Category Archives: News

News stories on lesbian rights, violence and discrimination against the lesbian community, and our unwavering response.

(LVD) Japan: Lesbian Couple To Sue Government to Stay Together

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Lesbian couple Ai Nakajima and Kristina Baumann (pictured) are one of ten same-sex couples who are expected to file a joint lawsuit next month against the central government to challenge its current law prohibiting them from getting married.
Ai Nakajima of Yokohama wed her partner German Kristina Baumann in Berlin two years ago, but after presenting their German marriage certificate to be listed on the Japanese ancestral register, their application was met with a resounding ‘no’.
Nakajima said told Japanese newspaper The Asahi Shimbun that while the current reality was difficult, she and her wife plan to challenge how her native country sees same sex couples.
“We are facing a reality where a same-sex couple cannot get married in Japan,” she said.
“We would like to challenge the current situation with the lawsuit, which will also be helpful for a number of people from sexual minorities,” Nakajima said.

Continue reading: https://qnews.com.au/same-sex-couples-to-sue-japanese-government-for-marriage-rights/ (source)

(LVD) Japan: Forbidden marriage, lesbian couples rebel

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Chizuka Oe and Yoko Ogawa have been living together for 25 years. But in attempting to formalize their union by a marriage act in a Tokyo borough hall, they knew in advance that they would suffer an end of inadmissibility.
This lack of recognition weighs on the daily lives of the two women. At the funeral of Mrs. Ogawa’s mother, relatives looked at her companion with an evil eye. “They did not know anything about her and asked who she was, I was tired and sad to have to explain that we were a lesbian couple, just like an ordinary heterosexual couple.”
For her, it is certain, “if there was a legal system of marriage between people of the same sex, it would have been easier”.
(Translated)

Chizuka Oe et Yoko Ogawa vivent ensemble depuis 25 ans. Mais en tentant de faire officialiser leur union par un acte de mariage dans une mairie d’arrondissement de Tokyo, elles savaient d’avance qu’elles essuieraient une fin de non-recevoir.
Cette absence de reconnaissance pèse sur la vie quotidienne des deux femmes. Aux funérailles de la mère de Mme Ogawa, des proches ont regardé sa compagne d’un mauvais oeil. “Ils ne savaient rien d’elle et m’ont demandé qui elle était ? J’étais fatiguée et triste de devoir expliquer que nous étions un couple de lesbiennes, tout comme un couple hétérosexuel ordinaire”.
Pour elle, c’est certain, “s’il existait un système juridique de mariage entre personnes de même sexe, cela aurait été plus facile”.
(Original)

Continue reading: https://www.challenges.fr/societe/japon-interdits-de-mariage-des-couples-homosexuels-se-rebellent_642203 (source)

U.S: Lesbian couple were denied service at H&R Block

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A same-sex couple in Merced says they filed a state complaint against a local H&R Block claiming employees discriminated against them and denied them tax services.

Sylvia Valdez said she visited the H&R Block location on 12 W. Main St. in Merced on March 31 to get help filing her and her wife Lynn Werner-Valdez’s taxes as a married couple, filing jointly. The couple was legally married in Washington state in 2013, according to their marriage certificate. And Sylvia provided the last two years of tax returns filed as a married couple to aid H&R Block.

But when a tax preparer noticed Sylvia’s spouse’s name was female, the employee told Sylvia the taxes could get “complicated,” Sylvia said. And after a call to a manager, Sylvia said the employee claimed the couple classified as a domestic partnership and couldn’t file their taxes as a married couple.

Continue reading: https://www.mercedsunstar.com/
news/local/article229321549.html
(source)

Brazil: state murder of lesbian remains unpunished 3 years later

Luana Barbosa

After three years of Luana Barbosa’s murder, the case is still in the judicial process without effectively holding the aggressors accountable. Black, lesbian, mother and outlier, Luana was killed at age 34 due to brain injuries caused by three military police officers who beat her in the corner of her house, in the Jardim Paiva II neighbourhood, in the northern area of ​​Ribeirão Preto (São Paulo state). The assaults took place after Luana refused to be checked by the soldiers of the 51st Military Police Battalion (PM), demanding a female police presence. She was sent to the Emergency Unit of the Hospital de Clínicas (HC-EU), but died five days after the violence.
(Translated)

Luego de tres años del asesinato de Luana Barbosa, el caso aún sigue en proceso judicial sin responsabilizar efectivamente a los agresores. Negra, lesbiana, madre y periférica, Luana fue asesinada a los 34 años por lesiones cerebrales provocadas por tres policías militares que la golpearon en la esquina de su casa, en el barrio Jardim Paiva II, zona Norte de Ribeirão Preto (estado de São Paulo). Las agresiones ocurrieron después de que Luana se rehusó a ser revisada por los soldados del 51º Batallón de la Policía Militar (PM), exigiendo una presencia policial femenina. Ella fue encaminada la Unidad de Emergencia del Hospital de Clínicas (HC-UE), pero murió cinco días después de la violencia.
(Original)

Continue reading at: https://kaosenlared.net/brasil-madre-negra-y-lesbiana-asesinato-de-luana-barbosa-sigue-impune-luego-de-tres-anos/ (Source)

Update: Update: Brazilian court considering trial for police accused of killing Luana Barbosa in 2016

Update: Chinese social media giant reverses ban on lesbian content amid uproar

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China’s online LGBT community has won a victory against China’s Twitter-like Weibo over its recent silencing of lesbian and bisexual women.

Weibo on Monday restored a community titled “les” (short for lesbian), after first shutting it down on Friday, as Chinese internet users have flooded the site with symbols in support of lesbians and messages of solidarity.

Continue reading: https://www.inkstonenews.com/society
/chinas-weibo-reverses-lesbian-ban-amid-protests/article/3006393
(source)

Original article: China: Weibo is removing content with the #les hashtag

U.S: Republican preacher hits out at ‘demonic’ lesbian Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot

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E.W. Jackson, who was the Republican Party nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia in 2013, hit out at Lightfoot after her victory in the April 2 runoff election.
Speaking on radio show The Awakening on April 3, Jackson said the mayor-elect’s comments are “a satanic, demonic twisting of language.”
The Conservative pastor commentator said: “Chicago just elected a lesbian woman, and she got up and said, ‘We’re showing the world it doesn’t matter who you love.’
“I almost get nauseous every time I hear that because we know that’s a euphemism for, ‘It doesn’t matter who you have sex with.’”
He added: “They’re not talking about love, they’re talking about who you have sex with. And specifically, they’re saying it doesn’t matter if you have sex with someone of the same gender.
“The euphemism is just disgusting. It really is, because this is a satanic, demonic twisting of language.”

Continue reading: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2019
/04/08/republican-preacher-demonic-lesbian-chicago-mayor-lori-lightfoot/
(source)

Italy: Engaged lesbians face abuse, discrimination on college campus

L2L Italy

Two lesbians engaged to be married have said they are the victims of ongoing abuse and discrimination.

Known only as GB, 27, and LS, 21, the pair said they have no respite from ongoing taunts about their sexuality. They even face from some of their friends in group chats they belong to.

The pair study psychology and cultural mediation (the study using data to analyse the cultural difference between people) respectively. They are students at the University of Padua in the northern Italian region of Veneto. Both women live on campus in the Copernicus Residence.

‘When they came to tell us that our displays of affection were too noice, we laughed, then it degenerated and we realized that this was an attack on us, because we are lesbians,’ the pair told media.

Continue reading: https://www.gaystarnews.com/article/
engaged-lesbians-face-abuse-discrimination-on-college-campus-in-italy/#gs.68c6gs
(source)

Ireland: Lyra McKee, talented young, lesbian journalist killed at riot

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Lyra McKee was killed on Thursday (local time) by a gunman shooting in the direction of police officers, shortly after she tweeted a photo of a police vehicle being pelted by petrol bombs, with the caption: “Derry tonight. Absolute madness.”

A year after moving to Londonderry, the celebrated young journalist had written about how she looked forward to “better times ahead and saying goodbye to bombs and bullets once and for all”.

But just three months later she was killed during a riot that underscored the challenges still faced by Northern Ireland, 21 years after the Good Friday Agreement largely ended decades of deadly sectarian bloodshed.

Continue reading: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-20/lyra-mckee-remembered-at-vigil-in-northern-ireland/11032882 (source)

Update: https://listening2lesbians.com/2021/09/19/update-men-charged-in-murder-of-lesbian-journalist-lyra-mckee/

France: death threats against lesbian columnist

Emilia Lopez

Sale putain de sales gouines!! = dirty fucking dirty dykes!!

On April 13, Emilie Lopez went to the police station again to file a complaint for death threats and homophobia: “Again this morning, I had to file a complaint, for death threat this time. Just because I’m in love with the most wonderful woman in the world. That’s France, today. And it does not have to last anymore, “she wrote with a screenshot of the message received, filled with insults: ” We’re going to kill you and all your family (…) your days are counted “, among others.
(Translated)

Le 13 avril dernier, Emilie Lopez s’est de nouveau rendue au commissariat pour porter plainte pour menaces de mort et homophobie: “À nouveau ce matin, j’ai dû porter plainte, pour menace de mort cette fois. Simplement parce que je suis amoureuse de la plus merveilleuse femme du monde. C’est ça, la France, aujourd’hui. Et il ne faut plus que ça dure”, a-t-elle écrit avec une capture d’écran du message reçu, rempli d’insultes : “On va te crever toi et toute ta famille (…) tes jours sont comptés”, entre autres.
(Original)

Continue reading at: https://www.femmeactuelle.fr/actu/news-actu/une-chroniqueuse-de-cyril-hanouna-menacee-de-mort-2077377 (Source)

China: 3 men target lesbians in online scam

L2L China

From November 2018 to the time of being captured, more than 20 victims across the country were defrauded of a total amount of more than 170,000 yuan. The target of fraud was lesbians. When committing crimes, the men pretended to be women, chatting with different groups of women, and establishing a relationship with the victim(s) during the chat.
(Translated)

从2018年11月到被抓获时,骗取了全国各地20多名被害人的钱财,金额共计17万多元,诈骗对象都是女同性恋。在作案时,他们要伪装成女性,和不同群体的女性聊天,在聊天中,与受害人建立情侣关系。
(Original)

Continue reading at: http://www.mnw.cn/quanzhou/fengze/2149568.html (Source)

Update: Brothers arrested for lesbophobic hate crime against Carolina Torres

Carolina Torres Urbina

The Investigative Police (PDI) confirmed that the Sex Crime Investigation Brigade detained two individuals who are the alleged perpetrators of the lesbophobic attack against Carolina Torres, which took place during the early hours of the 14th February in the commune of Pudahuel, and who have been fugitives since then.

These are the brothers Miguel Angel and Reynaldo Cortez Arancibia, aged 24 and 30 respectively – Colo-Colo fans who were arrested in the same commune of the attack, and who had already assaulted the Torres four months before when they pushed her from a micro and left her with her knees destroyed.

The chief prosecutor of Pudahuel, Eduardo Baeza confirmed that on Friday morning both will be charged with attempted murder, aggravated by being an alleged hate crime.
(Translated)

 

Durante la tarde de este jueves, la Policía de Investigaciones (PDI) confirmó que la Brigada Investigadora de Delitos Sexuales detuvo a dos individuos que son los presuntos autores del ataque lesbofóbico en contra de Carolina Torres, que se llevó a cabo durante la madrugada del 14 de febrero en la comuna de Pudahuel, y quienes se encontraban prófugos desde entonces.

Se trata de los hermanos Miguel Ángel y Reynaldo Cortez Arancibia, de 24 y 30 años respectivamente, hinchas de Colo-Colo, quienes fueron detenidos en la misma comuna del ataque, y quienes ya habían agredido a la joven cuatro meses antes, cuando la empujaron desde una micro y la dejaron con las rodillas destrozadas.

Por otra parte, el fiscal Jefe de Pudahuel, Eduardo Baeza, confirmó que ambos serán formalizados durante la mañana de este viernes por el delito de homicidio frustrado, con la agravante de la motivación por odio.
(Original)

Continue reading at: https://www.cnnchile.com/pais/pdi-presuntos-autores-ataque-lesbofobico-carolina-torres_20190411/ (Source)

 

Original article:

Updates:

China: Weibo is removing content with the #les hashtag

L2L China

The Chinese microblogging website Sina Weibo has reportedly been removing posts and comments with the hashtag #les.

The ban on the term, which is short for lesbian, was discovered by users who use the site’s “super topic” feature, where people can create online communities using a hashtag.

Continue reading: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2019
/04/15/weibo-bans-lesbian-hashtag/
(source)

Ukraine: Lesbian conference targeted by lesbophobic protesters

Editorial note: Listening2Lesbians is watching the harassment and demonstrations against the European Lesbian Conference as shown in this story, and the conference’s twitter feed and Facebook timeline. We will keep our readers updated.

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About 350 lesbian activists to meet in Kyiv on April 11-14 to discuss their rights and challenges at the second European and Central Asian Lesbian Conference or EL*C.
Olena Shevchenko fears the conference, which will be held in hotel Tourist on Kyiv’s left bank, can be attacked by ultra-right groups.
“Someone broke the windows last night in a hotel and wrote: “LGBT out!” Shevchenko said. The police and National Guard promised to secure the event, she added.

Continue reading: https://www.kyivpost.com/lifestyle/
people/journalism-of-tolerance/hundreds-of-lesbian-activists-to-meet-in-kyiv-on-april-11-14.html?cn-reloaded=1
(source)

 

European Lesbian Conference on Facebook

U.S: Lesbian Parents Of Toddler With Cancer Receive Lesbophobic Message

Tiffany and Albree Shaffer with their children (via Facebook)

The parents of a one-year-old girl diagnosed with advanced cancer were shocked to receive a hateful message on social media from a stranger.

“My prayers for Callie. I was going to donate $7600.00 to her fund, but I found out her parents are lesbian. I’ve chosen to donate to St. Jude due to that fact. Sorry. I’ll still pray for her though, but maybe it’s God’s way of getting your attention that she needs a mommy and a daddy, not two mommies.”

Continue reading: https://instinctmagazine.com/
post/parents-of-toddler-with-cancer-receive-hateful-message/
(source)

Callie’s GoFundMe Page:  https://au.gofundme.com/
TinyButMighty17

Australia: Lesbian women forced to pay fees to Royal Brunei Airlines after cancellation

Image courtesy of Sarah Ward

Two lesbian women have hit out at travel group Flight Centre for asking them to pay hundreds in cancellation fees to Royal Brunei Airlines (RBA).
Shannon, 26, and Jaqueline, 28, from Australia booked the flights with RBA with a stopover in Brunei last month through Flight Centre. However, after learning about the implementation of Sharia Law – which would see gay and bisexual men stoned to death and queer women face public lashing – they cancelled.
Flight Centre agreed to waive the cancellation fees. The group informed the pair they still needed to pay a $300AUS ($213.42/€190.08) to Royal Brunei Airlines.

Continue reading: https://lgbt.10ztalk.com/2019/04/05/
lesbian-women-forced-to-pay-fees-to-royal-brunei-airlines-after-cancellation/
(source)

Brazil: Bus conductor abuses lesbian

Bah Fernandes

Bah Fernandes, so titled in the Facebook post, revealed that she suffered serious humiliation on her way to work. The girl who works as a dog walker in São Paulo, revealed everything in a post spread in social media, which soon obtained many shares. Bah reports that she did not have credits on her single ticket, so she had to make the payment through a $ 20.00 bill. The bill collector… “frowned at having to give the change”. He threw the change over the cash box and, shouting, started calling her a dyke.
(Translated)

Bah Fernandes, assim intitulada no post do facebook, revelou que sofreu sérias humilhações a caminho do trabalho. A garota que trabalha como passeadora de cães em São Paulo, revelou tudo em um post difundido nas mídias sociais, que logo obteve vários compartilhamentos. Bah relata que, não tinha créditos no seu bilhete único, então teve que efetuar o pagamento através de uma nota de $20,00. O cobrador …“fez cara feia ao ter de dar o troco”. Ele jogou o troco em cima da caixa de dinheiro e, aos gritos, começou a chamá-la de sapatão.
(Original)

Continue reading at: https://observatoriog.bol.uol.com.br/noticias/2019/04/lesbica-e-ofendida-por-cobrador-de-onibus-apos-pedir-o-troco (Source)

Update: Chicago Elects Lori Lightfoot as Its First Lesbian Mayor

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In a runoff election, Lori Lightfoot has been elected the mayor of Chicago today. Announced by Associated Press on Tuesday night, this makes Lightfoot not only the first Black female mayor in the city’s 182-year history, but also the first lesbian.

Continue reading: https://www.out.com/politics/2019
/4/02/chicago-elects-lori-lightfoot-first-lesbian-mayor
(source)

Original Article:  U.S: Lesbian mayoral candidate targeted by lesbophobic flyers

U.S: Brooklyn lesbian attacked by Uber driver

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[Taylor] De Souza had to get stitches on her head after she said her Uber ride ended with her being physically assaulted by the driver.
“He said ‘you f—ing lesbian, get out my car,'” De Souza said. “He told me he’ll chop me up and throw me in the river.”
De Souza told PIX11 she did not get out of the vehicle because she said she didn’t feel safe. According to De Souza, that’s when the driver started smoking, despite her telling him she has asthma.

Continue reading: https://pix11.com/2019/04/02/
exclusive-brooklyn-woman-says-uber-driver-attacked-her/
(source)

Lesbians march against stigma and discrimination in Guadalajara, Mexico

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Lesbian march in Guadalajara (Fernando Carranza).

In Guadalajara, more than one hundred women participated in the IX Gay Lesbian March. … To the rhythm of “we do not want males to kill us” and “my body is mine and I decide”, women demanded that they be accepted with the sexual orientation they chose.
(Translated)

En Guadalajara, más de cien mujeres participaron en la IX Marcha Lésbico Gay. … Al ritmo de “no queremos machos que nos asesinen” y “mi cuerpo es mío y yo decido”, las mujeres exigen que se les acepte con la orientación sexual que eligieron.
(Original)

Contine reading at: https://www.milenio.com/politica/comunidad/realizan-marcha-lesbico-gay-en-guadalajara (Source)

The 11-Year-Old Who Wants To Be America’s First Lesbian President

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Ella Briggs, an 11-year-old Connecticut resident, became her state’s first openly gay “kid governor” in January ― and she’s aiming to one day have national and even global impact.

She’s already so invested in public service, she said she would love to become America’s “first lesbian president”.

Still, the road to living authentically hasn’t been easy. Ella has said she was harassed at the public school she attended in East Hampton, Connecticut, after she first identified as a lesbian. In third and fourth grade, she said her classmates ostracized her and refused to sit next to her in class.

“I think they were just scared of me,” she told the Post. “They were afraid to touch me.”

When she told a substitute teacher that she identified as gay, Ella said, the teacher told her that subject wasn’t “school appropriate.”

“It really hurt my feelings,” she told the Courant. “I cried in the bathroom and I don’t want kids to feel like that because like I already didn’t feel like I fit in at that school.”

Continue reading: https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au
/entry/connecticut-ella-briggs-kid-governor-lesbian-president_n_5c950965e4b0a6329e15f504
(source)