Fridae

The Australian Capital Territory's hopes of being the first state to legally recognise same-sex civil union ceremonies have been snuffed out after the Rudd Government announced on Sunday that it would override the planned laws despite earlier promises that it would not use it powers to do so.

There's a hunky new guy spinning at Taboo: DJ Shigeki, a Japanese deejay and music maker previously based in Sydney and now living in Singapore. Fridae interviews him about his life and career.

The life story of playwright and poet Oscar Wilde, who is today widely celebrated as an artist persecuted for his homosexuality, is being told in Wilde starring Stephen Fry and Jude Law. The movie will be shown at a Gala Fundraiser on May 13 to benefit Indignation, Singapore's gay pride season.

Banned a decade ago in Singapore, Wilde which depicts the rise and fall of the widely known gay Irish-born playwright, Oscar Wilde, will be shown at a Gala Fundraiser on May 13 to benefit Indignation, Singapore's gay pride season.

The authorities has fined a free-to-air station S$15,000 for airing a programme that showed a gay couple and their adopted baby; on the same day, a segment of the Ellen DeGeneres Show where the host condemned homophobia and the recent murder of a 15-year-old gay student was glaringly snipped by the same TV station.

It's time to explore your inner Viking as registrations for the 2009 World Outgames in Copenhagen open online. Whether you aspire to be a Little Mermaid in the pool or a Hamlet at the human rights conference, this is your opportunity to revel under the midnight sun.

Fridae's Beijing correspondent Dinah Gardner caught up with arguably the most prolific lesbian feminist filmmaker in the history of cinema, Barbara Hammer who was in town for a screening of several of her over 80 experimental shorts, videos and features.

Now 61, Ashok Row Kavi is the first person (and for a long time the only person) to come out as a gay man more than two decades ago and talk about gay rights in India.

A prominent private all-boys school in Brisbane has come under attack for its decision to disallow final-year students from taking same-sex partners to their end-of-year dance in June.

The Red Cross of Thailand announced last week that it would change its screening process for blood donors following strong protest from gay rights groups reacting to an earlier announcement on a blanket ban of gay blood donors.