STUD Brno is a Czech activist association of lesbians, gays, and their friends.
STUD was established in 1996 as an independent non-government as well as non-profit organization (civic association), the mission of which is to benefit the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender minority, and to aim for legal and factual equality of their rights with other members and groups of the society. The name of the organization is abbreviated from ″students″. The full name was originally STUD-lgb and it meant ″lesbian, gay & bisexual students". [1]
STUD gathers people of homosexual and bisexual orientation, and their heterosexual allies. STUD counted some thirty members at the beginning of 2010. STUD is an all-volunteer group, except for one paid half-time staff member. [1] It was an active member of The Association of Gay and Lesbian Citizens‘ Organizations in the Czech Republic (SOHO) until its transformation in 2000. In 2003 STUD became a constituent member of the Gay & Lesbian League (GLL). [2]
A pink triangle has been a symbol for the LGBT community, initially intended as a badge of shame, but later reappropriated as a positive symbol of self-identity. In Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, it began as one of the Nazi concentration camp badges, distinguishing those imprisoned because they had been identified by authorities as gay men or trans women. In the 1970s, it was revived as a symbol of protest against homophobia, and has since been adopted by the larger LGBT community as a popular symbol of LGBT pride and the LGBT movements and queer liberation movements.
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk was a Czechoslovak statesman, progressive political activist and philosopher who served as the first president of Czechoslovakia from 1918 to 1935. He is regarded as the founding father of Czechoslovakia.
The Czech Republic has offered registered partnerships for same-sex couples since 1 July 2006. Registered partnerships grant several of the rights of marriage, including inheritance, the right to declare a same-sex partner as next of kin, hospital visitation rights, jail and prison visitation rights, spousal privilege, and alimony rights, but do not allow joint adoption, widow's pension, or joint property rights. The registered partnership law was passed in March 2006 and went into effect on 1 July 2006. The country also grants unregistered cohabitation status to "persons living in a common household" that gives couples inheritance and succession rights in housing.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the Czech Republic are granted some protections, but may still face legal difficulties not experienced by non-LGBT residents. In 2006, the country legalized registered partnerships for same-sex couples, and a bill legalizing same-sex marriage was being considered by the Parliament of the Czech Republic before its dissolution for the 2021 Czech legislative election, when it died in the committee stage.
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, commonly called The Center, is a nonprofit organization serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ) population of New York City and nearby communities.
New Zealand society is generally accepting of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) peoples. The LGBTQ-friendly environment is epitomised by the fact that there are several members of Parliament who belong to the LGBTQ community, LGBTQ rights are protected by the Human Rights Act, and same-sex couples are able to marry as of 2013. Sex between men was decriminalised in 1986. New Zealand has an active LGBTQ community, with well-attended annual gay pride festivals in most cities.
The March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation was a large political rally that took place in Washington, D.C., on April 25, 1993. Organizers estimated that 1,000,000 attended the March. The D.C. Police Department put the number between 800,000 and more than 1 million, making it one of the largest protests in American history. The National Park Service estimated attendance at 300,000, but their figure attracted so much negative attention that it shortly thereafter stopped issuing attendance estimates for similar events.
The Iris Prize, established in 2007 by Berwyn Rowlands of The Festivals Company, is an international LGBTQ film prize and festival which is open to any film which is by, for, about or of interest to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or intersex audiences and which must have been completed within two years of the prize deadline.
Mezipatra is a Czech queer film festival screening films with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender themes. The name Mezipatra translates as "mezzanine" and refers to the festival's mission: creating space for meeting of people regardless of their gender or sexual identities. Each edition explores a chosen theme and hosts a variety of international guests. The accompanying events range from lectures and debates to art openings, theatre performances as well as exciting parties. It takes place annually in November in Prague and Brno with related events in Ostrava, Olomouc and other cities in Czech Republic. Throughout the year Mezipatra offers additional screenings within the Mezipatra Approved edition. Mezipatra also participates in Prague Pride festival by organizing screenings and debates with LGBT themes.
Jiří Dienstbier Jr. is a Czech politician, lawyer and the Senator for Kladno from 2011 to 2020, representing the Social Democratic Party (ČSSD). He previously served as Minister for Human Rights, Equal Opportunities and Legislation in Bohuslav Sobotka's cabinet, and at various points he has been Deputy Leader of ČSSD, a member of the Chamber of Deputies, and shadow minister of Justice. He was also the ČSSD candidate for the first direct presidential elections in the Czech Republic in 2013.
Petr Fiala is a Czech politician and political scientist who has been the prime minister of the Czech Republic since November 2021 and leader of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) since 2014. He previously served as the Minister of Education, Youth and Sports from 2012 to 2013. Prior to entering politics, he was the rector of Masaryk University.
ANO, officially called ANO 2011, is a right-wing populist political party in the Czech Republic, led by businessman Andrej Babiš, who served as Prime Minister from 2017 to 2021.
The video game industry in the Czech Republic has produced numerous globally successful video games such as Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis and the subsequent ArmA series, the Mafia series, Truck Simulator series, the Kingdom Come: Deliverance series, the Samorost series and others. There were 300–400 video game developers and around 30 video game companies focusing on video game development in 2014. In 2017, the country had 1,100 developers and 47 companies. Video games are also considered by some experts to be the country's biggest cultural export. The video game industry did not enjoy a good reputation and was unsupported by the state until 2013, when the Ministry of Industry and Trade started to seek ways to kickstart the economy. By 2014, programs were planned to support the video game industry. Another problem is a lack of video game development specialization at any university.
The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ) community in San Francisco is one of the largest and most prominent LGBT communities in the United States, and is one of the most important in the history of American LGBT rights and activism alongside New York City. The city itself has been described as "the original 'gay-friendly city'". LGBT culture is also active within companies that are based in Silicon Valley, which is located within the southern San Francisco Bay Area.
Ronni Lebman Sanlo is the Director Emeritus of the UCLA Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center and an authority on matters relating to LGBT students, faculty and staff in higher education. She recognized at an early age that she was a lesbian, but was too afraid to tell anybody. Sanlo went to college then married and had two children. At the age of 31, Ronni came out and lost custody of her young children. The treatment toward the LBGT community and her rights as a mother are what gave Sanlo the drive to get involved in activism and LGBT politics.
Purple Skies is a 2014 movie directed by Sridhar Rangayan and produced by Public Service Broadcasting Trust and Solaris Pictures. It documents the opinions of lesbians, bisexuals and trans men in India. It was broadcast on Doordarshan in 2015.
Straightwashing is portraying LGB or otherwise queer characters in fiction as heterosexual (straight), making LGB people appear heterosexual, or altering information about historical figures to make their representation comply with heteronormativity.
Lída Merlínová was the pen name of Czech writer, Ludmila Pecháčková-Skokanová. She began her career as a singer and dancer in the opera theater. After her marriage, she began publishing around 1929. She wrote the first lesbian novel in Czech and many of her works were written as inspirational novels for youth. She also wrote biographies of well-known personalities. Her works were banned in the communist era, but in the 21st century, there has been scholarship on her writing and involvement in the interwar period in the movement to gain civil rights for LGBT people in Czechoslovakia.
The annual Prague Pride was established in 2011. Prague is also a host of the Mezipatra Queer Film Festival.
The Moravian Land Movement is a political party in the Czech Republic that campaigns for the establishment of an autonomous region in Moravia and Czech Silesia. It was founded in 2018 as a breakaway from Moravané and claims to be the successor to the Movement for Autonomous Democracy–Party for Moravia and Silesia.