gay Berlin clubs bars sex from discodamaged

BRITS SAY NO TO TURING PARDON

Her majesty's government has rejected calls for computer pioneer Alan Turing, who is to be honoured at Berlin gay prisde, to be granted an official pardon for convictions for homosexuality dating back to the 1950s, the BBC reports.

HIV VACCINE APPROVED FOR TESTING

Researchers in Canada have had an HIV vaccine approved for testing by the US FDA. So far the vaccine has been tested on animals and it has had promising results. The vaccine uses a new approach - it uses the entire HIV virus. This has never been done before. The next phase of trials will be on 6,000 plus humans, whose health will be tracked for three years.

Read more here.

FICKSTUTENMARKT PORN STARS WANTED

March 17 Wurstfilm are shooting another porn movie at Fickstutenmarkt. Want to be in it? - the first one was great. Click the headline to find out how.

TRANSEXUAL FEELINGS AN ILLNESS?

"The Youth Welfare Office of Berlin is putting an 11 year old transgendered girl into a father's care who is putting her into a mental institute simply because he believes transexuality is wrong. This young girl will be taught how her feelings are wrong,and pushed more into the denial that has claimed the lives of so many transgendered people, thanks to biased decisions by the Youth Welfare office this child's life could be irrevocably ruined. I am starting this petition to try and make it known that this is not okay, that this is a breach of some of the basic human rights of this child."

Katrina Swales has started a petition on change.org in support of this girl. Sign it here.

FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT... GAY PARIS

If you feared clubbing in Paris was as happening and welcoming as well your stereotypical Parisian, you'd be right.  Over to our man in Paris who writes:

On Saturday 21 January the French police raided Paris' brand new gay venue and it would appear that they have forced the club to close its backroom.  Well anyway for the Pagano night on the 21st January and also for the Beyond visit last Saturday the backroom was most definitely closed.

I hope of course that they can get it opened again but it just goes to show that Paris, whilst only 2 hours away from London, is in terms of its policing of the gay community, in the stone age.

"Continue reading" for more...

PASSENGER GOES OVERBOARD ON ATLANTIS GAY CRUISE

CCTV footage has revealed that a gay man who went missing on an Atlantis cruise fell from his balcony into the sea. Atlantis cruises off Mexico are huge week long parties and it's feared the man may have been the worse for wear.... The search for the man is on-going. More here...

NEW MOVIE IN GAY MEMORIAL

That gay memorial in Tiergarten had its new film unveiled yesterday including lesbians and they've got it on queer.de. We weren't able to show it here, so if you want to save yourself the walk, you can watch it there: http://www.queer.de/detail.php?article_id=15830

MURDER IN MARIENDORF

Gay man Carsten Srock, who we reported missing five days ago, was murdered. Srock had been missing since doing a shift at Boiler Sauna on 1st January. A member of the public became suspicious and reported a 43 year old who lived in Markgrafenstrasse Mariendorf. The police visited and discovered him with self inflicted knife wounds and they found the corpse of Srock. The man has been arrested.

Bild newspaper reported today that the corpse had been chopped up. The police have not confirmed it.

WHAT IS A LUSTGARTEN?

Q: What is a Lustgarten?
A: A darkroom.
We just learned that the 200 square meter 'Lustgarten' at Rose Kennedy is in fact a darkroom. Since when were Berliners so coy? Rose Kennedy, Saturday Jan 28, at Brunnen70 - Brunnen Str 70, Wedding.

GAYS HAVE TO WEAR DIAPERS!

And some people believe this! Must see my doctor.

Great comments on Youtube http://youtu.be/rOg2eg1eS1w

YET MORE BREAST PICS

We noticed that this PIP breast implant scare has given all the newspapers a great excuse to picture even more breasts, so we thought we would too. And we're sure that everybody is relieved to hear that the most famous breast implants on the Berlin gay scene are safe. House of Shame's mistress Chantal had hers made in Japan in 1985 - which makes them one year older than her boyfriend.

GAY MAN MISSING

Police are appealing for witnesses who may know something of 37 year old Carsten Srock missing since New Year's day. Click the headline if you can help. Srock worked in a bank with a part time job at the Boiler sauna, where he worked until 10pm 1st Jan. After that, about 23:30, he drew a large amount of cash from the Sparkasse in Mehringdamm. He had told his boyfriend that he was meeting someone. The person is not known. Srock's mobile phone has been switched off since 2nd January.

FIRED FOR BEING HIV+

Just over a year ago a 24 year old lab assistant at Eckert und Ziegler EuroPet in Berlin was fired as discovered he was HIV+.  He took the firm to court and now a judge at the Berlin employment court has said that it was OK, because he was in his probationary period and no reason needs to be given.

Deutsche Aids-Hilfe have criticised the judgement and demand that the federal government do something about it. The judge in the Berlin court said that the case can be taken to appeal at a federal court. Read more in German at queer.de.

SPORT HELPS HIV TREATMENT?

Sport therapy helps treatment of many diseases, but does it help with HIV? Nobody knows right now and people with HIV may be reluctant to do sport because of the uncertainties. Humboldt University in Berlin want to put that right and part of the effort is for people with HIV to fill out an anonymous survey. So if you can help follow this link: http://www.hibes.eu/survey/en/1/ . You can complete the survey in English or German.

TATCHELL: THE END OF GAY

Heresy! British gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has kindly allowed us to republish an article he wrote for the Huffington Post - quite a gay drama queen name for a news website isn't it?! The article is fascinating stuff so click the headine if your brain has recovered sufficiently from New Year.

NEW FILM IN TIERGARTEN GAY MEMORIAL

The memorial to queer victims of the Nazis is to get a new movie on 26 January. There'll be a ceremony on the day at 2pm with the artists and other gay luminaries attending. The much vandalised memorial is in Tiergarten opposite the holocaust memorial and a bit nearer Potsdamer Platz. On the map here.

GERMANS INVADE VATICAN

Berlin Archbishop Woelki, he of the small flock, will be promoted to cardinal this year so that's another German in the Vatican. He's famous for saying that homosexuality is an offence against the order of creation and his bishoppy motto is "Nos sumus testes" - could that mean  "We are balls"? With that and the face cream he uses, he must be a closet queer.

SUMMER IN FLORIDA?

Wondering what do for your summer holiday? The Pasco County Tourist Development Council are inviting you to go naked in windy Florida. More info and worse pictures here. We recommend Tiergarten,  Wannsee Beach or even South America: LAN Airlines have started a 'diversity' web site with much nicer pictures and gay travel options in South America.

7TH XPOSED INTERNATIONAL QUEER FILM FESTIVAL

The 7th XPOSED International Queer Film Festival will be in Berlin this Summer 20th - 22nd June. They're looking for two right now things:
1) Queer Films from the Middle East and
2) $2000 (1500€). Donate something here.

LGBT DISCRIMINATION IN EUROPE

The Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe has just published the largest ever study on homophobia, transphobia and LGBT discrimination in the 47 members of the Council of Europe. It identifies serious problems as well as improvements in the protection from discrimination for LGBT folk in all the countries. Most countries collect poor records which hinders progress. They say that in some member states the majority of the population still believe that homosexuality is illegal.

Near the beginning is a table showing when each country legalised sex between same sex couples. Apparently it's always been OK in Andorra, France was the first (1791) and Armenia came in belatedly only eight years ago.

Hate crime and incitement come under the spotlight. Most countries east of Luxembourg, including Germany, do not have any laws about incitement against the LGBT community and do not have homophobia as an aggravating factor in violent crime (light blue on map). They highlight the banning of Moscow gay pride: Muslim cleric from Nizhniy Novgorod says "homosexuals must be stoned to death" and others issue threats (not illegal in Russia), so Moscow authorities ban the event to 'protect' the LGBT community. European Court of Human Rights says they should have prosecuted the bigots. Duh!

Of LGBTers transgenders come out the worst treated. They suffer most discrimination, have less clear legal protection, are still often medicalised and, adding insult to injury, have most difficulty in obtaining health care.

Read the full 134 page report here which is where the map came from.