We’re celebrating trans and gender non-conforming people by raising awareness and increasing visibility. You can get involved by joining the events and showing your support in practical ways. Find out here
Popular culture is generally associated with youth. But a new Netflix series that has a 49-year-old female lead, fighting the ravages of middle age, is being hailed for putting the spotlight on women’s lifelong battle with their own bodies.
In one scene of Bombay Begums, Rani, played by Bollywood star-turned-filmmaker Pooja Bhatt, abruptly walks out of a board meeting.
While her colleagues try to figure out why, the camera finds her in the bathroom, splashing cold water on her face, trying to dry her armpits under the hand dryer.
“Most people said they thought she was having a heart-attack,” says Namita Bhandare, gender editor for news website Article 14, “but I knew exactly what was happening.”
What was happening to Rani was menopause. More
Today is marked as International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and Transphobia (IDAHoBIT). This date was specifically chosen worldwide to commemorate the World Health Organisation’s decision in 1990 to declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder. More
One of the first stars of English women’s football is to be immortalised with a life-sized statue.
The sculpture of Lily Parr, who played professionally in the 1920s, will be unveiled at the National Football Museum in Manchester in June.
Parr, who died in 1978 aged 73, was the first woman to feature in the museum’s Football Hall of Fame in 2002.
A spokeswoman for the Football Association said: “She deserves recognition as a true pioneer.”
She added: “It’s only fitting that she takes her place alongside other football legends and becomes the first woman to be celebrated with a statue in her honour.” More
Deaf Awareness Week takes place between 6 and 12 May and with this in mind we have chosen Mat Gilbert as our Inspirational Diversity Champion of the Month.
Mat is a professional rugby union player currently playing for Hartpury College RFC. Mat joined Hartpury from Worcester Warriors, having also played for Bath Rugby, the Scarlets and Modigliano (Italy).
Apart from being an experienced player, Mat is unusual in that he has achieved all of this despite being severely deaf – he has played for the England Deaf team on numerous occasions and is tireless in his efforts to encourage more opportunities for deaf children to get involved in the sport.
Mat is a long-serving ambassador for the charity Action for Hearing Loss. He supports many fundraising events across the UK and has been the guest speaker at the charity’s annual Christmas Carol Concert.
To find out more about Deaf Awareness Week see here
To find out more about Action for Hearing Loss
A leading figure in the British disability movement, Mike Oliver, who has died aged 74, bridged its activist and academic wings and popularised the concept of the social model of disability. He went on to become Britain’s first professor of disability studies. More
Barclays is to become the Women’s Super League first ever title sponsor, in a deal the Football Association has called “the biggest ever investment in UK women’s sport by a brand”.
The three-year partnership, understood to be worth in excess of £10m, will start from next season.
The competition will be rebranded the Barclays FA Women’s Super League and include a prize-money pot of £500,000.
Previously, WSL winners have not been awarded any official prize money.
“It’s a real landmark moment in the development of the women’s game,” the FA’s director of the women’s professional game Kelly Simmons told BBC Sport.
“We obviously want to get more fans and more revenue behind the game, making sure it’s secure and sustainable for the future.
“But also the investment in schools makes sure lots of girls get the chance to play football, which is our pipeline for the future.” More
When Uncharted: The Lost Legacy was released this year, it gained a lot of attention – not because it is the latest instalment for a popular franchise, it stood out for another reason.
The game was set in India, had two lead women, and one of them, Nadine Ross, is a black South African.
Other big releases this year include Assassins Creed Origins, which is set in Egypt with an African protagonist, while Star Wars Battlefront II used the likeness and voice of Janina Gavankar, an actress with part-Indian heritage.
But speaking to BBC Asian Network, Jo Twist, chief executive for Ukie, the trading body for the UK’s games industry, said there was still a long way to go before video games could be truly representative of the gaming audience. More
Meryl Streep has said sexual harassment wouldn’t have been tolerated in Hollywood if there were more women on the boards of entertainment companies.
The star is getting together with other well-known actresses to demand equal representation in boardrooms.
She said balanced boards wouldn’t have approved pay-offs like those given to some of Harvey Weinstein’s accusers.
“If the boards of the company were half female, there wouldn’t ever have been pay-offs to anybody,” Streep said. More