This week read about Reverend Alexya Salvador hoping to use her faith to help the LGBT community in Brazil, and Russia's "gay propaganda law" going after a children's book.

Brazil’s First Trans Pastor Hopes to Use Faith to Help LGBT People

Frantic calls from LGBT young people thinking about suicide or from their parents after they have made an attempt on their lives regularly intersperse Alexya Salvador's day. At the point when they do, she drops everything to talk.

As the first transgender reverend in Latin America at the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), she hopes she can use her faith to help.

According to The Guardian, Salvador understands the struggle to reconcile religion and identity in Brazil, where Christianity is the predominant religion.

“The panic that lived in my head until I discovered the MCC was that I would go to hell, that I was God’s mistake,” she says. “While studying theology, I learned that I have flaws like all humans do, but being a trans woman is not one of them.”

Russia’s ‘Gay Propaganda Law’ Goes After Children’s Book

The cover of "Early One Morning." Image via Amazon.

A month after a Hungarian bookshop chain was punished for selling a children's book depicting a day in the life of a kid with same-sex parents, the identical picture book was released in Russia — but with an "18+" label to comply with the country's so-called "gay propaganda" statute.

According to The Guardian, the picture book by American authors Lawrence Schimel and Elīna Brasliņa depict a morning and an evening in the life of two children with same-sex parents. It has two English titles: “Early One Morning,” about a little boy's morning with his two moms, and “Bedtime, Not Playtime!” about a girl's bedtime with her two fathers.

“[This] is a book that is not only about LGBTQ+ families, but for them. In that sense, this book stands on its own as the very first of its kind in Russia,” said Sphere, a foundation that campaigns for LGBT rights.