Fridae

NGO representatives have rejected the draft of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration as LGBTQs and other minorities get no mention at all in the draft which has been set for ratification by the regional bloc's 10 member-states at their summit in Cambodia this November.

The guide to "help" parents in Malaysia identify gay and lesbian "symptoms" in their children says one indication is that gay men have muscular bodies and like to show their body by wearing V-neck and sleeveless clothes, among other clues.

Newly elected lawmaker Raymond Chan Chi-chuen publicly acknowledges his sexual orientation a day after winning Sunday's election.

In what organisers have dubbed to be a first for South Asia, Nepal will host a LGBTI sports festival in Kathmandu from October 12 to 14 that will see the participation of at least 200 local amateur athletes from the LGBTI community and some 150 foreign athletes from 17 countries.

Thailand's first lesbian movie Yes or No, which was a surprise hit in China and Taiwan, returns to the screen with a sequel this month. Doug Sanders, who reviewed the first on Fridae, reports on the new two hour-long film.

Following complaints from 18 mothers of gay children and gay groups over a sexuality education booklet targeted at parents of teenagers that describes homosexuality as a type of "sexual deviance", the publisher has agreed to revise the sections about homosexuality in its second edition.

An Australian doctor has been severely reprimanded and banned from working as a general practitioner after prescribing a drug to a teen who came to him for help to "cure" his homosexuality.

Fridae's Hong Kong Correspondent, Nigel Collett, meets the author and cast of the first staging of Yezhiwei's classic Hong Kong gay novel.

Fridae's Ng Yi-Sheng speaks with transgender writer, entertainer and activist Tiara Tiar Bahtiar, who had recently launched a book of anecdotes, poems and photographs of local transgender culture, about growing up and how the Bugis people traditionally believe that humans can be grouped into five different gender categories.

Fridae's Nigel Collett caught up with Marshall Moore, the author and publisher Of The Infernal Republic, his new collection of short fiction. He had moved to Hong Kong in 2008 – after a three-year stint in South Korea – where he is once again teaching English.