Irina Fedotova-Fet, 30, and Irina Shipitko, 32, attempted to marry in Russia in May but were turned away.

Early this month the Associated Press reported their attempt to marry in Moscow.

“We want recognition of our relationship by society and the state. We are a family already, we live together and share household chores,” Shipitko said. “We also would like to have children. That is why we want legal recognition of our union.”

The two women said they had plans to fly to Canada later this month to wed and return to Russia, forcing the country to recognize their marriage.

Today, they will have a city hall wedding in Toronto.

They will use other laws of Russia to validate their union, according to United Press International.

The couple will hold a press conference today with their lawyer and Russian gay rights activist Nikolai Alekseev.

Although homosexuality was decriminalized in Russia in the 1990s, many Russians are still opposed to gay rights.

Dr. Chil-Yong Kang, a University of Western Ontario professor, developed the vaccine, called SAV001-H . Sumagen Canada Inc, who supports the professor, says that the vaccine has been tested on animals without any identified adverse effects or safety risks.

The makers of the vaccine are waiting for approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration before they can begin testing the vaccine on humans.

Seventy countries around the world have already patented the vaccine.

Read the full CTV story here.

The anonymous donation will help establish the Jane Rule Endowment for the Study of Human Relationships, Canada’s largest university fund devoted to the study of sexuality.

Rule was the recipient of both the Order of British Columbia and the Order of Canada, and several of her 12 novels were adapted into movies. Rule died in 2007 of liver cancer.

Read the full Globe and Mail story here.

“I decided it was time to be found again. I’d gotten pretty lost. I got out because there were folks there willing to open doors for me when I had decided that I had enough,” says Taylor, who grew up in Ontario but moved to Vancouver in 1996.

Taylor, who is now 40, had been both a male escort and a cross-dressing transsexual worker, both on and off the street. Since then he has helped found HUSTLE: Men on the Move, which provides support for men involved in sex work in Vancouver.

His story is echoed in a new report entitled Under the Radar: The Sexual Exploitation of Young Men, which found that men in the sex trade often end up alone and without support.

The report’s author, Sue McIntyre, had previously conducted extensive research into the plight of female sex workers, but realized men had been largely forgotten.

“I’ve had a fair bit of guilt about it _ that it was ignored for so long,” she says. “People don’t even see them, they don’t notice them. Even when there are outreach programs in a lot of different cities that do work with this population, they’re usually geared more for working with young women in the trade.”

Taylor agrees that organizations and services see men as an afterthought. “I don’t think (people) can wrap their head around sex work and that men are vulnerable and can be exploited.”

McIntyre sought input from 157 male sex-trade workers in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba and concluded they have no exit strategy. Her report, which paints a bleak picture for men who work as sex-trade workers, suggests comprehensive changes.

For most of the sex-trade workers it is “survival sex” — having enough money for food, shelter, clothing and often to support addictions. Although many are gay, others are “gay for pay.” More than 99 per cent of their customers are men, and they work for an average of nine years — double the time of their female counterparts.

“Young women can birth a baby, have a desire to have a child and that brings back state and family support. Young men do not have that option… it’s not something people are celebrating,” says McIntyre.

Seventy-five per cent of respondents reported sexual abuse and 85 per cent were physically assaulted before they ran away from home. They reported feeling shame and self-loathing. Even social workers who work with sex-trade workers report being uncomfortable dealing with them.

“That was really alarming for me. There’s an underlying sort of homophobia that goes with it,” says McIntyre.

Taylor says another reason why men are alone is that society has conditioned them to be strong and silent.

“Men are supposed to … feel no pain, not show their weaknesses and have greater perceived physical strength,” says Taylor, who got into the sex trade at 31 because he wanted to belong. Addictions followed before he finally left three years ago.

In Alberta, efforts have been made to improve the plight of sexually exploited young men.

“If you look at the ratios of males-to-females that we provide support to, I think they’re equally as successful at exiting,” says Sarita Dighe-Bramwell, with Alberta Children and Youth Services.

“I think the difference is we don’t recognize enough of the males,” she says, adding that help is now being provided to more boys.

McIntyre’s report recommends specialized programs to help male prostitutes get out and says that should include detox and rehabilitation beds, housing and help finding other employment.

It also says there should be mentoring programs and adds that staff working with young men in the sexual exploitation trade should be provided with gender non-conformity training.

“People need to know that this population exists and stop ignoring it,” says McIntyre.

©365Gay.com 2009

The stocky 27-year-old, sporting stylish glasses and a silver stud in his right ear, grew teary-eyed as he told his story at a rally against homophobia held in Montreal.

He was arrested for homosexuality in 2006 in the African country when he was denounced by a former boyfriend. Yousse says he was beaten by police and held in jail for three days before going to trial.

“They thought of me as an extraterrestrial,” he said. “I had a trial and was convicted of homosexuality and sent to prison for a year. That year was horrible. I lived with discrimination, I was almost raped more than once, I was physically abused, my family abandoned me.”

After his release, he still encountered constant harassment and his family denied his existence. Yousse spent a brief time in Tunisia before coming to Canada on a student visa five months ago.

He recently applied for refugee status.

“I’m less scared in Canada, I feel safer,” Yousse said. “But I have dreams where I’m still abused. I hope with time they’ll fade but it won’t happen overnight. It’s a deep wound.”

Yousse’s case is extreme, but members of sexual minorities face discrimination in many countries and within immigrant communities in Canada.

Members of Quebec’s gay and lesbian communities, along with representatives of the ethnic minority communities, are trying to change the face of homosexuality in the province.

On Sunday, they launched an awareness campaign with the support of the Quebec government aimed at making Canadians of all backgrounds more aware of the issues surrounding sexual diversity.

“Our role is to be the bridge,” said Robert Rousseau, an organizer. “Often, these men come to Quebec with a lot of baggage that leads them to developing a poor perception of themselves.

He says gays and lesbians who’ve developed an internalized homophobia are more vulnerable to having risky sex. His organization is reaching out specifically to religious leaders of ethnic communities to get their help in demystifying homosexuality.

Alexis Musanganya, 35, president of gay rights organization African Rainbow, is an activist who himself endured silent discrimination in his native Rwanda. He says he lived in the closet, believing himself to be the only gay man in his country.

“In many countries it’s condemned, it’s criminal to be gay to be lesbian,” he said, noting that many Africans want to believe that homosexuality doesn’t exist within their nations.

“In some countries you face a death sentence. In places like Cameroon, Senegal, you might get six months to five years in jail and fines.”

And even where anti-homosexuality laws are mostly unenforced, the fact that they’re on the books is problem enough.

“It can be used to tarnish reputations and it affects work against HIV and AIDS,” Musanganya said.

“That’s what these types of laws do. It doesn’t just affect homosexuals, it can affect the whole society in certain ways.”

Musanganya added that homosexual immigrants who arrive in Canada expecting a more open society often run into discrimination within the expat communities here.

“When we get here, we still find ourselves living in hiding,” he said. “We still have to pretend, talk about women while we think of men. I see that a lot. We help people get out of isolation, to know they aren’t alone. They’re not alone wanting to live their dreams and it’s _ happily _ beginning to change. It’s being talked about more.”

A recent survey published by Fondation Emergence, a Quebec gay rights lobby group, gives some support to his theory.

It suggests second-generation immigrants have are much more accepting of homosexuality than their parents.

Almost half of the first generation respondents said they felt that homosexuality was an illness or a deviant behavior, a feeling shared by only 24 per cent of their children.

But the survey of 500 Quebec residents also suggests that the perception of homosexuality was more negative in African and Asian communities than in Western European ones.

Sahand Mahmoodi, 28, appeared briefly in court Friday morning to hear the charges read. He was remanded in custody awaiting trial.

He was arrested on Wednesday after the man with whom he had sex filed a complaint, police said. Det.-Const. Brad Stapleton declined to say if the complainant had become HIV-positive. The two men online in a gay chat site.

Mahmoodi has been positive since 2000, said Stapleton, adding that police believe he has been sexually active without telling partners he has the virus.

Stapleton said that Mahmoodi is a regular in Toronto’s gay village and urged others who may have come in contact with him to contact police and get tested for AIDS.

Under Canadian law it is a criminal offense for anyone with HIV not to disclose their status before engaging in unprotected sex. About 80 charges arrests have been made over the past decade.

But many people working with HIV/AIDS are critical of police pressing charges, fearing it will dissuade people from getting tested. They also raise concerns that the law is not well defined.

“Where is this law going? When are uncertainties in the law going to be addressed?” Alison Symington, a senior policy analyst with the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network told The Globe and Mail newspaper.

“This area of law has been escalating and developing over the past few years with no public policy debate, no research backing it up, nothing to show how it’s been effective,” Symington said.

But other AIDS specialists disagree.

Dr. Philip Berger, an associate professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto said people must be held accountable if they deliberately infect someone else.

“Being HIV positive cannot provide moral cover for unacceptable conduct,” he told The Globe.

It’s a subject so taboo that the cabinet minister responsible for seniors and representatives of the gay and lesbian communities couldn’t find a seniors residence willing to host a news conference.

It was eventually held in a community center on the fringes of Montreal’s gay village.

Still, Minister Marguerite Blais says it’s more about ignorance than malice.

“We would have found a residence eventually,” she said. “I don’t want to accuse anyone of anything. I just want to show how important it is to educate people on this issue.”

Laurent McCutcheon of the gay helpline Gai Ecoute says homosexuality isn’t discussed in most institutions that serve the elderly, leading many Quebec seniors to hide their sexual orientation.

As they age and lose their autonomy, gay, lesbian or transgendered seniors face stigma, loneliness, social isolation, rejection and in extreme cases, harassment from the very institutions they depend on to meet their needs.

The new initiatives funded by the government are meant to highlight the isolation many of them feel.

“We know there are gays and lesbians in these institutions who, sadly, spent their lives in the closet and will stay there until the end,” McCutcheon said.

“We’ll try to do as much as we can for them but also lay the groundwork for the generations coming up.”

In some ways, it’s become the final frontier of gay and lesbian rights.

“We’ll be the first generation to reach to our golden years after fighting for our rights,” McCutcheon said, a comment later echoed by Blais.

“Baby boomers don’t want to accept these situations after a lifetime of living openly,” she said.

Gai Ecoute will receive $400,000 over four years to produce an education campaign for people who work with the elderly that will include a website and an information kit.

The Quebec Lesbian Network will receive $120,000 over three years to broadcast a film that portrays the lives of six lesbians in their golden age.

Diane Heffernan, director of the Network, spoke about the resistance she faced when she approached old age homes about airing the film.

She says she was rejected outright by 118 of the 120 institutions she petitioned and in one home, only 25 of some 4,000 residents attended the screening.

“They were rebels,” Heffernan joked. “They’d been warned they’d be marked as lesbians if they showed up.”

Blais says her support for the projects came after statements made during Quebec-wide public consultations in 2007 on issues facing the elderly.

“There’s a long way to go in their social recognition. These two projects won’t end taboos but it’s a start…(But)I believe a human being is allowed to have dreams, a fulfilling life, right up to their last breath.”

It’s a subject so taboo that the cabinet minister responsible for seniors and representatives of the gay and lesbian communities couldn’t find a seniors residence willing to host a news conference.

It was eventually held in a community center on the fringes of Montreal’s gay village.

Still, Minister Marguerite Blais says it’s more about ignorance than malice.

“We would have found a residence eventually,” she said. “I don’t want to accuse anyone of anything. I just want to show how important it is to educate people on this issue.”

Laurent McCutcheon of the gay helpline Gai Ecoute says homosexuality isn’t discussed in most institutions that serve the elderly, leading many Quebec seniors to hide their sexual orientation.

As they age and lose their autonomy, gay, lesbian or transgendered seniors face stigma, loneliness, social isolation, rejection and in extreme cases, harassment from the very institutions they depend on to meet their needs.

The new initiatives funded by the government are meant to highlight the isolation many of them feel.

“We know there are gays and lesbians in these institutions who, sadly, spent their lives in the closet and will stay there until the end,” McCutcheon said.

“We’ll try to do as much as we can for them but also lay the groundwork for the generations coming up.”

In some ways, it’s become the final frontier of gay and lesbian rights.

“We’ll be the first generation to reach to our golden years after fighting for our rights,” McCutcheon said, a comment later echoed by Blais.

“Baby boomers don’t want to accept these situations after a lifetime of living openly,” she said.

Gai Ecoute will receive $400,000 over four years to produce an education campaign for people who work with the elderly that will include a website and an information kit.

The Quebec Lesbian Network will receive $120,000 over three years to broadcast a film that portrays the lives of six lesbians in their golden age.

Diane Heffernan, director of the Network, spoke about the resistance she faced when she approached old age homes about airing the film.

She says she was rejected outright by 118 of the 120 institutions she petitioned and in one home, only 25 of some 4,000 residents attended the screening.

“They were rebels,” Heffernan joked. “They’d been warned they’d be marked as lesbians if they showed up.”

Blais says her support for the projects came after statements made during Quebec-wide public consultations in 2007 on issues facing the elderly.

“There’s a long way to go in their social recognition. These two projects won’t end taboos but it’s a start…(But)I believe a human being is allowed to have dreams, a fulfilling life, right up to their last breath.”

New Democratic Party Leader Brian Mason says it’s shameful that Alberta had to be dragged by the courts to make this change, which has already been in place for many years in some provinces.

“They have been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century by the courts,” Mason said.

Alberta lost a high-profile court battle over this issue a decade ago and was then ordered by the Supreme Court of Canada to add sexual orientation to the human rights code.

But there’s a controversial twist to the legislation introduced Tuesday by Alberta’s Progressive Conservative government to settle this long-standing battle over gay rights.

The Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Amendment Act will also give parents the right to exclude their kids from parts of the education curriculum that they don’t agree with, including anything to do with same-sex relationships.

Premier Ed Stelmach concedes this opting-out provision could be used to pull students out of classes dealing with evolution if parents preferred their kids be taught what’s in the Bible instead.

“The parents would have the opportunity to make that choice,” said the premier. “The discussion among the caucus was that … parents would make the best choice for their children.”

Liberal human rights critic Laurie Blakeman said this threatens to fracture the system if parents start pulling their kids from classes if they don’t agree with what’s being taught.

“I think that the government has opened a huge can of worms with this,” Blakeman said in an interview.

“Do we have students graduating with the same instruction? No we won’t. We will have a complete patchwork.”

“It’s a mess.”

Marc Dalton, an elementary school teacher and the Liberal candidate in the riding of Mission-Maple Ridge for the May 12 B.C. election, sent the email to a colleague in 1996 in the midst of a raging debate over same-sex marriage and education.

B.C. New Democrats seized on that email Friday and demanded that the Liberals remove Dalton as one of their candidates in the upcoming provincial election.

Dalton apologized for the email but did not offer his resignation and insisted that he’s a different man than he was when it was written.

“I would say that I’ve become much more tolerant, much more open,” he said in an interview Friday.

“It’s not something I would write now. There’s been a lot of change since then.”

An NDP spokesman said the email came from a former colleague of Dalton’s and it arrived in a brown envelope.

“I’m not against homosexuals as people, but I do not support their lifestyle choice,” says the email. “I believe homosexuality is a moral issue.”

It says most people agree on moral issues like respect, honesty, and kindness, and most people do not condone behaviours and acts such as rape, robbery, pedophilia and incest.

But “there are other moral issues that large segments of our society do not see eye to eye: gambling, abortion, adultery, pornography,” it says. “I believe that homosexuality fits in this category.”

The email says many, many people hold homosexuality to be an “improper and high-risk behaviour,” but doesn’t condone violence against “these people.”

Dalton said it was never intended to be offensive or hurtful, but he could understand how it could be misconstrued.

He said he’s always tried to respect the diversity in communities and the contributions of people from all backgrounds and walks of life.

“I anticipate having colleagues that are gay and it’s essential for me to have a good rapport, to work together, with teachers, as an MLA or with my constituents,” he said.

Dalton said he recognizes and applauds the significant contributions of the gay community and wouldn’t want to cause offence to them or anyone else.

“`It was never my intention to pass judgment on any individual and I have always been respectful of every individual’s right to privacy and self-expression.”

He said it’s not his intention as an elected official to impose his personal values in any event, or “to revisit an issue that has been historically divisive and that our communities have endeavoured to move beyond.”

It was enough for Liberal Leader Gordon Campbell, who did not ask Dalton to step down.

“First of all, I can understand why this would be hurtful to people. I’m sure that he’s as sorry as everyone else is,” Campbell told reporters.  “He’s issued an unequivocal apology…. I accept the apology.”

The French immersion teacher represented the federal Conservatives in the 2006 federal election but was not allowed to run for the Tories last year, despite winning the local nomination process. The party did not give a reason for refusing Dalton’s candidacy.

Spencer Herbert, the incumbent MLA and NDP candidate in Vancouver-West End, considered the heart of the city’s gay community, said Campbell should denounce the comments and fire Dalton as a candidate.

Last weekend, the NDP candidate in Vancouver-False Creek stepped down after racy photos posted on his Facebook site came to light.

Last fall’s federal election saw candidates from across the political spectrum felled by online gaffes and embarrassing situations from their past.

Three federal New Democrats, two Tories and two Liberals stepped down during the race for everything from a decade-old skinny dip to online videos showing them smoking up.

“Gordon Campbell said that his party had a vigorous screening process, so either this candidate chose not to disclose these kind of comments or they’re acceptable to Campbell’s Liberals,” Herbert said.

“If Mr. Dalton hid his homophobia, then I think he should be asked to resign.

“They should do the right thing and denounce these comments and ask the candidate to step down.”

Campbell said the Liberals did not know about the email, despite a rigorous vetting process.

“This is a 12-year-old email,” he said. “We do our best in terms of the vetting process but we don’t often go back more than 10 years.”

Dalton said he learned the email had come to light Friday while campaigning but didn’t seriously consider stepping down.

“I know where I stand right now. I know the type of person I am, though the NDP are trying to make it seem that I’m such and such a person, I feel like this is totally contrary to the type of person that I am,” Dalton said.”

It was a tough day for the Liberals on the campaign trail.

In addition to the call for Dalton’s resignation, Public Safety Minister John van Dongen announced his licence had been suspended over speeding tickets.

Van Dongen was responsible for the Insurance Corp. of B.C. and the Office of the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles, which suspended his licence. Both have been transferred to the Labour Ministry.