Before the Christmas 2018, ending the semester

The end of the semester didn’t give anything special change to my life. However it was full of action and in some cases even surprises.

In the beginning of November I attended the Rainbow History Club organized by Seta. There we heard stories of rainbow life and battle for the rights from the sixties. The stories were a huge evidence to prove the importance of the human right work: The situation has become better due to very hard and perseveringly work: First decriminalization, then depathologization and finally legal equality – the latter still being partly incomplete and in many ways also unimplemented in everyday life. 

With a veteran Thea

Talking about the future on the basis of the history

  

This year I was exceptionally deeply involved in TransHelsinki happening in November. The Trans Support Centre hava gradually withdrawn from the organization of the event because of the lack of the staff so someone had to replace it. And this time it seemed it was me – with the help from many other people, of course. But this is typical when things are done with voluntary resources - they just tend to gather for few persons. In a small core team we created planning platforms for the different events, coordinated the overall structure, the Trans Community Seminar and the Candle light event Transgender Day of Remembrance, remembering the trans people murdered this year in the world. The task also involved details like catering, presenter recruitment, seminar room reservation, AV system checks, communication with police and the staff of House of Parliament. My person is not very promoter-like and it took some extra energy to make all this during the spare time. So afterwards I felt a bit tired and decided not to be that much the central person for organizing TransHelsinki next year.

Anyway it seemed the events went well, in spite of some kind of lack of audience. The reason for the latter must be quite late and maybe also inadequate information – things were too late ready to be well informed.

Transgender Day of Remembrance event at the stairs of the House of the Parliament

My personal output was my presentation in the Trans Community Seminar where I considered the reasons for the frustration of lads that are not very happy with the positive development of the LGBTI rights. I concluded that in Finland he is sort of endangered relic but on the other hand he has too much brothers in other countries and we should really be aware of the new and well organized wave containing both populist and fundamentalist religious origins and funds.

My presentation at the seminar

Discussion at the seminar

     

The other major political event was Seta representative assembly at the end of November. This time it was in Tampere. The agenda was “normal”, new chair and some members of the board was elected.

Om my way to Tampere

The Dreamwear Club representatives

It seems recently the chair candidates have been mostly trans people. I wonder whether it may be so because just now the trans issues are even more acute in the agenda than gay and lesbian issues.

The new chair of Seta, Sakris Kupila

The place was far from the city and the organizers have planned that the evening happening would take place in the gay bar in the city. However we old ladies of Dreamwear Club were too tired to go there so we had our own evening meeting with a glass of water – the only thing that was available in the smoke and alcohol free hotel after 6 p.m.!  

A peaceful evening with an almost empty water bowl

This year I had to share my time between DWC Monday coffee evenings and my dance rehearsals. The solution was I made the coffee table ready and left the place when the event officially started. The situation was the same also in the case of the last one which also was our “pikkujoulu”, Little Christmas. Some years ago I used to bake the traditional Christmas pastry at the Seta kitchen. Since they had the office reconstructed they have no oven so I had to do it at home.

Baking for the Pikkujoulu

At work this semester has gone mostly as Anukatariina, the male days have been very rare exceptions. I’ve always liked the interaction with the students the most but it seems it has been even more pleasant part of my work. And the highlight of this was the comment of a student in the middle of the laboratory rehearsals: “We just want to tell you we like you very much as a teacher.” And yes, I like them very much as well.

Giving a pop up lesson about the gender diversity

At the X-ray laboratory rehearsals

I still had some time to do other things than work and activism. I purchased a museum card which allows me to visit a large selection of museums for free. So far I’ve visited the national art museum Ateneum and a brand new gallery, Amos Rex with its light installations. At Ateneum I hadn’t enough time to properly see all the sections I want to see, but now I can go there again anytime it’s suitable for me.   

Amos Rex

Ateneum

The theater activities have been rare. The only one was a musical The Kinky Boots. The performance was excellent but the message of acceptance and non discrimination was distorted by very pejorative joke about being a crossdresser – the crossdressing persons in the musical are drag queens.

The interlude sparkling with my musical friend Harri

One day I walked through a nearby mall when I was asked to turn a lucky dip. It was a campaign of a gym at the mall and I got an invitation to a trying out week at the gym. I chose the week I had some extra free time so I had an opportunity to visit there three times. During my first time I even had a personal trainer who introduced the fitness machines she thought I would need – I’ve never used such devices. So during the last two times I could use them safely on my own. The place was nice and situated perfectly to fit my schedule but the price for my intensity of use was far too high so I decided just to say no for the offer.  But now I have some other ideas to get my body more fit, we will see...

At the gym

This semester my belly dance project had a sad ending: I had purchased a costume for the performance, I’ve trained the choreography pretty well - and the week of the last rehearsals and the performance the belly dance agenda changed to belly problems. The other ladies did it well, but gosh I’d like to be there with them.

Trying on the dress. The dresses in the plastic bags were really used in the performance.

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