The organizing committee of Pride in Sofia, Bulgaria, today announced that the equality march, which is the central part of the events calendar of Pride celebration, will take place on June 27, 2015. Sofia Pride is the largest annual human rights event in Bulgaria and the most important visibility raising initiative of the LGBTI community.
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On the 20th January, 2015, the Parliament of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) constitutionally defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Furthermore, it created a constitutional hurdle to possible future legislation on same-sex civil unions. The amendment defines that “[m]arriage shall be a life union solely of one woman and
Israel is to re-draft its recognition laws, so trans people will no longer be forced to undergo surgery to legally change their gender. Israel’s Interior Ministry announced it would allow citizens to change their gender designation on ID cards from now on – without requiring them to go through gender reassignment surgery first. The change is
Newly appointed member of the House of Lords Michael Cashman: ‘Unless we set ourselves a goal, we cannot hope to achieve it.’ Lord Michael Cashman has said, if Labour is elected in the next UK government, the party will set itself a goal to achieve decriminalization of homosexuality worldwide by 2020. Speaking at the Gay
The U.S. Supreme Court shall rule this year upon whether gay couples have a right to marry across all states. A successful ruling would see gay marriage being legalized throughout the U.S. In an exciting development, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case pertaining to the legalization of same-sex marriages throughout the
On January 18th, 2015 the Member of the Lithuanian Parliament Algirdas Vaclovas Patackas publicly warned the Board Chair of the national LGBT* human rights association LGL that the organization is “playing with fire” and that its activities might result in a “black, repulsive and totally unacceptable response” similar to that which “happened in Paris.” The
Every year in January, nearly 2,600 world leaders, CEOs, heads of nonprofits, leading academics, and journalists from more than 100 countries gather in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum annual meeting. This forum – more simply known as “Davos” – is one of the most highly visible and prestigious meetings of its kind and generates an
The Portuguese Parliament voted today for the inclusion of gender identity as a protected ground of discrimination in the field of employment. Gender identity will now be added to sexual orientation and several other grounds in the non-discrimination clauses of the Portuguese Labour Code. The proposal by the Socialist Party was approved with votes from
On January 14, 2014 Austria’s top court lifted a ban on gay adoption, bringing the country into line with many other EU countries. The Constitutional Court said the law contravened the European Human Rights Convention. Explaining the decision, chief judge Gerhart Holzinger said there was ‘no objective argument for a differing rule based solely on
Members of a commission charged with writing Thailand’s new constitution this week said they have proposed the inclusion of “third gender” people in its non-discrimination clause. Kamnoon Sittisamarn, a spokesperson for the Constitution Drafting Committee, a panel the Thai military created after scrapping the country’s previous constitution following last May’s coup, told Reuters on January
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reaffirmed his opposition to laws that criminalize homosexuality on January 12, 2015. “I staunchly oppose the criminalization of homosexuality,” said Ban during an event in the Indian capital of New Delhi that marked the 70th anniversary of the U.N.’s founding. “I speak out because laws criminalizing consensual, adult same-sex relationships violate
Nils Muižnieks, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, has criticized recent comments in a newspaper interview about homosexuality and society by Latvian President Andris Bērziņš, the LETA newswire reported on January 12, 2014. “Latvia, along with other Council of Europe Member States, is bound by the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees