A couple of days ago I was invited to take part in the Annual Meeting of the European Network of the International Planned Parenthood Federation which was supposed to be focused on LGBT matters.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to participate throughout the whole event, as they flew me on Thursday evening (landed in Stockholm around 10:30 PM) to give a speech on Friday morning, hang out a bit and fly back home on Saturday morning (6:40 AM, to be exact…). The unfortunate part was mostly the fact that it seems that a lof of LGBTQI discussions took place the day before, including a lively debate on intersex and queer exclusion by using the LGBT abbreviation as that which was supposed to embrace all of SOGIE experiences. So, I missed that, and after I heard all those presentations where people were twisting their tongues trying to go through the extended abbreviation – I thought that I missed something really important.
It was good to see RFSU there and all those who either consider themselves somewhere on the LGBTQIA…O spectrum and those who wanted to learn. And, for the first time in a while, it was great to see people actually listening about trans* issues and not “just being there”, as it tends to happen on regional conferences of network related very close to the SOGIE theme (ILGA World or ILGA-Europe for example – those are always problematic for me in terms of ITB visibility and the actual inclusiveness). I had fun giving that 20-25 minute talk which served as an introduction to trans* sexuality, parenthood and human rights in general, especially body integration.
And by the end of the day I was pleasantly surprised that they have introduced gender neutral toilets during the event. They called them unisex which I found extremely funny, since I link that word mostly with fashion and just couldn’t get out of my head the idea that it was a fancy toilet place, where all the new designs go to… Oh well, as a long time sceptic, this was not only pleasant, it – once again – made me realize that sometimes, even if you’re going to attend a very cisgenderish space, you do not have to await the worse that can happend.
It doesn’t mean, of course, that the event was perfect and that there wasn’t anything I would complain about. Even though the toilets were there, the space still felt very binary, but at the same time – if it was their first LGBTQIA…O-related event – then wow! Good job, people, good job.
I also had a bunch of interesting conversations, some of which lasted until 2 AM leaving me with no choice but to stay on my feet until 4 AM when it was about the time to go to the airport. Which actually wasn’t that hard since I was already not in the mood to sleep due to the Stockholm’s weird summer nights which last for 2.5 hours, maybe 4 if one is lucky.
Nevertheless, a very, very interesting experience altogether.
And on a side note – the day I arrived there was a Depeche Mode concert next to the hotel (didn’t make it!) and a bomb alarm on the other side of the building, which left the police looking for that bomb (with actual results – there was one) outside of the hotel for the whole Friday and Saturday night.
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