guardian, looks at ways to stop school pupils ‘climbing the school gates’ to avoid PE lessons. Among other reasons, such as unflattering uniforms and limited variety of activities, the article suggests that homophobia in changing rooms prevents some pupils from taking part in PE.
The anonymous writer begins: “The bell rings and once again I have to make the decision whether to climb the school gates or walk to my physical education (PE) lesson. I am not averse to sport – in fact I like keeping fit on the weekends and I’m pretty healthy. But the culture around PE in school means it has become my worst nightmare”
He goes on to explain why: “I am an openly gay teenager and getting changed in front of the other boys, with no privacy, makes me feel desperately uncomfortable.
“Homophobic remarks are flung around on a regular basis, with boys calling each other ‘faggot’ and saying ‘I bet certain boys love it in the changing rooms.’”
The writer suggests a simple remedy for this problem: “A zero-tolerance policy against homophobic slurs and body shaming – even if it’s so-called banter – would make the changing room a more comfortable environment for everyone.”
This insight into the changing rooms comes at a time when more sports stars than ever are publicly discussing their sexualities. Just in the last few months, Olympic skier Gus Kenworthy, and rugby players Keegan Hirst and Sam Stanley have all publicly come out as gay. There have also been rumours swirling that two high-profile football players are preparing to come out.
The Guardian’s PE and school sports series is funded by the Youth Sports Trust.
 

Why not write and let us know your experiences!

 

ISIS Stone Two “Gay” Men To Death On Tarpaulin

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the-gay-uk-logoBy The Gay UK, Oct 27 2015 01:59PM
 
 

Pictures have emerged of two men, their hands bound behind their backs, rocks surrounding their bloody, lifeless bodies. Their crime? Accused of being gay by the so-called Islamic State.
Warning report contain distressing images.
Pictures of the lifeless, bloodied bodies of two men, accused by ISIS fighters of being gay have emerged on social media. The two men were executed by stoning, with their hands bound behind their backs and blindfolded, on top of a tarpaulin in Aleppo, the largest city in Syria.
Violence against gay men, or those accused of being gay, by the Islamic state has increased in 2015, with well attended public executions usually concluding with the victims being thrown off the tallest buildings in the area. If the victims survive the surrounding crowds often stone them to death.
Last month 10 males included a 15-year-old boy were murdered, in the most violent day against gay men in territories controlled by the so-called Islamic State, which adopts Sharia Law. Homosexuality is illegal in states and countries that adopt Sharia law.
WHAT IS SHARIA LAW?
Islam’s legal system, derived from the Koran
Informs every aspect of Muslims’ lives
Islamic jurists issue formal guidance through fatwas, or religious edicts
Sharia law includes provisions for capital and corporal punishment but modern scholars say getting to that stage can be difficult
Marriage is treated as a contract in Islam
From The BBC
It was announced last week that sex between consenting Muslim same-sex adults in the Indonesian province of Aceh, could attract 100 lashes as the province adopted Sharia law.

 

Why is the UK Government silent on Russian Anti-Gay Excesses?

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Anti-gay protesters attack a policeman during the so-called Equality March, organized by a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, in Kiev, Ukraine, June 6, 2015

 Editorial: I have written before and put up articles about how the Russian government is orchestrating and allowing attacks on the LGBT population – the latest action has taken place in Kiev. Indeed, Alexander Yakovenko, Russia’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom, has even drawn attention to Britain’s silence on the anti-gay violence in Ukraine!

Whilst the British government in the past has drawn attention to Russia’s 2013 law on “gay propaganda”, which is similar to that of several US states, this time around they have been noticeably reticent.  

I would ask you to sign up to one of the various campaigns in the country, sing up for newsletters, make your views known.  Abuse, no matter which sector of the community it is aimed, at, is not acceptable.

Check out this video Channel 4’s programme by Matt Frei ‘Anti-gay campaign shows Russia’s worst side’:

What do you think?  Let us know your thoughts, STOP ABUSE NOW!!

UK Poll Shows Alarming Racism in Gay Community

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Editorial:  Are you a racist, have you allowed racism to go unchallenged when you have heard it being said?  We would be the first to complain (hopefully) if we overheard homophobia being discussed as acceptable.  We mustn’t loose sight of the fact that we are all supposed to be ‘equal’ and that we must treat everyone as equal!

 

Tuesday Jun 9, 2015

(Source:Noah Berger/AP)

(Source:Noah Berger/AP)


As much as the global LGBT community prides itself on inclusiveness and tolerance, results from a new poll show that while we like to see ourselves as wrapped in a rainbow, color is still an issue with many gay men.
A recent survey taken by the U.K.-based FS magazine which polled over 850 white, black, Asian, South Asian, Arab and mixed race gay men, shows an alarming amount of racial and sexual stereotyping among gay males. Results of the survey showed that more than two-thirds of non-whites surveyed experienced racism from within the LGBT community in the U.K. with 80% of blacks and 79% of Asians reporting the highest incidences of racism. As a minority group, hispanics reported the lowest incidences of racism with 35%.
An interactive poll on the FS website shows 87% of readers agree that the gay community is in someway racist.
The report also points to a disturbing trend where pick-up apps like Grindr were a prime vehicle for sexual racism.
“I’ve been blocked on apps because I am South East Asian,” says Ari, 39 from London, “or thought of as Muslim, even though I am not a Muslim. I have had abuse sent through messages, saying ‘go back home Paki’ or a question asking if Allah is happy I am on here.”
The FS poll is a follow-up to a previous study conducted by the publication where 400 white men were polled about sexual stereotypes.
When asked about stereotypes within ethnic groups, the respondents said:
• Black men have large cocks: 78% of white gay men in our survey believe this to be true.
• Asian men have smaller than average cocks: 75% believe this to be true.
• Latin men are crazy, wild and passionate: 70% of white gay men believe this to be true.
• Mixed race men are more likely to be accepted by white men: 67% believe this to be true.
• Black men are more active, strong and dominant in the bedroom: 60% of white gay men believe this to be true.
• Asian men are mostly submissive bottoms: 56% believe this to be true.
• Arab men aren’t gay if they’re top only: 35% thought this to be true.
• Latin men are mostly rent boys or in it for a passport: 10% of white gay men believe this is true.
While the FS polls only surveyed gay men in the U.K., the results are mirrored across the ocean in the United States where, according to Wikipedia , many people experience racism in the dominant LGBT community where racial stereotypes merge with gender stereotypes, such that Asian-American LGBTs are viewed as more passive and feminine, while African-American LGBTs are viewed as more masculine and aggressive.
 

Vodafone blocks LGBT website and redirects to ad for ‘flirty’ dating service

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PinkNews Exclusive.

Mobile phone network Vodafone has restricted access to an LGBT community website to over-18s – instead showing ads for a “flirty” dating website.
A PinkNews reader spotted that the website lgbt.co.uk – which provides information on services for the LGBT community in the UK – appeared to be blocked by the provider.

A standard message received when trying to access the website states: “You are not able to access this service because VodafoneContent control is in place. If you’re 18 years or over, you can easily remove Vodafone Content control by going to the ‘About Content control’ link below for further information and details about how to remove it.”
The network requires people to prove their identity with a credit card and another form of ID in order to de-activate the filters.
Despite the perfectly child-friendly website only being accessible to over-18s, ironically the filtering page itself shows a number of ads for over-18 dating websites that remain unblocked.
When PinkNews attempted to view the page, Vodafone message was above an ad for raunchy-sounding dating site “FlirtFinder” – which was unfiltered despite its terms and conditions banning users 17 and under.
Another user received an ad for Match.com – also unfiltered – which operates a strict over-18s policy.

Peter Burnett of lgbt.co.uk told PinkNews: “We started the site in 2006 to deal with prejudice that was built into the tax and pensions system, as well as to campaign for civil partnership and equal marriage. We also discuss holidays and investments, as well as financial ideas for couples, which is our speciality.
“Of course, we haven’t got anything at all barely even saucy on the site, but because we use the terms lgbt, gay and transgender, for example, in our site metadata, providers and others sometimes block us.
“It is incredibly infuriating, not because we’re being blocked, but because it is exactly the sort of prejudice we dislike the most – instiutional assumptions made about millions of people, and not based on reason.”
He added: “Being blocked by Vodafone is careless and prejudiced use of metadata, with their engineers assuming that because our market is LGBT, we must be peddling porn, or something, I don’t know what. It’s so offensive.
“To be honest, any of many LGBT sites are at risk of this, and that is an ugly thought.
“I’m talking about forums, advice sites, clothing sites, news sites, help and information sites, and Vodafone should do their job and examine each site they block. There are also lists of adult sites they can consult, and we wouldn’t be on any of these.”
“Except that we are now on theirs, I am sad to say. I have challenged them of course to find any adult content on the site, which offers financial advice, and I await their response.”
Other LGBT-focussed websites including PinkNews and Stonewall appeared to still be accessible.
A Vodafone spokesperson told PinkNews: “Vodafone UK, along with the rest of the UK mobile operators use the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) to define which content is unsuitable for customers under the age of 18.
“We use a third party supplier to provide automated technology to block sites which are unsuitable under that rating system and have recently changed our supplier, which clearly has slightly different categories than those of the provider we used before.
“We believe that the new automated system blocked this site by mistake and we have gone back to our supplier to ensure it is unbarred with immediate effect.”

‘Does Your Boyfriend Know You Are Here?': The Fight Against Casual Homophobia In English Soccer

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ThinkProgress LogoBY TRAVIS WALDRON POSTED ON
 
Eight years in the Upton Park stands, and Jim Dolan had never heard anything like this.
A fan behind them spent most of the match showering players, the referee, the linesmen — anyone and everyone on the pitch, really — with homophobic abuse. Not merely slurs. “Vicious, horrible abuse.”
Dolan had listened before to his gay friends who said they stayed away from soccer matches because of that sort of behavior. But he never heard anything that made him reconsider his place at the match himself.
“For the first time, I felt helpless,” he recounted. If he challenged the screamer, “would everyone around me support me? Or would they join in with this guy?”
He fired off a few tweets. Across England, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender fans of other clubs had organized supporters groups. Would any West Ham fans want to do the same?
I met Dolan at Upton Park on a chilly, windy Saturday afternoon at the end of February, a season after he sat through one fan’s abuse wishing he could do something.
By now, he has. The positive response to his initial tweets, with the help of an outside network that supports gay soccer fans, turned into a fledgling supporters’ group of gay and lesbian West Ham fans. On this day, before West Ham took the pitch to face Crystal Palace, the fans who call themselves Pride of Irons would become the latest LGBT group to earn the official support of the club they love. Pride of Irons swelled to more than 40 members by the time they met with club officials in December, and now West Ham welcomed the members onto the pitch, where club chairman David Gold joined them briefly to chat and take pictures.
The concept of organized fan groups is instrumental to English soccer — clubs like West Ham list dozens of supporters associations on their web sites. Gay and lesbian fans have surely been a part of them in the past. But after decades of watching the progress that has taken England to the world’s forefront of LGBT equality fail to expand its reach into the country’s most popular sport, LGBT fans have spent the last two years coming out.
Groups like Pride of Irons have sprouted at clubs across the country, taking a central role in the fight against anti-gay discrimination in soccer and blasting a simple message: We are fans too.
Members of Pride Of Irons meet with West Ham chairman David Gold (center) at the group's February launch event.
Members of Pride Of Irons meet with West Ham chairman David Gold (center) at the group’s February launch event.
CREDIT: TRAVIS WALDRON
“Does he take it up the arse?”
“Does your boyfriend know you’re here?”
“We can see you holding hands!”
Most of the chants that ring through the terraces of English stadiums and provide the cadence of a soccer match are innocent enough. They hail local heroes, become club anthems, or aim banter at rivals. It isn’t uncommon to hear obscenities in them, but they usually don’t rise to level of targeted discriminatory abuse.
Every now and then, though, they turn homophobic.
Fans of all types are eager to point out that the caricature of the English soccer hooligan that showed up in movies of the past does not accurately portray a typical fan today, thanks to concerted efforts from the British government, law enforcement, and the Football Association, the sport’s governing body in England, that long ago rooted out most violence. And fans both gay and straight say too that instances of outright homophobia are also rare, or at least far less common than they once were. It is relatively easy now to attend a match without hearing blatant discriminatory abuse leveled at other fans, officials, players, or coaches.
But even when homophobia isn’t orchestrated and obvious, even at the places where clubs have taken strong stances and discrimination rarely occurs, there are fears that gay fans cannot be open about who they are.

“If you’re going to The Emirates with your boyfriend or girlfriend of the same sex, would you hold hands?” 

asked Dave Raval, a media coordinator for the Gay Gooners, a group of LGBT supporters of Arsenal F.C. “Many people wouldn’t. Homophobia exists on many different levels. That’s why we’re taking a stand.”
If you’re going to The Emirates with your boyfriend or girlfriend of the same sex, would you hold hands?
The most glaring example of reticence to come out is Robbie Rogers, the American who was playing in England when he announced he is gay and promptly retired in 2013. Rogers thought it “impossible” to come out while playing, citing the potential for abuse from both other players and fans in his decision to quit (months later, hereturned to Major League Soccer, the American league). Rogers’ concerns were not restricted to English soccer, but fans there say the sort of abuse he feared has kept more gay fans from coming to soccer matches.
The Football Association now has taken a special interest in combating discrimination of all forms — namely, racism, homophobia, sexism, and the abuse of disabled people — throughout the sport, from the professional level to the grassroots, where the use of homophobic language is an even bigger problem, according to officials. The FA has a five-year action plan aimed at increasing diversity within the sport and at encouraging more reporting of discrimination. And in recent years it has expanded its efforts beyond the fines and suspensions it has issued players, managers, and other club and FA employees who exhibit discriminatory behavior.
The FA now uses education programs to show its members what discrimination looks like and how they can prevent it. It is currently developing online anti-discrimination training for its 327,000 coaches and referees and conducts field training and education sessions too. At every level of the sport, any player, coach, referee, or club official found to violate its policies must go through one-on-one education sessions.
“Fining people and suspending people is one thing,” said Chris Gibbons, an FA Inclusion Education Adviser, who came to the organization after working for Stonewall, the UK’s largest LGBT charity. “But what we want to do is change attitudes and behavior, and get people thinking differently about what they do, what they say, and how they treat people.”
Though racism and sexism may remain the most visible forms of discrimination in English soccer, homophobia is one of the FA’s key targets, and Gibbons has “been really impressed at the response we get from participants, whether at the grassroots or the pro level.” The organization has worked alongside clubs in the Premier League and the leagues below it to help them improve their own efforts (one example: it held a two-day training session in December for pro and grassroots clubs to educate them on how to promote LGBT inclusion in the sport). The FA has also updated its transgender policy to handle players who transition on a case-by-case basis rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all model.
But the Football Association, as governing bodies go, isn’t all that powerful — at the professional level, the clubs are strongest — and there is one major area of the game it lacks the jurisdiction to reach: the fans.
Policing fan behavior is largely left to clubs and other fans, who can report abuse through an app developed by Kick It Out, an FA-partnered anti-discrimination organization. Many of the clubs have taken action, but groups like Pride of Irons are filling the gaps, adopting the organized nature of soccer supporters’ groups to confront abuse simply by making themselves more visible. The hope is that this will push soccer to a more inclusive place.
Members of the Gay Gooners march at the London pride festival.
Members of the Gay Gooners march at the London pride festival.
CREDIT: COURTESY OF THE GAY GOONERS
Before there was Pride of Irons or any of the other LGBT fan groups that have formed since, there were the Gay Gooners.
With more than 250 members, the Gay Gooners, whose name borrows a popular moniker for Arsenal fans, is the largest LGBT fan group in England. They earned Arsenal’s official sanction in the spring of 2013, when the club brought them onto the pitch before a match and unfurled a rainbow banner to hang from the stadium terrace. They have a direct working relationship with the club.
I was supposed to meet members of the Gay Gooners at The Rocket, a pub near Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, before a match in early March. By the time I walked in — after showing the bouncer a just-bought Arsenal hat and a match ticket to prove I wasn’t an opposing fan searching for trouble — the place was packed. We never found each other.
I went back after the match in the off-chance I’d find them then, but instead, a fan who noticed my American accent asked why I was there and invited me to watch the League Cup final — Chelsea and Tottenham were tied nil-nil early on — with his friends.
“He’s a journo,” my new-found friend announced as we approached the table, “doing a story about gay footballers.”
Most at the table smiled and demurred. Jack Gilhooly did not.
“If he’s a good football player, I wouldn’t care,” Gilhooly, a 25-year-old Liverpool supporter from Kent, said. “If he’s shit, I’d say he’s shit. What do I care.”
And fans?
“It doesn’t bother me if anyone’s gay,” he said. “If they’re good at football, or a fan, or they support a team — support your team. It doesn’t matter what they do. That’s their private business. You’re just a football fan.”
Another, an Arsenal fan who only called himself Sunny, chimed in.
“I don’t care if they’re gay. The only thing they could be ashamed of is if they played for Tottenham,” he yelled, referencing Arsenal’s hated North London rival.

The Gay Gooners banner hangs inside Arsenal's Emirates Stadium.

The Gay Gooners banner hangs inside Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium. CREDIT: TRAVIS WALDRON


 
An impromptu discussion broke out between four fans — Sunny the Arsenal supporter, Gilhooly the Liverpool fan, a Chelsea supporter and a now-off-duty security guard, a Tottenham fan. They agreed that only “small-minded people” would care if a footballer or fan was gay. “There’s loads of gay players” already, Gilhooly reasoned.
The issue of gay fan groups, though, caused more contention and mystery, and hung on a simple question: if no one but the small-minded care, why do gay fans need to segregate themselves from the rest?
“We don’t self-segregate,” Raval, the Gay Gooners’ media coordinator, responded when we met later that week. “We self-identify.”
“Everybody asks, ‘When is a player going to come out?’” he continued. “But there are far more fans. When are the fans going to come out?”
Ask members of these groups why they exist and a common thread emerges.
For years, organized supporters’ groups have given fans of the same club a social outlet around the sport: people to go to the match with, people to drink with before the match, people to gather with inside and outside the grounds. At The Rocket, an Arsenal supporters’ group from Germany sat in one corner; at the Emirates, the terraces are lined with banners from supporters’ groups (like Arsenal America) from around the world.

Our message is, you’re welcome here. Football is ours as much as it is anyone else’s.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender fans have surely long been a part of this culture too. But only recently have they organized together, to let other LGBT fans know that they are there, that football can be their game too.
“Our message is, any LGBT fan, you’re welcome here,” said Chris Paouros, a co-founder of Proud Lilywhites, the group for LGBT supporters of Tottenham Hotspur. “Football is ours as much as it is anyone else’s.”
“For me, it’s about awareness,” Dolan, of Pride of Irons, said. “It’s about, I’m a fan, you’re a fan, let’s be a family. It’s not your club, it’s not my club. It’s everybody’s. We want anyone who wants to come support football to know they’re not the only one.”
Providing that social outlet is the area, perhaps, where the fan groups have accomplished the most already.
Meet with six members of the Proud Lilywhites and they will, on first glance, appear to have little in common. The two dozen Pride of Irons members at their launch match were old and young, black and white, man and woman. But these groups provide their members a link that they’ve never had with other football fans.
“I came to the stadium one night for a match, and I just happened to look up and see the banner,” Jaime Wildman, a Gay Gooners member, told me. “I thought, ‘Way cool. I have to get in touch with them.’ Now I’m hooked.”
Chris Painter takes the train to London for Tottenham matches. Before he met members of Proud Lilywhites, he made the trip a couple times a season. This early-March match against Swansea City, he said after a quick calculation, brought him closer to a dozen this year.
“I’ve come much more often over the last two or three years because of this group,” he said. He doesn’t sit with other members in the stands — he has his own tickets — but they routinely meet for dinner or drinks before a match, as our group has at a diner down the street from White Hart Lane on this night. “I come more because I’ve got people I can socialize with. People like me.”

Members of the Gay Gooners and Proud Lilywhites together after a promotional match between the two groups.

Members of the Gay Gooners and Proud Lilywhites together after a promotional match between the two groups. CREDIT: COURTESY OF THE PROUD LILYWHITES


 
That sense of welcoming has shown early signs of progress for inclusion in the game. Between the launch of the Gay Gooners and Pride of Irons, similar groups sprouted across English soccer — at Everton, the Rainbow Toffees; at Manchester City, the Canal St. Blues; at Norwich City, the Proud Canaries, to name but a few — and today, LGBT fans are more visible in soccer than they have ever been before. Recent weeks brought the launch of new groups at Charlton Athletic and Leicester City, the club that completed a mad-dash escape from relegation to remain in the Premier League this season.
The groups themselves are a sign of growth from the earliest efforts to organize gay fans, as they have launched in large part with the help of the Gay Football Supporters Network, a social and advocacy organization that links more than 900 LGBT fans across the United Kingdom. GFSN, which formed in 1989 and long predates the rise of individual club fan groups, launched its Fangroup Coordination effort in 2014 to help form groups at different clubs. GFSN FC is often instrumental in helping connect burgeoning groups like Pride of Irons with the clubs those fans support.
Visibility alone isn’t the end goal of many of the fan groups. The biggest have also taken on an active and public role promoting equality inside and outside the sport. The two groups that support opposite clubs in London’s biggest soccer rivalry have worked together to do just that: in February, before Arsenal and Tottenham met on the field, the Gay Gooners and Proud Lilywhites played a five-a-side match and competed in a pub trivia contest as an effort to raise awareness of LGBT fans. The Gay Gooners have marched together in pride parades; Proud Lilywhites members are active in community education initiatives focused on LGBT inclusion.
Classic fan associations are not just social networks. They also provide the type of organization that gives supporters a voice within their club and the sport. At Cardiff City, for instance, fans have protested owner Vincent Tan’s efforts to change the club’s colors from blue to red. Liverpool supporters, in an increasingly common display across England, have challenged rising ticket prices outside their stadium. Newcastle United supporters, distraught with a second-half performance that nearly left the Magpies facing relegation, called on the team’s owner to sell the club and carried banners into the stands in its final matches, declaring, “We don’t demand a club that wins, we demand a club that tries!”
The LGBT groups have given gay and lesbian fans a similar voice, though many of them haven’t needed to be so adversarial. Many English clubs, working in concert with fan groups and outside organizations like Football v. Homophobia and the FA-supported Kick It Out, have undertaken efforts to promote LGBT equality and inclusion on the pitch and off.
Arsenal and Tottenham are again illustrative.
Arsenal has for years had an LGBT member on a fan committee that meets with the club multiple times a season, and in the past two years, its efforts to promote LGBT equality as part of its Arsenal For Everyone initiative have expanded and become even more prominent. Arsenal welcomed the Gay Gooners onto the pitch to unfurl a new banner this season during LGBT history month. Manager Arsene Wenger has spoken out in support of openly gay players, and last year, some of Arsenal’s most prominent players were featured in a pro-equality video that gained international attention.

At Tottenham, the club’s board meets with the Proud Lilywhites, which unlike the other groups is an official supporters’ association and thus an official part of the club, at least twice a year, and the club also held an event on the pitch to promote their launch (a Proud Lilywhites banner is also visible inside Tottenham’s White Hart Lane stadium). Both clubs have featured the groups’ messages in their match day programs. The Lilywhites just completed their first full season, and the expectation is that it will continue to grow and the partnership will only evolve.
“When we look back on our first full season and what we wanted to do, I think we’ll say we did a hell of a lot,” said Simon Gray, the organization’s communications director. Now, he added, the Lilywhites want to “increase membership, increase engagement, increase our presence. It’s where do we go next. You’re always pushing.”
Leviathen Hendricks, GFSN FC’s coordinator, pointed to Norwich City, Newcastle, and numerous teams at the non-league level, as examples of clubs that have also embraced inclusion proactively.
Clubs like Tottenham and Arsenal, where anti-discrimination activists say there is a “culture of inclusion,” might have taken up many of these efforts on their own. But there and elsewhere, the existence and visibility of the fan groups has no doubt amplified the message and made it easier to do more. And at times, the Gay Gooners and Proud Lilywhites have pushed the clubs and their fans farther and seen tangible results.
In 2013, when Arsenal traveled south to Brighton & Hove Albion for a cup match, its supporters collectively showered their opponents with homophobic abuse — a common occurrence at Brighton, the city known as Britain’s “gay capital.” Before Arsenal returned for another FA Cup match this year, the Gay Gooners coordinated with the club to put a stop to homophobic banter before it began. The week before the Brighton match, Arsenal published a message in its match program warning fans that it did not tolerate such abuse. Then it emailed every fan with an away ticket to reiterate the message. The Gay Gooners and the club worked with local police and Brighton stewards to urge them to take homophobia seriously.
“On the actual day, there were three or four incidents of one or two people chanting, but the stewards, with police behind them, immediately stomped it out,” Raval said. “So in two years, we went from 3,000 fans chanting to three or four. That’s massive.”
The Lilywhites have experienced a similar effect.
“If we stand back and don’t say anything” when abuse occurs at Spurs matches, said Gray, “more people now will come to our defense. That’s a powerful thing.”
Members of Pride Of Irons at a celebration event after they launched in March.

Members of Pride Of Irons at a celebration event after they launched in March. CREDIT: TRAVIS WALDRON


 
There is progress yet to make.
Younger fans like those I met at The Rocket may have no problem with gay fans or players, but Dolan, of Pride of Irons, observed that the chants that are common in Brighton have spread to other grounds too, perhaps in part because LGBT fans have made themselves more visible.
“This ultimately rides on the straight fan, to prove they’re larger than the vocal minority,” Dolan told me.
And there is, of course, still the question of when a player in top-flight English men’s soccer will come out publicly. Pinning all of the blame on fans is unfair, just as it was in the United States, where largely supportive crowds have greeted openly gay players in different sports (Arsenal Ladies and England international Casey Stoney came out as the first openly gay player in the English women’s league last year. In an email, she called it “one of the best decisions I’ve ever made” and said that the “overwhelming majority” of fans “have been very supportive”).
The Football Association seems committed to smoothing the path for an openly gay player. It is “working hard to create an environment where if they do decide to be open about their sexual orientation, they know they will have our full support, the support of their clubs, fans, and teammates,” Gibbons, the FA Inclusion Adviser, said of players who might consider coming out.
But given the instances of homophobic abuse that have come from fans in the past, the supporters’ groups remain a crucial part of the effort, which includes the FA’s work and the expansion of a network of gay soccer teams and players across the UK. If one of the goals is to make it easier for a gay player to come out, the overarching idea is to normalize the concept that LGBT people exist in all parts and at every level of soccer.
“We want to be there all the time, so there’s that continuous drip, drip, drip about gay football and gay football fans,” Raval said. “So people just get used to it, and it’s normal.”