THEGAYUK

Author: News Desk

  • Man charged with the murder of three gay men in Reading Terror incident

    Man charged with the murder of three gay men in Reading Terror incident

    A man has charged with three counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder, police say.

    The Crown Prosecution Service has given police the go-ahead to charge Khairi Saadallah, 25 of Basingstoke for the murders of three men who were killed last Saturday night in Reading.

    The charges come following an investigation into an incident at Forbury Gardens in Reading on the evening of June 20, where a number of people were stabbed in what the police described as a “terrorism incident”.

    Saadallah is accused of killing James Furlong, 36, David Wails, 49, and Joe Ritchie-Bennett, 39, on 20 June.

    A post mortem confirmed that each of the men died from a single stab wound.

    Mr Furlong, 36 was a teacher at The Holt School in Wokingham. He taught history and politics.

    Mr Ritchie-Bennett, 39 worked for a pharmaceutical company. He was originally from Philadelphia in the US. He had lived in the UK for 15 years.

    Mr Wails was a senior scientist at a global chemicals company.

    All three were described as “true gentlemen” by the CEO of Reading Pride, Martin Cooper.

    Saadallah came to live in the UK from Libya in 2012 claiming asylum. He was given leave to remain in 2018.

    Saadallah is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on Monday, June 29.

    Fundraiser for victims hits £13,200

    Over 600 people have already donated to a fund to help families cover the costs of funerals.

    An official fundraiser has been created by Reading Pride to help the families of Joe, James and David.

    t is also hoped that the funds raised will go towards a permanent tribute to the three men in Forbury Gardens in Reading town centre, where the three were killed.

    The fundraiser page has a statement which reads,

    “With the tragic event within our community in Reading on Saturday 20th June 2020, we’re hoping to raise some money and funds to help support the families for funeral costs.

    “As well as a permanent tribute within Forbury Gardens, so everyone has a physical memento to remember the tragic loss of lives that have occurred.”

    Counter Terrorism Policing South East continues to lead this investigation.

  • When will gay bathhouses and saunas reopen in the UK?

    When will gay bathhouses and saunas reopen in the UK?

    Fans of bathhouses may have to wait a little longer than hoped for saunas and bathhouses to reopen.

    Many parts of the LGBT+ economy is starting to awaken from the COVID-19 Lockdown, with the return of gay sex and lifestyle shops last week in England, but other sectors, such as nightclubs and gay saunas are still having to wait their turn to open.

    Hopes were dashed for many sauna fans when gyms, spas and other health venues were not included in the list of business types that could fully reopen during the last official announcement by the government on what businesses could reopen – provided they were “COVID SECURE”.

    It had been hoped that many businesses could fully reopen on the 4th July, however many health businesses and nightclubs were not included, despite outdoor gyms and pubs and bars being permitted to open from the beginning of July – provided they could prove they are “COVID Secure” – a term the UK government has been using to denote that businesses are making sure that customers and employees are adhering to rules and restrictions that can halt or slow the spread of coronavirus.

    Possible mid-July opening?

    However, a little glimmer of hope came in the form of a Tweet from the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Oliver Dowden, who said, “Subject to public health, our aspiration is to reopen gyms & leisure facilities in mid-July”

    Read how the Gay Sauna experience may differ after lockdown eases. One sauna in Nottingham shares what changes will happen.

  • POWER NAP | Here’s how long you should be napping for alertness, creative and decision making

    POWER NAP | Here’s how long you should be napping for alertness, creative and decision making

    10-20 minutes

    This is the prime time of naps. A shorter nap of between 10 and 20 minutes is just long enough to get your alert levels high. Naps this long mean that you stay in the NREM (non-rapid eye movement) stage of sleep. According to the Cleveland Clinic, “During NREM sleep, the body repairs and regenerates tissues, builds bone and muscle, and appears to strengthen the immune system.”

    30 Minutes

    This is the worst length of time for napping as it causes “sleep inertia“. Research shows that 30 minutes of napping can leave you with hangover-like feelings.

    60 Minutes

    Sixty minutes is known as the best nap length for fact remembering. Apparently, 60 minutes is the best napping time for getting slow-wave sleep which is brilliant for memory consolidation. Perfect if you have an interview or exam to swat up for.

    90 Minutes and more

    This would be considered a full cycle nap. You’ll be hitting NREM and REM sleep. This raises your creative juices and apparently your decision making abilities.

    So don’t forget if you’re taking a nap to set an alarm…

  • Graham Linehan suspended from Twitter after trans tweets

    Graham Linehan suspended from Twitter after trans tweets

    The Father Ted creator has been suspended from Twitter after apparently tweeting about transgender people.

    The author, who Tweets a lot about gender issues, has been apparently suspended from Twitter, just a week after he briefly had his Blue verification tick removed, which was in response to accusing an LGBT+ group of “grooming”. However, Twitter said the removal of his verification was a mistake and later restore it.

    His account now has been removed from Twitter entirely, like the suspension of Katie Hopkins, who was removed from the platform entirely early this month.

    Linehan’s account suspension comes after he allegedly tweeted “men aren’t women tho”, a response to the Women’s Institute, who wished all their trans members a happy pride.

    Linehan revealed that he been locked out of his account numerous times and “forced to delete tweets” in order to gain full access to his account.

    The writer has submitted an appeal with Twitter and the Better Business Bureau.

    A post, purportedly from Lineham on Mumsnet, said,

    “Recently, I keep being locked out of my account and forced to delete tweets to get back in. The latest tactic by trans rights activists is to run a search for any time I’ve used the word ‘groomer’, a phrase Twitter recently decided was Not Allowed

    He continued,

    “Twitter has a high percentage of trans-identified employees and for some time has been silencing feminists and their allies who run afoul of its absurd ‘misgendering’ policies. The one good thing about my situation is that I’m in great company–Claire Graham, Meghan Murphy, Skylar Gwynn, Miranda Yardley, GNC Centric and many more, important feminist and critical voices who have been silenced for fighting a dangerous ideology that tells children it’s possible to be born into the wrong body.”

    Twitter confirmed that Linehan’s account “has been permanently suspended after repeated violations of our rules against hateful conduct and platform manipulation”.

  • Bourne Free announces 2021 date and theme

    Bourne Free announces 2021 date and theme

    The organisers of Dorset’s largest pride, Bourne Free have announced the dates of Pride 2021 and the theme, vowing to come back stronger after 2020’s event had to be cancelled due to Covid-19.

    Bournemouth’s pride event, Bourne Free will take place once again in 2021, and the dates have been announced as the 9th and 10th July 2021 with the theme,  ‘Stronger Together – Celebrating Our Emergency Services & All Key Workers’.

    The Pride will also move from its normal home of the gardens to Meyrick Park, Bournemouth.

    Benjamin Horgan, Chair of Bourne Free, said –

    “All the Bourne Free Trustees have been blown away by the many stories of courage and hope that we’ve seen over the last few months.”

    We want our 2021 Bourne Free Weekend to be an opportunity to recognise the people who are making a difference to our community; from NHS workers and carers to bus drivers, supermarket workers, posties and the unpaid volunteers who’ve given their time willingly. Come dressed to impress as your favourite key worker. From scrubs to uniforms, tabards to overalls and everything in-between to celebrate our real life heroes!

    “We can’t wait to see everyone at Bourne Free next year and look forward to working with our principal sponsor Ageas Insurance to bring you a weekend that we promise will be worth waiting for.”

  • TODAY IN LGBT HISTORY | UK Government first: Justine Greening, cabinet member comes out for Pride

    TODAY IN LGBT HISTORY | UK Government first: Justine Greening, cabinet member comes out for Pride

    In a first, Justine Greening became the first female cabinet member of any government to come out as being in a same-sex relationship in 2016.

    The then UK Secretary of State for International Development, Justine Greening opened up about her sexuality when she announced on Twitter that she was in a “happy same-sex relationship” in June 2016.

    The former MP for Putney, Roehampton and Southfields remarked that she had “… campaigned for Stronger In but sometimes you’re better off out!”

    The Prime Minister of the time, David Cameron tweeted his congratulations to Ms Green, saying “great news”.

    Justin Greening later said that she was, “amazed and overwhelmed” by the support and that she really “appreciated” the messages.

  • One in four LGBT+ people remain closeted at work

    New research shows that 25 per cent of LGBT+ people remain closeted and nearly half are not fully open at their place of work as the majority of workers feel unsupported by their bosses.

    Research from Accenture shows that a massive 86 per cent of LGBT+ employees feel unsupported by their workplace, leading to around a quarter of LGBT+ people to remain closeted.

    The Accenture ‘Getting to Equal’ research, which surveyed more than 28,000 employees and business leaders across 26 countries, reveals that in the UK less than half (41%) of LGBT+ employees are fully open about their gender identity, expression, or sexual orientation at work. More worryingly, approximately one in four LGBT+ employees (26%) remain totally closeted.

    “Perception gap” between bosses and LGBT+ employees

    The research also reveals a significant perception gap between how UK business leaders perceive their workplace culture compared to LGBT+ employees. Globally, 68% of leaders feel that they create an empowering workplace environment where employees can be themselves, however, just 14% of LGBT+ employees currently feel fully supported by their employer when it comes to issues like gender expression and sexual orientation at work.

    Globally, almost three quarters (71%) of LGBT+ employees say that seeing LGBT+ employees in leadership positions is vital to helping them thrive and that the outward support of their non-LGBT colleagues is important to their ability to enjoy being at work.

    “It has never been more important to hear and understand the experiences of minority groups”

    Rebecca Tully, Inclusion and Diversity lead at Accenture in the UK said: “At a time when we are acutely aware of ongoing social injustices, it has never been more important to hear and understand the experiences of minority groups. Though we don’t have all the answers, our research highlights the fundamental questions we need to be asking when it comes to making the workplace more inclusive for LGBT+ people. It’s important for leaders to act now and strive to create a culture where LGBT+ employees not only rise professionally, but also where they feel safe, supported and able to be themselves.” 

    As part of the research, Accenture has identified the top cultural issues businesses need to address now to start building a more inclusive workplace culture for LGBT+ employees and other minority groups: Getting To Equal 2020:Pride, Visible Growth; Invisible Fears.

  • Drag Race Alaska issues an apology over past race, trans and sexual abuse jokes

    Drag Race Alaska issues an apology over past race, trans and sexual abuse jokes

    Drag Race favourite Alaska Thunderfuck has issued a statement in which she addresses her past actions including jokes about sexual assault, trans issues and race.

    In the statement on Twitter, the performer admitted that although it was never her intention to cause harm, her intention was not important adding, “it was my privilege that allowed me to only get away these things but be applauded for them”.

    Alaska rose to fame during the 5th series of RuPaul’s Drag Race, where she placed runner up. Since then she has amassed a worldwide audience of over 2 million on her social platforms, including Instagram and Twitter.

    “I used racial and transphobic slurs and made jokes about sexual assault”

    Embed from Getty Images

    She starts off by writing,

    “In past performances, I used racial and transphobic slurs and made jokes about sexual assault. I have also used racist imagery in past looks”.

    She continued, “I apologise. I’m deeply sorry for the hurt and damage that I caused in making these stupid harmful negligent choices.

    “I take full responsibility for everything I have done in my past. I have learned that is essential to use my art and my privilege and my platform to make people empowered, uplifted and strong”.

  • NOOOO! Cher is apparently the third most negative tweeter

    NOOOO! Cher is apparently the third most negative tweeter

    Lockdown has generated a lot of negative tweets. About people, governments and society in general.

    A recent study of over 100 celebrities who run and maintain their own Twitter accounts has found that two of our favourite gay icons top the lists of positive and negative tweeters.

    While Kylie sits on top of the positive list, with 89.7 per cent of her tweets skewing positive, Cher (gawd love her) is number 3 on the negative list, with only 51.3 per cent of her tweets skewing positively, she follows Nigel Farage and Piers Morgan.

    Nigel Farage and Piers Morgan were the most negative celebrity tweeters during lockdown.

    A study conducted by Sheffield-based digital agency Evoluted has revealed the most positive and negative celebrity tweeters during the lockdown period.

    Research (www.evoluted.net/studies/lockdown-lovers-and-loathers/) revealed that Kylie Minogue has been the most positive tweeter, closely followed by Sir Tom Jones and Lionel Richie, amongst others.

    Meanwhile, Nigel Farage tops the polls for the most negative tweeter under lockdown, joined by Piers Morgan and Cher.

    The research was conducted by digital agency Evoluted, who took the 200 most famous personalities in the UK (according to YouGov) and filtered the list down to 131 who are active on Twitter and clearly run their accounts personally.

    The agency then collected their tweets, quoted tweets and retweets that had been posted since March this year in order to evaluate the content that the person was putting out to all of their followers.

    Evoluted then used the bing lexicon method to attribute positive or negative meaning to the words used across all tweets, in order to analyse which tweeters were more positive than others.

    A positivity percentage was then assigned to each account – this was created by taking the ratio of positive words used on their timeline by the total number of negative and positive words.

    James Stone, Content Specialist at Evoluted, said, “We aim to be as thorough and accurate as possible within our research and our team really enjoyed carrying out this study.

    “It’s extremely interesting to see which celebrities are using their platforms to display positivity and which ones heavily feature negativity.”

    Research also ranked the jobs of the most positive celebrities, revealing that sports personalities, musicians, TV personalities, actors and public figures made up the top five.

    Top 10 positive Tweeters

    #Celeb% of pos
    1Kylie Minogue89.74
    2Sir Tom Jones89.39
    3Lionel Richie89.24
    4Mariah Carey89.24
    5Cristiano Ronaldo89.13
    6Ben Affleck89.13
    7Robbie Williams88.46
    8Jamie Oliver88.32
    9Paris Hilton87.27
    10Lewis Hamilton87.21

    #Celeb% of neg
    1Nigel Farage45.32
    2Piers Morgan46.2
    3Cher51.3
    4Hugh Grant51.59
    5Barbra Streisand52.47
    6Justin Timberlake52.83
    7Liam Gallagher53.09
    8Pamela Anderson53.13
    9Stephen King55.01
    10Lord Alan Sugar55.95
  • TODAY IN LGBT HISTORY | Rainbow Flag Makes Its Debut

    TODAY IN LGBT HISTORY | Rainbow Flag Makes Its Debut

    The iconic symbol for the LGBT community, the rainbow flag made its debut.

    The iconic symbol for the LGBT community made its debut in San Franciso in 1978. It was displayed at the San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Freedom Day parade in 1978. It has since gone on to be recognised worldwide as the symbol for LGBT spaces, venues and pride.

    (C) BIGSTOCK

    The flag was designed by Gilbert Baker. Since its introduction, it has gone under several design reviews and had colours removed and then re-added.

    Is the original rainbow flag available to see anywhere?

    The original flag can now be viewed at the Design Museum London which acquired the flag as part of a series of new objects for its permanent collection. It was acquired by the museum in 2017.

    Why did Gilbert Baker create the rainbow flag for gay pride?

    Speaking about the rainbow as a symbol for LGBT+ folx Gilbert Baker said,

    “There was no other international symbol for [the LGBT+ community] than the pink triangle which the Nazis used to identify homosexuals in concentration camps,

    “Even though the pink triangle was and still is a very powerful symbol, it was very much forced upon us”.

    What do they colours in the Rainbow Flag mean?

    Gilbert Baker created the rainbow flag with each colour representing a different area of life.

    Pink: Sexuality

    Red: Life

    Orange: Healing

    Yellow: Sunlight

    Green: Nature

    Cyan: Art

    Blue: Serenity/ Harmony

    Purple: Spirit

  • Andrew Christian has released a gender-neutral “boy bra”

    Andrew Christian has released a gender-neutral “boy bra”

    If you’ve ever wanted to wear a bra… now’s your chance as underwear designer, Andrew Christian has released what he is describing as a “gender-neutral/non-binary boy bra”.

    The designer, who is famed for his sexy undies, popular with gay guys, is pushing out his design remit and is releasing a range of so-called “boy bras” which the company is calling gender-neutral.

    The first is a simple, black see-through mesh design.

    He added the picture on the official AC Instagram and it seems as though the boy bra is a hit with the brand’s fans.

    The picture was captioned,  

    “Introducing the #genderneutral & #nonbinary ??? ???! Let’s love! Not hate!”

    The bra, is apparently the least achievement in Andrew Christian’s “genderqueer couture”.

    https://www.andrewchristian.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/9/1/91639_bra_jun_02.jpg

    While most people seemed to love the design, some couldn’t help question why it was called the “boy bra” if it was supposed to be non-binary/gender-neutral.

    The new bra is being retailed at £23.86 exc P&P and comes in two sizes, Small/Medium and Medium/Large.