THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

An LGBTQI+-rights group in Ghana said a group of men kidnapped its director and held him for ransom before they released him, per The Washington Blade. Rightify Ghana in a series of tweets said a group of seven "homophobic men" in the country's Ashanti Region on Aug. 20 held its director "hostage." "He was beaten and threatened with a knife by the men who demanded for a ransom to (be) paid before releasing him," said Rightify Ghana. The State Department's 2021 human-rights report noted "extortion attempts" against LGBTQI+ people have taken place in Ghana, which is among the dozens of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized.

The founder of BlueCity Holdings—the operator of China's largest gay dating app, Blued—resigned as chairman and CEO of the company shortly after the company was privatized and delisted from the NASDAQ this month, The South China Morning Post reported. Ma Baoli (who goes by the pseudonym Geng Le) announced the change with a post to his personal WeChat account, as seen by the publication. "We have turned ideals into reality and made something impossible possible," Ma wrote, hinting at the difficulties of running a business catering to the LGBTQ+ community in a country where same-sex marriage is not legal and the government has taken an increasingly stringent stance against content depicting same-sex relationships.

In a Q&A, new OutRight Action International Executive Director Maria Sjodin (they/them) talked about their vision for the organization and much more. Sjodin stated Out Right is committed to helping LGBTIQ grassroots in underfunded regions as well as supporting "the creation of laws and policies aimed at protecting and advancing equality for queer people in places where landmark change is possible and needed." Read more at https://outrightinternational.org/content/qa-our-new-executive-director-maria-sj%C3%B6din.

Scottish golfer Hailey Davidson is prepping to become the first trans woman in the world to join the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tour, according to PinkNews. Davidson is on the brink of qualifying for 2023 Epson Tour status, the official qualifying tour for the U.S. women golfers organization. Davidson made history in 2021 when she became the first trans woman to win a professional U.S. tournament.

The German Bishops' Conference awarded this year's Catholic Media Prize to the LGBTQ+ documentary Wie Gott uns schuf: Coming-out in der Katholischen Kirche ((How God Created Us: Coming Out in the Catholic Church), generating controversy, Christian Network Europe noted. The documentary—in which 125 employees of the Catholic Church come out as queer—was released in January as part of the "Out in Church" campaign. The Catholic Media Prize jury said, among other things, that the film is "deeply touching and harrowing, and shames and shakes." The prize will be awarded by the chairman of the journalistic commission of the German bishops' conference, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, on Nov. 3.

Police in Ireland are examining "high-quality" CCTV footage that captured the moment a gay man was brutally beaten on a Dublin bus, PinkNews reported. In the early hours of Aug. 14, 26-year-old Mark Sheehan was attacked as he returned home with friends after celebrating his birthday at The George nightclub. A group of men on the bus began hurling slurs such as "queer," "emo freak" and "f****t" about the way the group were dressed. As the bus pulled into Templeogue village in south Dublin, one of the men kicked Sheehan's earphones out of his hands before head-butting him on the upper deck, causing the victim to bleed profusely.

Out Leadership—which calls itself the oldest and largest coalition of global companies working to improve LGBTQ+ equality in the world—welcomed the D. E. Shaw group as its newest member firm, a press release noted. The D. E. Shaw group is a global investment and technology development firm with more than $60 billion in investment capital and more than 1,900 people around the globe as of June 1.

To help LGBTQ+ tourists travel safely, the German portal Spartacus has published a new report for LGBTQ+ travelers about how gay-friendly a country is—including the best and worst countries in Africa, Business Insider Africa noted. South Africa was rated the safest travel destination in Africa; the worst country is Somalia, followed by Libya, Nigeria, Egypt and Cameroon. Spartacus' Gay Travel Index is at spartacus.gayguide.travel/blog/spartacus-gay-travel-index/ .

Despite announcing that it would abolish Section 377A of the Penal Code, a law that criminalized sex between men, Singapore's government also announced that it will double down on its restrictions of LGBTQ+ content in films released in the city-state, Out Magazine noted. Singapore recently gave the family film Lightyear an NC16 rating, meaning that children under the age of 16 were not allowed to see it, because of a single same-sex kiss in the film. "This being a children's cartoon, a significant number of FCP members felt that the overt depiction of same-gender marriage would warrant a higher rating," Infocomm Media Development Authority's Films Consultative Panel Chair Cheryl Ng said.

Queer artist and The Voice Australia finalist Johnny Manuel is back with the release of "Again," the first single of his upcoming EP Younger Skin, out Oct. 7, per a press release. Produced by Aidan Laprete (Amazon's The Wilds), Younger Skin is Manuel's first-ever solo project. Manuel said, "'Again' is an emancipation of sorts. It's me celebrating parts of myself I was told I wasn't supposed to. I'm shaking off the opinions I was afraid of." The video for "Again" is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuSf8ZVxAKc.

French singer-songwriter Chris (formerly known as Christine and the Queens) discussed his gender identity and his new stage name in a recent TikTok video, Out Magazine noted. The artist, now known as Christine and the Queens presents Redcar, shared that he now uses he/him pronouns and that he has been presenting as masculine in his personal life over the past year. In a March interview with The New York Times, the singer discussed his journey with gender, revealing that it has "always been tumultuous."

Netflix is producing a documentary series about British pop singer and former Take That member Robbie Williams, per Variety. The multi-part series will launch in 2023 and promises to be an "unfiltered, in-depth examination of a global icon and natural-born-entertainer who had to navigate the highs and lows of being in the limelight for more than 30 years." The musician's top solo songs include "Millennium," "Rock DJ," "Feel" and "Angels."