How much is that man in the window?

If you have visited Amsterdam you will more than likely have taken a walk through De Wallen, Amsterdam’s Red light district. You would have noticed that pretty much every window is occupied by a female sex worker. However ahead of Amsterdam Pride this year the windows of sex work collective My Red Light were occupied by male escorts from HUNQS.
Usually, the peepshow-like windows that line the red-light district are filled with scantily-clad female sex workers advertising the brothels. My Red Light, a sex worker rights organization, also has windows in the district.
Jens Schmidt, a gay man who founded HUNQZ (http://www.hunqz.com/escorts), which partnered with My Red Light (https://myredlight.nl/) to organize the project, said he walks through the red-light district regularly on his way home.
"How different it would be if there were men in the windows too?" Schmidt said in a news release.
"We wanted to partner with My Red Light to raise awareness that every sex worker deserves the same respect and rights as anyone else for the work they do," said Schmidt.
Four male escort models volunteered for the project to create solidarity among gay and straight sex workers and getting equality for gay people," he wrote.
"The red-light district is very straight-dominated, so it's good to get a bit of gayness in there," he continued, explaining that there is one street for transgender sex workers and another for women, but none for gay men.

Mugabe has died

Robert Mugabe has died in a hospital in Singapore aged 95. Hospitals in Zimbabwe probably don't have the equipment to keep a feeble geriatric alive this long as during his extended tenure as President of Zimbabwe his government destroyed the country's infrastructure, turned a breadbasket economy into a basket case, and reduced its currency to worthless status and people used billion dollar notes as toilet paper.

Mugabe said that homosexuals are worse than pigs or dogs, and engendered serious homophobia in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Africa.

September 4th Person: Beyoncé

04-09-1981 Beyoncé

Born in Houston, Texas. Straight ally. American singer, songwriter, dancer, and actress. She showed her support for gay marriage with a post on Instagram that read, “If you like it you should be able to put a ring on it,” followed by the hashtag “We will unite 4 marriage equality!” She also posted a photo of the Human Rights logo with the message, “It’s about time…show your support!” Both she and her husband Jay-Z came out in support of gay marriage during an interview with CNN. “I’ve always thought it as something that was still holding the country back,” she said. “What people do in their own homes is their business and you can choose to love whoever you love. That’s their business. It’s no different than discriminating against blacks. It’s discrimination, plain and simple.” Her mother-in-law, Gloria Carter, has since come out as a lesbian.

Justice Edwin Cameron retires

Justice Edwin Cameron stepped down from the Constitutional Court today (20 August 2019).
Justice Cameron has been a judge for 25 years, and before that he worked as a human rights lawyer in the apartheid era, also defending ANC members.
In 1999, he revealed that he was HIV positive and fought for HIV/AIDS and gay-rights activism. He has written an annual World AIDS Day message for Exit for the last decade.
In his first book, Witness to AIDS, he talks about his struggle with the illness.
Cameron was appointed to the Constitutional Court in 2008 by then acting president Kgalema Motlanthe and served in the role for 10 years and eight months.

India: Women who beat anti-gay law come out as a couple

Menaka Guruswamy and Arundhati Katju successfully challenged Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which punished LGBTQ+ relations. The Supreme Court lawyers opposed the draconian laws, which were introduced during the British rule of India.
The law criminalised homosexual acts as an ‘unnatural offence’ and has been heavily contested in the last few decades. They worked together on the landmark case in 2018 when the Supreme Court of India ruled that Section 377 no longer applies to consensual gay sex between adults.
Speaking on a TV show hosted by CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, the lawyers spoke about their work to scrap the rule and it bought them closer together. They chuckled and confirmed to Zakaria that they were, in fact, a couple.