First local magazine for gays launched

The Bangladeshi gay community has launched its first magazine in a bid to promote greater acceptance of homosexuals who face widespread discrimination in the Muslim-majority country.
Roopbaan, the 56-page glossy magazine, was officially launched in Dhaka Saturday at an invitation-only event that included leading members of the gay community and human rights activists, the magazine's editor said yesterday, according to NDTV.
“It is a giant leap forward for the country’s LGBT people,” the 25-year-old Roopbaan editor, who requested not to be named, told AFP.
He hoped the magazine’s stories about issues impacting gay people would increase understanding.
The editor said the magazine, a quarterly, will not be available on street newsstands, for fear of inflaming tensions and sparking a backlash against the gay community.
But Roopbaan -- the name of a Bengali fairytale of a beautiful young girl married to a boy -- will be available through phone orders, he added.