Thousands participated in the 17th annual LGBTQ pride event in Jerusalem on Thursday under heavy police protection. Some organizers put the number of marchers as high as 35,000 — which would make it the largest pride parade in Jerusalem ever. Participants waved rainbow flags and Israeli flags with rainbow motifs...

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Organizers of the Chicago Dyke March on Tuesday defended their decision to eject three participants who displayed Jewish symbols by claiming that “Zionism is an inherently white-supremacist ideology.” The group’s official statement also included screenshots of a chat between an organizer and Laurel Grauer, one of the marchers targeted for holding a rainbow LGBT flag emblazoned...

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A leading activist in Florida denounced the campaign to boycott an international LGBTQ film festival that took place in Tel Aviv last week, calling on the “LGBTQ and progressive ally communities” to take a stand “against censoring, and against anti-semitism,” in an op-ed published Saturday in The Miami Herald. James Moon,...

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The citizenship process for foreign same-sex partners of Israelis will soon be the same as that of heterosexual partners, Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit announced Thursday. Mandelblit’s decision came in response to a petition from the Israeli Gay Fathers Association, which complained that same-sex couples were forced to wait seven years...

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As the United States Armed Forces begins to incorporate transgender soldiers into its ranks, the Pentagon is looking to Israel for how to handle the process, Time reported Tuesday. It will take about a year for the Defense Department’s new policies to be implemented, Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon said. In the meantime, Israel...

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Iran executed a gay teenager last month in contravention of international law, which prohibits the application of the death penalty to minors, Amnesty International revealed on Tuesday. Hassan Afshar, 19, was hanged in the Arak prison on July 18 after being convicted of “forced male-to-male anal intercourse.” He was arrested...

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Over 25,000 people participated in Jerusalem’s 15th annual LGBT pride parade on Thursday, the largest such event to ever take place in the Israeli capital. Participants first gathered in Jerusalem’s Liberty Bell Park at 5:45 PM, then chanted and marched with banners calling for equality along the city’s downtown area, much of which...

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The first openly transgender officer in the IDF spoke at an LGBT pride event hosted by the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C. on Monday, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reported. “This is the right of the whole world, to be free and to be whoever we want to be,” said Shachar at the gathering,...

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu extended his condolences over a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Florida that left 50 people dead and more than 50 others injured on Sunday. The Islamic State has since claimed responsibility for the massacre, which is being investigated as an act of terror...

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An openly gay Iranian poet who is seeking asylum in Israel has received an eight-month visa extension from the country’s interior ministry. Payam Feili, whose native Iran considers homosexuality to be a crime punishable by death, was granted a tourist visa to visit Israel in December and applied for asylum...

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