Sarah Tekath - Journalist, Writer, Translator

LEBANON: The country has a reputation in the Middle East for being the most liberal of all countries when it comes to the LGBTQ+ community in general.

The two men Pavel Stotcko and Evgenii Voitsekhovskii met via the Russian online network VKontakte and fell in love. Pavel’s family knew that the two men lived together, but homosexuality was kept from their fathers. Pavel’s mother, in turn, knew but preferred the word friendship when she spoke of the two.

RUSSIA: A kiss and a murder. This is how recent events in Russia can be summarized in the LGBTQ+ community. Renowned LGBTQ+ activist Yelena Grigoriyeva was found dead in St. Petersburg in mid-July, with several stab wounds in the chest and signs of strangulation.

GEORGIA: Although homosexuality has been legal in Georgia since 2000, it is taboo in large parts of the country with far-reaching consequences for lesbians, gays, and queer people in the country.

The Southeast Asian state of Brunei Darussalam has massively tightened the laws on same-sex intercourse. The revision of the Sultanate’s Criminal Code, which will come into effect next Wednesday, provides for the death penalty for homosexuals by stoning. This rule also applies to foreigners, and therefore also lesbian and gay tourists, who are in the country on the island of Borneo. In the strictly conservative sultanate, homosexuality was already illegal under current Sharia law.

NETHERLANDS: Gender, Gender Identities, Sexuality – The recently released Dutch documentary ‘Beste Reizigers’ by draftsman Nirit Pelet for VPRO Tegenlicht deals with the future of gender segregation.

BERLIN: At the recent international tourism fair in Berlin, the Minister of Tourism of ITB partner Malaysia caused a scandal at the opening press conference.

With a poster campaign, the travesty artists of the group ‘Travestie für Deutschland (TFD)’ protest against the so-called ‘Homo Cure’. Seven posters with well-known Berlin travesty artists and drag queens have been published on the Internet, sending a clear message, such as “Why fix what is not broken.” The impetus for the action was given by recent recommendations by Protestant Free Churches on homosexual persons to be treated on the basis of their sexual orientation. With its campaign of a protest poster campaign fighting Homo cure, the satirical group wants to draw attention to the conversion therapies that are still not forbidden in Germany. More about this here on Couple of Men.

On February 2nd, 2019 over 15.000 people joined the Mumbai Gay Pride to celebrate the freedom of homosexuality. It was the first time after India’s Supreme Court decriminalized Section 377 in September 2018, a colonial law that declared gay sex to be illegal. The parade that started from Mumbai’s August Kranti Maidan – where Mahatma Gandhi began the Quit India Movement against the British occupation in 1942 – included 27 events to raise awareness for the LGBTQ+ community and educate people about it. We selected some of the most colorful and powerful pics of the gay pride event in India sharing the love and success of the openly queer event Mumbai Pride 2019 on Couple of Men.