Fridae

A website for Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) in Vietnam was launched this month in Ho Chi Minh City with the support of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).

"What upsets me the most is when parents say that they think their children should sacrifice and change their sexual orientation to save the 'face' of the family," Wu Youjian's message to parents of gay children.

Nigel Collett reviews Prayers for Bobby, a 2010 Golden Globe-nominated film based on the true story of Mary Griffith (played by Sigourney Weaver) – now a prominent campaigner for the US NGO, Parents, Families, Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) – whose son, Bobby was gay and committed suicide in 1983.

Jamie Yee, a transgender woman, and her parents share how they came to accept and support Jamie's decision to transition 12 years ago in the newest video in Pink Dot's Focusing on Our Families campaign ahead of its 15 May event in Singapore.

Eileena Lee and her mother share their journey about coming to terms with the former's lesbian sexual orientation, and supporting each other as they both seek answers in a world where gay issues are often misunderstood and misrepresented.

'Family values' is a term much bandied about by anti-gay 'pro-family' groups who accuse gays of being anti-family, Aniruddh Vasudevan, director of the Shakti Resource Center, Chennai shares a conversation he recently had with his parents in a local newspaper.

A lesbian couple in Beijing who are looking to conceive with sperm from a donor shares with Dinah Gardner their hopes and challenges.

A group that was set up to "expose the ex-gay ministries as a hoax" warns of a soon to be released bogus study that will prove the "success" of ex-gay therapy and urges ex-gay groups to "back up their outrageous tales of transformation."

Fridae columnist Tan Chong Kee 'fesses up to being a bitch during testy Chinese New Year family interactions in his younger days and ponders what his comebacks would be to those all too familiar questions this year.

On this Valentine's Day, Fridae's Alvin Tan pays tribute to those special someones who, like our partners, are equally indispensable to our lives: our gay and lesbian friends.