Gay News

Barbie is a 2023 UK/US comedy fantasy by Greta Gerwig
Starring Margot Robbie, Kingsley Ben-Adir and Ryan Gosling

Barbie suffers a crisis that leads her to question her world and her existence.

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have banned the movie Barbie from cinema screening.

In Saudi Arabia, the culture ministry's announcement on August 9 cited violations of laws and values, asserting that certain scenes within the film mocked the sanctity of marriage and family, and insulted Islamic beliefs.

Kuwait banned the film in a bid to protect public ethics and social traditions.

Meanwhile there is a lot of pressure in Lebanon to ban the film. Lebanon's culture minister Mohammad Mortada criticised the movie, saying it "contradicts values of faith and morality" by diminishing the importance of the family unit.

The minister is backed by the armed Shi'ite armed group Hezbollah, whose head Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah called on Lebanese authorities to take action against materials he deemed to be promoting homosexuality, including by banning them, and said homosexuality posed an imminent danger to Lebanon and should be confronted.

Talk To Me is a 2022 Australia horror thriller by Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou
Starring Sophie Wilde, Joe Bird and Alexandra Jensen

When a group of friends discover how to conjure spirits using an embalmed hand, they become hooked on the new thrill, until one of them goes too far and unleashes terrifying supernatural forces.

The hit Australian horror film Talk To Me has been banned from screening in Kuwait, reportedly solely over the casting of non-binary trans actor Zoe Terakes, who plays a character whose gender identity is never mentioned in the film.

The Hollywood Reporter first reported on the decision, which they confirmed was based entirely on the presence of Terakes, an Australian actor who identifies as non-binary and trans-masculine.

Terakes issued a statement describing the decision as being:

Targeted and dehumanising and means to harm us.

Our film doesn't actually ever mention my transness, or my queerness. I am a trans actor who happened to get the role. I'm not a theme. I am a person. Kuwait has banned this fim due to my identity alone.

As much as it is very sad to be on the receiving end of this, what is even more heartbreaking is what this precedent means for the queet and trans people of Kuwait . Representation is hope. Representation is a light at the end of the tunnel, a reason to keep going, something to hold onto in the dark, a voice that whispers things can be better than they are. Eliminating trans actors on screens will not eliminate trans people (as much as the government of Kuwait wishes it would) but it will eliminate a lot of hope.

Talk to Me has already released without cuts across all other Gulf territories.

Hungarian authorities have fined a bookseller for selling a British graphic novel without closed wrapping - saying it breached an anti-gay law on LGBT literature for under-18s.

The retailer was fined 12m forints (£27,400), for selling Heartstopper without wrapping it in plastic foil, as required by law. Officials said the book depicts homosexuality and was sold to minors.

In 2021, the government of prime minister Viktor Orban introduced a law banning the display and promotion of homosexuality among under-18s. The censorship laws says that minors cannot be shown pornographic content, or anything that encourages gender change or homosexuality.

The Heartstopper series of books, written and illustrated by the British author Alice Oseman, follow the lives of two British teenagers attending a fictional school who meet and fall in love. It is billed as a book about life, love, and everything that happens in between. It has since been acquired and adapted by the streaming service Netflix, which plans to release a second series in August.

Pride is a 2014 UK gay comedy drama by Matthew Warchus.
Starring Bill Nighy and Imelda Staunton and Dominic West.

There are no UK or US censorship issues with this release however the film has been banned from several showings in Turkey

Istanbul's Sisli District Governor's Office on June 6 banned the screening of an LGBTI+ themed documentary on the grounds that it is against the "constitutional rule." Using the same ban decision, Kadiköy District Governor's Office on June 7 banned the screening of another movie as well, and police detained those who came to the screening.

Kadiköy's District Governor's Office on June 7 banned the screening of the movie titled Pride organized by the Beksav Cinema Collective. The collective stated that they will organize the screening despite the ban. Nonetheless, the police blockaded their building and detained people who came to watch the movie screening and the BEKSAV executives.

The film has been banned before in Turkey when the Ankara authorities also banned screenings in 2018.

Australia's book censor has rejected a push by anti-LGBTQIA+ activist to ban memoir titled Gender Queer.

The book was referred to the Classification Board after Queensland Police was tipped off by conservative campaigner Bernard Gaynor.

The Australian Classification Board has now classified non-binary author and cartoonist Maia Kobabe's Gender Queer: A Memoir as unrestricted with the rating M (Mature). Not Recommended for Readers Under 15 Years.

The award-winning book has become one of the most banned books in America over its depictions of LGBTQIA+ sex and sexuality, including explicit illustrations and descriptions.

Russian viewers watched the HBO's hit series The White Lotus in the only officially available format via streaming platform Amediateka. The platform severely censored the second season of The White Lotus to comply with repressive Russian law banning gay content.

Scenes were removed, lines of dialogues were purposefully mistranslated in dubbing and Russian subtitles (eg We're all gays here ,became We're all men here ) and the bare buttocks of actor Leo Woodall were covered with a poorly photoshopped blanket, even though featuring in a straight scene.

HBO's Euphoria was also edited in similar ways by Amediateka with nearly two hours' worth of content cut out of the series' second season.

Viewers also discovered that the translation of Sex and the City was tweaked, replacing the word gay with boy , while several scenes were completely cut out.

An amended anti-gay law was signed into law by President Vladimir Putin at the end of last year. It is a more severe version of 2013's law that saw the country outlawing 'LGBT propaganda' and depictins of LGBT behaviour among children under 18 (i.e., holding hands in public, men wearing colourful nail polish, kissing).

After December 2022 all kinds of LGBT propaganda are considered illegal. The list includes untraditional sexual relationships and gender reassignment. Lawmakers are still working on the list of further criteria for proclaiming a work illegal,' and it will come into effect in September.

Russia's internet censor Roskomnadzor has also issued its own list of movies and TV shows that were to be removed from all the legal streaming platforms including Call Me By Your Name , Brokeback Mountain , the first season of The Sex Lives of College Girls and several episodes of This Is Going to Hurt .