❓ Are we facing a trans ageing crisis?

🇺🇸 Around 1 in 200 Americans aged 65 and over are trans.

🏳️‍⚧️ As the first generation of trans people reaches old age, healthcare systems are unprepared.

🌈 For #TransAwarenessWeek, we spoke to trans people about growing old. 🧵 🔴 Social isolation
🔴 Housing discrimination
🔴 Lack of safe medical spaces
🔴 ...and much more.

👵 The challenges trans elders face are often similar to those faced by trans people of all ages, but exacerbated as they get older, says Kylie Madhav, senior director at @sageusa.

🏆 Nominations for the #GRAMMYs are out!

🎙️ @kimpetras, @ladygaga and @RandyRainbow are among the many #LGBTQ+ artists nominated for the 2023 Awards.

🎶 Let's take a look at some of this year's queer nominations. 🧵 🎵 @brandicarlile is one of the most nominated artists this year – coming in just behind @Beyonce and @kendricklamar, and being tied with @Adele on seven nominations.

💿 For the second time, she might snap up the coveted 'Album of the Year'.

💭 Do you know how to use gender-neutral pronouns in your native tongue?

🗣️ On #InternationalPronounsDay, we're taking a deep-dive into non-binary pronouns in a range of languages.

🌍 Join us on a linguistic trip around the world. 🇪🇸 Spanish

Pronouns, nouns and adjectives are gendered in Spanish.

The suffixes -o and -a are the most common gender markers, but many non-binary people now replace them with an -e instead.

🇬🇷 Welcome to Lesbos, Greece.

👩‍❤️‍👩 The Greek island is inhabited by 115,000 Lesbians, but has also given its name to women loving women worldwide.

🌈 For #InternationalLesbianDay, let's take a look at the history of the word "lesbian". 🧵 🏛️ From the Iliad to the Odyssey, Lesbos has had a central part in Ancient Greek history.

✒️ One of its most famous inhabitants was the 6th century B.C. poet Sappho, whose lyrical poems explored her love of women and their beauty – sometimes even venturing into the erotic.

✊🏿 Black, British and queer – but often overlooked.

🇬🇧 It's #BlackHistoryMonth in the UK and we're looking at those who shaped Black British queer history - and those still changing the world today.

🌈 Here are some of the Black #LGBTQ+ pioneers you should know. 🧵 Ken "Snakehips" Johnson (1914-1941)

🎷 A jazz bandleader and dancer, Johnson was a leading figure in Black British music in the '30s and '40s.

🎙️ Part of the first Black British band in residency at the infamous Café de Paris, he died when the club got bombed during the Blitz.

🚨 America's most frequently banned books are LGBTQ+.

📚 U.S. schools banned more than 674 titles in the past year featuring LGBTQ+ themes or characters, @PENamerica found.

🏳️‍⚧️ 9% of these had trans storylines.

🏳️‍🌈 Let's take a look at the most censored queer books. 🧵 "Gender Queer: A Memoir" by Maia Kobabe

⛔️ Kobabe's 2019 debut graphic memoir is the most banned book in America, having been outlawed by 41 school districts.

✒️ The coming-of-age story follows Kobabe's exploration of gender identity while coming out as non-binary.

🌈 Today we celebrate #BiVisibilityDay!

🚨 Bisexual people continue to face erasure.

❌ Bi discrimination is often based on incorrect stereotypes – like being bi is a phase or a trend.

👩 But these 9 famous faces from history tell a different story. 🧵 Ma Rainey (1886-1939)

🎤 Nicknamed "The Mother of Blues", Rainey was one of the earliest and most influential singers within the genre.

💘 While she sang about men, she was equally as open in her lyrics about her love for women – most famously in "Prove It on Me Blues".

Do you know what two-spirit means❓

🌎In history, many Indigenous North American and First Nations people lived outside the Western binaries of gender and sexuality.

On #IndigenousPeoplesDay, here are 5⃣ things you should know about people who define themselves as two-spirit.🧵 1⃣ What does two-spirit mean?

Two-spirit is an umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans and First Nations people.

It refers to a broad range of sexual and gender identities among Indigenous peoples, and is sometimes thought of as a 'third gender'.

💭 Do you know how to be gender-neutral in your native tongue?

🗣️ On #InternationalNonbinaryDay – halfway between International Women’s and International Men’s Day – we’re taking a deep-dive into non-binary language.

🌍 Join @enriqueanarte on a linguistic trip around the globe. 🇮🇹 Italian

Highly gendered languages like Italian can make being non-binary difficult.

But some have found a solution in ə – “schwa” – which can replace gender markers.

While even some officials use ə, many remain critical, saying it endangers the Italian language.

🇺🇸 Since the beginning of July, almost a dozen anti-LGBTQ+ bills have passed into law in several U.S. states.

⚖️ In total, more than 300 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced across the U.S. this year, with 25 passed so far.

Here's what you need to know. 🧵 🏳️‍🌈 The most notorious is Florida's "Parental Rights in Education" bill, widely known as "Don't Say Gay".

🚫 The measure bars any classroom teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity for children from kindergarten age up to eight or nine. 👇
openlynews.com/i/?id=42ac474a…

🇬🇧 What do people in the UK think about the LGBTQ+ community?

🗣 @YouGov and @stonewalluk have released two new surveys: one of a sample of all British adults; and the other specifically of LGBTQ+ adults.

Here are some of the findings. 👇 🏳️‍🌈 79% of all British adults would support a family member coming out as lesbian gay or bisexual.

🏳️‍⚧️ 63% would support a trans family member.

🤔 Have you heard of #LGBTQQIP2SAA?

🔤 Far from being just a string of letters, this abbreviation can tell us the story of the modern #LGBTQ+ rights movement.

🌈 From 'homosexual' to 'GLB' and beyond, here's a brief history of queer initialism. 🧵 🌍 While LGBTQ+ people have always existed, the concepts of sexual and gender identities we are familiar with today are relatively new.

✒️ It was not until 1869 that the term 'homosexual' was created by Károly Mária Kertbeny – the first neutral word for same-sex desire.

🌈 "Just be you."

✒️ U.S. President @JoeBiden has signed an executive order which aims to help protect the rights of #LGBTQ+ Americans.

🇺🇸 These are the main takeaways. 🧵 ⭕️ Transgender youth

🏥 The executive order asks federal health and education departments to expand access to gender-affirming medical care.

📄 It also calls on them to counter a flurry of bills passed this year which ban treatments for trans youth.

😷 Over 1,500 people across 25 European countries have been infected with monkeypox.

🏳️‍🌈 Most of the reported cases are among gay and bisexual men.

🚨 Now #LGBTQ+ campaigners fear the outbreak could fuel homophobia. 🧵 🌍 Europe is the epicentre of the first large-scale outbreak of the virus outside of Africa.

🇬🇧 With over 470 cases, Britain has the most infections – followed by Spain, Portugal and Germany.

🔴 When 152 patients were surveyed in England, 99% were men who have sex with men.

🍻 Is the queer bar dying?

🏳️‍🌈 In 1969, the modern #LGBTQ+ movement was born at a gay bar in New York – the Stonewall Inn.

🚨 But more than half a century later, queer spaces are rapidly shutting down.

🔴 Let's look at why. 🧵 🇬🇧 From London to New York, the number of #LGBTQ+ bars have dwindled since the mid-2000s.

🇺🇸 In the U.S. alone, 37% of queer bars closed between 2007 and 2019, according to research by @GreggorMattson.

📉 The worst hit were men's cruise bars and those serving people of colour.

🩸 Many countries have banned gay and bisexual men from giving blood since the 1980s.

🏳️‍🌈 But attitudes and rules have changed over the past few years.

👇 For #WorldBloodDonorDay, we look at the history of the laws and which countries are making progress. 🧵 🔴 Why do blood donation bans exist in the first place?

🌍 Many countries introduced controls during the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.

🇺🇸 The first cases of AIDS were reported in 1981 among gay men in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York.

💗💙💛 Happy #PansexualVisibilityDay!

📸 Celebrities like @ddlovato, @MileyCyrus and @Caradelevingne have put pansexual love on the map in recent times.

🌈 But here are eight #LGBTQ+ icons you perhaps didn’t know identified as pan. 🧵 1️⃣ JoJo Siwa

💃 The @YouTube star was crowned runner-up in last year's hit TV series Dancing with the Stars – making history as the show's first same-sex pairing.

🎀 Earlier in the year she came out as "technically" pansexual, but said she preferred the words gay or queer.

🔴 When Cathrin was 36, she was forced to undergo sterilisation.

👩 Why? Because she wanted to be legally recognised as a woman.

🇩🇪 Between 1981 and 2011, around 10,000 trans Germans faced the same fate.

💶 Now she's one of many who want compensation – and an apology. 🧵 🏳️‍⚧️ For 30 years, trans people in Germany had to undergo the invasive, unwanted surgery during their transition.

🔴 Tsepo Bollwinkel was one of those who suffered the consequences of being sterilised.

🗣️ "I did it [but] the price I paid was very high," they said.

📽️ Did you know that the the first lesbian character appeared in a film almost a century ago?

👩‍❤️‍👩 Today, we're marking #LesbianVisibilityDay by looking back at some iconic sapphic moments in cinema and TV.

📺 Here's a brief history of lesbian visibility on screen. 🧵 🇩🇪 The 1929 German 'Pandora's Box' is considered the first film to have a lesbian character.

👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 A year later, Marlene Dietrich was the first lead actress to kiss a woman in 'Morocco'.

🎞️ But 'Mädchen in Uniform' in 1931 is considered the first lesbian-themed movie.

💍 Eric Bourne and Stephen Carpenter have officially become the first same-sex couple to get married in the British Antarctic Territory.

❄️ It's safe to say they didn't get cold feet!

🏳️‍🌈 Here's a sneak peek into their history-making wedding ceremony. 🧵 🚢 The couple tied the knot on Britain’s new polar research ship RRS Sir David Attenborough, where they are stewards.

✨ "We feel very lucky to be able to live and work in such an incredible community and place together," said Eric.

🕺 Dmytro was getting ready for a rave.

✈️ Borys was just back from holiday.

🇺🇦 Then Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine and their lives changed forever.

🪖 We spoke to LGBTQ+ Ukrainians who became soldiers to fight for their country – and their rights.🧵
bit.ly/3KZRjAB 👨‍⚕️ Borys is a gay 26-old-year old former paramedic.

🏳️‍🌈 He went straight from enjoying beers in Germany to taking up arms in Kyiv – one of many queer soldiers who have joined the resistance.

👇 "It wasn’t a hard decision for me," Borys told us from his army unit.