Just o ut T d o co m b o r 1, 1005 ▼ 5
world briefs
AUSTRALIA
By a 195-35 vote, the Melbourne University
Student Union has created the paid position of
“Queer Officer,” the Australian gay and lesbian
newspaper Brother Sister reported.
The officer will advocate for lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender and nonheterosexual-iden-
:£:j: tified students, said
Union spokesman
C am eron C utts,
who helped initiate
:£:|: the move.
The
w ord
“queer” was cho
sen, Cutts said, “be
cause we felt that a
gay or lesbian title
w ould
exclude
bisex u als
and
transgenderists
[and] a ‘sexualities’
title leaves you open
to the danger of het
erosexuals wanting to advocate for heterosexual
students, and I’m sure there’s enough of that.”
Members of the conservative Young Liberals
group are threatening a lawsuit to try to de-fund
the new position.
▼ ▼ ▼
Australia’s first gay- and lesbian-youth com
munity center opened in Brisbane in October,
fully funded by the Queensland state government,
reported Sydney’s Capital Q.
The center provides counseling, coming out
and sexuality workshops, a women’s space, so
cial activities, videos and a library. The govern
ment plans to pick up the tab for ongoing expenses
as well.
“Young gays and lesbians need a welcoming
meeting place to come and focus their identities,”
said the center’s Paul Walton.
CANADA
The government of the province of Nova Scotia
has extended benefits to the lovers of its gay and
lesbian employees. Medical and dental care and
spousal-leave rights are included.
The move was supported by the Nova Scotia
Government Employees Union and the Civil Ser
vice Commission.
British Columbia, New Brunswick, Ontario
and the Yukon Territory also offer domestic-
partner benefits to same-sex couples.
Meanwhile, the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia,
extended health benefits to the lover of a lesbian
employee on Oct. 26.
The move came after the city’s insurer. Blue
Cross, said it did not object to covering Michelle
Oliver’s partner, Peggy Wilson. The company
extended the policy without increasing the city’s
rates or administration fees.
Other same-sex couples can obtain the cover
age if they have lived together for 12 months in a
conjugal relationship and declare themselves
spouses, said the city’s Human Resources De
partment.
▼ ▼ ▼
The Canadian government has given Planned
Parenthood Nova Scotia $ 120,000 to survey the
needs of Halifax gay men and lesbians, reported
Xtra!
The project’s 12 officers will also conduct
workshops on homophobia and heterosexism in
schools and hospitals.
▼ ▼ ▼
The British Columbia-based television pro
gram Love Handles, which is similar to The
Newlywed Game, will feature gay couple Jayson
Kanigan and Spencer Dealing in an upcoming
episode, reported Xtra ! West. The couple will
reveal spicy and mundane details of their relation
ship while vying for cash prizes and trips to Las
.Yegw......... .........*............... . „
CHINA
China’s State Education Commission has be
gun distributing sex-education information on
HIV and AIDS to 19 million sixth-graders, 59
million high-school students and 2.8 million uni
versity students, reported Health Daily.
The move follows new findings that 60 per
cent of China’s HIV carriers are under age 30.
Officially, 2,428 Chinese are known to be
HIV positive, but experts say the real number is
likely over 100,000.
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druple in the next decade, especially if the health
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HIV.
SPAIN
Barcelona Mayor Pasqual Maragall met re
cently with Jordi P etit, head o f Sp a i n ’s
Coordinadora Gai-Lesbiana and co-secretary gen
eral of the International Lesbian and Gay Asso
ciation.
Maragall promised to help the financially
troubled ILGA raise money and encouraged the
organization to assist homosexuals in the former
Yugoslavia. The meeting was widely covered by
the Spanish media.
THAILAND
Following outreach to sympathetic members
of the media, the Thai lesbian group Anjaree has
grown from four to 400 members in the past two
years, reported Michael Connors in Brother Sis
ter.
Anjaree (which means “followers of different
ways”) founder Anjana Suvarnananda told
Connors of a Thai lesbian community of toms
(tomboys) and dees (ladies). “Lesbians are not
invisible in Thailand, if you know what you are
looking for,” she said. “There are toms and dees
and it is a matter of noting their styles.”
Suvarnananda said the members of Anjaree
dislike the word lesbian, “because it is associated
with sickness and psychiatry.”
“We have tried to use the term ying-rak-ying
(women-loving women) but the use of ‘lesbian’
in mainstream media makes it difficult to change,”
she said.
In an attempt to expand beyond Bangkok,
Anjaree will hold a meeting in the southern part of
the country in November.
ZIMBABWE
Zimbabwe, home of the vocally anti-gay Presi
dent Robert Mugabe, expects an additional
100,000 AIDS deaths in the next 18 months,
Health Minister Timothy Stamps told the Sunday
Gazette on Oct. 22.
Safe-sex education was slow to arrive in Zim
babwe because Mugabe is a conservative Roman
Catholic.
“I am not trying to be alarmist, but this is the
reality we are facing,” Stamps said. “We are
burying them [people who have died from AIDS]
at a rate of 300 every week.... Twenty-five to 30
bodies of victims of AIDS are put [daily] into
mortuaries of Harare and Mpilo hospitals, where
authorities are now failing to cope with the con
gestion.”
About a million Zimbabweans are believed to
be HIV positive.
Compiled by Rex Wockner
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