ΑΠΟ ΑΛΛΟΝ ΠΛΑΝΗΤΗ;

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Η πρώτη συλλογική παρουσία των ισπανικών λεσβιακών ιστολογίων είναι πια γεγονός. Και μάλιστα σε μορφή βιβλίου. Με τον τίτλο «Από άλλον πλανήτη; Καθημερινές ματιές από το Σύμπαν των Μπλογκ» βρίσκεται εδώ και δυο εβδομάδες στα βιβλιοπωλεία όλης της χώρας με πωλήσεις που ήδη ξεπερνούν κατά πολύ τις πιο τρελές προσδοκίες.
Το βιβλίο κοστίζει 16 ευρώ και τα χρήματα που θα συγκεντρωθούν θα δοθούν σε μια γυναικεία ομάδα που αγωνίζεται κατά του αναλφαβητισμού στη Νικαράγουα.
Εμείς εξασφαλίσαμε μικρά αποσπάσματα από τα 7 κεφάλαια αυτού του βιβλίου στο οποίο 34 συνολικά ισπανίδες λεσβίες αφηγούνται ιστορίες, άλλοτε χαρούμενες ή αστείες κι άλλοτε μελαγχολικές, από την καθημερινή τους πραγματικότητα ή ξαναβλέπουν με τα δικά τους μάτια την Ιστορία και με ένα υπονομευτικό χιούμορ αμφισβητούν το κύρος και τη σοβαροφάνεια του κυρίαρχου ετεροφυλοφιλικού λόγου και τρόπου σκέψης.
Άντε, κάποια μέρα και στα δικά μας!

Introducción
Leo con atención el último post de Bea y me soprendo a mí misma enfadándome ligeramente. Dice Bea que ella en ningún momento «se sintió homosexual». Pero el párrafo que más me llama la atención es el siguiente: «Cuando visito algunos blogs tengo la sensación, realmente, de que sigo sin ser lesbiana, es decir, tengo la sensacion de que existe un “Manual de la buena lesbiana”: hay unas lecturas recomendadas, unas músicas imprescindibles, unos sitios a los que salir, unas actitudes correctas e incorrectas, todo está estrictamente diseñado para que no tengas que pensar INDIVIDUALMENTE». Y me pregunto: ¿de verdad leemos las mismas bitácoras? Repaso mentalmente mi lista favorita de blogs lésbicos (Onthe, el mío propio, Ricci, Top, Acuarela, Hester Prynne, Marcadefabrica, Little Bellota... -y sí, no os sorprendáis que yo sé por qué la incluyo aquí-) y no puedo llegar sino a la conclusión contraria: que a través de nuestras bitácoras se descubre una riqueza de experiencias, de variedad, de colores y sabores distintos... (El Ave en Crónica Bollo desde el Imperio del Mal).
¿Por qué un blog?
Al principio no le encontraba nada al asunto, pero a medida que una se va adentrando, va descubriendo muchas cosas. Parece que se trata de un espacio donde mostrar tu desnudez. Parece también que somos sorprendentemente exhibicionistas (y aquí me incluiré yo, por pura coherencia personal). Y quizá hay un gran hueco carencial y de alguna forma creemos (consciente o inconscientemente) que ésta podría ser una forma como otra cualquiera de poder cubrirlo... (Myu en Soy de Mar).
¿Qué tenía en la cabeza cuando empecé, hace hoy un año, a escribir aquí? Creo que me recorrió un escalofrío al comprobar que, por medio de los weblogs, la gente de la calle, la que verdaderamente importa, podía decir, reivindicar su voz, recoger todos los átomos que pertenecen a su lengua...(Hester Prynne en La letra escarlata).
Salir del armario
Y digo yo, ¿salir del armario implica meterse en un cajón? Yo creo que no... O al menos no sería así en mi caso. Esta metáfora-reflexión del día surge tras observar que hay personas que, cuando se reconocen a sí mismas como «lesbianas», ciñen sus gustos a ciertas películas, determinados libros, ambientes concretos para salir, música de cierto tipo, compañías que también son «del ambiente», incluso ciertos viajes [...] Yo, sin embargo, me siento tan normal o tan especial como cualquiera... (Sintapujos en Ad-mirar).
La familia
Una de las principales metas en mi vida es formar una familia, atípica, vale, pero una familia, y desde hace mucho, tengo como objetivo ser madre antes de los treinta, madre biológica o adoptiva, preferiría encontrar una mujer con la que compartirlo, pero aun así no me importa ser madre soltera... (Clubfans en Clubfans de Clubfans).
Amor/Sexo
Ahora parece que no estás aquí, pero sigues enfrente y yo me siento espera en tu boca. Estoy dentro como una sílaba pegada al paladar, después suspendida en la punta de tu lengua, y estás a punto, casi a punto, a punto de pronunciarme... (Paola Vaggio en Qué mala soy dosificándote).
En alguno de los blogs que visito me hace mucha gracia que me mencionen, que cuenten cosas de Soidemersol y de mí y que todo el mundo alucine del modo en el que comenzamos a estar juntas. Yo reconozco que me da un poco de palo explicar a la gente que la conocí por Internet [...] A veces releo mi blog o el suyo y me río mucho. Me encantó el post que escribió sobre por qué no nos habíamos liado, el que escribí yo cuando no quiso ser mi novia o cuando al fin formalizamos nuestra relación.... (La pequeña Ricci en Diario de la Ricci).
Activismo/Visibilidad
La normalidad es escribir una redacción en clase de catalán y poner en ella que mi novia se llama Soidemersol y contar las cosas que hago con ella. La normalidad es que me devuelva el profesor el texto revisado y me corrija la palabra "novia", pero sólo porque la había puesto sin tilde (en catalán se escribe "nòvia")...(La pequeña Ricci en Diario de la Ricci).
Cuando una mujer además de mujer, parece lesbiana, ¿le importa?, es decir, si cualquiera de nosotras va por la calle y oye un comentario del tipo: «mira, ésa es lesbiana», o ese otro de «cómo se le nota a ésa que es lesbiana», ¿nos importaría?...(Minaya en Mala Mujer).
El ambiente
En el madrileño y castizo barrio de Lavapiés existe un antro de pecado que las lesbianas de toda índole criticamos sin parar pero al que no dejamos, por alguna misteriosa razón (y también porque es de los pocos locales de mujeres abiertos durante toda la noche), de acudir de vez en cuando. Estoicamente, soportamos los empujones de la pista masificada y el empeño de meternos un hit de David Bisbal cada tres canciones, cual tortura a lo Kubrick en La Naranja Mecánica...(Hester Prynne en La letra escarlata).
Nunca te fíes totalmente de las apariencias de una chica a la hora de tirarle los tejos. Las cosas no son tan evidentes como parecen. El tiro (de tejos) te puede salir por la culata. A lo largo del párrafo podrán ir observando ciertas palabras en negrita. Son los indicativos que hacen pensar a una que la muchacha es lesbi perdida, O NO... (Acuarelacool en Acuarelacool).
Miradas
En vano te busco en un plano de metro y me invento paradas sin encontrarte. Imagino las escaleras mojadas, paraguas abiertos, pisadas de agua, últimos trayectos, billetes gastados, en tarjetas con T, de diez, de mes, de joven, de día. Viajes por estrenar. Busco en el silencio, entre las rutinas nuevas. En las siluetas de los coches, en un mapa de calles que me lleva de una página a otra... sigo con un dedo el trazado recto, paralelo, estrecho, por el centro, en la periferia, por calles conocidas, olvidadas... por tus calles, las que no entiendo. Imagino las canciones, te pienso en tu vida, te olvido tan mal como pliego el mapa de nuevo. Y no te dosifico, te gasto. (Paola Vaggio en Qué mala soy dosificándote).
Estamos edificados sobre raíces que crecen en sentidos divergentes, como si fuéramos también todas las vidas que no hemos vivido, y que de alguna manera son vividas por esa que tuvo catorce, o tres, o veintidós años. Ésa que va al cine, se toma una caña, se rasca la nariz y no tiene trabajo, es la punta del iceberg. Somos un milagro, porque pocas ficciones funcionan cuando las sostiene el caos de unas raíces creciendo sin control y a ciegas...(Chavela en La vida exagerada).
Changuinola, Panamá. 8:00 de la mañana de un sábado. Estación de autobuses. Diez u once niños a mi alrededor... corren, se ríen... En su mayoría arrastran una cajita de madera, con cosas dentro... ¿serán sus juguetes? NO. Con sólo una palabra de sus bocas sabes que no. Lo sabes cuando escuchas «Limpia, limpia...» (Purkinje en Ribosomas libres, retículo tirano).
Extra: Las lesbianas son de otro planeta, por Top
Las lesbianas tenemos puntos en común pero... ¿los heteros hacen todos las mismas preguntas? Es sólo una pequeña duda que tengo... Por ejemplo: ¿Y se puede saber qué hacéis dos tías en la cama? (pregunta realizada por tantas personas que no vale la pena destacar a ninguna). Respuesta: Verás, llegamos a la cama, nos desnudamos y nos calzamos nuestros trajes espaciales. Ella se pone en una esquina y yo en la otra; en ese momento comienza el ritual del sexo, que consiste en que una hace una especie de danza del vientre pero agitando los brazos mientras la otra hace series alternativas de flexiones y abdominales. Cuando nos cansamos de hacer el idiota, nos ponemos el pijama y nos vamos a dormir...

ΚΥΡΙΑ & ΚΥΡΙΑ

Συνέχεια στο θέμα της περασμένης Πέμπτης:
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Mrs & Mrs
The high court has reserved judgment over a lesbian couple seeking British recognition of their marriage. But the two wives remain wedded to the cause.

By Stuart Jeffries (THE GUARDIAN Saturday, 10 June 2006)

On August 26 2003 at a civil ceremony in Vancouver, a Canadian marriage commissioner pronounced Sue Wilkinson and Celia Kitzinger to be wife and wife. The occasion was gay in every sense of the word. They were married in a flower-decked conservatory before two witnesses and the wedding cost $250. "It was over in 10 or 15 minutes and then we had a nice meal and went for a lovely walk on the beach," says Celia. "It was special," says Sue.

But did marriage make much of a difference? After all, you had been living together for the previous 13 years. "It made a personal difference which we don't really understand," says Sue. She looks across at her wife. "It's intangible, but it's there." "I just never thought I would have the opportunity to marry someone I loved," says Celia.
But there were practical issues too. In 2003 Sue, 52, who is professor of feminist and health studies at Loughborough University, was teaching in Vancouver on a two-year contract. Celia, 49, professor of sociology at the University of York, visited regularly. Although they had amended their wills and done all the other vexing paperwork that cohabiting British couples have to do to safeguard rights that are conferred so blithely on married heterosexual couples, some of these didn't apply during their Canadian sojourn. "Everything changed in working in Canada," says Sue. "Inheritance rights, pensions, hospital visitation rights - we had none of them." "Prison visitation rights, too," says Celia. "Not that either of us was in prison."
So they decided to get married at a time when several Canadian provinces, including British Columbia, had just legalised same-sex weddings.
Their experience was seductive. Sue recalls going into a bank in Vancouver to open a joint account after the wedding. "When they asked our marital status, it was a no-big-deal reaction when we said we were married," says Sue. "I hadn't realised what it was like to be treated as normal."
"You get tired of managing people's reactions to your lesbianism," says Celia. "You know, dealing with people's surprise when your partner arrives and she's - imagine! - a woman."
They knew they would have a fight to have their marriage legally ratified when they returned home. They were ready for it. "I'm from a Quaker-Jewish background," says Celia, "so I'm steeped in that ethos of telling truth to power." "But it wasn't a political campaign we chose," says Sue. "It found us rather than the other way round."
We're sitting on the grass in Lincoln's Inn Fields in London, near the high court, where their legal case that their marriage be recognised in the UK has just finished after four days. Their marriage is only recognised here as a civil partnership, which they argue is discriminatory. They have been supported by the lesbian and gay pressure group OutRage and were represented in court by lawyers from the human rights outfit Liberty.
The case has been heard during a week in which same-sex marriages have been news. In the US, George Bush tried to change the constitution to ban them, but was turned down by the senate. In Canada, two men announced their plan to become the first members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to get wed. If I had a cent for every headline that alluded to mounties always getting their men or called them Brokeback Mounties, I would have enough for a Canadian marriage certificate, though not yet the right man with whom to share it.
Which way will the UK jump: into the bracing bath of American neo-conservatism or the funtime Jacuzzi of Canadian tolerance? At the end of the hearing, Lord Justice Potter reserved judgment. He will rule next month on their claim that the UK's failure to recognise same-sex marriages is an affront to social justice and human rights. There are, by Celia's estimation, eight more British same-sex couples, including a gay rabbi and his husband, hoping to have their marriages ratified in Britain. In Ireland, Israel, New Zealand and Hong Kong, too, same-sex married couples are testing the laws.
The two professors look happily relaxed as they head home to Yorkshire away from courtroom drama and media whirl. Why on earth did you want to endorse this grotesquely conservative institution by getting married? "There were no civil partnerships in the UK in 2003," says Sue. This is true: the Civil Partnership Act, which accords lesbian and gay partners the same rights as married heterosexual couples, only became law last December. But if there had been would you have bothered to have got married? "Mmm, not sure."
In a sense, that's beside the point. Sue and Celia are married now and want their government to recognise it. Their case is that Britain's failure to ratify their marriage is a breach of the European convention on human rights. Their lawyer, Karon Monaghan, told the court: "Marriage laws have been used historically to bolster prejudice, oppression and discrimination against marginalised groups ... If we replace lesbian and same sex with black and mixed-race, it would be very clear that such laws would be repugnant to human rights." But the government's lawyer, Helen Mountfield, argued that there is no legal disadvantage to the couple, as they are recognised as civil partners.
Oddly enough, the couple have taken succour from the government's defence. "The legal debate has been about human rights, rather than focusing on religious objections, or whether lesbianism is human, which is what we saw in Canada in 2003," says Celia, "and which, of course, is what infuses the American debate." Only Don Horrocks of the Evangelical Alliance, in a widely derided remark, was quoted as saying: "Where does it stop? Soon there will be people wanting to marry their horse."
Their case has drawn parallels to apartheid, US racial segregation and, most resonantly for Celia, the Nazis' Nuremberg laws against marriages between Aryans and Jews.
"The point," says Sue, "is that these laws are damaging and humiliating." "In our case too, we suffer an affront to our personal dignity and autonomy," says Celia, putting on a Lady Bracknell voice.
Such sensitivity is perhaps understandable given Celia's humiliating experience of coming out aged 16. "I was expelled from school and put in a mental hospital for a week. Lesbianism was regarded as a psychiatric illness even in the early 70s." In Oxford, fired up by her experiences, she specialised in psychology, later writing her PhD on the social construction of lesbianism. She is the daughter of Sheila Kitzinger, the childbirth author.
Sue's experience was different. She was in a heterosexual relationship for many years. "There was a stark contrast for me between my first marriage to a man and my second to a woman, in that the first one was celebrated in society."
It must be easier to be recognised as a same-sex married couple in academia. "We are privileged," concedes Celia. "Both sets of students have been incredibly supportive. Most can't believe same-sex marriages aren't already legal," says Sue. Their experience has fed back into their academic work. They have done research on the social construction of marriage and other forms of partnership recognition (read The Rebranding of Marriage: Why We Got Married Rather Than Registering a Civil Partnership at tinyurl.com/ppzce)
What happens if the judge rules against you? "Appeal court is the first step, then the House of Lords, then Europe." It's a nice irony that when Canada in 2005 made same-sex marriages legal across the country, the bill received royal assent. The Queen, at least formally, has given her royal thumbs-up to gay marriages already.
"In any case," says Sue, "our fight is part of an international movement. Same-sex marriages are legal in Holland, Belgium, Spain, Canada - they're even considering them in Romania." "I suppose the point is," says Celia, "we're married. Get used to it."
The rules
The Netherlands: Same-sex partnerships gained legal status in 1998, giving gay couples nearly the same rights as heterosexual married couples. In 2001, article 1:30 of the Dutch civil code was changed to read: "Een huwelijk kan worden aangegaan door twee personen van verschillend of van gelijk geslacht (A marriage can be contracted by two people of different or the same sex)," and the Netherlands became the first country in the world to offer same-sex marriage.
Canada: Same-sex marriage was made legal throughout Canada on July 20 last year, though many provinces had been granting them for several years: in British Columbia, where Sue Wilkinson and Celia Kitzinger were married, same-sex marriages had been legal since July 2003.
US: George Bush wants to amend the US constitution to ban same-sex marriages, but the senate this week rejected his proposal. Massachussetts recognises same-sex marriages (and has done so since 2004), while 19 other states have constitutional amendments precluding recognition of marriage between two men or two women.
UK: Same-sex marriages are not legal in the UK, but in December 2005 civil partnerships became available, granting rights and responsibilities to gay and lesbian couples nearly the same as marriage.
Iran: There are no lesbian and gay rights, still less same-sex marriages, in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Male homosexuality by consenting adults is punishable by death. Non-adults who engage in consensual sodomy face 74 lashes. Female homosexuality is punishable by 100 lashes.

ΤΑ ΛΟΥΛΟΥΔΙΑ ΣΤΙΣ ΚΥΡΙΕΣ!

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Τρεις πολύ ξεχωριστές νέες γυναίκες.
Δυο ιστολόγια που πρέπει να διαβάσετε οπωσδήποτε.

ARNE NAESS WAS RIGHT...: http://www.ecosophyingreece.blogspot.com/
ΤΟ ΜΠΡΙΚΙ : http://www.tobriki.blogspot.com

ΔΙΔΑΓΜΑΤΑ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ ΓΑΛΛΙΚΟ GAY PRIDE

Αρχικά διαβάζω την είδηση στο in.gr(23-6-2006):
Πορεία στο Παρίσι. Το Σάββατο παρήλασαν επίσης στη γαλλική πρωτεύουσα τουλάχιστον 800.000 σύμφωνα με τους οργανωτές ομοφυλόφιλοι, με βασικά συνθήματα την ισότητα των δικαιωμάτων των ομοφυλόφιλων με τους ετεροφυλόφιλους τόσο στο γάμο όσο και στην υιοθεσία.Δέκα μήνες πριν από τις κρίσιμες γαλλικές προεδρικές εκλογές, οι ομοφυλόφιλοι υιοθέτησαν μια πολιτική στάση απαιτώντας -με το κεντρικό σύνθημα της παρέλασης- να υπάρξει «ισότητα το 2007» κυρίως στα ζητήματα του γάμου και της υιοθεσίας.Στην παρέλαση του Παρισιού μετείχαν αρκετές πολιτικές προσωπικότητες της Αριστεράς.
Μετά ψάχνω στο πολύ καλό site των Σαπφίδων και βρίσκω τι ισχύει στη Γαλλία:
Γαλλία: Registered Cohabitation, 1999 Civil Solidarity Pact Act ( PACS), 15.11.99, Law No.99-944, οι σύντροφοι δεσμεύονται σε αμοιβαία υλική βοήθεια και μοιράζονται την ευθύνη για τα χρέη της οικογένειας υπογράφοντας το σχετικό σύμφωνο αμοιβαίας υποστήριξης στο τοπικό δικαστήριο. Η διάλυση επέρχεται με το θάνατο του συντρόφου ή τρείς μήνες μετά από σχετικό αίτημα ενός από τους συντρόφους. Ισχύει για κάθε ζευγάρι συγκατοικούντων συντρόφων, ανεξάρτητα από τα φύλα τους. Προσφέρει δικαιώματα κοντινότερου συγγενή, κληρονομιάς, .. Προνόμια κοινωνικής ασφάλισης, πρόνοιας, και κοινής φορολογίας μετά από τρία χρόνια συντροφικότητας. Διαθέσιμο και σε αλλοδαπούς. Δεν υπάρχει κοινή κηδεμονία, δεν δίνει δικαίωμα υιοθεσίας των παιδιών του συντρόφου ούτε κοινής υιοθεσίας άλλων παιδιών. Κείμενο στα γαλλικά: http://www.france.qrd.org/texts/partnership/fr/pacs.html Πληροφορίες(στ' αγγλικά): http://www.france.qrd.org/texts/partnership/fr/explanation.html
Ύστερα συγκρίνω με το τι ισχύει στον πολιτικό γάμο, ξαναδιαβάζω την πρόταση νόμου του ΠΑΣΟΚ για το Σύμφωνο Συμβίωσης, που κυκλοφόρησε ανεπίσημα πριν μερικούς μήνες, δεν κατατέθηκε ποτέ, αλλά απειλεί να επανέλθει (βλ. τις καταχωρήσεις στις 12 & 13-4-2006 στο ΑΠΕΝΑΝΤΙ ΠΕΖΟΔΡΟΜΙΟ) και:
Αναρωτιέμαι γιατί πρέπει τα ρετάλια ιδεών και αντιλήψεων άλλων δεκαετιών να εισάγονται από το Παρίσι ως μοντέλα καινούργιας κοπής στο στοκατζίδικο της ελληνικής πολιτικής ζωής.
Απορώ γιατί ένα σοσιαλιστικό κόμμα καταλήγει να συμπεριφέρεται όπως οι ανάλγητες μεγαλο-φαρμακοβιομηχανίες που τα ακαταλληλα για τους δυτικούς ασθενείς και "ληγμένα" πια φάρμακα εξακολουθούν να τα χρησιμοποιούν για τη θεραπεία των τριτοκοσμικών απελπισμένων.

Παραξενεύομαι που κάποιοι δέχονται να τα διαφημίσουν και μάλιστα τελαλίζοντας τις «θαυματουργές» ιδιότητές τους.

ΔΙΔΑΓΜΑΤΑ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ ΠΟΡΤΟΓΑΛΙΚΟ GAY PRIDE

Σε αντίθεση με το μάλλον αόριστο κεντρικό σύνθημα του ελληνικού Φεστιβάλ Υπερηφάνειας 2006 «Ανοιχτά, δυνατά, περήφανα» το περασμένο Σάββατο, οι πορτογάλοι που ξεχύθηκαν την ίδια ακριβώς μέρα στους δρόμους της Λισσαβώνας για να γιορτάσουν το δικό τους Gay Pride ξεκινούν το κοινό Μανιφέστο τους με τη φράση «Το Κράτος (επίσης) είμαστε κι εμείς» και καταλήγουν επαναλαμβάνοντας « Και το Κράτος είμαστε όλοι εμείς: λεσβίες, γκέι, τρανσέξουαλ και ετεροφυλόφιλοι. Ας συνηθίσουμε στην ιδέα».
Κι από το Κράτος, και όχι την κοινωνία γενικά κι αόριστα, είναι που ζήτησαν λίγους μήνες πριν με 7000 υπογραφές να αλλάξουν όλοι οι νόμοι που επιβάλλουν ή ανέχονται διακρίσεις με βάση τον σεξουαλικό προσανατολισμό των πολιτών. Τα αιτήματά τους υπήρξαν, και όλο και περισσότερο εξακολουθούν να είναι, συγκεκριμένα, διατυπωμένα χωρίς αυτολογοκρισία, μεθοδικά ταξινομημένα σε μια καθορισμένη από αυτούς τους ίδιους χρονική ατζέντα.

Με λίγα λόγια, φαίνεται να μην δέχονται να υπακούουν σε πολιτικές σκοπιμότητες ("ανετοιμότητα" της κοινωνίας, πολιτικό κόστος, αντιδράσεις της εκκλησίας κλπ) και αόριστα χρονοδιαγραμμάτα υπαγορευμένα από πολιτικούς, διατεθειμένους να τσιμπήσουν τις «ροζ ψήφους» μόνο με κάποιες άνευρες, τσιγκούνικες κι εκ του ασφαλούς gay friendly δηλώσεις σε έντυπα του gay χώρου, όπως βλέπουμε να συμβαίνει εσχάτως στην πατρίδα μας.
Με παρρησία δηλώνουν οι πορτογάλοι ομοφυλόφιλοι ότι δεν πρόκειται να δεχθούν «ειδικές» διατάξεις και εξευτελιστικούς θεσμούς φτιαγμένους «ειδικά» για την περίσταση. Διότι υποστηρίζουν ότι, όπως είπε και ο ισπανός Πρωθυπουργός Zapatero πριν από έναν χρόνο, «αξιοπρεπής κοινωνία είναι εκείνη που δεν ταπεινώνει τα μέλη της». Διότι όπως περήφανα διακηρύσσουν οι ίδιοι: «δεν χρειάζομαστε φιλάνθρωπη ανεκτικότητα, ούτε νόμιμα κοινωνικά γκέτο, αλλά απαιτούμε αληθινή Δημοκρατία».

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MANIFESTO 2006
PRIORIDADE À IGUALDADE NA LEI E NA SOCIEDADE
O Estado (também) somos nós. Pelos vistos, é preciso afirmá-lo perante hesitações e oposições de responsáveis políticos que continuam a considerar lésbicas, gays, bissexuais e transgénero (LGBT) como menos do que pessoas.
Após a revisão constitucional de 2004, a Constituição da República Portuguesa passou a proibir explicitamente a discriminação com base na orientação sexual. Porém, a desigualdade persiste na lei e na sociedade.
O apartheid legal mantém-se no que diz respeito ao acesso ao casamento civil. O casamento civil tem sido objecto de alterações sistemáticas ao longo do tempo – basta pensar no divórcio e nos vários passos no sentido da igualdade de género. O processo continuado de democratização do casamento – e da sociedade portuguesa – tem como próximo passo lógico o fim da exclusão de casais de pessoas do mesmo sexo.
O acesso ao casamento civil para casais de gays e de lésbicas, questão que a actual maioria parlamentar prometeu abordar em 2007, vai significar a clara promoção da igualdade e a recusa absoluta da legitimação da homofobia por parte do Estado. Será uma forma inequívoca de afirmar que não somos “gentes remotas e estranhas” (nas palavras de Zapatero), porque “uma sociedade decente é aquela que não humilha os seus membros” – e porque o Estado (também) somos nós.
Recusamos obviamente qualquer figura jurídica “especial” como subterfúgio para impedir o igual acesso ao casamento civil. Recusamos qualquer “caridosa” medida de “tolerância”, porque sabemos bem que qualquer gueto legal é, e será sempre, a promoção de um gueto social.
A homofobia impedirá ainda o apoio unânime da sociedade ao igual reconhecimento na lei de casais de pessoas do mesmo sexo. Porém, é absolutamente inadmissível que esse preconceito continue a ser endossado ou legitimado pela lei – tal como a prevalência do racismo não poderia nunca justificar a manutenção de um regime de apartheid.
Pelo contrário, urge garantir a cidadania plena de gays e de lésbicas e a igual valorização das suas relações pelo Estado que integram. Aliás, a igualdade no acesso ao casamento civil não vai ter quaisquer implicações na liberdade de outros. Casais heterossexuais continuarão a ter exactamente a mesma possibilidade de escolha que tinham anteriormente.
São muito raras as questões que permitem conciliar de forma tão clara, e sem conflito, os valores democráticos basilares da igualdade e da liberdade. Daí que esta questão, cuja solução é simples, seja particularmente prioritária – porque ela vai à raiz da própria noção de democracia.
Mas porque o Estado (também) somos nós, a homofobia não pode também impedir o acesso à parentalidade por casais de pessoas do mesmo sexo – desde a adopção, em que é simplesmente irresponsável excluir à partida potenciais adoptantes com base no critério da orientação sexual, até à procriação medicamente assistida cuja regulamentação veio excluir automaticamente casais de lésbicas, mostrando que o Estado português parece não hesitar em discriminar até no acesso à saúde reprodutiva.
E se o fim da discriminação na lei é fundamental, não será nunca suficiente para eliminar a homofobia da sociedade. O recente assassinato de Gisberta Salce Júnior é a prova trágica da necessidade urgente de políticas sérias de educação contra a discriminação em função da orientação sexual e da identidade de género.* Nas escolas, junto da juventude, mas também em sectores-chave da sociedade como a Polícia, a Justiça, a Saúde, a Segurança Social ou as Forças Armadas, é fundamental a formação sobre orientação sexual e identidade de género para contribuir para o fim da exclusão social das pessoas LGBT.
É urgente que o Estado português inclua a identidade de género no Princípio da Igualdade (artigo 13º da Constituição) e sobretudo que crie uma lei única para agilizar todo o processo médico e de reconhecimento jurídico da identidade de género d@s transexuais.
É que o Estado somos tod@s nós: lésbicas, gays, bissexuais, transgénero e heterossexuais. Habituem-se!
Associação ILGA Portugal, Associação Clube Safo, Associação não te prives — Grupo de Defesa dos Direitos Sexuais, Panteras Rosa —¬ Frente de Combate à Homofobia

Η ΠΡΟΣΤΑΤΕΥΤΕΑ ΜΕΙΟΝΟΤΗΤΑ ΤΩΝ ΟΜΟΦΥΛΟΦΙΛΩΝ

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Επειδή ποτέ δεν έχω καταλάβει γιατί οι πιο ενδιαφέρουσες ειδήσεις περνάνε στα ψιλά των εφημερίδων ή αποσιωπούνται τελείως, ας διαβάσουμε μαζί, έστω και λίγο καθυστερημένα, την τελευταία παράγραφο της εισήγησης προς το ΣτΕ σχετικά με την ακύρωση του προστίμου προς το ΜΕΓΑ για το "φιλί" της τηλεοπτικής σειράς "Κλείσε τα μάτια".

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«Aθώο» το φιλί
Pεπορτάζ: Aλέξανδρος Aυλωνίτης
«Eνοχες» είναι οι τηλεοπτικές βωμολοχίες, αλλά «αθώο» το τηλεοπτικό φιλί μεταξύ ομοφυλοφίλων, σύμφωνα με δικαστική εισήγηση που επικαλείται τη συνταγματική προστασία κάθε είδους καλλιτεχνικού έργου, τις κοινοτικές οδηγίες που απαγορεύουν τις διακρίσεις σε βάρος οποιασδήποτε κατηγορίας μειονοτήτων και τις σύγχρονες κοινωνικές συνθήκες σεξουαλικής απελευθέρωσης.
Mε τη δικαστική εισήγηση αναζητούνται τα όρια προστασίας της τέχνης και του θεμιτού περιεχομένου των τηλεοπτικών εκπομπών και οριοθετείται ο έλεγχος του Eθνικού Συμβουλίου Pαδιοτηλεόρασης (EΣP) που «δεν μπορεί να είναι ρόλος πραίτορα, που αποφαίνεται για την καλλιτεχνική στάθμη μιας ταινίας που προβάλλεται στην τηλεόραση».
Σύμφωνα με την εισήγηση στο Συμβούλιο της Eπικρατείας, παρά τη δικαιολογημένη κύρωση για τις «χυδαιολογίες και προστυχολογίες» που μεταδόθηκαν στις 6-10-03 στην τηλεοπτική ταινία «Kλείσε τα μάτια» (του X. Παπακαλιάτη) πρέπει να ακυρωθεί το πρόστιμο 100.000 ευρώ που επέβαλε το EΣP στο «Mega Channel», γιατί στη διοικητική κύρωση έλαβε υπόψη του και τη σκηνή του στιγμιαίου φιλιού μεταξύ δύο ανδρών, η μετάδοση της οποίας δεν αποτελεί όμως παράβαση κάποιου κώδικα δεοντολογίας, ούτε του Συντάγματος, ούτε των νόμων.
Kατά τη δικαστική εισήγηση, το Σύνταγμα προστατεύει όλες τις καλλιτεχνικές δημιουργίες, αλλά και «τις ευαισθησίες όλων ανεξαιρέτως των κατηγοριών πληθυσμού (ακόμα και των πιο μειονοτικών) που έχουν δικαίωμα να εκφράζονται μέσω έργων τέχνης (μεγαλύτερης ή μικρότερης καλλιτεχνικής αξίας, αυτό ως τελείως υποκειμενικό είναι αδιάφορο) που προβάλλονται και από την τηλεόραση».
Mε βάση το Σύνταγμα, κοινοτικές οδηγίες, αλλά και τη νομολογία του Eυρωπαϊκού Δικαστηρίου Aνθρωπίνων Δικαιωμάτων (EΔAΔ) και του αμερικανικού ανώτατου δικαστηρίου, ο Σύμβουλος Eπικρατείας Xρ. Pάμμος επισημαίνει ότι «κάθε καλλιτεχνική δημιουργία απολαμβάνει την ίδια συνταγματική προστασία».
Tο κράτος ως εγγυητής αυτής της ελευθερίας - τονίζει - οφείλει να παραμένει ουδέτερο απέναντι στα διάφορα καλλιτεχνικά ρεύματα και ιδέες, χωρίς να επεμβαίνει στο περιεχόμενο ή τη μορφή τους με προληπτικά ή κατασταλτικά μέτρα, ούτε να προωθεί κάποιας μορφής τέχνη ως κοινωνικά αποδεκτή ή συμφέρουσα ή μη ενοχλητική σε βάρος άλλων.
Aναγνωρίζοντας ότι διαφορετική είναι η συνταγματική προστασία της τέχνης ως βιβλίου, ταινίας, θεατρικής παράστασης, ζωγραφικού πίνακα από την περίπτωση προβολής της μέσω της τηλεόρασης (αφού ισχύουν άλλοι συνταγματικοί κανόνες), ανώτατος δικαστής σημειώνει ότι τα προβαλλόμενα από την τηλεόραση έργα πρέπει να έχουν την ποιοτική στάθμη που επιβάλλει η κοινωνική αποστολή της και η πολιτιστική ανάπτυξη της χώρας και να σέβονται την αξία του ανθρώπου, την παιδική ηλικία, τη νεότητα.
Eπομένως - συμπεραίνει - το EΣP δεν έχει ρόλο πραίτορα για την καλλιτεχνική στάθμη μιας ταινίας, αφού το τι είναι ποιοτικό διαφέρει από άνθρωπο σε άνθρωπο και από γενιά σε γενιά.
Eτσι, ο μόνος επιτρεπτός έλεγχος του EΣP για τα καλλιτεχνικά έργα που προβάλλονται τηλεοπτικά (διαφορετικά είναι τα πράγματα στις πολιτικές εκπομπές) αφορά την προστασία των συνταγματικών αξιών που δεν επιτρέπεται να καταπατώνται. Δηλαδή ο έλεγχος του EΣP - κατά τον X. Pάμμο - πρέπει να αποσκοπεί στην προστασία της αξίας του ανθρώπου, στη μη προβολή ακραίων βιαιοτήτων (φυσικών ή φραστικών σε ώρες μεγάλης τηλεθέασης), στη μη προβολή ρατσιστικής προπαγάνδας ή έργων που εξυβρίζουν, εξευτελίζουν και προσβάλλουν βάναυσα συγκεκριμένα επώνυμα άτομα ή κατηγορίες ατόμων.
Στην εισήγηση τονίζεται ότι «η προβολή μιας απλής σκηνής φιλιού μεταξύ ανδρών και μάλιστα στιγμιαίας που υποδηλώνει ομοφυλοφιλική ερωτική έλξη, σε καμία περίπτωση δεν μπορεί να θεωρηθεί υπό τις σήμερα κρατούσες αντιλήψεις και αξίες σε ένα σύγχρονο κράτος δικαίου και ισοπολιτείας ότι συνιστά χυδαιότητα ή χαμηλή ποιότητα απάδουσα σε έργο τέχνης μεταδιδομένο τηλεοπτικά».
Tέλος, ο X. Pάμμος επικαλούμενος σειρά κοινοτικών οδηγιών επισημαίνει ότι «δεν είναι δυνατό από τη μία ο κοινοτικός νομοθέτης επειδή διαισθάνεται ότι υπάρχουν μειονότητες, όπως οι ομοφυλόφιλοι που υφίστανται δυσμενείς διακρίσεις σε διάφορους τομείς της δημόσιας ζωής, να επιτάσσει ότι πρέπει να τύχουν ειδικής προστασίας από τα κράτη - μέλη για να σταματήσουν οι διακρίσεις αυτές, και από την άλλη να θεωρείται την ίδια στιγμή, η έκφραση των ερωτικών ευαισθησιών μιας από τις πιο προστατευτέες αυτές μειονότητες (και μάλιστα στην πιο συγκρατημένη της μορφή, το φιλί) ως στοιχείο από το οποίο απορρέει χυδαιότητα και χαμηλή ποιοτική στάθμη μη επιτρεπόμενη από το Σύνταγμα».

(Αναδημοσίευση από την εφημερίδα ΤΟ ΕΘΝΟΣ 14-6-2006)

ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΑ ΕΙΜΑΣΤΕ ΟΛΟΙ ΜΑΣ

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«Κοινωνία είμαστε και εμείς»
Ισότητα και ισονομία ζήτησαν ομοφυλοφιλικές οργανώσεις στο Φεστιβάλ Υπερηφάνειας 2006

Με το σύνθημα «ανοιχτά, δυνατά, περήφανα» πραγματοποιήθηκε το Σάββατο στην Αθήνα το 2ο Φεστιβάλ Υπερηφάνειας Αθήνας (Athens Pride) της λεσβιακής, γκέι, αμφισεξουαλικής και τρανσεξουαλικής κοινότητας. Πολιτικοί χαιρέτισαν με μηνύματά τους την εκδήλωση.
Οι μετέχοντες πραγματοποίησαν πορεία στο κέντρο της Αθήνας το απόγευμα του Σαββάτου (Κλαυθμώνος, Σύνταγμα, Προπύλαια) στο πλαίσιο του ετήσιου Φεστιβάλ Περηφάνειας.Από το μεσημέρι οι κοινότητες με περίπτερα, αφίσες και έντυπο υλικό ενημέρωναν το κοινό, δίνοντας έμφαση στην αναγνώριση του δικαιώματος της σεξουαλικής προτίμησης και της κατάργησης των διακρίσεων που υφίσταται το κίνημα.
«Κοινωνία είμαστε και εμείς και ο γάμος είναι δικαίωμα για όλους. Όχι άλλες διακρίσεις σε βάρος μας. Απαιτούμε ισότητα και ισονομία» τόνιζαν οι εκπρόσωποι των κοινοτήτων.

Πολιτικοί χαιρέτισαν με μηνύματά τους την εκδήλωση, ενώ ο παριστάμενος υποψήφιος δήμαρχος του ΣΥΝ Αλέξης Τσίπρας τόνισε ότι πρέπει να σπάσει η αντίληψη που δίνει ορισμένα δικαιώματα, όπως ο γάμος, σε μια κατηγορία ανθρώπων (ετεροφιλόφιλους), και το να απογορεύει σε άλλους, την στιγμή που όλοι οι πολίτες έχουν ίσα δικαιώματα.
Επανέλαβε την θετική στάση του Συνασπισμού ως προς τον πολιτικό γάμο, σημειώνοντας ότι αν εκλεγεί θα τον επιτρέψει. Επίσης, αναφέρθηκε σε σειρά νομικών και άλλων διακρίσεων που πλήττουν τους ομοφιλόφυλους.

Σε μήνυματά τους, τόσο ο υποψήφιος δήμαρχος της ΝΔ Νικήτας Κακλαμάνης όσο και του ΠΑΣΟΚ Κ.Σκανδαλίδης εξέφρασαν την ικανοποίηση τους για το αγωνιστικό και διεκδικητικό πλαίσιο της εκδήλωσης, τονίζοντας ότι με την ανάδειξη και την προάσπιση των δικαιωμάτων τους θα σημειωθεί η υπέρβαση που δεν αποτελεί παρά την απόκτηση ενός ανθρώπινου δικαιώματος.

(Αναδημοσίευση από το in.gr)

Η ΣΗΡΑΓΓΑ ΤΟΥ ΧΡΟΝΟΥ. GAY PRIDE 1982

ΤΟ ΧΡΟΝΙΚΟ ΜΙΑΣ ΓΙΟΡΤΗΣ
(ΟΜΟΦΥΛΟΦΙΛΟΙ ΚΑΙ ΛΕΣΒΙΕΣ ραντεβού στο Ζάππειο.
Σάββατο 26 Ιούνη 1982 8.30 μμ

Μέρα Ομοφυλόφιλης Περηφάνειας

Απελευθερωτικό Κίνημα Ομοφυλοφίλων Ελλάδας)
Φέτος το ΑΚΟΕ αποφάσισε να γιορτάσει τη Διεθνή Ημέρα Ομοφυλόφιλης Υπερηφάνειας (Gay Pride Day), που – όπως σε όλο τον κόσμο – γιορτάζεται στις 26 Ιουνίου. Καθίσαμε, λοιπόν, κάποιο βράδι, βομβαρδισμένοι από τα προγράμματα των ξένων ομοφυλόφιλων οργανώσεων για να δούμε τι μπορούμε να κάνουμε και εμείς. Βέβεαια, η εποχή ήταν ακατάλληλη, πολλά παιδιά από το ΑΚΟΕ έλειπαν από την Αθήνα, και τα οικονομικά μας ήταν σε άθλια κατάσταση. Λιγουρευόμασταν τα ξένα, πολυήμερα προγράμματα, με τις συζητήσεις, τις προβολές φιλμς, τα κονσέρτα, τα πάρτυ και την καθιερωμένη παρέλαση – διαδήλωση της τελευταίας ημέρας και ειδικά εκείνη του San Fransisco που παίρνει ιδιαίτερο γιορταστικό χρώμα με πυροτεχνήματα, κουστούμια, χορούς στους δρόμους κλπ.
Η Gay Pride Day έχει το ύφος γιορτής. Συμβολίζει την αποδοχή του εαυτού μας και την απόρριψη της ενοχής μας. Η λέξη «υπερηφάνεια» χρησιμοποιείται σε αντιδιαστολή με τη λέξη «καταισχύνη» που κάλυπτε τους ομοφυλόφιλους τόσους αιώνες. Τη μέρα αυτή ο ομοφυλόφιλος «ανοίγεται» στον κόσμο δηλώνοντας τη «διαφορά» του και απαιτεί το δικαίωμα του να υπάρχει ισότιμα με τους άλλους ανθρώπους χωρίς να ντρέπεται πλέον γι’ αυτό που είναι.
Τα χρονικά περιθώρια και η έλλειψη χρημάτων μάς πίεζαν. Αρχίσαμε να συζητάμε για το όνομα που θα δίναμε στην ελληνική γιορτή και για το ποια είναι, τελικά, η σκοπιμότητά της. Η λέξη «υπερηφάνεια» ενοχλούσε πολλούς: γιατί θάπρεπε να είμαστε περήφανοι για κάτι που δεν είναι ελάττωμα ούτε και προσόν; Συμφώνησαν όμως με την παρατήρηση ότι στη σημερινή πραγματικότητα για να δηλώνεις πως είσαι ομοφυλόφιλος χρειάζεται κάποιος ηρωισμός και συνεπώς μπορείς να είσαι περήφανος γι’ αυτό. Για την ονομασία της γιορτής ακούστηκαν διάφορες προτάσεις όπως « ομοφυλόφιλη γιορτή, ομοφυλόφιλη παρουσία» κ.α., αλλά στο τέλος αποφασίστηκε να διατηρηθεί η ξένη ονομασία μεταφρασμένη στα ελληνικά: « Ημέρα Ομοφυλόφιλης Υπερηφάνειας». Οι λεσβίες φίλες ήταν μαζί μας.
Με κάποιο φόβο για πιθανά προβλήματα με την αστυνομία, αποφασίσαμε να κάνουμε μια σιωπηλή παρουσία το βράδυ της 26ης Ιουνίου, στο Ζάππειο, ένα χώρο αρκετά οικείο και πολυσύχναστο, μέσα στην αθηναική κάψα. Πενιχρά τα μέσα και οι συμπαθούντες, ορμητική όμως η διάθεση και το κέφι μας. Ελπίζαμε στην κατάλληλη ατμόσφαιρα και στον ικανό αριθμό των συμμετεχόντων για τη δημιουργία χάπενινγκς, που θα είχαν και ανάλογη εξέλιξη.
Επιστρατεύτηκε ο Ουράνιος Λειβάδιος, που κάνει το κόμιξ, παράτησε οικογένεια και κοινωνικές υποχρεώσεις και χάρη στη βοήθεια του Μάρκου και του Κώστα ήταν έτοιμη η αφίσσα της γιορτής μέσα σε δυο μέρες. Τα συνεργεία δούλεψαν έγκαιρα, σκληρά και γρήγορα. Ο Σωτήρης, ο Λευτέρης, ο Γιώργος. Ο Λεωνίδας ανέλαβε τις διαδικασίες με την αστυνομία και ο Γιαννίδης τα οργανωτικά. Ο Γιάννης έψαχνε μέχρι τελευταίο λεπτό για «κιθαρωδούς» και ο Αντώνης, για λαμπερά μπαλόνια με ήλιον που θα γράφανε «ΑΜΦΙ». Κρίμα που δεν κατάφερε να τα βρει στο τέλος.
Το δειλινό του Σαββάτου της 26ης Ιουνίου, μας βρήκε στα σκαλάκια του μεγάρου. Πολλοί οι περιπατητές, πολλοί οι γνωστοί, πολλοί οι άσχετοι και οι περίεργοι. Το φως του ήλιου ήταν ακόμα δυνατό, τα παιδιά χαμογελούσαν και κρατούσαν πανώ και αφίσσες. Ακούγονταν γέλια και χαιρετούρες. Όμως σιγά σιγά πληθαίναμε. Είδαμε δυο τρεις παρουσίες, που νόμιζες πως τόχαν σκάσει από Αμερικάνικα μπαρ, είδαμε κλεφτές ματιές από μακρινούς περαστικούς, είδαμε μαμάδες να τραβάνε έντρομες τα παιδάκια τους από κοντά μας και άλλες να τα αφήνουν να έρθουν να κάτσουν δίπλα μας. Αρκετοί ξένοι, πολλές κοπέλες, είμασταν πια 250 και κάτι έπρεπε να γίνει. Τρία παιδιά με όμορφες φωνές άρχισαν να τραγουδάνε μπαλάντες στην κιθάρα. Το φεγγάρι είχε ανατείλει, ο κόσμος μαζευότανε, έκρινε, κατέκρινε, επιδοκίμαζε. Τραγουδούσαμε όλοι μαζί πια.
Ένα πιτσιρίκι σκύλος τριγύριζε από αγκαλιά σε αγκαλιά. Οι συζητήσεις, οι φοβισμένοι που προσέγγιζαν. Ένας αυστηρός γέρος μάς ζητούσε άδεια συγκέντρωσης και έλεγε πως είναι ο …Αρχηγός της Αστυνομίας. Μια κυρία αναρωτιότανε «Μα καλά! Ποια είναι επιτέλους τα αιτήματά σας;» Από πολλούς αντιμετωπίσαμε ειρωνικά χαμόγελα. Ακούστηκε, μάλιστα, ότι τα παιδιά που είχαν μουστάκι ήταν οι …νταβατζήδες όσων δεν είχαν. Κατά τις 11 πολλοί άρχισαν αν φεύγουν, η νύχτα είχα συνέχεια. Άλλοι έμειναν να παρακολουθούν τις ζωηρές συζητήσεις, που τόσο ευδοκιμούν στους χώρους του Ζαππείου.
Φύγαμε ήρεμοι και κάπως πιο δυνατοί. Μαζέψαμε σχετικά αρκετά άτομα – κάπου 300. κάτι ήταν κι αυτό! Αν και μας «έκλεψε» πολλούς το Ηρώδειο, η Επίδαυρος, κάποιο μπαρ, κάποιο άλλο πάρκο ή κανένα θερινό σινεμά, δηλώσαμε την παρουσία μας, το όνομα μας και την προσωπική μας διαφορά. Του χρόνου, ελπίζουμε να είναι καλύτερα.
Γιάννης Ν.

(Αναδημοσίευση από το περιοδικό ΑΜΦΙ, τεύχος 12-13)

ΦΕΣΤΙΒΑΛ ΥΠΕΡΗΦΑΝΕΙΑΣ 2006

ΤΟ ΦΥΛΟ ΤΩΝ ΑΓΓΕΛΩΝ. ΕΝΑ ΝΤΟΚΥΜΑΝΤΕΡ ΓΙΑ ΤΟΥΣ ΟΜΟΦΥΛΟΦΙΛΟΥΣ ΜΕ ΑΝΑΠΗΡΙΕΣ

" El sexo de los Ángeles " documental sobre discapacitados gays de Frank del Toro
«El discapacitado ha estado escondido»
Comercio-. 'El sexo de los ángeles' habla de discapacitados y gays. El documental, dirigido por Frank Toro, cuenta el testimonio de 6 personas discriminadas por su condición y de las que se aprende «el gran espíritu de superación que tienen».
-¿De qué trata su trabajo?
-Lo que hemos traído hasta Oviedo es un documental que trata sobre la homosexualidad y los discapacitados.
-¿Quiénes son sus protagonistas?
-Una serie de personas discapacitadas y gays o lesbianas que dan a conocer sus problemas, sus aspiraciones y la discriminación que sufren entre ellos.
-Es paradójico que un grupo habitualmente discriminado también discrimine.
-Puede ser. Se debe sobre todo a una cuestión de desconocimiento. La persona discapacitada ha estado escondida y ese desconocimiento produce ahora situaciones de las que no se sabe cómo van a reaccionar.
-¿Y cómo suelen hacerlo?
-A veces tratamos a las personas con discapacidades como si fueran niños. Les sonreímos o cosas parecidas.
-¿Por qué surge la idea de este proyecto documental?
-A raíz de Jesús González. Trabaja con estos colectivos. Hizo un libro y lo quería acompañar de un documental.
-¿Cómo fue el proceso de elaboración?.
-Es un trabajo hecho con poco medios pero que ha salido bien: se ha emitido en Argentina y Chile y hemos ganado algún premio. Para empezar hablamos con instituciones, para que nos pusieran en contacto con estas personas, de Sevilla, Madrid y Barcelona.
-¿Contaron casos distintos?
-En realidad los problemas que tienen son los mismos. Empiezan a explicar cómo los ven los demás y que la gente les trata como sillas y no como personas.
-¿Cuáles son sus principales problemas?
-Desde problemas físicos, que son muy importantes, como no poder entrar en una discoteca, hasta sociales. La gente les mira raro en los sitios.
-¿Qué mensaje positivo trasladan?-Ante todo muestran una lección de superación. Nosotros nos quejamos por tonterías. La lección es que tenemos que conocernos todos mejor.

ΛΕΞΙΛΟΓΙΟ ΟΡΩΝ ΣΧΕΤΙΚΩΝ ΜΕ ΤΗΝ ΤΑΥΤΟΤΗΤΑ ΦΥΛΟΥ

These are terms often used within the sexual identity and gender identity communities. Self-identification terms are often spelled with initial caps (e.g. Queer, Bisexual) to emphasize that they refer to how one think of oneself, rather than how someone else labels one. (For instance, researchers often classify bisexual-identified women and men as lesbians and gay men and transvestites as transsexuals, obscuring important distinctions.)
Androgenous/Androgeny
One who is / the quality of simultaneously exhibiting masculine and feminine characteristics. 2.
Bigendered
One who switches between masculine and feminine gender roles from time to time.
Biphobia
The oppression or mistreatment of Bisexuals, especially by lesbians and gay men. (See homophobia.)
Bisexual
One who has significant sexual and romantic attractions to members of both the same and the other sex, or who identify as members of the bisexual community. Derogatory terms include the same terms as are applied to lesbians and gay men. Derogatory terms from lesbians, gay men, and some heterosexuals: fence sitter, AC/DC, double-gaited, confused.
Boy
1) A young male. 2) Colloquial term for masculine. Often used to specify gender of clothes. ["My boy clothes."] Boy has often been used as a condescending term for a man (especially a man of color), and is therefore distasteful to many people. (See girl.)
Butch
1) Masculine or macho dress and behavior, regardless of sex or gender identity. 2) A sub-identity of lesbian or gay, based on masculine or macho dress and behavior. (See femme.)
Camp
To joke or playact exaggerated masculine or feminine behaviors for others' entertainment. Especially men exhibiting exaggerated feminine behaviors. Also to camp it up.
Come out
1) To disclose one's own sexual identity to another. [I came out to my mother over Thanksgiving vacation.] 2) To discover that one's own sexual identity is different than previously assumed. [I came out to myself three months ago.] 3) To deal with one's own and others' reactions to the discovery or revelation of one's sexual identity. 4) (- for) To disclose another's sexual identity with their permission or at their request. [I asked my mother to come out to my grandparents for me.] (See out.) 4) Sometimes applied to disclosure of other information than one's sexual identity.
Cross Dresser (CD)
One (regardless of the motivation) who wears clothes, makeup, etc. which are considered (by the culture) appropriate for the other sex but not one's own.
Drag (In Drag)
1) Clothes, often unusual or dramatic, especially those considered appropriate to the other sex. 2) Can be applied to any recognizable "look." [_(to a man in a suite)_: I see you are in corporate drag today.] 3) _In drag_: Wearing clothes of the opposite sex. [I went to the halloween party in drag.]
Drag Queen
A M->F transvestite who employs dramatic clothes, makeup,and mannerisms, often for other people's appreciation.
Dyke
Reclaimed derogatory slang. Refers to Lesbians, or to Lesbians and Bisexual women.
Electrolysis
Process of killing hair follicles, especially of facial and neck hair, usually with an electric needle.
F->M
Female to male. Used to specify the direction of a sex or gender role change.
Femme
1) Feminine or effeminate dress and behavior, regardless of sex or gender identity. 2) A sub-identity of lesbian or gay, based on masculine or macho dress and behavior. (See butch.)
Female
One who has a vagina.
Female Impersonator (FI)
A male who, on specific occasions, cross dresses and employs stereotypical feminine dialog, voice, and mannerisms for the entertainment of other people.
Feminine
The gender role assigned to females.
Fetishistic Transvestite
A Transvestite who consistently eroticizes Cross Dressing. May also eroticize fantasies of gender/sex change.
Gay (man/male) (community)
One who has significant sexual and romantic attractions primarily to members of the same sex (as oneself), or who identifies as a member of the gay community. Sometimes refers only to gay males, sometimes only to gay males and lesbians. Although some people use the term gay (commmunity) to refer to all sexual minorities (or the sexual minority community), Lesbians and Bisexuals often do not feel included by it. Derogatory slang includes: queer, faggot, swish.
Gender (identity)
A psychological gender role. Masculine or feminine.
Gender (identity) community
People who identify as transvestite, transsexual, or transgendered, or as members of the gender community. Members of the gender community do not necessarily identify as members of the sexual minority community. (See transgender community.)
Gender dysphoria (GD)
Unhappiness or discomfort experienced by one whose sexual organs do not match one's gender identity.
Gender neutral
Clothing, behaviors, thoughts, feelings, relationships, etc. which are considered appropriate for members of both sexes.
Gender role
Arbitrary rules, assigned by society, that define what clothing, behaviors, thoughts, feelings, relationships, etc. are considered appropriate and inappropriate for members of each sex. Some clothing, behaviors, etc. are considered appropriate for members of both sexes. Which things are considered masculine, feminine, or neutral varies according to location, class, occasion, and numerous other factors. (See masculine, feminine, and gender neutral.)
Genetic Boy (GB)
Colloquial term for Genetic Male. (See boy.)
Genetic Male/Man (GM)
One who was considered male from birth, regardless of one's present sex or gender identity.
Genetic Female/Woman (GF/GM)
One who was born female, regardless of one's present sex or gender identity.
Genetic Girl (GG)
Colloquial term for Genetic Female. (See girl.)
Girl
1) A young female. 2) Colloquial term for feminine. Often used to specify gender of clothes. ["My girl clothes."] Girl has often been used as a condescending term for a woman, and is therefore distasteful to many people. (See boy.)
Hermaphrodite
One who has both a penis and a vagina.
Heterosexual (het)
One who has significant sexual and romantic attractions primarily to members of the other sex (than oneself.) Derogatory terms include: breeder. (See straight.)
Heterosexism
The assumption that identifying as heterosexual and having sexual and romantic attractions only to members of the other sex (than oneself) is good and acceptable, and that other sexual identities and attractions are bad and unacceptable. The assumption that anyone is straight whose sexual orientation is not known, usually coupled with a "blindness" to the existence and concerns of LesBiGays.
Homophile (community)
Obsolete term for gay male (community.)
Homophobia
Originally, an irrational fear of sexual attraction to the same sex. Developed into a term for the oppression of Lesbians and Gay men, and later into a term for all aspects of the oppression of Lesbians, Gay men, and Bisexuals (sometimes does not include bisexuals.) This oppression ranges from not including LesBiGays in one's circle of friends and media reports on and representations of society, through the cold shoulder, snide comments, verbal harrassment, assault, rape, and murder based on the target person's (perceived) sexual identity. (See also Biphobia.)
Homophobe
One who is afraid of or oppresses people because one (perceives them to) have sexual and romantic attractions to members of the same sex.
Homosexual
Formal or clinical term for gay, usually meaning gay male, sometimes meaning LesGay, and occasionally meaning LesBiGay. Homosexual and homosexuality are often associated with the proposition that same gender attractions are a mental disorder (homophilia), and are therefore distasteful to some people.
Hormone therapy
Used to change secondary sex characteristics, including breast size, weight distribution, and facial hair growth. (See electolysis.)
Identify/ied (as)
To think of oneself as having a particular sexual identity or gender identity. [I identify as a bisexual. I am bi-identified.] To emphaise that an identity term refers to one's internal reality, as opposed to what others think or observe of one, self-identify is sometimes used.
Identity
How one thinks of oneself. One's internal self, as opposed to what others observe or think about one. (See Label.)
Label
How someone else sees or thinks of one. (See identity.)
Lesbian
A woman who has significant sexual and romantic attractions to members of the same sex, or who identifies as a member of the lesbian community. Bisexual women often do not feel included by this term. Derogatory slang: dyke, lesbo.
LesBiGay (community)
Contraction of "lesbian, bisexual, and gay." Colloquial term for the sexual minority community or its members. Often spelled with capital "B" and "G" to prevent misinterpretation as "lesbian and gay." (See sexual minority/identity community.)
LesGay
Contraction of "lesbian and gay." Sometimes used to mean LesBiGay, but bisexual women and men often do not feel included by this term.
M->F
Male to female. Used to specify the direction of a sex or gender role change.
Male
One who has a penis.
Male Impersonator
A female who, on specific occasions, cross dresses and employs stereotypical masculine dialog, voice, and mannerisms for the entertainment of other people.
Masculine
The gender role assigned to males.
Monogendered
One who is comfortable in only one gender role. (Do people actually use this, or is it just a syntactic extension of bigendered?)
Monosexual
One who has significant sexual and romantic attractions primarily to members of one sex. Straight, Gay, Lesbian. Someone who is not Bisexual.
Neuter
1) One who has neither a penis nor a vagina. 2) Occasionally used to mean androgenous.
Other sex/gender
The other sex or gender than the reference person's own. [She has an other sex partner (than her own sex).] [Are you currently in a relationship with a member of the same sex (as yourself)?]
(to be) Out
To be open about one's sexual identity with someone or in a situation. [I am out to my mother.] [I am out at work.] (See come out.)
Out (someone)
1) To disclose a second person's sexual identity to a third person, especially without the second person's permission. 2) To disclose one's own sexual identity, sometimes without choosing to do so. [I outed myself by leaving a political letter on my desk, which my boss saw when he was looking for me.] (See come out.)
Pre-operative transsexual (Pre-op TS)
One who is actively planning to switch physical sexes, mostly to relieve gender dysphoria. Probably, but not necessarily, cross dresses, takes hormone therapy, and gets electrolysis. (See transsexual.)
Primary sex organs
Penis (male) or vagina (female.) (See female, male, hermaphrodite, neuter.)
Queer
1) Reclaimed derogatory slang for the sexual minority community (eg. Queer Nation.) Not accepted by all the sexual minority community, especially older members. 2. Sometimes used for an even wider spectrum of marginalized or radicalized groups and individuals.
Same sex/gender
The same sex or gender as the reference person's own. [He has a same sex partner (as his own sex).] [Are you currently in a relationship with a member of the same sex (as yourself)?]
Self-identify/identity as
See identify as and identity.
Sex
Male or female, depending on one's primary sex organs.
Sex role
See gender role.
Sexual identity
How one thinks of oneself, in terms of being significantly attracted to members of the same or the other sex. Based on one's internal experience, as opposed to which gender one's actual sexual partners belong to. (See sexual orientation/preference.)
Sexual identity/minority community
The community of people who have significant sexual and romantic attractions to members of the same sex, or who identify as a member of the sexual minority community. A formal term which includes LesBiGays and sometimes members of the gender community. Members of the sexual minority community usually do not identify as members of the gender community.
Sexual orientation/preference
How one thinks of her/himself, in terms of being significantly attracted to members the same or the other sex. Sexual orientation emphasizes that some people feel that one has no control or influence over the development of one's sexual and romantic attractions or one's sexual orientation. Sexual preference emphasizes that some people feel that one does or should have some control or influence over the development of one's sexual and romantic attractions or sexual one's orientation.
Sexual Reassignment Surgery (SRS)
A surgical procedure which changes one's primary sexual organs from one sex to another (penis to vagina or vagina to penis.)
SRS
Colloquial for Sexual Reassignment Surgery.
Straight
Colloquial for heterosexual. Because straight has connotations of "unadulterated," "pure," and "honest," some members of the sexual identity community object to the implication that one who is not straight is "bent," "adulterated," "impure," or "dishonest." Straight has connotations of "narrow," "straight-laced" or "conservative," and some heterosexual-identified people object find it distasteful.
Transgender community
Formal term for gender community.
Transgendered (TG)
One who switches gender roles, whether just once, or many times at will. Inclusive term for transsexuals and transvestites.
Transsexual (TS)
One who switches physical sexes (usually just once, but there are exceptions.) Primary sex change is accomplished by surgery. (See SRS.) Hormone therapy, electrolysis, additional surgery, and other treatments can change secondary sex characteristics. (See Pre-op TS.)
Transvestite (TV)
One who mainly cross dresses for pleasure in the appearance and sensation. The pleasure may not be directly erotic. It may be empowering, rebellious, or something else. May feel comfortable in a focused transgender role while cross dressed. May occasionally experience gender dysphoria.

ΓΟΥΑΤΕΜΑΛΑ. ΟΙ ΔΟΛΟΦΟΝΙΕΣ ΤΩΝ ΤΡΑΝΣΕΞΟΥΑΛ ΣΥΝΕΧΙΖΟΝΤΑΙ

Guatemala: Transgender prostitutes get political to end violence
BY JILL REPLOGLE (Miami Herald - 20 Jun 06)

Wigs, fake breasts and very high heels were on display recently at the first political forum held by the Queens of the Night Collective, a group of transgender prostitutes who work in Guatemala City.
The mood was serious. Around the room, posters commemorated the dozens of cross-dressers who have died in Guatemala in recent years -- almost all brutally murdered or killed off by AIDS. One was killed and two others were wounded in a shooting just this past weekend.
A sex worker turned political activist who goes by the name of Fernanda Milán opened the forum by denouncing the lack of jobs, health, education and security for the gay and transgender population in this small Central American country.
''The security forces that should be our protectors are our main aggressors,'' Milán said.
In the safety of the forum, the dozens of cross-dressing participants were free to put on lipstick and use the women's bathroom. But out on the street it's not so easy, or safe, to dress as a different gender.
At least 17 murders of transgenders have been reported in the Guatemalan media in the past five years, according to a study by OASIS. a Guatemalan gay-rights organization. And activists say there are probably many more that go unreported. Prostitution can be a particularly deadly profession for cross-dressers in Guatemala. Last year alone, seven cross-dressing prostitutes were murdered.
HIGH MURDER RATE
OASIS estimates that around 1,200 cross-dressers work as prostitutes in Guatemala, mostly in the capital. That makes the murder rate among this sub-population some 17 times higher than the already alarming national average -- 35 murders per 100,000 citizens.
In the most recently publicized case, a cross-dresser who went by the name of Paulina was shot and killed last December while working a street corner in Guatemala City. The government's human rights ombudsman said that four police officers may have been behind the murder. The case is still under investigation.
A cross-dressing sex worker from Honduras who goes by the name of Alexa Robinson showed up at the the recent forum with eight steel rods holding a femur together. The bone was shattered by a gunshot from a client.
Most of the cross-dressers interviewed for this story asked that their real names not be published out of fear for their safety.
Guillermo Alonzo, the public investigator in charge of the Paulina murder case, said that some of the killings probably are hate crimes.
However, the mix of drug trafficking, theft and other side businesses of prostitution add to the dangers of the trade, he said.
''It's a world that also includes a lot of dirty businesses,'' Alonzo said.
But transgenders in Guatemala say their choices of work and dress have been made extremely limited by a machista society that discriminates against anyone who doesn't fit the norm.
''In developed countries sex work is an option, while in Guatemala it's the only option'' for transgenders said the activist Milán.
By organizing cross-dressing sex workers, the Queens of the Night Collective hopes to chip away at the discrimination and violence, and get their members off the dangerous streets. Leaders of the group, which has 80 to 100 members, also hope to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS among the gay community.
Jorge López, executive director of OASIS, said the path to achieving all of these goals has to start at home. ''We don't need condoms, we need mothers who don't throw their gay children out of the house,'' said López.
A 24-year-old cross-dressing prostitute who goes by the name of Monica Fisher was kicked out of the house at age 19 after coming out as gay and expressing a preference for dressing like a woman. Fisher has been working on the street ever since.
The combination of violence and a high prevalence of HIV among gay men in Guatemala -- 18 percent, according to a recent OASIS study -- is wiping out the gay community, according to López.
''Every year we count how many people our community has lost,'' López said.
"It's a plot to make us disappear.''
López complained that efforts to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS in Guatemala are focused on women in their reproductive years while the gay community, which has a much higher HIV infection rate, has been virtually abandoned.
IN NEED OF FUNDS
The Queens' goal is to create business and educational opportunities for members as alternatives to working on the streets, explained Johanna Ramírez, the group's current president. Ramírez, a 33-year-old from El Salvador, said the group has plans for opening up a small clothing factory but still needs to come up with the funds.
''I'd like to be a fashion designer,'' Ramírez said, dressed for the working night in a short, ruffled miniskirt and halter top.
Fisher, who works a corner near Ramírez, sees prostitution as a temporary job. Fisher has a high school-level degree in business administration and hopes to use it someday. ''I don't think I'll be working in the street in the future,'' Fisher said. ``One day we'll have other job options.''

Μ. ΒΡΕΤΑΝΙΑ. ΟΙ ΤΑΠΕΙΝΩΤΙΚΕΣ ΔΙΑΚΡΙΣΕΙΣ ΤΟΥ "ΣΥΜΦΩΝΟΥ ΣΥΜΒΙΩΣΗΣ"

ΒΡΕΤΑΝΙΔΕΣ ΛΕΣΒΙΕΣ ΕΤΟΙΜΕΣ ΓΙΑ ΟΛΑ
του Nicola Woolcock (The Times)
Την καταγγελία ότι καταπατούνται τα δικαιώματα του έκανε ένα ζευγάρι λεσβιών που προσπαθεί να αναγνωρίσει τον γάμο του στη Βρετανία. Οι δυο γυναίκες είναι Βρετανίδες, καθηγήτριες Πανεπιστημίου και παντρεύτηκαν στην Καναδά το 2003. η ένωσή τους είναι ισχυρή στο Βέλγιο, στην Ισπανία και στην Ολλανδία. Τώρα όμως η Σίλια Κίτσινγκερ και η Σου Γουίλκινσον θέλουν να αποκτήσει ο γάμος τους πλήρη νομική υπόσταση και στη Βρετανία όπου ζουν και εργάζονται. Οι ίδιες απορρίπτουν τις αστικές ενώσεις, που καθιερώθηκαν πέρυσι στη Βρετανία, με το επιχείρημα ότι είναι ταπεινωτικές και δημιουργούν διακρίσεις. Αν η προσφυγή τους στο Ανώτατο Δικαστήριο έχει ευτυχή κατάληξη, θα επιτρέψει και σε άλλα ομόφυλα ζευγάρια να τελέσουν τον γάμο του στο εξωτερικό και να τον νομιμοποιήσουν με την επιστροφή τους στη Βρετανία.
Η Κάρον Μόναχαν, η οποία εκπροσωπεί τις δυο γυναίκες, δήλωσε ότι οι νόμοι που απαγορεύουν την αναγνώριση των γάμων μεταξύ ατόμων του ιδίου φύλου είναι απηρχαιωμένοι. Ανέφερε μάλιστα στον πρόεδρο του δικαστηρίου ότι οι νόμοι που απαγορεύουν τον γάμο μεταξύ ατόμων από διαφορετικές φυλές, κοινωνικές τάξεις ή θρησκείες έχουν από καιρό καταργηθεί. «Λόγω όμως του γεγονότος ότι ο γάμος έγινε μεταξύ ατόμων του ιδίου φύλου, θα πρέπει να αναγνωριστεί στην Αγγλία και στην Ουαλία».
Το ζευγάρι είναι μαζί για 16 χρόνια και προσπαθεί να κηρύξει τον γάμο του έγκυρο, σύμφωνα με το οικογενειακό δίκαιο που ισχύει στη Βρετανία. Η κυρία Γουίλκινσον, 52 ετών, είναι καθηγήτρια Ψυχιατρικής στο Πανεπιστήμιο του Λάφμπορο και ζούσε και εργαζόταν στο Βανκούβερ του Καναδά όταν νυμφεύθηκε την καθηγήτρια Κίσιντζερ, 49 ετών, η οποία διδάσκει Κοινωνιολογία στο Πανεπιστήμιο του Γιορκ. Αντήλλαξαν μάλιστα δαχτυλίδια στον πολιτικό γάμο που ετέλεσαν.
Ο νόμος για την αστική ένωση, που εισήχθη στη Βρετανία τον περασμένο Δεκέμβριο, δίνει στα ομόφυλα ζευγάρια πολλά από τα δικαιώματα που απολαμβάνουν τα ετερόφυλα ζευγάρια. Αναφέρει όμως ότι οι ομοφυλόφιλοι που έρχονται εις γάμου κοινωνία σε χώρες όπου οι γάμοι αυτοί είναι νόμιμοι πρέπει να έχουν στη Βρετανία την αντιμετώπιση των ζευγαριών που συνδέονται με αστική ένωση.
Η κυρία Μόναχαν δήλωσε ότι οι πελάτισσές της δεν θέλουν ο γάμος τους να υποβιβαστεί και ότι επιθυμούν να τις αντιμετωπίζουν όπως όλα τα άλλα ζευγάρια. Η ίδια προσθέτει ότι η άρνηση της Βρετανίας να αναγνωρίσει την ένωση τους παραβιάζει τα άρθρα της Ευρωπαϊκής Σύμβασης Ανθρωπίνων Δικαιωμάτων, η οποία εξυψώνει το δικαίωμα στην ιδιωτική και οικογενειακή ζωή και στον γάμο. Η προσφυγή των δυο γυναικών συνάντησε την αντίδραση της ηγεσίας της βρετανικής Δικαιοσύνης αλλά έχει τη στήριξη οργανώσεων για την προστασία των ανθρωπίνων δικαιωμάτων και των δικαιωμάτων των ομοφυλοφίλων.(Αναδημοσίευση από την εφημερίδα ΤΟ ΒΗΜΑ ΤΗΣ ΚΥΡΙΑΚΗΣ 11-06-2006)

ΗΠΑ - ΕΛΛΑΣ - ΣΥΜΜΑΧΙΑ. ΕΚΕΙ ΠΟΥ ΣΤΑΜΑΤΑ Η ΛΟΓΙΚΗ...

Pentagon Lists Homosexuality As Disorder
By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, June 20, 2006

A Pentagon document classifies homosexuality as a mental disorder, decades after mental health experts abandoned that position.
The document outlines retirement or other discharge policies for service members with physical disabilities, and in a section on defects lists homosexuality alongside mental retardation and personality disorders.
Critics said the reference underscores the Pentagon's failing policies on gays, and adds to a culture that has created uncertainty and insecurity around the treatment of homosexual service members, leading to anti-gay harassment.
Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Jeremy M. Martin said the policy document is under review.
The Pentagon has a "don't ask, don't tell" policy that prohibits the military from inquiring about the sex lives of service members but requires discharges of those who openly acknowledge being gay.
The Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military, at the University of California at Santa Barbara, uncovered the document and pointed to it as further proof that the military deserves failing grades for its treatment of gays.
Nathaniel Frank, senior research fellow at the center, said, "The policy reflects the department's continued misunderstanding of homosexuality and makes it more difficult for gays and lesbians to access mental health services."
The document, called a Defense Department Instruction, was condemned by medical professionals, members of Congress and other experts, including the American Psychiatric Association.
"It is disappointing that certain Department of Defense instructions include homosexuality as a 'mental disorder' more than 30 years after the mental health community recognized that such a classification was a mistake," said Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass.
Congress members noted that other Pentagon regulations dealing with mental health do not include homosexuality on any lists of psychological disorders. And in a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Monday, nine lawmakers asked for a full review of all documents and policies to ensure they reflect that same standard.
"Based on scientific and medical evidence the APA declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973 — a position shared by all other major health and mental health organizations based on their own review of the science," James H. Scully Jr., head of the psychiatric association, said in a letter to the Defense Department's top doctor earlier this month.
There were 726 military members discharged under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy during the budget year that ended last Sept. 30. That marked the first year since 2001 that the total had increased. The number of discharges had declined each year since it peaked at 1,227 in 2001, and had fallen to 653 in 2004.

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Και για να μην λησμονούμε και τα δικά μας:

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Greece does not want gays in its armed forces
ATHENS, March 28, 2006 (AFP) -

Greece officially does not want gays in its armed forces, excluding both those serving under its compulsory conscription system and those enlisting voluntarily, the Greek armed forces general staff said Tuesday.

The Greek army bars gays from its ranks under a 2002 presidential decree which excludes from military service all persons "suffering from psycho-sexual or sexual identity disorders," a general staff source told AFP.

The confirmation came as the country's gay community (Eok) on Tuesday filed a complaint against the Greek defence and transport ministries, arguing that this "fascist" statute is now preventing them from obtaining drivers' licenses as well.

A certificate testifying that a conscript has completed his military service -- which is compulsory for all Greek males -- is among the required paperwork for a driver's license in Greece, observed Eok member Vangelis Iannelos.

Iannelos pointed to the case of a gay man who was recently told by the transport ministry to attend a six-month psychiatric treatment course if he wanted to obtain a driver's license. Iannelos' own army certificate, issued in 1996, noted that he "suffers from homosexual behaviour", he said.

At the behest of Greece's personal data watchdog, such details are no longer inscribed on the army certificate. But as the same document is given to all cases exempt from army service, "homosexuals are placed in the same bag with psychotics," Iannelos told AFP.

In February 2006, the Greek state committee on human rights, an official advisor to the prime minister, had demanded steps to end anti-gay discrimination in the country. No such measures have been taken.

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Να έχει αλλάξει κάτι από τον περασμένο Μάρτιο και να το αγνοούμε;

Μακάρι!

ΤΟ ΟΜΟΦΥΛΟΦΟΒΙΚΟ BULLYING ΣΤΑ ΣΧΟΛΕΙΑ. ΓΙΑΤΙ ΚΑΝΕΙΣ ΔΕΝ ΜΙΛΑΕΙ ΓΙ' ΑΥΤΟ;

Bullying in Schools: Harassment Puts Gay Youth At RiskNational Mental Health Association

by U.S. National Mental Health Association
While trying to deal with all the challenges of being a teenager, gay/ lesbian/ bisexual/ transgender (GBLT) teens additionally have to deal with harassment, threats, and violence directed at them on a daily basis. They hear anti-gay slurs such as “homo”, “faggot” and “sissy” about 26 times a day or once every 14 minutes. Even more troubling, a study found that thirty-one percent of gay youth had been threatened or injured at school in the last year alone!
Their mental health and education, not to mention their physical well-being, are at-risk.
How is their mental health being affected?
-Gay and lesbian teens are at high risk because ‘their distress is a direct result of the hatred and prejudice that surround them,’ not because of their inherently gay or lesbian identity orientation.
-Gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth are two to three times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual counterparts.
How is their education being affected?
-Gay teens in schools are often subjected to such intense bullying that they’re unable to receive an adequate education. They’re often embarrassed or ashamed of being targeted and may not report the abuse.
-GLBT students are more apt to skip school due to the fear, threats, and property vandalism directed at them. One survey revealed that 22 percent of gay respondents had skipped school in the past month because they felt unsafe there.
-Twenty-eight percent of gay students will drop out of school. This is more than three times the national average for heterosexual students.
-GLBT youth feel they have nowhere to turn. According to several surveys, four out of five gay and lesbian students say they don’t know one supportive adult at school.
What can we do to help?
Schools should offer a safe and respectful learning environment for everyone. When bullying is allowed to take place, it affects everyone. For every GLBT youth who reported being targeted for anti-gay harassment, four heterosexual youth reported harassment or violence for being perceived as gay or lesbian. Also, we know that bullying was a contributing factor in the Columbine shootings and other school violence. Students, teachers, and school administrators who look the other way are contributing to the problem. In contrast, kids who said that they had a supportive faculty or openly gay staff member were more likely to feel as if they belong in their school.
Help end bullying at your school with the following actions:
-Be alert to signs of distress.
-Work with student councils to have programs on respect, school safety, and anti-bullying.
-Ask school personnel to have a discussion at an assembly or an after school activity about gay prejudice.
-Help start a Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) chapter at your local high school. Youth whose schools had these kinds of groups were less likely to have reported feeling unsafe in their schools.
-Arrange for a group like GLSEN to present bullying prevention activities and programs at your school.
-Do encourage anyone who’s being bullied to tell a teacher, counselor, coach, nurse, or his or her parents or guardians. If the bullying continues, report it yourself.

ΤΟ GAY ΖΩΙΚΟ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΟ

Catherine Ledner

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THE GAY ANIMAL KINGDOM
The effeminate sheep & other problems with Darwinian sexual selection.
By Jonah Lehrer • June 7, 2006
From the JUN/JUL 2006 issue of Seed

Joan Roughgarden thinks Charles Darwin made a terrible mistake. Not about natural selection—she's no bible-toting creationist—but about his other great theory of evolution: sexual selection. According to Roughgarden, sexual selection can't explain the homosexuality that's been documented in over 450 different vertebrate species. This means that same-sex sexuality—long disparaged as a quirk of human culture—is a normal, and probably necessary, fact of life. By neglecting all those gay animals, she says, Darwin misunderstood the basic nature of heterosexuality.
Male big horn sheep live in what are often called "homosexual societies." They bond through genital licking and anal intercourse, which often ends in ejaculation. If a male sheep chooses to not have gay sex, it becomes a social outcast. Ironically, scientists call such straight-laced males "effeminate."
Giraffes have all-male orgies. So do bottlenose dolphins, killer whales, gray whales, and West Indian manatees. Japanese macaques, on the other hand, are ardent lesbians; the females enthusiastically mount each other. Bonobos, one of our closest primate relatives, are similar, except that their lesbian sexual encounters occur every two hours. Male bonobos engage in "penis fencing," which leads, surprisingly enough, to ejaculation. They also give each other genital massages.
As this list of activities suggests, having homosexual sex is the biological equivalent of apple pie: Everybody likes it. At last count, over 450 different vertebrate species could be beheaded in Saudi Arabia. You name it, there's a vertebrate out there that does it. Nevertheless, most biologists continue to regard homosexuality as a sexual outlier. According to evolutionary theory, being gay is little more than a maladaptive behavior.
Joan Roughgarden, a professor of biology at Stanford University, wants to change that perception. After cataloging the wealth of homosexual behavior in the animal kingdom two years ago in her controversial book Evolution's Rainbow—and weathering critiques that, she says, stemmed largely from her being transgendered—Roughgarden has set about replacing Darwinian sexual selection with a new explanation of sex. For too long, she says, biology has neglected evidence that mating isn't only about multiplying. Sometimes, as in the case of all those gay sheep, dolphins and primates, animals have sex just for fun or to cement their social bonds. Homosexuality, Roughgarden says, is an essential part of biology, and can no longer be dismissed. By using the queer to untangle the straight, Roughgarden's theories have the potential to usher in a scientific sexual revolution.
Darwin's theory of sex began with an observation about peacocks. For a man who liked to see the world in terms of functional adaptations, the tails of male peacocks seemed like a useless absurdity. Why would nature invest in such a baroque display of feathers? Did male peacocks want to be eaten by predators?
Darwin's hypothesis was typically brilliant: The peacocks did it for the sake of reproduction. The male's fancy tail entranced the staid peahen. Darwin used this idea to explain the biological quirks that natural selection couldn't explain. If a trait wasn't in the service of survival, then it was probably in the service of seduction. Furthermore, the mechanics of sex helped explain why the genders were so different. Because eggs are expensive and sperm are cheap, "Males of almost all animals have stronger passions than females," Darwin wrote. "The female...with the rarest of exceptions is less eager than the male...she is coy." Darwin is telling the familiar Mars and Venus story: Men want sex while women want to cuddle. Females, by choosing who to bed, impose sexual selection onto the species. Darwin's theory of sex has been biological dogma ever since he postulated why peacocks flirt. His gendered view of life has become a centerpiece of evolution, one of his great scientific legacies. The culture wars over evolution and common descent notwithstanding, Darwin's theory of sexual selection has been thoroughly assimilated into mass culture. From sitcoms to beer ads, our coital "instincts" are constantly reaffirmed. Females are wary, and males are horny. Sex is this simple. Or is it?
Indeed, biology now knows better. Nobody is hornier than a female macaque or bonobo (which mount the males because the males are too exhausted to continue the fornication). Peacocks are actually the exception, not the rule.
Roughgarden first began thinking Darwin may have been in error after she attended the 1997 gay pride parade in San Francisco, where she had gone to walk alongside a float in support of transgendered people. Although she had lived her first 52 years as a man, Roughgarden was about to become a woman. The decision hadn't been easy. For one thing, she was worried about losing her job as a tenured professor of biology at Stanford. (The fear turned out to be unfounded.)
After living for a year in Santa Barbara while undergoing the "physical aspects of the transition," Roughgarden returned to Stanford in the spring of 1999 and decided to write a book about the biology of sexual diversity. In particular, she wanted to answer the question that had first surfaced in her mind back in 1997. "When I was at that gay pride parade," Roughgarden remembers, "I was just stunned by the sheer magnitude of the LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender] population. Because I'm a biologist, I started asking myself some difficult questions. My discipline teaches that homosexuality is some sort of anomaly. But if the purpose of sexual contact is just reproduction, as Darwin believed, then why do all these gay people exist? A lot of biologists assume that they are somehow defective, that some developmental error or environmental influence has misdirected their sexual orientation. If so, gay and lesbian people are a mistake that should have been corrected a long time ago. But this hasn't happened. That's when I had my epiphany. When scientific theory says something's wrong with so many people, perhaps the theory is wrong, not the people."
The resulting book, Evolution's Rainbow, was an audacious attack on Darwin's theory of sexual selection. To make her case, Roughgarden filled the text with a staggering collection of animal perversities, from the penises of female spotted hyenas to the mènage à trois tactics of bluegill sunfish. As Roughgarden put it, "What's coming out [in the past 10-15 years] is to the rest of the species what the Kinsey Report was to humans."
According to Roughgarden, classic sexual selection can't account for these strange carnal habits. After all, Darwin imagined sex as a relatively straightforward transaction. Males compete for females. Evolutionary success is defined by the quantity of offspring. Thus, any distractions from the business of making babies—distractions like homosexuality, masturbation, etc.—are precious wastes of fluids. You'd think by now, several hundred million years after sex began, nature would have done away with such inefficiencies, and males and females would only act to maximize rates of sexual reproduction.
But the opposite has happened. Instead of copulation becoming more functional and straightforward, it has only gotten weirder as species have evolved—more sodomy and other frivolous pleasures that are useless for propagating the species. The more socially complex the animal, the more sexual "deviance" it exhibits. Look at primates: Compared to our closest relatives, contemporary, Westernized Homo sapiens are the staid ones. Despite this new evidence, sexual selection theory is still stuck in the 19th century. The Victorian peacock remains the standard bearer. But as far as Roughgarden is concerned, that's bad science: "The time has come to declare that sexual theory is indeed false and to stop shoe-horning one exception after another into a sexual selection framework...To do otherwise suggests that sexual selection theory is unfalsifiable, not subject to refutation."
Roughgarden is an ambitious scientist. She believes it is impossible to comprehend the diversity of sexuality without disowning Darwin. Although she isn't the first biologist to condemn sexual selection—Darwin's theory has never been very popular with feminists—she is unusually vocal about cataloguing his empirical errors. "When I began, I didn't set out to criticize Darwin," she says. "But I quickly realized that most scientists are pretty dismissive about same-sex sexuality in vertebrates. They think these animals are just having fun or practicing. As long as scientists clung to this old dogma, homosexuality would always be this funny anomaly you didn't have to account for."
Roughgarden's first order of business was proving that homosexuality isn't a maladaptive trait. At first glance, this seems like a futile endeavor. Being gay clearly makes individuals less likely to pass on their genes, a major biological faux pas. From the perspective of evolution, homosexual behavior has always been a genetic dead end, something that has to be explained away.
But Roughgarden believes that biologists have it backwards. Given the pervasive presence of homosexuality throughout the animal kingdom, same-sex partnering must be an adaptive trait that's been carefully preserved by natural selection. As Roughgarden points out, "a 'common genetic disease' is a contradiction in terms, and homosexuality is three to four orders of magnitude more common than true genetic diseases such as Huntington's disease."
So how might homosexuality be good for us? Any concept of sexual selection that emphasizes the selfish propagation of genes and sperm won't be able to account for the abundance of non-heterosexual sex. All those gay penguins and persons will remain inexplicable. However, if one looks at homosexuality from the perspective of a community, one can begin to see why nature might foster a variety of sexual interactions.
According to Roughgarden, gayness is a necessary side effect of getting along. Homosexuality evolved in tandem with vertebrate societies, in which a motley group of individuals has to either live together or die alone. In fact, Roughgarden even argues that homosexuality is a defining feature of advanced animal communities, which require communal bonds in order to function. "The more complex and sophisticated a social system is," she writes, "the more likely it is to have homosexuality intermixed with heterosexuality."
Japanese macaques, an old world primate, illustrate this principle perfectly. Macaque society revolves around females, who form intricate dominance hierarchies within a given group. Males are transient. To help maintain the necessary social networks, female macaques engage in rampant lesbianism. These friendly copulations, which can last up to four days, form the bedrock of macaque society, preventing unnecessary violence and aggression. Females that sleep together will even defend each other from the unwanted advances of male macaques. In fact, behavioral scientist Paul Vasey has found that females will choose to mate with another female, as opposed to a horny male, 92.5% of the time. While this lesbianism probably decreases reproductive success for macaques in the short term, in the long run it is clearly beneficial for the species, since it fosters social stability. "Same-sex sexuality is just another way of maintaining physical intimacy," Roughgarden says. "It's like grooming, except we have lots of pleasure neurons in our genitals. When animals exhibit homosexual behavior, they are just using their genitals for a socially significant purpose." Roughgarden is now using this model of homosexuality to reimagine heterosexuality. Her conclusions, published last February in Science, are predictably controversial. While Darwin saw males and females as locked in conflict, acting out the ancient battle of their gametes, Roughgarden describes sexual partners as a model of solidarity. "This whole view of the sexes as being at war is just so flawed from the start. First of all, there are all these empirical exceptions, like homosexuality. And then there's the logical inconsistency of it all. Why would a male ever jettison control of his evolutionary destiny? Why would he entrust females to serendipitously raise their shared young? The fact is, males and females are committed to cooperate."
Consider the Eurasian oystercatcher, a shore bird that enjoys feasting on shellfish. A consistent minority of oystercatcher families are polygynous, in which a lucky male mates with two different females simultaneously. These threesomes come in two different flavors: aggressive and cooperative. In an aggressive threesome, the females are at war; they attack each other frequently, and try to disrupt the egg-laying process of their fellow spouse. So far, so Darwinian: Life is nasty, brutish and short. However, the cooperative threesome is everything Darwin didn't expect. These females share a nest, mate with each other several times a day, and preen their feathers together. It's domestic bliss.
In Roughgarden's Science paper, she uses "cooperative game theory" to elucidate the diverse mating habits of the oystercatcher. Whereas Darwin held that conflict was the natural state of life (we are all Hobbesian bullies at heart), Roughgarden sees cooperation as our default position. This makes mathematical sense: The family that sleeps together has more offspring. Why, then, do oystercatcher females occasionally engage in all out war? According to Roughgarden, violence occurs when "social negotiations" break down. Although the birds really want to get along (who doesn't like being preened?), something goes awry. The end result is risky violence, in which one female or both will end the breeding season without an egg.
The advantage of Roughgarden's new theory is that it can explain a wider spectrum of sexual behaviors than Darwinian sexual selection. Lesbian oystercatchers and gay mountain sheep? Their homosexuality is just a prelude to social cooperation, a pleasurable way of avoiding wanton conflict. But what about the peacock and all those other examples of sexual dimorphism? According to Roughgarden, "expensive, functionally useless badges like the peacock's tail...are admission tickets": they just get you in the door. If you don't have a ticket, you are ruthlessly denied breeding rights, like an uncool kid at the prom.
Of course, most humans don't see sex as a way of maintaining the social contract. Our lust doesn't seem logical, especially when that logic involves the abstruse calculations of game theory. Furthermore, it's strange for most people to think of themselves as naturally bisexual. Being gay or straight seems to be an intrinsic and implacable part of our identity. Roughgarden disagrees. "In our culture, we assume that there is a straight-gay binary, and that you are either one or the other. But if you look at vertebrates, that just isn't the case. You will almost never find animals or primates that are exclusively gay. Other human cultures show the same thing." Since Roughgarden believes that the hetero/homo distinction is a purely cultural creation, and not a fact of biology, she thinks it is only a matter of time before we return to the standard primate model. "I'm convinced that in 50 years, the gay-straight dichotomy will dissolve. I think it just takes too much social energy to preserve. All this campy, flamboyant behavior: It's just such hard work." Despite Roughgarden's long list of peer-reviewed articles in prestigious journals, most evolutionary biologists remain skeptical of her conclusions. For one thing, it's tough to measure the benefits of diversity—or lesbian pair bonding. It's even harder to imagine how traits that are good for the group get passed on by individuals. (As a result, group selection has largely been replaced by kin selection.) In the absence of anything conclusive, most scientists stick with Darwin and Dawkins.
Other biologists think Roughgarden is exaggerating the importance of homosexuality. Invertebrate zoologist Stephen Shuster told Nature that Roughgarden "throws out a very healthy baby with some slightly soiled bathwater." And biologist Alison Jolly, in an otherwise positive review of Evolution's Rainbow for Science, conceded that Roughgarden ultimately fails in her ambition to "revolutionize current biological theories of sexual selection." As far as these mainstream biologists are concerned, Roughgarden's gay primates and transgendered fish are simply interesting sexual deviants, statistical outliers in a world that contains plenty of peacocks. As Paul Z. Myers, a biologist at the University of Minnesota, put it, "I think much of what Roughgarden says is very interesting. But I think she discounts many of the modifications that have been made to sexual selection since Darwin originally proposed it. So in that sense, her Darwin is a straw man. You don't have to dismiss the modern version of sexual selection in order to explain social bonding or homosexuality."
Roughgarden remains defiant. "I think many scientists discount me because of who I am. They assume that I can't be objective, that I've got some bias or hidden LGBT agenda. But I'm just trying to understand the data. At this point, we have thousands of species that deviate from the standard account of Darwinian sexual selection. So we get all these special case exemptions, and we end up downplaying whatever facts don't fit. The theory is becoming Ptolemaic. It clearly has the trajectory of a hypothesis in trouble."
Roughgarden's cataloging of sexual diversity has challenged a fundamental biological theory. If Darwinian sexual selection—whatever its current variant—is to survive, it must adapt to this new data and come up with convincing explanations for why a host of animals just aren't like peacocks.

ΔΙΠΛΗ ΔΟΣΗ ΠΑΤΡΙΚΗΣ ΑΓΑΠΗΣ

-Εσύ δεν έχεις μαμά...

-Ναι, αλλά έχω ΔΥΟ μπαμπάδες να με αγαπάνε.

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ΤΟ ΝΕΟ ΨΗΦΙΣΜΑ ΤΟΥ ΕΥΡΩΠΑΪΚΟΥ ΚΟΙΝΟΒΟΥΛΙΟΥ ΚΑΤΑ ΤΟΥ ΡΑΤΣΙΣΜΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΤΗΣ ΟΜΟΦΥΛΟΦΟΒΙΑΣ

European Parliament resolution on the increase in racist and homophobic violence in Europe
The European Parliament,
– having regard to international human rights instruments which prohibit discrimination based on racial and ethnic origin, and notably the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, both signed by all EU Member States and a large number of non-EU member countries,

– having regard to Articles 2, 6, 7 and 29 of the Treaty on European Union and Article 13 of the EC Treaty, which commit the EU and its Member States to uphold human rights and fundamental freedoms and which provide European means to fight racism, xenophobia and discrimination, and to the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, especially Article 21 thereof,

– having regard to European Union activities to fight racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and homophobia, in particular the anti-discrimination Directives 2000/43/EC implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin and 2000/78/EC establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation, as well as to the draft Framework Decision on combating racism and xenophobia,

– having regard to its previous resolutions on racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, homophobia, protection of minorities, anti-discrimination policies and the situation of Roma in the EU,

– having regard to Rule 103(4) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and homophobia are motivated by irrational reasons and are sometimes linked to social marginalisation, exclusion and unemployment, as well as by a refusal to conceive diversity in our societies as a source of richness,

B. whereas several Member States, most recently Belgium, France, Germany and Poland, have experienced violent events and/or killings motivated by racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic hatred, while other direct and indirect forms of racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and homophobia persist inside and outside the EU,

C. whereas the Russian authorities have banned the march for equality and tolerance for GLBT people planned for 27 May in Moscow in violation of the right of peaceful assembly and demonstration guaranteed by the ECHR, in a situation where political and religious authorities were involved in denigration, and incited and participated in the violent events that subsequently occurred,

D. whereas political figures at European, national and regional level have a responsibility to set a good example by promoting tolerance, understanding, respect and peaceful coexistence,

E. whereas some political parties, including those in power in a number of countries or well represented at local level, have deliberately placed issues of racial, ethnic, national, religious and gay intolerance at the heart of their agenda, allowing political leaders to use language that incites racial and other forms of hatred and stokes extremism in society,

F. whereas calls for open violence of a homophobic nature have come from a member of a Polish governing party in relation to the plans to hold a gay rights march in Warsaw,

G. whereas Member States have foreseen various measures against political parties that promote programmes and activities that are contrary to the values guaranteed by the ECHR, including the withdrawal of public funding,

H. whereas disgraceful and serious racist incidents take place during football matches, and whereas there are concerns that similar events could take place during the current World Cup,

I. whereas education, especially at primary level, is a critical 'upstream policy' area in fighting racist attitudes and prejudice in later life, and whereas policy makers ought to pay due regard to the benefit of a good social and ethnic mix in state primary education,

J. whereas the media play an important and significant role in the public perception of racist violence and in some Member States tend to use one-dimensional and biased descriptions of violence, thus bearing responsibility for spreading misinformation on racism and xenophobia,

K. whereas the existence of a large number of Internet homepages which provide the main source of information about racist groups and groups which incite hatred raises concerns as to how to counteract this problem without violating freedom of expression,

L. whereas the police and the judicial system in Member States play a crucial role in the prosecution and prevention of racist violence; whereas, however, they sometimes fail to protect citizens against racist violence and to discourage extremists from committing such crimes, and in this respect Member States should consider whether their police forces and judicial systems suffer from 'institutional racism'; whereas, in some countries, police violence specifically targets ethnic, racial and sexual minorities and directly violates their right to freedom of assembly,

M. whereas there is a lack of statistical data on racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and homophobia in the Member States, and notably on violence and discrimination related to these phenomena,

N. whereas, after five years of negotiations, the Council has still not adopted the Commission proposal for a Framework Decision on combating racism and xenophobia, leading the Commission to threaten to withdraw it, and whereas this instrument would have been a useful tool to address and punish perpetrators of race hate crime,

O. whereas four Member States – Germany, Luxembourg, Austria and Finland – have been referred to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for their failure to satisfy the requirements of Directive 2000/43/EC, the Racial Equality Directive,

1. Deplores the fact that the Council has been unable to adopt the 2001 Council Framework Decision on combating racism and xenophobia, and urgently calls on the future Finnish Presidency of the Council to the restart the work on it and on the Council to reach an agreement on explicitly extending it to homophobic, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and other types of offences motivated by phobia or hatred based on ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, religion or other irrational grounds; calls on the Members States to reinforce criminal law measures aimed at the approximation of the penalties for such offences throughout the EU; urges all the Member States to effectively implement the anti-discrimination directives and the Commission to bring before the Court of Justice those Member States which fail to do so, and to submit before mid-2007 new legislative tools incorporating all the grounds for discrimination set out in Article 13 of the EC Treaty and having the same scope as Directive 2000/43/EC;

2. Strongly condemns all racist attacks, and expresses its solidarity with all victims of such attacks and their families, including:
– the premeditated murder of a black woman of Malian nationality and the Belgian child of whom she was the nurse, perpetrated in Antwerp on 12 May 2006 by a young Belgian right-wing extremist, this same person having a few moments earlier seriously wounded a woman of Turkish origin while trying to kill her;
– the murder of a 16-year-old boy in January 2006 and of a 17-year old boy in April 2006 in Brussels, expressing its indignation at some of the media coverage of these murders, which at times led to unfounded criminalisation of whole communities in the eyes of the general public;
– the rape, torture and assassination of Ilan Halimi in February 2006 in France by a gang of 22 persons of different origins, expressing its deep concern at the anti-Semitic dimension of this crime;
– the assassination of Chaïb Zehaf in March 2006 in France due to his ethnic origin;
– the brutal assault on a German citizen of Ethiopian origin, Kevin K., in the village of Poemmelte, Saxony-Anhalt, on 9 January 2006, in particular because of its racial motive;
– the horrific torture and murder of Gisberta, a transsexual living in the Portuguese city of Oporto, in February 2006, by a group of adolescent and pre-adolescent minors, urging the Portuguese authorities to do everything in their power to punish those responsible and fight the climate of impunity with respect to this and other hate crimes;
– the attack against Michael Schudrich, Chief Rabbi of Poland, which took place in Warsaw, as well as the declarations by a leading member of the League of Polish Families inciting violence against GLBT people with a view to the march for tolerance and equality;

3. Welcomes the fact that the mass demonstrations in Antwerp and Paris to express public horror at these events and public support in the fight against racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism were attended by thousands of people; welcomes also the demonstrations for tolerance in Poland and notably the warm welcome given to the 2006 Gay Pride parade in Warsaw;

4. Is seriously concerned about the general rise in racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic and homophobic intolerance in Poland, partly fuelled by religious platforms such as Radio Maryja, which is also criticised by the Vatican for its anti-Semitic discourse; believes that the EU should take appropriate measures to express its concerns and notably to address the issue of the participation in the government of the League of Polish Families, whose leaders incite people to hatred and violence; reminds Poland of its commitments and obligations under the Treaties, in particular Article 6 of the EU Treaty, and the possible sanctions in the event of non-compliance; urges the Polish Government in this context to reconsider the abolition of the Office of the Plenipotentiary for Equal Status; requests the Observatory on Racism and Xenophobia to conduct an inquiry into the emerging climate of racial, xenophobic and homophobic intolerance in Poland and the Commission to verify if the actions and declarations of the Polish Minister of Education are in conformity with Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union;

5. Strongly condemns the Russian authorities' decision to ban the first Gay Pride in Moscow on 27 May as well as their failure to ensure the safety and security of the peaceful demonstrators and human rights activists, and reminds the Russian authorities that freedom of assembly is a basic human right guaranteed by Article 31 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation; expresses its deep concern about the role which Russian politicians and faith organisations have played in inciting violence and hatred against LGBT people; expresses its hope that similar events will not occur in the future and encourages the Russian authorities to allow the Gay Pride parade in 2007 and to ensure the safety of its participants;

6. Is deeply disappointed at the failure of EU leaders to raise the matter during the EU-Russia Summit on 18 May;

7. Is equally disappointed at the failure of the meeting of President Barroso and Commissioners Frattini and Spidla with the religious leaders of Europe on 30 May to condemn the active participation of Russian Orthodox priests in the violent anti-gay and neo-Nazi march in Moscow on 27 May;

8. Expresses its astonishment and concern at the reaction of the President of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly to the incidents in Moscow, when he congratulated Russia on its human rights record, instead of condemning the violation of basic human rights on 27 May;

9. Calls on the EU representatives at the upcoming G8 Summit to raise the issue of human rights with Russia as a matter of urgency, in particular the right to demonstrate peacefully;

10. Calls on the institutions of the European Union, the Member States and all European democratic political parties to condemn all acts of intolerance and of incitement to racial hatred, as well as all acts of harassment or racist violence;

11. Regrets that several Member States are experiencing rising support for extremist parties and groups with a clear xenophobic, racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic agenda, some of which have recently acceded to government in Poland, and stresses the need to address the roots of this phenomenon, such as social marginalisation, exclusion and unemployment;

12. Urgently requests all Member States to at least foresee the possibility of withdrawing public funding from political parties that do not abide by human rights and fundamental freedoms, democracy and the rule of law as set out in the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, and calls on those that already have this possibility to apply it without delay;

13. Asks Member States to launch campaigns and projects at all levels and sectors, in particular in the media and in schools, in order to promote cultural diversity as a form of richness and economic dynamism, gender equality, the fight against discrimination, tolerance, dialogue and integration, for instance in the context of the European Years of Equal Opportunities for All (2007) and of Intercultural Dialogue (2008);

14. Calls on the Member States to give proper attention to the fight against racism, sexism, xenophobia and homophobia both in their relations with each other and in their bilateral relations with third countries;

15. Calls on the Commission to continue developing an anti-discrimination policy alongside its emerging policy on integration; considers that, for equality to be achieved, due regard needs to be paid to integration and other non-legislative measures, such as promoting interaction and participation;

16. Stresses the need to support anti-racist and anti-xenophobic initiatives in relation to the current World Cup in Germany, and asks authorities to closely monitor, prosecute and condemn those responsible for racist acts;

17. Recalls the need for sound and clear definitions and statistics on racism and xenophobia, in particular on racist and xenophobic violence, as a means of effectively combating these phenomena, as already highlighted in the EUMC's 2005 annual report, stressing the lack of statistical registration of racist violence i.e. in Italy, Portugal and Greece;

18. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Member States, the Council of Europe and the Government of the Russian Federation.

(15-06-2006)