Judges to decide if Equality Act protections include transgender women with gender recognition certificates

• How UK court definition of ‘woman’ could affect sex-based rights

Equalities campaigners in the UK are braced for a supreme court ruling that could have a significant impact on the rights of transgender people to use single-sex services.

Five judges on the UK supreme court will rule on Wednesday morning whether or not the definition of woman in the Equality Act 2010 includes transgender women with gender recognition certificates (GRC).

She is tragically mainstream, allergic to ‘serving’ on the red carpet and certainly hasn’t thrived against the odds. It’s the antithesis of gay culture – so why do I love her?

As a self-evidently gay man, I’ve generally been spared the awkwardness of coming out. That was, until I became a Swiftie. In recent years I have become adept at gauging the temperature of a room before revealing my predilection. Is this a safe space? Will I be sidelined or treated as a pervert because of who I choose to love? Should I lie, or just be evasive? I want to live authentically, but at what cost?

Taylor Swift is at once the closest thing we have to a monoculture and the most divisive pop star of modern times. As a self-identified Swiftie, I believe her gift lies in the ability to take hyper-specific experiences and render them universal. I’ve never performed a 149-date world tour while reeling from the heartbreak of having been ghosted by Matty Healy of the 1975, but listening to I Can Do It With a Broken Heart, her song about that indignity, has helped me put on a brave face when faced by life’s more quotidian challenges. By writing a 10-minute epic about her three-month fling with Jake Gyllenhaal, Taylor gives fans space to mourn our own failed situationships or private disappointments – however fleeting or insignificant they may appear to others.

Movement gathers pace after a ‘disheartening’ and regressive ruling by Trinidad’s supreme court last month

Growing up in a single-parent home in poor communities in Jamaica was tough for Glenroy Murray. But beyond the pain of economic disadvantage, the greater challenge, he said, was the constant fear that someone would discover his closely guarded secret. He was attracted to boys.

Instinctively, he knew that being gay was simply not acceptable in his community. “It was very obvious that I was different by many standards in this country – and what you consider effeminate,” he said, adding that it was “made very clear” to him that that was not appropriate.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Hungary's capital, Budapest, on Monday to mock and protest a constitutional amendment which passed through the country's parliament banning LGBTQ+ gatherings

• Hungary passes constitutional amendment to ban LGBTQ+ gatherings

Amendment also enshrines recognition of only two sexes, providing basis for denying gender identities

Hungarian lawmakers have voted through a controversial constitutional amendment that campaigners described as a “significant escalation” in the government’s efforts to crack down on dissent and chip away at human rights.

Backed by the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, and his rightwing populist party, Fidesz, the amendment passed on Monday along party lines, with 140 votes for and 21 against.

Exclusive: Funding would go towards third-party training for doctors and nurses, which advocates say would remove barriers to treatment

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Labor would provide health workers with training to care for LGBTIQA+ Australians in a $10m package to upskill doctors and nurses alongside a new accreditation program, the health minister, Mark Butler, has said.

The election promise, to be announced on Monday, would see Labor contract a training provider to design programs to train healthcare workers to help give “inclusive, culturally safe primary care” for gay, lesbian and gender-diverse Australians.

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When Mitch launched into a piano recital at his birthday party, his friends were gobsmacked by his hidden talent. Eoin O’Dwyer knew he was the man he had to marry

• Find more stories from The moment I knew series

Nobody spoke about being gay in Ireland. I come from a big Catholic family – six kids, millions of cousins – from a rural part of the country, and I didn’t think there was anyone like me. Although my parents and family have been unwavering in their support from the day I came out in 2001, they also understood my need to leave a country where, back then, a religion that didn’t recognise me was so dominant.

Cities like Sydney are queer beacons and, when a career opportunity arose, I moved to a job at St Vincent’s hospital. That’s when I met Mitch, at a Mardi Gras party.

Possible escalation comes after university already accepted changes as pre-condition for restoring $400m in grants

The Trump administration is considering placing Columbia University under a consent decree, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, a dramatic escalation in the federal government’s crackdown on the Ivy League institution.

The university has already accepted a series of changes demanded by the administration as a precondition for restoring $400m in federal grants and contracts the government suspended last month over allegations that the school failed to protect students from antisemitism on campus.

Office for National Statistics for first time examines how estimated rates of self-harm and suicide differ by sexuality

The risk of suicide and self-harm for people who identify as gay or lesbian, bisexual or another sexual orientation (LGB+) is more than twice as high as for their heterosexual peers, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The ONS found that the risk of suicide among people aged 16 and over identifying as LGB+ in England and Wales was about 2.2 times higher than among heterosexuals, while the risk of intentional self-harm was 2.5 times higher.

Department will follow rest of Trump’s anti-DEI order while adhering to 2024 defense bill barring any pronoun policy

The US air force has reversed its ban on the use of preferred pronouns in email signatures and other professional communications.

In a memo dated last Wednesday, the Department of the Air Force announced that it had “rescinded” the directive it issued earlier this year prohibiting “the use of ‘preferred pronouns’ to identify one’s gender identity in professional communications”, including email signatures, memoranda, letters, papers, social media and official websites.