This past weekend, the international community witnessed a rare event: the birth of a new, independent nation. After years of fighting, bargaining, and voting, South Sudan has officially split from the rest of Africa’s geographically largest country, becoming the continent’s 54th state. Amidst all the celebrating and speculating, however, there’s one group in South Sudan whose future is unclear: lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals.

The first step toward ending this horrifying practice may be to change the dialog surrounding it.

For better or worse (usually worse) the issue of public and/or shared bathrooms seems to come up a lot in the discourse of gay rights and culture. The idea that straight military personnel would have to (gasp!) shower and share a restroom with their openly queer colleagues was an argument that came up repeatedly during the debate over the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. And who can forget the much-publicized potty-related shenanigans of figures as varied as George Michael and Senator Larry Craig? Even when not robed in sensationalism and scandal, however, the issues surrounding shared spaces as simultaneously intimate and public as restrooms and sexuality rarely fail to spark controversy.

The latest site of this uproar is Brazil. A few of the country’s extensive networks of samba schools, popular clubs or academies dedicated to teaching and performing the African-Brazilian dance, have recently instituted a policy setting aside bathrooms expressly for use by homosexuals and transvestites. The policy has incited protests and outcry on both sides of the issue.

Es macht nichts. It DOESN’T matter.
That is what the European fans are telling Nadine Angerer in response to her coming out as bisexual in a recent interview with the German paper Die Zeit.

It’s been exactly a year since I first wrote about the troubling situation in Uganda in this space, highlighting the incredibly alarming and soon-to-be much publicized anti-homosexuality bill that was proposed there. After a year, the mainstream media attention has died down a bit, but members of the Ugandan LGBT community continue to face new and increasingly dangerous threats to their well-being and basic human rights.

As someone who’s been working in the advertising industry for a few years now, I know that some of the best and most exciting projects to work on are those done on behalf of causes that one is most passionate about. That’s why it was exciting to recently have my attention drawn to the work of a Polish campaign advocating for and raising awareness of civil partnership laws in the Central European country called Love Doesn’t Exclude.

Power Up Gambia is a grassroots non-profit helping Gambian communities with providing renewable energy to power their hospitals.

For an annual event meant to be a celebration of solidarity, more often than not Pride has a funny way of becoming a rainbow-colored stage upon which many of the most divisive issues plaguing the international LGBT community play themselves out in a typically dramatic fashion.

One perennial debate surrounding Pride is over the nature of the festivities themselves – should Pride be a debauched celebration or somber opportunity for advancing LGBT rights? Something in between? Both? If it is to be used as an opportunity for activism, should this activism be limited to gay rights alone or incorporate other Progressive issues, such as immigration reform? And then there’s the question of inclusion itself. The persistent criticism in the US that the modern LGBT community is completely dominated by affluent Caucasian men has spawned events such as Trans Pride, Black and Latino Pride and special events just for queer women. While some find these specialized celebrations empowering, others feel that they’re unnecessary divisive.

Rarely are all of these ongoing debates so overtly put on display as they were last week at Berlin’s 2010 Pride festivities.

Global Gaze has been tracking the progress India has made in terms of gay rights over the past few months, and in many ways it’s been quite impressive. However, a recurring theme in the column continues to be that formal, legal advancements in gay rights in any country must also be accompanied by cultural and societal progress if true equality for sexual minorities is going to be achieved.

In this regard, we’ve discussed previously the use of traditional Indian dance to highlight the gay rights struggle. This past week another medium emerged in the country and the international press that continues to show the opening of society towards LGBT peoples: film.

In honor of Earth Day 2010 being tomorrow, instead of highlighting an international LGBT news story or issue, I’m going to take a brief moment to highlight one that affects everyone on this planet: preserving the environment. I can in no way be considered a true environmentalist, but hopefully I can point out some resources that might be helpful for the green gays among us.