Georgian legislators approved the third and final reading of a law on “family values and the protection of minors” that would impose sweeping curbs on LGBTQ+ rights, per NBC News. The bill allows authorities to outlaw Pride events and public displays of the Pride flag, and to impose censorship of films and books. Leaders of the governing Georgian Dream party say the legislation is needed to safeguard traditional moral standards in Georgia, where the deeply conservative Orthodox Church is highly influential. Tbilisi Pride Director Tamara Jakeli said the measure would likely force her organization to close its doors.
Also in Georgia, transgender model and Instagram influencer Kesaria Abramidze was found dead at her home in the Didi Dighomi district of the capital, Tbilisi, according to PinkNews. Abramidze, 37, suffered stab wounds. The suspect, 26-year-old Beka Jaiani, allegedly argued with Abramidze; surveillance footage shared by local news outlets appears to show him leaving the building where the model lived, on the evening of her death. Abramidze was best-known for finishing fifth in the 2018 Miss Trans Star International contest, winning the popularity award.
In the UK, conservative critics have described Trafalgar Square’s latest Fourth Plinth commission—which features hundreds of trans and non-binary faces—as an “abomination,” PinkNews reported. Teresa Margolles’ sculpture, Mil Veces un Instante (A Thousand Times in an Instant), consists of plaster casts of the faces of 726 trans, non-binary and gender-non-conforming victims of violence. Even a headline on an article in The Telegraph stated that the sculpture “proves Britain has become a self-loathing country.” Despite all this, Stephanie Lynnette—whose face is one of those featured in the work—said the casting experience was “one of the most liberating examples of allyship.”
Recently appointed Israel Police Commissioner Daniel Levy reportedly made homophobic comments in a conversation in his office earlier this year, according to The Times of Israel. “Hi, how are you? What are those tight jeans? Don’t tell me you are part of the [LGBT] community now?” Levy said according to the quotes cited by the news network Channel 12. When the visitor replied that he was not, Levy allegedly said, “Are you sure? Not that I care—I don’t have anything personal against them, but it disgusts me.” Levy also supposedly said, “I can’t look at two men together in the street holding hands or two men kissing outside; it’s disgusting.” Levy reportedly made the comments while chief of the Coastal District, in conversation with Israel Police spokesman Aryeh Doron (then the Coastal District spokesman), who invited the visitor into Levy’s office. In response to the report, police told Channel 12 that Levy had “friendly and excellent relations with the LGBT[Q+] community and its leaders.”
Lawmakers in the East African country of Seychelles passed a bill that will add an LGBTQ+-inclusive hate crimes provision to the country’s penal code, per The Washington Blade. The National Assembly voted 18 to eight to approve the Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, 2024. The hate-crimes provision specifically includes sexual orientation, gender identity and HIV/AIDS status, among other factors. Violators could face a fine and/or up to two years in prison for the first conviction as well as a fine and/or up to three years in prison for any subsequent convictions.
The Kenyan LGBTQ+-rights organization The Center for Minority Rights and Strategic Litigation has adopted a virtual legal aid platform that allows its lawyers to offer free services to queer people remotely, The Washington Blade noted. The Center for Minority Rights and Strategic Litigation (CMRSL), which unveiled the online LGBTQ+ Legal Aid Clinic platform, cites the move to lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, including the wide use of online meetings. “The LGBTQ+ Online Legal Aid Clinic is, we believe, the first of its kind in Kenya providing pro bono legal advice services directly to the LGBTQ community,” CMRSL stated.
Keir Starmer’s first address at the Labour Party conference as prime minister touched on a wide range of topics—but LGBTQ+ issues were missing, PinkNews reported. Despite not explicitly mentioning LGBTQ+ people or issues, such as the rising number of hate crime rates, the theme of equality of opportunity and acceptance was in the speech. Labour will strive to make the UK a place that gives an “equal voice to every person” and a place “that won’t expect you to change who you are just to get on”, Starmer said. Starmer became prime minister in July after ousting Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives from power.
In Spain, out film director Pedro Almodovar spoke at the San Sebastian Film Festival. According to Variety, Almodovar—fresh from winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for his English-language debut The Room Next Door—was at this latest festival to celebrate both the film and his receiving the event’s highest honor, the Donostia Award for career achievement. Almodovar said that he’d been recently asked by a journalist if he’d ever question his talent over the years. “But I never thought about my talent,” the auteur said. “What I thought about what was that I have this vocation which is much more powerful than myself. So if I didn’t manage to make films, I’d be the saddest person in the universe.”
The Tom of Finland Foundation announced the winners of the Tom of Finland Emerging Artist Competition, a release noted. The recipient of this year’s Tom of Finland Grand Prize was Pietro Spirito, an Italian artist based in Paris. Spirito said, “As an openly gay and queer artist, my work celebrates the freedom to be oneself without compromise. I never expected to receive this award, and it is a great honor for me. Tom of Finland represents, to me, the highest form of freedom of expression.” The judges of this year’s contest included performance artist Cassils; fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier; book editor Dian Hanson; photographer/director Nick Knight; 2022 Tom of Finland Grand Prize-winning painter Lukasz Leja; DJ/curator Princess Julia; author/performance artist Brontez Purnell; and filmmaker Gus Van Sant.
A petition trying to oust Chief Justice Malcolm Bishop from his post because he is gay is still circulating around Tonga, according to Kaniva Tonga. Bishop, from Wales, took over the role earlier this month. Senior Tongan lawyer Clive Edwards Sr. alleged that advocates for LGBTQ+ rights, such as Bishop, may be breaching Tonga’s laws prohibiting sodomy. Edwards also expressed concerns about Bishop’s ability to remain impartial in court cases involving sodomy over which he would preside.
In Germany, the Diocese of Hildesheim announced new lay contact people for queer-sensitive pastoral care, including Michael Hasenauer, Linda Menniger and Manuel Rios Juarez, per New Ways Ministry. The diocese’s announcement read, “As a contact person, you can provide support, for example, if a lesbian couple registers their child for baptism, a trans person wants to celebrate their transition with a blessing ceremony, or parents of a non-binary child are looking for pastoral care. Your pastoral care also includes a commitment to building a mindful culture for the life situations in which those being accompanied find themselves. … Above all, the three representatives are available to answer requests from parishes and institutions for queer pastoral services.” It added that the three “are building on the work of the Brunswick Dominican Father Hans-Albert Gunk, who was available for many years in the [diocese] as a contact person for pastoral discussions with [LGBTQ+] people.”
Out Bridgerton and Fellow Travelers star Jonathan Bailey won an award after raising thousands of pounds for an LGBTQ+ youth charity, per PinkNews. Bailey raised £33,452 ($44,500) for Just Like Us after running the Hackney half marathon in May. The actor became a patron of the charity in 2023 and accepted the celebrity fundraiser of the year award at the 2024 GoCardless JustGiving Awards, hosted by TV’s Rylan Clark, on Sept. 18. “It’s amazing to be able to highlight brilliant causes, especially for the LGBT+ community. I am very honored,” Bailey said after receiving the award. “This is the stuff that means the most.”
LGBTQ+ two-time Olympic gold medallist and trailblazing boxer Nicola Adams is slated to make her Hollywood debut in the upcoming action-thriller The Gun on Second Street, per Deadline. The film—which will also feature Poppy Delevingne, Tom Arnold and Rumer Willis—follows two Pittsburgh police partners whose lives are dramatically altered by a tragic incident. Adams—a Brit who retired from boxing in 2019 with an undefeated professional record—has studied at the Identity School of Acting (IDSA) in London, whose alumni include John Boyega, Malachi Kirby and Letitia Wright. In 2022, Adams and model Ella Baig welcomed a baby boy.
Strictly Come Dancing winner Joe McFadden announced his engagement to his partner, PinkNews revealed. The Scottish actor has kept his private life away from the spotlight and never previously spoken about his sexuality, so it was something of a surprise when he announced his plans to marry artist Rob Smales. McFadden won Strictly Come Dancing with professional dance partner Katya Jones in 2017.
Out Scottish-American actor John Barrowman (Torchwood) revealed the real reason he quit the UK show Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins after just 32 minutes on the series, The Independent noted. The Dancing on Ice judge was seen being violently sick on the first episode of the show that has celebrities undergo a series of grueling survival challenges from the Special Forces selection process. “I’m not a vegan or a vegetarian, but they made everybody eat vile tofu,” he told The Sun. “I would never eat tofu in my life, but you’re so hungry, you just eat it.” After the meal, Barrowman—who suffers from motion sickness—endured a two-hour car journey to the task site. “I thought, ‘I’m not going to make myself ill or hurt myself in order to try to prove something that I don’t need to prove,’” he added. However, fans were unimpressed, with one saying, “It will take me longer to eat my dinner than John Barrowman lasted in the new series of Celebrity SAS.”
Paul Carruthers, 42, was crowned Mr. Gay World 2024 on Aug.26 at The Alnwick Garden in Northumberland—making it the the first time in its 15-year history that the contest was held in Great Britain, and the second time a British trans man won the title, Instinct Magazine noted. Carruthers is from Leeds, and he is a trans-healthcare nurse and radio DJ who’s also a father of two. In a statement via Mamba Online, Carruthers said, “Winning Mr Gay World is a surreal and humbling experience. I am incredibly proud, yet shocked, to have been chosen from such a remarkable group of men from around the globe, each representing values and causes vital to our community. … My main focus, as it was when I held the title of Mr Gay Great Britain, is advocating for trans rights, trans healthcare, and particularly supporting trans youth.”
In the UK, Phillip Schofield said he will appear in a new TV series after leaving This Morningmore than a year ago, the BBC noted. The 62-year-old will appear in Channel 5’s Cast Away, which will see him stranded on an island off Madagascar for 10 days. In May 2023, Schofield agreed to step down from ITV’s This Morning immediately after more than 20 years, following reports of a rift with co-presenter Holly Willoughby; a week later, he admitted to having had an “unwise but not illegal” affair with a younger male colleague and has not made a TV appearance since. (Schofield met the man when the latter was 15 but said the affair didn’t start until he was 20.) Speaking with the BBC last June, Schofield said the affair was “consensual” but his “fault” and his “biggest, sorriest secret.”
On Oct. 7, Israeli singer Eden Golan will perform the song “October Rain”—which was disqualified from the 2024 Eurovision contest—at the United Nations, according to YNetNews. Algemeiner said that the performance will mark the one-year anniversary of the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes Eurovision, thought the song was too political and removed it from the competition. Golan made it to the top five after being booed on stage by anti-Israel protesters, experiencing death threats, and dealing with one of the competition’s jury members refusing to give her points because of his personal opposition to Israel.
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