Fridae

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.

Dense living conditions in Hong Kong do not provide much privacy for lesbians living with their families. As a result, lesbians often locate alternative spaces to develop support networks with other women. Denise Tang's new book maps the effect Hong Kong’s spaces have on the lesbians who inhabit them, and the psychological and institutional spaces provided by education, religion and queer organisations.

The lawyer for Dharun Ravi, who was found guilty of spying on and intimidating his gay roommate, and sentenced to 30 days in jail last month, has filed a notice to appeal his hate crime conviction.

Darwin, the capital city of Australia's Northern Territory, has been selected to host the 3rd Asia Pacific Outgames in May 2014.

Alex Au and other LGBT activists from Cambodia's Asean neighbours recently heard the stories of lesbian couples hailing from the deep provinces of Cambodia who survived the Khmer Rouge years about survival, staying together, and raising children and granchildren by adopting children – some from their own brothers and sisters, others anonymously.

With less than a month to go before the annual Pink Dot Singapore event slated to be held Jun 30, this year's campaign video dubbed Someday, "invites Singaporeans to envision a future in which Singapore's LGBT community will be able to openly celebrate their diversity, free of discrimination and prejudice."

Alex Au, who was part of a 3-member contingent from Singapore, reports on the Cambodia ASEAN Pride festival held last month that hosted activists from its neighbours in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), which effectively made it the first ever ASEAN Pride event.

Nigel Collett reviews Imagining Gay Paradise: Bali, Bangkok and Cyber-Singapore, a book by journalist and academic Gary L. Atkins that depicts gay paradises in Southeast Asia and the men who created them: Walter Spies, a gay German painter in Bali; Khun Toc who conceptualised the well known sauna Babylon in Bangkok; and Dr Stuart Koe who founded Fridae.

Lady Gaga's Born This Way Ball premiered in Singapore last night. This marks the last stop of her multi-city Asian tour, due to the official cancellation of her Jakarta performance. Ng Yi-Sheng looks back at a month of pride and protests.