The weirdest and most unexpected LGBT stories of 2011
As 2011 draws to a close, PinkNews.co.uk takes a look back at the most important stories of the last twelve months.
We will look at the most important stories of the year for the UK, the most important stories in the US, and the most important stories around the world.
But this category is dedicated to the strangest stories of the year: the news in 2011 which took us completely by surprise.
10 – Woman attacks “lesbian” Gauguin painting
Gauguin might not be for everyone, but one museum visitor in Washington DC reacted particularly badly to the “evil homosexual” element she perceived in his 1899 work Two Tahitian Women.
9 – George Michael says the gays on Eastenders are scaring children
George Michael employed some pretty colourful language in his critique of the gay characters on soap opera Eastenders.
The musician took to Twitter to say the BBC drama was “scaring the shit out of children”, with one being repeatedly beaten up and another disowned by his Muslim family.
8 – 19 stone rugby player suffers stroke and “wakes up gay”
A rugby player who suffered a stroke after a gym accident woke up gay and became a hairdresser, he said this year. Chris Birch said “It sounds strange but when I came round I immediately felt different […] I was definitely gay.”
7 – World’s first gay beer launched
A beer believed to be the first specifically marketed to gay consumers was launched in Mexico, Colombia and Japan in February of this year. Distributors said they had “great respect with the idea of offering a product directed to the gay-lesbian community that has been ignored for too long but is important and very demanding”.
6 – Anti-gay US politician was a secret sperm donor to lesbians
5 – 5,000 year old “transgender” skeleton found in Prague
4 – Belgian footballer comes out and becomes a gay porn star
3 – Thomas Jane used to “let a guy buy him a sandwich”
2 – Toronto Zoo’s gay penguins are forced to separate, then one turns straight
Buddy and Pedro seemed to capture the imagination of the world this year, when Toronto Zoo announced it had to separate the ‘gay’ penguins as part of a breeding programme. We were thrilled to hear the pair would be “reunited in the spring”.
But the story did not end there. In December, Buddy, the older of the two, found a new, female, mate.
1 – US woman too “disgusted by gays” to leave the house
The stay-at-home mother of seven said she was “outnumbered” by gays. On her blog, she said she knew “what would happen if I asked two men or two women to stop displaying, right in front of me and my children, that they live in sodomy”.
