Indigenous leaders versus gay rights
What happens when your country says you can get married, but your tribe says you can’t? In the United States, a woman from Arizona’s Ak-Chin Indian Community is suing her tribe for recognition of her marriage to another woman, saying otherwise tribal housing laws prevent them from living together. Across the world in the Cook Islands, an independent country that shares its citizenship with equal-marriage-friendly New Zealand, a couple was banned from renewing their vows on a beach by a local traditional council.
Turing pharmaceuticals changes mind on drug price
Remember when a pharmaceutical company bumped the price of a vital HIV and cancer drug fiftyfold overnight, and then promised to cut the price again in the face of public anger? Well, actually not so much. Turing Pharmaceuticals now says it won’t cut the price of the drug, but may give discounts to hospitals.
Read more at The Washington Post.
Vietnam approves transgender rights
The government of Vietnam has passed a law allowing trans people to legally switch genders after undergoing gender reassignment surgery. In the past, trans people in Vietnam have had to travel to neighbouring Thailand to get surgery.
Read more at the Bangkok Post.
Israeli Supreme Court protects trans woman’s right to cremation
When Israeli trans woman May Peleg decided to kill herself, she worried that her Orthodox family would bury her under her male name. She hired a lawyer to defend her wish to be cremated after death. This week, her wishes were upheld by the Supreme Court, which ruled her rights were more important than those of her family.
Hope and fear for trans Americans
At The Daily Beast, LGBT campaigner James Esseks says transphobia can be defeated in the United States with the same sort of persuasion that won same-sex marriage. At the same time, however, violence against trans women in the US is soaring. One count says 22 trans people, mostly black or latina, have been murdered this year, nearly twice as many as last year.
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