Fridae

For its eighth edition, Singapore's LGBT pride season will throw the spotlight on things, situations and places that are special to Singapore's LGBT community.

Ismaili Queers: Advocates for Pluralism, a community group of LGBT-identified Shia Ismaili Muslims, proudly marched as a solo contingent for the first time at the Toronto pride parade on Jul 1.

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.

As Shanghai’s week-long pride festival kicked off over the weekend, the festival website with details of the events – shanghaipride.com – has been effectively blocked by a firewall.

Kaohsiung and Hsinchu will hold its second annual lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender pride parade and streetside Rainbow Festival respectively on Saturday.

It’s a bumper crop of events including the Mr Gay Hong Kong pageant, Flotilla, HK Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, Gay Day @ Disney for Hong Kong’s first LGBT festival – an unprecedented collaboration between local LGBT groups. The pride parade will be held Nov 12 after a hiatus last year but organisers say they do not wish to be included in the line-up for now.

Prominent gay rights activists, Americans Dan Choi and Andy Thayer, and France's Louis-George Tin, were among the dozens arrested for trying to hold two unauthorized gay-rights demonstrations in the Russian capital on Saturday.

Cambodia's third annual pride festival is underway from today till May 17, scheduled to coincide with the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO).

Beacon of tolerance or 'parade of live porn', the 34th Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras 2011 theme of 'say something' got the message across on same-sex marriage. But were politicians listening? Justin Ellis reports from Sydney. Photos by Nat Cagilaba.

This year's march is reportedly the largest in Manila since the city held the very first LGBT pride march in Asia in 1994.