August, 2008, St Petersburg, Russia
LTT ST PETERSBURG
Report from the video Coming Out St Petersburg:
The workshop started with Anna and Annica introducing themselves, telling about their work, projects, and their work on the project State of Mind. After that, they gave the audience the questions brought from Sweden.
The workshop leader, Maria Sabunaeva, divided the participants into three groups, and the work on the questions took place in the resulting work groups. The goup members took individual notes. As the three groups assembled again posted notes were put on a collective board in no particular order. Then the Moderator asked the entire group to look for themes and organize the post-it notes accordingly then readdressed the topics and derived what is now the response to the topics sent from the Stockholm LTT. The new topics were generated in a simillar format. (Please also see the summary, below, of the LTT St Petersburg as presented on their webpage.)
Session 1 - Response to topics sent from Stockholm LTT:
::: 1. What can be the benefit of reaching out to organizations working with human rights issues educating them about LGBTQ situation in St. Petersburg?
We see the following benefits from collaborating with human rights organizations:
- Informing these organizations about our issues
- Attention brought to LGBT problems
- Facilitation of political lobbying
- Possible joint projects
- Possibility of receiving financing
- Knowledge and experience exchange
- Personal contacts
- Participation in international movement for LGBT rights
::: 2. What makes us feel safe/unsafe in the city (work, public space, etc.)
We feel safe:
- at home
- when we don’t speak of our sexual orientation
- when we are not alone in public
- when our appearance doesn’t stand out (when we look like everyone else)
- when we do anything other than LGBT activism or any LGBT activity
- when we don’t show our affection in public
Accordingly, we feel unsafe when we are not at home, when we are alone in public, when the way we look stands out, when we carry out LGBT activism, when we show affection in public.
::: 3. What do we need from a place where we can meet (socially/organizations)? What makes a place good?
Characteristics of a place where we can meet (regardless of the purpose of our gathering):
- safety (good lighting, not some dark corner of a street, security personnel)
- “LGBT decor” and style
- the employees are “ours” (belong to LGBT)
- accessibility (close proximity to the metro)
For relaxation and hanging out:
- cafe, art cafe
- bars
- clubs
- dance clubs
- fitness clubs
- recreation centers
For work:
- office (maybe inside a business center) that we rent or a contact allows us to meet there
- conference hall that we rent or a contact allows us to meet there
::: 4. What can be done to facilitate collaborations between organizations?
We propose the following steps to facilitate cooperation between organizations:
- organizing events and inviting members of other organizations
- organizing joint events
- inviting members of other organizations to our organizations’ open meetings
- monitoring websites of other organizations
- organizing joint leisure (sports, movies, joint trips)
- initiate projects
- during joint work mix up work groups between organizations, making the work truly “joint”
- be up to date on what work the other organizations are doing, in order to not duplicate work but make it complimentary
- be open and accessible to contacts from other organizations
::: 5. What can be done to fight social issues? What are the social issues?
What we can do to solve them:
- Educating/informing the LGBT community and the society at large about LGBT issues
- Involving LGBT community in active work, attracting new members to LGBT organizations
- Working with officials and deputies (finding LGBT people among them)
- Creating community centers (for psychological, legal help, for meeting, etc.)
- Interacting with the society
- Organizing and carrying out cultural events
- Collaboration with human rights NGOs
- Self defense courses
- Producing educational materials (films, exhibitions, printed materials)
::: Coming Out St Petersburg >>>
Session 2 - Topics sent to Gothenburg LTT:
As a result of the brainstorm many questions for the next stage of the LTT were generated. We have combined these questions into several main groups as follows:
::: Legal Issues: What kind of work was done to finally obtain the right to officially register same-sex marriages and how did your self perception changed after that?
::: International Contacts: What do you know about the LGBT situation in Russia? Is cooperation with Russian LGBT interesting to you and why?
::: Society: How dangerous it to be open LGBT in public? What kind of dangers?
::: Family, Children: Why is legalizing same sex marriage important to you? What kind of problems are there for children in LGBT families? How do you solve them?
::: LGBT Community: What kind of problems, if any, in terms of cooperating and interacting within the LGBT community do you have? Between gays and lesbians? Between LGBT organizations? Between LGBT activists and non-activists?
::: LGBT, Feminism, Gender: How did the LGBT community interact with the feminist and gender rights organizations? What kind of joint projects between these organizations can there be?
::: Education: How are LGBT issues presented in educational materials (including school materials)? How can it be presented more effectively?
Lezzy Think Tank took place Saturday, September 6, in St. Petersburg. The organizers, Anna Viola Hallberg and Annica Karlsson Rixon, or just Anna and Annica - Swedish artists - free, creative, inspired, and amazingly beautiful Women.
This project exists in conjunction with their art exhibition State of Mind, but at the same time is a separate, independent brain-child of the artists. The main idea behind the project is to stimulate and gather the thought potential of lesbians regarding the LGBT issues and questions. Its format is akin to a game of ball: first questions were produced in Stockholm and the ball was “thrown” to St. Petersburg, where St. Petersburg lesbians, in their turn, interpreted the questions posed to them and came up with their own questions to the next group of “thinkers” in Gothenburg. From there, the questions will travel to Ukraine, then on, and on… This produces a snowball effect, in which The Thought grows in size, becomes more dense and concentrated.
What’s most important is that in the process of this mega-dialog, an amazing feeling of unity arises - unity with the world and the people living in other countries, so far from us. But maybe over there the same problems occupy their minds.
And so this feeling of “US” spreads far beyond the graspable boundaries. What’s especially important is that it’s permeated with the feeling of pride and dignity: We are lesbians, We conceive ideas, We carry the strength and energy to create positive change in this world.
Even though all and anyone were invited to the seminar, finally only women came. Is that a good thing? It probably would have been good to have everyone. But one of the main characteristics of the work done in this lesbian circle was very well articulated by one of the participants, “We had a very friendly atmosphere, there was no rivalry or competition…”
Footnote: One thing left to add: this project is directed first and foremost at lesbians. The authors clarify this as follows: gay men are more often visible, their problems are discussed more often, and they themselves articulate them more often (this is one of the results of gender inequality in the society). Anna and Annica set to compensating this inequality by working specifically with women-lesbians.
Co-host in St Petersburg:
Just days before the LTT a new bar/restaurant/café called Funny Dogs opened by the Fontanka River. They agreed to open up their venue so the LTT session could take place prior to their regular open hours.
St Petersburg’s LGBT Organization Coming Out was selected as the main partner for the St Pietersburg LTT. The Organization unites LGBT (lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender people), and friendly heterosexuals. The organization emerged in April of 2008 as an outcome of the Week against Homophobia that took place in St. Petersburg, uniting those people who care about their present and who are ready to work to change their future.
Anna Anisimova, Project Organizer
Maria Sabunaeva, Workshop Moderator
Sasha Skoryh & Polina Savchenko, Translators
LTT is a travelling think tank on issues of community, activism, based on local needs infused with pan-national experience - forming coalitions between organisations and individuals. The exhibition tour becomes the path for the LTT/Lezzie Think Tank.
A collaboration has been initiated between the organizations Out St Petersburg and the Kiev based Insight. This after sharing contacts from the LTT-Network.