This fall
has been my busiest lady season ever so I had no time/energy to make any report
it. So here you have a brief overview.
The
mushroom season was excellent, especially what comes to horn mushroom and funnel chanterelle. The only disappointment was porcino which seemed to avoid my forest. Anyway I managed to refill my stock before I had to stop because many other
bustle: I had something other to do every weekend since the mid September.
Me and my forest
In the end
of September about twenty Finnish Nazis held a demonstration in front of the
Helsinki Central Railway Station. A guy happened to walk by and he made some
kind of spitting gesture towards the demonstrators. This was too much for them
and one of the Nazis decided to give him a lesson – by serving him a karate
kick. The victim fell and hit his head to the street. Next day he died.
The
incidence sparked a huge outcry and the huge counter demonstration of about
20 000 people took place. There also were some minor counter counter
demonstrations and there was an evident danger of clashes. Luckily the police
moved the most violent counter anti Nazi demonstrations far away from the route of the
anti Nazi train.
The anti Nazi demonstrators
The anti anti Nazi demonstrators
The Hauho
summit took place in the beginning of October. We had feminists Rosa Meriläinen and Saara
Särmä as our guest speakers. Their message was not to worry too much and to let
just go. That message was originally meant for the girls and women educated
traditionally. We told
them about the other kind of women who may have even more complicated
situation. I think we both learned a lot.
Kristiina
shows Rosa and Saara our
magazine
magazine
Our music guest Andy with drums
Sing along....
The lady of the manor speaking....
On the way home we use to visit Voglia outlet shop where
the sales ladies always welcome us warmly.
the sales ladies always welcome us warmly.
I also have
lectured in several places about me and transvestism. The audience has been for
example psychologists, sexual therapists and staff of “confessor camp for kids not relying in god”. The feedback has been very positive and it
seems I really can give some good ideas even to professionals. Anyway the most
effective thing for the audience is to meet a real person, not just read about
her.
In mid
October we travelled to Southern Germany. Our main goal was the university town
Heidelberg on the banks of the river Neckar. We also made a river boat trip to
a minor medieval village Neckargemünd. Unfortunately the weather was rather
chilly and rainy to enjoy the view and atmosphere even more.
A scene to Old Heidelberg from the castle
Just wondered if there were some trans people
in the family of the hotel owner...
Neckargemünd street scene
On our way
back we visited Mannheim. The industry town Mannheim is very different from Heidelberg.
However it has a huge royal castle with rich cultural history.
The Mannheim castle
When we
went to Franfurt airport to fly back home there were some incidents to tell about.
They had a new airport security millimeter wave scanner which seemed to give
some difficulties for the staff. Anyway it showed something to be checked in me
and I was patted down by security staff lady. I had some difficulties to
explain why I wore foam hip pads...
At the departure
gate we were informed the plane was over booked and because my spouse had told
that we could be the ones to be grounded. And it really happened. So we were
transported to an airport hotel and we both were given a token of 200 euros and
some extra money to enjoy the dinner there. And next morning I was thoroughly inspected
in the security control again...
At the airport hotel lobby
In the
beginning of November we had our beauty salon trip to Tallinn: There we met Zarah and
had a wonderful moment with nice view and with good food and company.
Me with Zarah
The busiest time took place in mid November. The TransHelsinki festival took place and I had many activities there.
The weekend
beginning the TransHelsinki was also the
FemF- feminist forum weekend. I had a floor there where I told about me and my
thoughts of feminism and patriarchy. The texts
are here and here in Finnish.
Having a speech at the FemF forum
Then I
rushed to educate psychologists and after that I met my friend Tuija to train
her my song about a transvestite. The problem was the original singer couldn’t
do it so Tuija had to learn the song in two hours!
The song
was performed in a night happening which was a mixed FemF closing party,
TransHelsinki opening party and the open 20th anniversary of our
transvestite club Dreamwear Club. I also was happy to have my oriental dance
friends to dance with me there. The point was to highlight the inclusiveness of
my hobby and to show respect for my dear friends. To organize a happening
between three organizations turned out to be complicated. I had to ask several
times where to change our clothes, when to be available for sound check and so
forth. So in the evening I managed to have my performers perfectly in time –
just to find out we had no time for sound check nor try the dance with the
music on stage. It was odd that some other performers had enough time to try
several pieces on stage.
The venue
has formerly been a slaughterhouse. You just could feel it in the ”back stage”
which was chilly and had a stink of a barn. Maybe it was the final place of the
poor animals. The stage was built of rough logs. Luckily we didn’t have high
heels in our performance and could somewhat manage. The problems were bigger with
the burlesque group of my friend Hannamaria. When Tuija was to sing my song the
mixer lad started with the maximal loudness he could get from his PA equipment.
The result was Tuija couldn’t get the line until several seconds. But after she
got it everything went perfectly. And we had terrific time together to the late night.
Tuija rehearsing at the back stage
Bettie's Angels with Hannamaria
Our leader Marinka applying false lashes to Katri
Tuija singing my song https://youtu.be/I_Bq6k11dLY
Our dance group Marifet in action
The other
big event during the TransHelsinki week (there were some minor ones as well...)
was the publication seminar of the survey about the discrimination of the trans
people at work places. The inquiry has taken place in the spring 2016 and I had
a lot to do, analyzing during the summer and writing the report and an article
on it during the autumn. We had invited the representatives from both employer
organization and the labor union. The results showed some severe discrimination
but on the other hand there were very promising cases with no discrimination
and cases where the situation has been got better because of the correcting
actions. The big thing was: The more familiar this matter gets the less
discrimination occurs. A brief version of the report in Finnish is here:
Telling about results of the the survey
The representative
of the employer organization promised to try to include this point of view to
the education of their HR personnel. The labor union representative promised
to do the same in the education of their elected official.
In addition
I have had some extra work with the committee of the trans issues of the LGBTI
organization Seta. We have been active particularly in issues concerning the
people with non binary gender. The Finnish trans legislation is old fashioned
without the right to decide one’s juridical gender without medical judgement.
The current government will certainly do nothing about it due to the True Finns
party. We hope that the preparation of the new law will however take place. And
we hope that there would be some preparatory activities to include the non binary
gender there as well.
Last weekend was the last big one containing the representative assembly of Seta. We elected Viima Lampinen as a new president of the organization.
DWC representatives with just elected president Viima
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