Latest news with #GLADD
The Guardian
01-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Free to be': participants and spectators fill parade route before start of Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
A bedazzling band of floats and dancers are waiting in the wings ready to snake their way into Australia's grandest celebration of queer culture. Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras participants and a crowd of thousands decked in splashes of florescent pink and yellow, alongside trademark bright rainbows, began filling the parade route in Sydney's queer-capital of Darlinghurst late Saturday afternoon. 'I've been coming since I was 17 … seeing the community gather throughout the evening is enjoyable on its own,' Jed Piasevoli said, as he watched the activity from his street-side camping chair. 'It's a night to embrace all of the queer energy,' his friend Timothy Trisic said. 'It's a chance to let loose and be ourselves for at least one night.' Among them will be Bhushan Joshi and co, who will be decked out in summer gear with 1980s and '90s vibes, as medical group GLADD's float pumps out a remix of Olivia Newton-John's Get Physical. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email 'We want to challenge the shame and guilt that the queer community sometimes feels towards their body or keeping fit,' the emergency consultant said. Another group marching to a Newton-John hit – Xanadu – will be the Peacock Mormons, a group founded by Brad Harker and husband Scott in 2018 to protest policies enforced by church leadership. About half of the group's 100 members are from religious backgrounds, including formerly devout Catholic and straight-living Brian Dunne. He came out at the age of 65 after a cancer diagnosis. Nine years later, he enjoys the full support of his former wife, five children and 13 grandchildren. 'To me, that's more of a Christian attitude than unfortunately what some church people have towards LGBTQIA+ people,' Dunne said. The 2025 Mardi Gras theme is 'Free to be', a message Harker and Scott work to reinforce to young LGBTQ+ people through the Peacock Mormons group and simple actions such as holding hands on the street. Mardi Gras was a celebration of how far the community had come while sadly marking an uptick in verbal abuse, threats of violence and assaults, Equality Australia said. 'It's a reminder that for many people in our communities, particularly trans people, such targeted acts of hate are a year-round occurrence and that despite our gains we are still fighting for equal rights and protections in the law,' chief executive Anna Brown said. Another float will carry a Rocky Horror Picture Show theme, with members of Free, Gay and Happy performing the Time Warp. The group was founded by Teresa Leggett after she supported her former husband, Michael, to come out. 'He thought it would be better to be dead than gay,' she said, 'so I took him to his first Mardi Gras to show him how amazing the gay community was.' They attended their first Mardi Gras together more than two decades ago and have returned every year since with an elaborately crafted float. Being part of the parade was surreal, Ms Leggett said. 'It's a sound you've never heard before, 250,000 people at that very moment wish they were you,' she said.
Al Jazeera
29-01-2025
- Health
- Al Jazeera
Trump signs order to defund gender transitions for LGBTQ youth
United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to halt the funding and promotion of gender transitions for LGBTQ youth. In his order signed on Tuesday, Trump said the federal government would no longer 'fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support' gender transitions – also referred to as gender-affirming care – for those aged under 19. 'Countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding,' the order said. 'Moreover, these vulnerable youths' medical bills may rise throughout their lifetimes, as they are often trapped with lifelong medical complications, a losing war with their own bodies, and, tragically, sterilization.' Trump's order covers a range of treatments and procedures for young people suffering from gender dysphoria – which describes the distress felt by people whose biological sex does not match their gender identity – including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone therapy and surgery. The medical treatment of transgender youth has been a controversial and politically divisive issue in the US, where those calling for greater inclusion of LBGTQ youth have clashed with those expressing concern that minors are not mature enough to make decisions about potentially life-altering procedures. The number of young people diagnosed with gender dysphoria in the US has surged several-fold in recent years, though only a relatively small minority of those have undergone medical interventions, according to various analyses. An analysis by the Reuters news agency and health technology company Komodo Health found that 282 minors with a prior diagnosis of gender dysphoria underwent mastectomies in 2021. About 4,230 minors received cross-sex hormones and just under 1,400 received puberty blockers that same year, according to the analysis. Trump's order also directed agencies to end their reliance on guidance from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, which it accused of peddling 'junk science.' GLADD, one of the biggest LGBTQ rights organisations in the US, blasted Trump's order, describing its rhetoric as 'appallingly inaccurate, incoherent, and extreme.' 'Health care for transgender people is supported by every major medical association. The Trump administration's unhinged obsession with attacking transgender people and their health care does not reflect medical fact and does not represent the reality of trans people, youth, and their freedom to be themselves, and make their own health care decisions, without being discriminated against and lied about,' GLADD said in a statement. 'The Trump administration's obsession comes at a high cost for every American who wants government to address actual issues like gun violence, abortion access, and rising costs.' Major US medical organisations, including the American Medical Association and American Academy of Pediatrics, have expressed support for gender-affirming care, though several European countries, including the UK, Sweden, Denmark, and France, have taken steps to roll back access to treatments such as puberty blockers. Last year, a landmark review commissioned by the UK's National Health Servic e concluded that the evidence behind medical treatments for youth with gender gender dysphoria was 'remarkably weak' and such interventions should only be taken with 'extreme caution'. Among other findings, the Cass Review said that puberty blockers were not found to relieve gender dysphoria or improve 'body satisfaction' and evidence about their effects on psychological wellbeing, cognitive development and fertility was insufficient or inconsistent.
