The international evening

Last Friday I went to Amnesty Finland event. The issue was the situation in Uganda. The key note speaker was a Ugandan activist Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera  and the co speaker was Canadian-Somali Hassan Shire Sheikh.  They told about the situation in Eastern Africa and especially in Uganda. Homosexuality is still a taboo in most parts of Africa, due to various reasons. One is increasing influence of Islamic fundamentalists. In Uganda the reason is more relied on Christianity strongly supported by hard core Christian missionaries. So there’s a law prohibiting being a gay that might sentence you for a long time to prison. It was meant to include even the   death penalty to the bill but it was finally dropped because of strong international opinion against it.

Anyway the life of gay people in Uganda is terrible. They said it is not the authorities. it is the other people. Local tabloid newspapers began a hate campaign in 2006, publishing the names and photos of homosexuals with captions such as ‘homo terror!’ In 2010, Nabagesera’s name was mentioned in the Ugandan tabloid Rolling Stone in an article headlined: ‘Hang them: they are after our kids!’

However the main message for us was we should carefully listen to the local activists and not make our own conclusions what to do; in many cases the wrong actions may only make the situation even worse.

I found out the situation of the trans people varies hugely in Africa. In some areas trans people are appreciated highly due to tribal traditions. On the other hand in many cases trans people are regarded as gay, no matter what their sexual orientation is.

After the discourse we went to the hang out at the office of the Rainbow family organization. There I had an opportunity to chat with LBGT people from other countries. The Greek lady told me about the bad situation of trans people in her home country. And one of the Iranian guests told interesting things about the situation in Iran. One thing was the situation of trans women is not so bad as it could be: Ajatollah Khomeini laid down the bill that let the trans women do their sex-reassignment. The background of the bill is it is severely prohibited for men to have sex with a man. But if the partner is not a man…. The bad news about that was many gay men are forced to make the sex-reassignment against their own will. The situation of lesbian women is a bit easier because the life of women is partly covered from religious polices and on the other hand it is more natural for women to live together. However the pressure will increase if you seem to be too lazy to try to get married.

We also talked about the other implication of the gay sex in Islamic countries: There's a tradition to kidnap a boy to a dancer in Northern Pakistan and in Afghanistan. They are forced to dress as a girl and dance to men and finally have sex with them. And men are not having sex with other men, the boys are actually girls, you see... It practically ruins the boys' life and it is common that they commit a suicide. How awful, it is so hard to even think about it.  

Our domestic issue was the “Hetero Pride” demonstration next day. It was organized by some retarded religious and extreme right wing politicians. They have introduced the word homosation to express the fact that homosexuality is issued rather commonly in media. They claim it is even not allowed to tell someone is married or have kids…. The most horrifying situation has happened when one of these lads heard his son naming him “homo father” after watching a soap where there was a homosexual character. How an awful situation for homophobic people!!

We were wondering the claimed problem there’s sooo much homo issues in media. So we planned to propose one of the Finnish journal to edit one number of the paper in such fashion as “In the film a hetero man is trying to get an attention of the hetero dame.”, “Hetero politician has said he’s against any hidden agreements with other hetero politicians” etc.

And  what comes to Hetero Pride implementation, it was not a particular success… There were about 50 participants and even more policemen and anti demonstrators. It was said to be a merry (should I say gay….)  pro family event but there were almost only men. And after the demonstration some of the organizers were posing with Nazis with Nazi greeting!!

http://i.imgur.com/isNigCi.jpg

So it was not a merry family event for sure!  

BTW

The last week I also became a granny. It is a marvelous feeling, my twin granddaughters are simply fantastic!!

  

   

   

Rymättylä Herring Weekend

Last weekend we visited our good friends Kristiina and Irene in Rymättylä near Turku. On Friday we met a gender scholar to negotiate about the article to our magazine. The we walked a bit along the Aurajoki river banks.

It was almost six p.m. before we arrived Rymättylä. It is a tiny place in Turku Archipelago and their house is situated by a very narrow sea gulf so there wasn’t too much wind. The evening was quite warm as long as the sun was still up but after that the temperature went down rather rapidly. Because we live on quite northern latitude it didn’t happen until nine p.m.   

We had bought some Swedish herring for barbecuing. Normally all the herring we eat is salted because it has been caught far away in Atlantic. Actually the old Finnish herring fleet has been just in Rymättylä in Röölä harbor. We do eat fresh herrings but they are sub species Baltic herring. We found out that Atlantic herring tastes a bit milder than our domestic version. Baltic herring has been poor people’s food but we all think it is delicious – as well this foreign ones were.

Saturday was a warm and sunny day and we devoted to avoid any major activity except sun bath and nice intelligent talk.  I got my first bikini tan lines – unfortunately they were the red ones. Although the sea didn’t look very appealing (rather like Finnish pea soup…) we swam many times with no symptoms of poisoning.

In early evening we had to go to fetch water for sauna because the well of the house is in bad condition and the sea is salty – though not as salty as the oceans. So we went to Röölä harbor to fetch water. It turned out that there has been a “Pirate market” in that day. There were some stalls where we were enticed to buy some exotic things as Himalaya crystal salt, containing 81 elements. I thought there aren’t that much non-poisonous elements so I willingly skipped the offer.

After visiting some other seashore places we went to heat the sauna and barbecue some entrecote with vegetables. I had no problems with falling asleep after staying outdoors the whole day.

Sunday morning was almost as warm as Saturday but there were some wind that made the weather not so hot. At noon a front of clouds appeared to Northern sky so it was a good time to thank our hostesses and head for Helsinki.

Piercing with Pride

Last week I have spent quite a lot of time at Helsinki Pride 2013 events. After returning from our cottage on Wednesday I immediately went to a panel discussion about the gender diversity. I was one of the panelist, the others were a transgender and an inter-/transsexual person. There were not a specially huge audience but it was very active and seemed to be happy about our presentations and discussion following them.

After the panel discussion we went to bar for some snack, beer and reflection about the panel and our activity as a trans political commission. And after that we found our way to a “Barn Ball” though it rather  happened in pavilion restaurant. The day had been very hot and it was still hot inside so we stayed mostly  outdoors expect when we danced.

Thursday was my laundry day, including my already sweaty summer dress. The other thing I did was that I had my ears pierced. The third thing was my speciality, a mushroom pie for coming picnic purposes.

Friday was a day for picnics. First we went to SETA (the Finnish national LGBTI organization) activist picnic for some sparkling to sip. I took half of my mushroom pie with us, seeing it disappearing in rather short time.  Then we went on for a picnic for trans people in the next park! Because the mushroom pie has already run out we had nothing to bring with us there.

                                               
                                                  Me sitting at a bar after the picnic.

The evening was for the ladies club in a Kaivopuisto park restaurant. The weather was not that warm any more and I had some difficulties in getting myself warm outdoors. However I came home quite early mostly because I didn’t want to be too tired next morning…

….which was the morning of the parade day. First we went to SETA office to fetch our brand new Dreamwearclub banderol. The parade started from the Senate Square in the heat of the city. We put the banderol in the very visible place to show the other supporters of the “gender diversity”.  It was the first time we had our own block for trans people in the parade. And we managed to get together about forty people, mostly young persons. We had some Facebook discussion about the agenda and there were some very irritating persons dominating the discussion (and actually they ended up to march in pink-black block) that scared many transvestites that didn’t like the idea of marching in the quarrelling block.

Finally there were no quarrel and we marched with joy, happiness, .... and pride!! Two of our friends were dressed in specially nice rainbow costumes and were the real media magnets with interviews and photo- and video shootings. I carried the banderol during the whole march which was not very long, about two kilometers.

And of course, there was a picnic after the march. And of course, I had the other half of the mushroom pie to serve there. We met lots of old friends there and acquainted with new ones.

Finally we ended our Pride tour at Mummolaakso (a union for adult lesbian ladies) ball. We had a good time chatting, drinking and dancing.

Putting off the dancing shoes                                                   With Kristiina

And when I woke up on Sunday morning I had a feeling I had experienced something special with my old and new friends during the week.

My Activist Spring

This spring I have been politically active in many ways. Firstly I was appointed to commission for transgender affairs in the national LBGTI organization SETA. 

http://www.seta.fi/en.php

There have been some important issues. For us the most important has been the preparation of new legislation for equality. The proposal contains the prohibition for discriminating the expression of one’s gender at work. That means the employer could not stop the employee wearing the clothes even if they are meant to be for the other gender. In fact they have such a law already in Sweden, where the train staff has started to wear skirts because they were not allowed to wear shorts when it was too warm.  (Just now the pressure has changed the employers’ minds and now they are also allowed to wear shorts…) 

http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/06/09/swedish-male-train-drivers-wear-skirts-to-work/

And of course there are many other important things in the bill that is in preparation. But the right for gender expression is the most radical and most strongly opposed by the employers. Hope we are better lobbyists than they; the bill is still in process in the parliament.

Another issue in the commission has been the treating of transsexual people in process. According the current law they must be castrated before confirming the gender. The law has not changed despite of numerous official international claims for the Finnish state due to discriminating and even torturing the transsexual people. We have tried to affect the ministry of social and welfare affairs but it was very hard to make some officials change their head. Now the minister has changed and the situation looks more optimistic.

The other thing concerning the transsexual people has been the collapse of the quality of the medical process. There have been some doctors that have even demanded the right kind of walking or looked how the face looks like to judge whether the person is appropriate for the process! So there’s a lot to do just now!!!

And talking about medical things, we have been active in international classification of diseases updating process. There have been some major anomalies in current version ICD-10. The closest for me is there’s still a disease class for transvestites. The other is transsexualism is still regarded as mental illness. We have succeeded in removing transvestites from our national legislation (yes, it was our club that really made the minister in charge to do it!!) and it seems there’s no classification for us in new version ICD-11, either. But you can never be sure, so we have been active to make sure it will stay that way, too. The situation of transsexuals is not that clear, though we have tried to lobby the classification not as a disease (…and definitely not the mental one!!) but the condition demanding medical support – just as for example having the baby is.

http://www.who.int/classifications/icd/en/

My first “high level event” was the publishing of the European survey for violence and discrimination experienced by LBGTI-people. It took pace in Parliament house and there were a lot of high officials from many juridical and human rights and equality offices. Sadly there were no members of parliament nor any representative of ministry for education. The results strongly suggest the things must be done in different branches of education to make the situation better.

http://www.seta.fi/news.php?aid=17918&k=16923

For me It was the first time in Parliament house, and of course I did it in my dress. During the congress I heard a silent repetitive sound and noticed a blinking red light above the fire alarm signs. You may see me staring to it in the picture. Luckily it turned out it was just a call for mps to go to the main hall to vote!!!  The second picture is taken at home after the long day of politics, shopping, music in the park and nice chat with some glasses of wine and nice friends.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151421695558344&set=pb.273737158343.-2207520000.1371044142.&type=3&theater

Outside our commission I have been active in citizen initiative for equal marriage. We have a new law that says if t least 50 000 names are collected for some initiative, it must be taken at least to some process in the parliament. In that case we have collected 150 000 so it has a good opportunity to pass the process. There has been another address (not the official initiative) against that organized by some fundamentalists and it has 36 000 names so far. There’s a discussion forum in that context and I have been very active arguing against the insulting homophobic and one eyed religious comments these ..erks write. At least it seems I have managed to stop the wildest claims about homosexuality as a disease, as a pre stage for pedophilia and so on. And of course I’m not the only one who has made it…

https://www.kansalaisaloite.fi/fi/aloite/192

And combining my artistic tendencies (no, I didn’t say skills…) and politics I have designed a banderol for our national crossdresser society DreamWearClub. It is promised to be ready for Helsinki Pride at the end of June so we can use it in the Pride march.

Hauho meeting may 2013

The last weekend we had the DreamWearClub spring meeting in Hauho. Early Friday afternoon I met Ariella and headed to north. My spouse had work later so I had to fetch her later from the Hämeenlinna railway station. The picture is taken in front our lunch place on our way.

We had our special guest from the parliament. She was a president of the commission for equality affairs. And the equality affairs were the main issue during her visit indeed, there is a very important new legislation coming in that area. 

Friday night we visited a local dance hall. We got some attention from local people, for instance because we asked ladies for a dance. And on their turn the ladies paid back and asked us for a dance! And when we left we were warmly  welcomed back again. When we got back to the manor we still had a karaoke moment. And it was the first time in my life I fell asleep hearing the karaoke lullaby…

Saturday daytime was partly formal with some meetings and partly informal with flee market and makeup activities. The weather was not especially good so I stayed indoors most of time.   

And again we had our band there, although it had shrunk to a duo with our soloist Elise. I played bass line at the same time I played keyboard. We had practiced six pop covers by different divas. This time we had no problems with electricity.  And of course we had some extra music with special guest stars, including the lovely daughter of Elise.

Sunday morning was so warm I decided to go to swim. The water was said to be only +12 Celsius but it didn’t feel that cold. It was so refreshing to swim a little circle (not very big one, really…) and I didn’t feel cold at all after getting up from the lake.

And of course, we visited a big outlet mall on our way back home and bought some new clothes, including this dress for summer. We did our food shopping there, too. It was good to do it there, because it turned out the shops in other places were closed because of the special Sunday.

Belly dance progress

At last I have gathered all my courage, to go to open belly dance basic lessons. I wrote the leader and asked if I could join the group although they have started already in January. Luckily they have just completed their first choreography and were just about to start a new one. So I could quite easily slip into the group.

So I prepared myself for my first lesson by buying appropriate training outfit, containing the leggings, a top am the dance slippers. (I already had a scarf but actually I used the one that was available at the dance studio.)  I met a very friendly an gorgeous looking teacher Marinka and the other students, all much younger than me….!!! But it seemed there was no problem in joining the group even that late.

Marinka noted from very beginning my problem was I had my weight on wrong side, I have to put my weight to the direction of the movement. I asked her not to stop the rehearsal too many times for me, I could be just a slow learner.  But I think I was not the slowest learner, though there’s still so much to do… I try to imitate the smooth and full trajectories Marinka shows us.

We have some warm up and then we train our choreography. We have trained it three times and I think I could do all the movements last time. Another thing is whether they are good enough, I have to practice a lot to make it look smooth fluent and rhythmically accurate.

There is a show in May where our dance is performed. Unfortunately I have something else that time and so I cannot dance in the show. Maybe some other time I will do it, because I will definitely continue this wonderful hobby where I can express my femininity in so beautiful way.  

Hola Barcelona

This week I had my winter holiday so we went to Barcelona for a couple of days with my spouse. Before the trip I wondered what would be the right clothing there. According to forecasts there would be about 10-15 degree celcius which is something like our spring temperatures. So I took my spring coat and walking shoes with me. And for pick pockets I bought a purse which could be wrapped around my belly.

For Catalans it was still winter so I was almost the only one in spring feeling among the winter coats and boots. Only some Norwegian tourists shared my way of thinking.  I had a cardigan under the coat so I left the coat open to avoid getting too hot.  And what comes to pick pockets, we didn’t see them, or at least we didn’t them come near enough.

We climbed the fortress hill and walked around the gothic city and looked at Gaudi and also other cathedrals.   

And of course we popped in to nice cafes and restaurants for coffee or tapas. For the lunch we chose local places outside the tourist areas. The adventure in such a strategy was we had to guess what our lunch would be – our Spanish skills is limited and most of the Barcelona people think that two languages should be enough to master: Catalan and Spanish.

Our shopping was quite intensive and even I, being normally so selective, bought a lot of stuff: some jewelry, a pleated skirt, some blouses and casual shoes, a wonderful handbag…. The prices were quite reasonable in most of shops.   

And for the last evening in Barcelona we decided to go to Opera. We managed to get tickets to Tales of Hoffman performance. The performance was mostly excellent, though there were some troubles in synchronization with singers and orchestra, probably because of too deep stage. Also Hoffmann himself lacked some spirit when he tried to be too much “Juan Diego Flores”.

After the opera we went to our tiny hotel room to pack our things for our way back. The amount of luggage has increased in some peculiar way but we managed to stuff the things to our bags. We fell asleep instantly and waked up early to get to airport and flew back home with our souvenirs and memories of nice days in the capital of Catalans.