Gaily Observer – Russian “straight” flag | Ruby Rose | University dress code changed for trans* students

“Straight” flag launched in Russia

IN retaliation to the rainbow flag being waved globally in support of the rise of same-sex marriage support, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s United Russian Party has created its own flag to oppose “gay fever”.

The flag was unveiled in Moscow last week on the Day of Family, Love and Fidelity, an annual country-wide celebration held on July 8.

The flag depicts a man and a woman holding hands with three children, and under the image is the hashtag #realfamily in Russian.

Opponents of the flag have already altered it on social media, colouring the figures with rainbow colours or changing the parents to same sex couples.

The flag has also copped drawn the ire of French anti-gay marriage group La Manif Pour Tous, who claim plagiarism of their flag that depicts a similar image of a family with two children and their parents.

Ruby Rose once considered gender reassignment

AUSTRALIAN actress Ruby Rose has said she was once committed to becoming a boy when she was growing up that she saved up money to pay for a gender reassignment.

The Orange is the New Black star came out as a lesbian when she was 12 but she had considered transitioning from female to male from about the age of five.

“I had this jar… I probably had, like, 19c to go towards this surgery that I didn’t really know a lot about,” she told Access Hollywood recently.

“I think I’d seen, like, a daytime documentary, something on Oprah, and I was like ‘That’s what I’m going to do’.

“I decided to change the way that I dressed and talked and I realised I didn’t want to transition; I just wanted to be more comfortable in my own skin.”

UK university rewrites 650-year-old dress code for trans* students

ONE of Britain’s oldest universities has rewritten its 650-year-old dress code to allow trans* students to dress how they choose at formal events with campaigners hoping other colleges will follow suit.

According to Reuters, Mark Elliot, the dean of St Catharine’s College at Cambridge University, reworded the dress code after a campaign spearheaded by US trans* student Charlie Northrop, 25.

Previously, male students had to wear smart trousers and jacket with a tie at formal events while women had to wear a skirt and blouse or dress but now students can choose to wear what they like as long as it is “suitably smart dress”.

“‘Smart dress’ is defined without reference to considerations of gender identity or expression,” states the revised dress code published on the college’s website.