Author: patrick

Saeed Kamali Dehghan Fri 26 Apr 2019 Play Video 2:07  Speech that led to death threats against an Armenian trans activist – video Armenia’s first registered transgender woman has received death threats after making a historic speech in her country’s national assembly. Lilit Martirosyan became the first member of her country’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community to take to the parliamentary podium, speaking out against discrimination at a session of its committee on human rights. A video of the speech has been shared around the world. Martirosyan expressed solidarity with a community that has been “tortured, raped, kidnapped, subjected to physical violence, burned, immolated, knifed, subjected to murder attempt, killed, emigrated, and robbed”. She said transgender people in Armenia are subjected “to stigma and discrimination in social, medical, legal, economic areas, and … [are left] unemployed, poor and morally abandoned”. The speech, two weeks ago, has since sparked a backlash in Armenia, where homosexuality has been decriminalised but discrimination against LGBTI people is rife. There have been anti-LGBTI protests in front of the national assembly and verbal attacks made by some parliamentarians have included calls for her to be burned alive.  Lilit Martirosyan. Photograph: Courtesy of Lilit Martirosyan The prime minister and the main opposition have tried to blame each other for allowing Martirosyan’s speech. “This was the first time in Armenia when a transgender woman spoke from a...

Zoe Drewett Wednesday 10 Apr 2019 9:41 am A trans activist has won a High Court battle to force Mumsnet to reveal the name of a user who allegedly abused her online. Stephanie Hayden tweeted an image of the court order and wrote: ‘The days of defaming, abusing, and harassing transgender people on Mumsnet behind the cloak of anonymity are over.’  Mumsnet – which is complying with the order – has until 4pm today to hand over the user’s full name, address, email address and birth date under a court order. She argues she will not be able to pursue legal action for defamation unless she knows the name of the user. Sir Roger Scruton sacked as Government adviser after using ‘language of white supremacist’ The comments have been deleted from the website. Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts told The Times the site did not oppose Stephanie’s court application, but said: ‘Clearly, if we thought the details we released might be used maliciously, we would be happy to contest the order if one of our users asked us to do so.’ Last year the website – which has 14 million users – brought in stricter rules after facing criticism for posts that were found to be ‘offensive or hateful’ to people from the trans community. It banned comments that were deemed to be ‘aggressive’ or made ‘sweeping negative generalisations’, the...