Fridae

Human rights activists are demanding an investigation into the case involving athlete Pinki Pramanik, who was arrested on charges of rape and facing claims she is a man, then held in a male prison ward and filmed in a video while undergoing a gender determination test that later went viral.

Long known to be in the "glass closet" – a phrase used for a person who is known to be gay but is not out publicly, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper has confirmed this week that he is gay.

It is a record turnout for Pink Dot, the only public rally to advocate LGBT acceptance in Singapore, and which has even inspired similar events around the world. Watch the video here.

Laos, a small communist country sandwiched between Thailand and Vietnam, celebrated its first LGBT Pride on Monday, with support from the US Embassy.

Queensland's Liberal National Party government have not only voted to downgrade civil partnerships to “registered relationships”; same-sex couples and singles will also be denied the right to have a child by surrogacy under plans flagged by the state government.

Alex Au, a Singapore gay activist, social commentator and former Fridae columnist, has been awarded the Humanist of the Year 2012 by the Humanist Society (Singapore) for being a "vocal defender of Singapore’s secularism and an outspoken critic of religious extremism, pseudoscientific institutions and creationism."

A gathering held to mark the end of this year's International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) celebrations in the Cameroonian capital of Yaoundé turned violent after a mob forced their way into the venue.

Luka Rocco Magnotta, a 29-year-old Canadian porn actor, was arrested Monday in Berlin after a week-long international manhunt and expected to stand trial in Canada for murdering a 33-year-old Chinese man, who is believed at one point to have been his lover.

Sri Lanka's LGBT community, long struggling for acceptance, celebrate their eighth Pride Festival this week and are featured in a special issue of Sri Lanka's Life Times in which it declared: "Life Times Sri Lanka supports the decriminalisation of private acts between consenting adults, gay or straight!"

Barclays Bank becomes the first bank and joins Google to support Singapore's largest LGBT-supportive public rally to be held June 30.