EDGE Philadelphia

Twenty-six years after the founding of the AIDS activist group ACT UP, current and former members will gather to celebrate achievements.

The Czech president says he will no longer block a university professorship for a gay rights activist who had been critical of him.

Maryland’s LGBT community leaders are hopeful that 2013 will be the year a gender-identity nondiscrimination bill finally passes the General Assembly.

An external website for the Metropolitan Police Department’s (MPD) Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit (GLLU) is no longer operating, prompting some local LGBT activists to question why the site was recently shut down without notice.

Meredith Baxter, acclaimed actress, producer and advocate for women’s and human rights and breast cancer research, will keynote the 31st annual Black Tie Dinner.

Three months ago, Ohio lesbian mother Jennifer Tyrell took on the Boys Scouts of America’s attempt to push her out as a den mother. Now, leaders at AT&T have lent their voice and support to encourage BSA not to discriminate.

While a junior in high school, one of her classmates drew a Chinese man during a discussion of Confucianism. ’’Basically, straw hat, fortune cookie,’’ she recalls. ’’Any kind of offensive Orientalist things you could think of were on that poster.’’

Soulfource - a non-profit organization committed to the freedom of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people from political and spiritual oppression - announced this year’s 2012 Equality Riders, a team of 17 young advocates.

Look at a photo or news clip from around the world of Occupy protesters and you’ll likely spot a handful of people wearing masks of a cartoon-like man with a pointy beard, closed-mouth smile and mysterious eyes.

With gay activists & groups concentrating on marriage & other hot-button issues, some wonder whether the life-and-death continuing AIDS epidemic isn’t being ignored - whether because of race & class, or long-time burn-out, or ignorance.