As part of the Victoria and Albert exhibition Future Design curated by Mariana Pestana for the World Economic Forum, U.S.-based artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg will premiere her work "Radical Love: Chelsea Manning"—full-color life-sized 3-D printed portraits of Chelsea Manning generated from her DNA, according to a press release. The portraits ( to be shown Jan. 20-23 at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland ) were originally commissioned by Paper Magazine to illustrate its September 2015 feature conversation between Manning and electronic-music artists Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst, design duo Metahaven and Web activist Jacob Appelbaum.
Vietnam is being hailed as a leader on gay rights in Southeast Asia after the country's communist government abolished a ban on same-sex marriage, according to Time.com . Same-sex couples in Vietnam have already begun planning wedding ceremonies, Bloomberg reported, after a law came into force on New Year's Day removing legal prohibition on marriages between people of the same sex.
Qatar has banned The Danish Girl—the film about an artist who undergoes one of the world's first gender-reassignment changes and which stars Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne—from cinemas, The Guardian reported. The move follows protests online about the "depravity" of the film, which had begun screening at some cinemas in Doha. Redmayne, who won the best actor Oscar in 2015 for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, plays pioneering transgender woman Lili Elbe in the movie.
David Mundell, the Conservative Scotland secretary, has come out as gay, The UK Telegraph reported. Mundell, the 53 -year-old MP for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, said in his blog that coming out publically is "one of the most important decisions" of his life and that he "just [wanted] to get on with it." Prime Minister David Cameron reportedly said he's "delighted that [Mundell is] in a position to take this step."
Slovenia's largest newspaper has named as its person of the year for 2015 a gay dentist who works with refugees, The Washington Blade reported. Delo, on Jan. 4, honored Jure Poglajen during a ceremony in the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana. President Borut Pahor and the newspaper's publisher were among those who attended the event.
Newly elected president of the Jamaica Association for Guidance Counsellors in Education ( JAGCE ) Nina Dixon has raised concerns that several of the approximately 800 guidance counselors who work in schools are refusing to offer counsel to students that identify as gay or lesbian, The Jamaica Gleaner noted. The 2012 National Survey of Attitudes and Perception of Jamaicans Towards Same Sex Relationships found that 50 percent of those surveyed became aware of homosexuality by age 14; the study also revealed a persistence of strong negative views toward homosexuality.
A gay Israeli couple have discovered the baby girl they had been caring for since she was born is not their child—and have been forced to return the child to her parents, Gay Star News reported. All Israeli couples who use a surrogate abroad ( in this case, Nepal ) must prove the baby has a biological link to one of the parents. Only once the results—which can take several weeks to come back—have been received can the parents finalize the paperwork and bring the child back home; however, the results in the case showed no link between the baby and the couple. The couple are now waiting for a second surrogate mother to give birth, to see whether their sperm was used in the fertilization of that child.
A Swedish court sentenced a 19-year-old boy in connection with an alleged hate crime against a gay man who was found dead in June with a snake wrapped around his neck, BuzzFeed reported. He and a 16-year-old boy ( accused of killing the victim ) were arrested after the body of a 54-year-old man, originally from Vietnam, was found tied up and dead, dressed in women's clothing in the apartment he shared with his Swedish partner outside the southwestern city of Gothenburg. The older boy was convicted of relatively minor charges, including trespassing and theft, sentenced to three months in detention and then expulsion from Sweden because of his prior criminal record.
Gay men in London who use the drugs GHB and GBL are being given free syringes, with the aim of saving their lives, Gay Star News noted. Robert Palmer, lead adviser and specialist psychotherapist in the Guy's and St Thomas' sexual health department, said, "We have had a large number of presentations, particularly at weekends but also throughout the week, of young gay men ... who have collapsed with coma associated with the use of G, which they are not measuring properly."
Ireland's first transgender candidate is running for election to Stormont, The Irish News reported. Activist Ellen Murray will run for the Green Party in west Belfast in May's Assembly poll. Murray has promised to give a voice to women, young people and the LGBTQ community.
A London-based comedian who came out as a trans woman earlier this year has decided to revert to living as a man, Gay Star News reported. Formerly known as Sarah Franken, the comedian says he has reverted to being Will Franken—and is using male pronouns again—for various reasons, including that he became "utterly bored with the topic of transgenderism." In an essay published in Beyond the Joke, Franken added that living as Sarah wasn't an exclusively negative experience, but "the truth lies somewhere in the middle."
Madonna's ex-boyfriend Brahim Zaibat is in trouble with one of France's most notorious anti-gay politicians, according to LGBTQ Nation. The 29-year-old dancer recently found himself seated behind the founder of France's conservative National Front party, Jean-Marie Le Pen, on an airplane—and then snapped a selfie of him and the sleeping politician with the caption "Let's all vote tomorrow to give them a knock-out blow. To preserve our fraternal France." Now, the angry politician is suing Zaibat, calling the picture unflattering and a breach of privacy, and accusing it of costing his party the election.
