The Jerusalem Post reported that an explicit call for the murder and execution of LGBTQ+ people was made in KAN 11 corporation’s broadcast, according to a complaint filed by The Aguda: The Association for LGBTQ Equality in Israel. The complaint concerns a program on the state-owned Arabic-language channel Makan 33—the sister channel to the primary state-owned KAN 11. During the interview with media personality Saeed Badran, he made unprecedented statements against the gay community in Israel for several minutes. Among other things, Badran said that “homosexuals are outside of nature” and that he supports killing them. The Aguda said, “These are statements that have the power to incite serious violence against LGBT people and directly endanger the lives of LGBT people from Arab society in particular, many of whom are also in danger every day.” KAN 11 also criticized Badran’s statements.
LGBTQ+ veterans awarded special badges to mark the injustice they faced say they will refuse to wear it until the government pays them compensation, the BBC reported. Representatives from the Army, the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force attended a ceremony in Westminster to receive the first of thousands of pin badges planned for those who served during 1967-2000, when it was illegal to be LGBTQ+ in the military. (Homosexuality was decriminalized in the UK in 1967 but a ban continued in the armed forces.) However, the group told Defense Secretary John Healey they would not wear the badges until all 49 recommendations of an independent report were enacted, including financial compensation for those affected.
Oscar—a full-length story ballet choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon about the life and work of one of the 20th century’s most infamous queer figures, Oscar Wilde—made its world premiere at the Australian Ballet, Australia’s ABC News noted. “[In Oscar] I can represent my culture, my sexuality, on stage in a ballet, an art form that I love and revere but feel that it’s time for us to move forward,” Wheeldon said. Bringing new and broader audiences to ballet is front of mind for Wheeldon, who regularly works in musical theater; before Oscar he choreographed MJ the Musical, which opened on Broadway in 2022. His last work with the Australian Ballet was the hit Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which will run in Chicago next June.
Yet another gay man has been murdered in South Africa, The Washington Blade reported. The province’s Department of Social Development, Youth, Women, People Living with Disabilities, Sports, Arts, and Culture said authorities discovered Lazarus Ikaneng Thomas’ decomposing body in a home on Sept. 7. Thomas—who was buried at Kimberly’s Phutanang Cemetery recently—was reportedly strangled and had acid poured on his body. OUT LGBT Well-being Civil Society Engagement Officer Sibonelo Ncanana said five people have been killed in suspected hate crimes in Eastern Cape over the past four weeks.
A queer Nigerian streaming TV channel started a global signature collection drive that demands YouTube restore its platform that was suspended under vague circumstances, The Washington Blade noted. Omeleme TV—which airs gay love movies in Nigeria and has more than 5,000 subscribers—called YouTube’s action “not only surprising but disappointing” to the LGBTQ+ community. The TV channel notes homophobia around consensual same-sex love is often shrouded in taboo in society and that Omeleme has been the only primary YouTube platform to debunk such beliefs.
The revised undergraduate curriculum guidelines for forensic medicine issued by India’s regulator for medical education on Sept. 12 no longer describe sodomy and lesbianism as “unnatural sexual offenses,” per The Indian Express. A version issued on Sept. 3 contained some regressive ideas, and appeared to bring back content that the Madras High Court had ordered removed in 2022. Also, per the revised curriculum, students will be taught about informed consent in sexual intercourse, history of gender- and sexuality-based identities, and the history of decriminalization of adultery and consensual homosexual sex.
Ahead of Rome’s Synod on Synodality’s final assembly in October, Cameroonian Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya has defended African Catholics’ opposition to LGBTQ+ inclusion—and said the opposition would continue, New Ways Ministry noted. Fuanya raised gender and sexuality topics because they had become flashpoint items during last fall’s General Assembly of the Synod in Rome that ultimately failed to mention LGBTQ+ people. Per Crux, Fuanya said, “Our stand had nothing to do with culture; it was about fidelity to the truth—fidelity to what Christ taught.”
The life of the late British gay writer, director, actor, songwriter, singer, film director and poet Noel Coward is explored in the movie Mad About the Boy: The Noel Coward Story, from Greenwich Entertainment, per a press release. The release described the movie as telling Coward’s “rise from a shabby suburb of London to becoming the greatest multi-talented artist of all time—told in his own words, music and extraordinary home movies.” Alan Cumming narrates while Rupert Everett voices Coward. The film will debut Oct. 9 at the IFC Center, and Oct. 11 in select theaters nationwide and on VOD.
Nonbinary actor Emma Corrin (currently on the big screen as Cassandra Nova in Deadpool & Wolverine) and singer Charli XCX plan to star in a new movie that has been described as a “queer, feminist fairytale” alongside Nicholas Galitzine, according to PinkNews. The new project—100 Nights of Hero—is an adaptation of Isabel Greenberg’s graphic novel of the same name and is inspired by One Thousand and One Nights (also known as Arabian Nights), the legendary collection of folk tales. Galitzine is best known for his roles in queer rom-com Red, White & Royal Blue as well as playing a boy-band star with Anne Hathaway in The Idea of You.
The AP spotlighted Texas Kadiri Moro—an unusual LGBTQ+-rights ally in Ghana who is heterosexual, married to a woman and is a father of six. For months, the teacher and practicing Muslim has been conducting solo demonstrations against a bill that criminalizes members of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as its supporters. “Homosexuality does not affect anyone,” Moro told the AP. “We have activities that people are doing in the country that are worse than homosexual activities,” he added, citing adultery as an example. The parliament, he said, should be more concerned with “other crimes and pollution.”
In the UK, a tribunal heard that lesbian social worker Elizabeth Pitt was harassed by her colleagues at Cambridgeshire County Council after making “non-inclusive and transphobic” comments about a co-worker’s “gender-neutral” dog, The Telegraph reported. Pitt was awarded £63,000 (more than $83,000 U.S.) after bosses reprimanded her for expressing gender-critical views at a meeting of the authority’s LGBTQ+ employee group. She had disagreed with a male colleague who claimed his dachshund was “genderfluid” and that he put a dress on the dog to provoke “debate about gender” in January 2023.
For spring 2025, fashion designer Erdem Moralıoglu spent the past few months living in a world populated by 1920s lesbians—most notably Radclyffe Hall, the author of the 1928 lesbian novel The Well of Loneliness, The Telegraph noted. Hall embraced all the Savile Row trends of the day: immaculate white dress shirts, pins and cufflinks, three-piece suits, bowties, homburgs and more. Hall and Una, Lady Troubridge, lived relatively openly together until Hall’s death in 1943.
Brigitte Macron—the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron—was awarded €8,000 ($8,900) in damages against two women who falsely claimed that she is transgender, PinkNews noted. She sued Amandine Roy, an online fortune teller, and Natacha Rey in 2022 after the women posted a YouTube clip in 2021 claiming Brigitte was assigned male at birth. In a 2022 interview, the first lady said she had ignored the comments at first, but eventually decided to act after the rumors began affecting her parents and family.
Eleven Thai drag artists from all over the world are ready to compete on season three of Drag Race Thailand, per a press release. Hosted by Pangina Heals, the new season of Drag Race Thailand will premiere Oct. 16, exclusively on WOW Presents Plus worldwide. Contestants include Benze Diva, Frankie Wonga, Gawdland, Gigi Ferocious, Kara Might, Nane Sphera, Siam Phusri, Shortgun, Spicy Sunshine, Srirasha Hotsauce and Zepee.
Morrissey has claimed that ex-bandmate Johnny Marr now owns all of the “trademark rights and Intellectual Property” of the UK act The Smiths, and can tour as a band without him, NME noted. “J Marr has successfully applied for 100 per cent trademark rights / Intellectual Property ownership of The Smiths name,” Morrissey’s post began. “His application has been accepted on whatever oaths or proclamations he has put forward. This action was done without any consultation to Morrissey, and without allowing Morrissey the standard opportunity of ‘objection.” The two were bandmates in The Smiths for six years and released four albums together during that time. However, they’ve had friction over the past few years over their contrasting political views; last year, Morrissey was criticized when he, among other things, referred to Hitler as “left wing” and said that London Mayor Sadiq Khan “can not talk properly.”
Nicky Ponsford was named World Rugby’s new director of high performance—becoming the first woman to hold such a role at the international federation on a permanent basis, RugbyPass.com noted. According to a World Rugby press release, Ponsford’s notable achievements include resetting the approach for targeted unions to prepare for pinnacle events, including Women’s Rugby World Cup 2021 and WXV; and significantly contributing to the reshaping of the global calendar to drive greater harmony between the club and country within the women’s game. Ponsford said, in part, “This is an era-defining time for a sport with a clear growth mandate over the next decade and I am excited about working across the business.”
Police in the Indian state of Kerala have opened investigations into allegations of rape against several popular movie stars from the region’s Malayalam-language film industry, according to CBS News. Cases have been registered against some of the industry’s biggest names after female actors started speaking out in a new manifestation of the #MeToo movement triggered by a government report that revealed a culture of sexual exploitation in Kerala’s entertainment industry. The claims have rocked the south Indian film business—which is separate from the Mumbai-based, Hindi-language film industry known as Bollywood—amid a wave of national outrage over the brutal rape and murder of a female doctor in the eastern city of Kolkata.
The post WORLD Call for violence, veterans, Wilde ballet, South Africa murder appeared first on Windy City Times.