January 2022

Angela Davis – A Queer Revolutionary Fighting for the Rights of the Oppressed

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„You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.” So said Angela Davis, 78, America’s most famous living revolutionary. She was born in Birmingham, Alabama, one of the most incendiary of the racist southern cities, in a neighborhood called “Dynamite Hill,” due to attacks on Black people by their white neighbors. Davis would rise to become an international beacon of anti-racist and feminist radicalism over decades, expanding her vision to include LGBTQ civil rights.

A radical political activist and theorist, Davis gained fame in the 1960s and 1970s as a leader in the Black Civil Rights, Black Power and Black and feminist liberation movements.

“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.” – Said Davis through all her activism. 60 years ago, when she enrolled at Brandeis University, she was one of only three Black students. After graduating from Brandeis, Davis studied with Frankfurt school philosopher Herbert Marcuse in Berlin. In a 2007 television interview, Davis said, “Herbert Marcuse taught me that it was possible to be an academic, an activist, a scholar and a revolutionary.”

In 1969, while a professor in the philosophy department at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and already a world-renowned activist, Davis was fired for being a Communist and for her “inflammatory language.” Davis was also a member of the Los Angeles chapter of the Black Panthers at that time and identified as a radical feminist. Her firing was both urged and lauded by then Gov. Ronald Reagan, despite national support for her.

The following year, Davis was listed among the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted, the first Black woman to be on the FBI’s fugitives list, personally chosen by J. Edgar Hoover. The listing and subsequent manhunt came after guns Davis had purchased were used in an August 1970 shooting at the Marin County courthouse in California related to the Soledad Brothers, whom she supported as political prisoners.

 

FBI Wanted poster for Angela Davis. (Photo credit: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture)

The manhunt for Davis was massive, but it took several months to track her down, eventually resulting in her arrest in New York City. When Davis was apprehended, President Richard M. Nixon congratulated the FBI on its “capture of the dangerous terrorist Angela Davis.”  But Davis was no terrorist and was acquitted of all charges after a 16-month prison stay without trial.

Davis’s arrest and imprisonment were focal points for other activists and heightened her political profile and activism. Black writers formed a committee called the Black People in Defense of Angela Davis which grew to hundreds of chapters in nearly 70 countries. John Lennon and Yoko Ono wrote a song, “Angela,” in support.

A lifelong Communist, in 1980 and 1984 Davis was the Communist Party’s candidate for vice president. She subsequently split from the Communist Party and in recent years supported Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden for president, noting that it was essential to vote against the Republican Party leadership and oust them from the White House.

On prisons, Davis’s writing is succinct as she links a series of social issues to America’s carceral system which fosters racism and in which LGBTQ people are disproportionately imprisoned. She argues, “Prisons do not disappear social problems, they disappear human beings. Homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy are only a few of the problems that disappear from public view when the human beings contending with them are relegated to cages.”

Photo: AAIHS

In her interview with George, Davis talked about the protests in the summer of 2020 and made another causal link between police violence — which also spurred gay and trans people at Stonewall: “The abolitionist imagination delinks us from that which is. It allows us to imagine other ways of addressing issues of safety and security. Most of us have assumed in the past that when it comes to public safety, the police are the ones who are in charge. When it comes to issues of harm in the community, prisons are the answer. But what if we imagined different modes of addressing harm, different modes of addressing security and safety?”

In 2019 Davis was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame and in 2020, she was listed as the 1971 “Woman of the Year” in Time magazine’s “100 Women of the Year” edition, which covered the 100 years that began with women’s suffrage in 1920. Davis was also included in Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2020.

In “Freedom Is a Constant Struggle,” Davis gives a template for activism and recording our own stories. She writes, “Our histories never unfold in isolation. We cannot truly tell what we consider to be our own histories without knowing the other stories. And often we discover that those other stories are actually our own stories.”

Source: Philadephia Gay News

Main photo: Nonviolence International

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Acceptance Can Reduce Suicide Risk in LGBTQ+ Youth – A Study

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A New Research by The Trevor Project examined the existing situation of substance abuse and suicide risks among LGBTQ+ young people. As it turns out, the challenges that the young people have to deal with result in increased substance abuse, deteriorated mental health state and higher suicide risk. According to experts, this new research is a positive step towards seeing the connection between substance abuse and mental health challenges. The accumulated data can help us take care of those around us and be more careful.

The link between mental health problems and the challenges faced by queer people has also been established by previous studies, but the information was mainly based on surveys of lesbian, gay and bisexual youth and did not cover gender identity issues, making it difficult to study the problem thoroughly. The 2021 survey that examined the mental health issues of American LGBTQ+ youth is much more inclusive.

“When we examine data among LGBTQ young people — whether we’re looking at substance use, mental health challenges, or any other experiences — we need to center the reality that this is an incredibly diverse group of youth. In particular, looking at gender diversity, we know that trans and non-binary youth experience disparate rates of suicide risk and other mental health challenges compared to their cisgender LGBQ peers,” said DeChants, who led the report for The Trevor Project’s research team.

The study interviewed 34,759 LGBTQ youth. 56% of young people consume alcohol and 47% of these people are under the age of 21, which is the legal age for alcohol consumption in the US. One-third of respondents use marijuana, including 29% who have not reached the age of 21. 11% of young people consume over-the-counter medications. In addition, 11% of respondents consume alcohol and marijuana regularly.

Young people with non-binary identities, assigned male gender at birth, have a much higher rate of regular marijuana use. They also studied how external factors and peer-pressure affect the rate of substance abuse. Young people that have participated in conversion therapy and LGBTQ+ people who have experienced physical abuse are much more likely to use substances on a regular basis.

Young people who take prescription drugs because of the difficulty of coping with mental health challenges are three times more likely to attempt suicide, alcohol users are 50% more likely to be at risk, and marijuana users are at a much higher risk.

Source: Healthline

Illustration: the Daily Beast

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First Transgender Character in the movie Batgirl in the History of DC

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HBO Max presents the first transgender character in the movie Batgirl in the history of DC. The actress playing the main role, Leslie Grace, posted a photo from the set ono Instagram, in which we can see the transgender actress, Ivory Aquino. Grace also added the caption: “Barbara and Alice”. Barbara is the name of Batgirl, and Aquino probably plays the character of the comic, Alice, which first appeared in the comics in 2011. She is an important transgender character of the popular comics.

Photo: DC

This assumption is reinforced by the casting announced by Warner Bros. The company was looking for an American transgender woman of Asian descent between the ages of 20 and 30. The date of the film’s premiere is still unknown, though it is known that the film will be about how Barbara Gordon became the Batgirl. Brendan Fraser will play the villain, J.K. Simmons will play Commissar Gordon, while Michael Keaton will play Batman.

Source: Advocate

Photo: Murphy’s Multiverse

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The World’s First National LGBTQ+ Museum Opens in London

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The first National LGBTQ+ Museum will open in London. The information was recently published by the charity organization Queer Britain. The museum will be built in King Cross district and will be the first LGBTQ+ National Museum in the world.

The museum will be a kind of tribute to the stories, places and people who have made a fundamental contribution to supporting and strengthening the UK queer community.

In addition, it will be a safe space where artists, anyone, regardless of gender and sexual orientation, can contribute, and museum visitors will gain a better understanding of queer culture and history.

The museum space will include four galleries, a workshop, educational spaces, a gift shop and office spaces for museum staff. In addition, the museum will be adapted to the needs of people with special needs.

The charity organization Queer Britain started working on the opening of the museum in 2018. They wanted to create a space that would honor the work and merit of all generations of queer people.

 

The Art Fund, which has been involved in charity since 1903, helped Queer Britain to implement the idea. The exact date of the opening of the museum is not yet known, although the announcement says that visitors will be able to visit the museum for free.

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Queer Experiences in the Ancient World That Became a Source of Hatred in Christianity

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No such terms as LGBTQ+ existed in different cultures of the ancient world, because there were no certain borders between homosexuality and heterosexuality. Gender identity and sexual orientation wasn’t a reason to divide people and who someone fell in love with was only their business.

 

Stigma in relationships between people of the same sex was based solely on class differences. In Greece, Rome, and other civilizations, there was an opinion that a free citizen who played the role of the opposite sex in a relationship gave up their gender identity, however, nothing was said about the nature of such a relationship. Ancient authors didn’t even talk about the issue of sexual orientation separately, only in those times when it had an impact on a particular event, because sexual identity was simply not a topic of conversation. In Mesopotamia, called the “cradle of civilization,” same-sex relationships were equated with heterosexual relationships, as evidenced by the existing works of art and literature.

 

Scholar Bruce L. Gerig comments:

 

“Making love was a natural activity that should not be demeaned, they believed; and it could be practiced as one pleased as long as no third party was harmed, or prohibition broken (such as the banning of sexual activity on certain days and some women reserved for the gods). In fact, scholar William Naphy notes that a striking feature of the ancient Near East was “how few cultures seem to have any significant ‘moral’ concern about same-sex activities…most cultures seemed to accept that males might have sexual relations with other males.”

 

With the spread of Christianity, signs associated with other religions became the target of prohibitions, the establishment of boundaries, so that sexual self-exploration and same-sex relationships were gradually banned. Relationships between people of the same sex were not condemned from the onset, they simply became a threat to Christianity for everything that non-Christian countries considered to be the norm, primarily sacrifices to pagan gods and non-Christian religious festivals.

 

There are no such terms in the ancient languages that would correspond to terms homosexual and heterosexual, which were first mentioned in 1869. The Greek term Arsenokoites (translated into English as homosexual in the Bible only in 1946) did not exist until the apostle Paul used it in his epistles. This compound word combines “man” and “bed sharing” (sex), which does not refer to relationships between people of the same sex, but to non-Christian sexual relations (including violence against minors by men of the privileged class, sex work, etc.).

 

The ongoing talk of sexual identity and the statements about a return to traditional values are ironic, because long before the spread of Christianity, equal relations were traditionally considered non-degrading and had been the norm for millennia.

 

Mesopotamia

In ancient Mesopotamia, the priests and priestesses of the popular goddess Inanna (better known as Ishtar) were bisexual and transgender. According to their beliefs, the goddess had the power to transform humans and could turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man. According to legend, the goddess’s father created people of the third gender who were Inanna’s servants. Non-binary identity existed over 3,000 years ago and was considered to be a manifestation of the divine will. The gods also blessed same-sex relationships as is clearly seen in the document The Almanac of Incantations, which contains prayers for both opposite and same-sex couples. In Mesopotamia and other cultures, even voluntary sex between people of different social backgrounds, was considered a source of trouble.

 

China

 

Woman Spying on Male Lovers – Unknown

 

In China, men of high social class could have lovers of the same sex, even from the lower class. It was believed that the love of a nobleman could even ennoble a person of another social stratum. Relationships between men in Chinese sources date back to at least B.C. Found 600 years ago, same-sex couples are portrayed in poems, anecdotes, and other historical sources that date back to the Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 B.C.). Female same-sex relationships are ignored in Chinese literature in the same way women are generally passed over by male ancient historians. Male couples were associated with the ennobling aspect of love by which both the lover and the beloved are elevated and made better by the association.

 

Scholar Louis Crompton, commenting on the stories which came to define same-sex relationships in China, writes:

 

“Clearly, these normative tales, if we may so call them, show an unselfconscious acceptance of same sex relations, an acceptance that was to persist in China for twenty-four centuries. They contrast strikingly with the myth that dominated the imagination of Western Christendom – the story of Sodom with its supernatural terrors. But they are also quite distinct from the traditions of ancient Greece. Instead of legends of heroic self-sacrifice in a warrior society, we have piquant tales of delicate consideration and tenderness.”

 

One of these tales, The Cut Sleeve, relates how Emperor Ai of the Han Dynasty (r. 7-1 BCE) was resting with his lover Dong Xian who had fallen asleep on the sleeve of Ai’s robe. Rather than wake him, he cut off his sleeve and went out to hold court in a disheveled state. The phrase “the cut sleeve” came to be used to reference same-sex relationships along with others which also come from stories exemplifying the consideration a lover has for his beloved.

 

Japan

 

Same-sex relationships in Japan were also considered ennobling during the Pre-Meiji Period (800-1868 CE) and were not only blessed but encouraged by the great Buddhist sage Kukai. The Japanese referred to these relationships as nanshoku (“love of males” or “male colors”), and they were legitimized by the aristocracy and the literate elite who were influenced by the model of Chinese same-sex relationships. The Japanese regarded romantic attachments and sex as a natural part of life whether the object of one’s desire was one’s own sex or the opposite.

 

In Lady Murasaki’s famous novel The Tale of Genji (c. 1020 CE), the hero seduces the younger brother of the woman he is trying to court, but he is not regarded less for doing so, and his obvious bisexuality is of so little concern to the author that she never mentions it again.

 

Egypt

 

Fluid gender identity was recognized in Egypt throughout its long history and, as in other cultures, drew little notice and no condemnation except when a male of a certain social status “played the part of the woman” in sex. Scholar Colin Spencer notes, “Bisexuality in the male was accepted as natural and never drew adverse comment, but passive homosexuality made the Egyptians feel uneasy. What if a king showed such a feminine disposition?”

 

The only problem Egyptians had with same-sex relationships was a show of weakness, of overt femininity, in a male of certain status. Although the Egyptians respected the power of the feminine, as evidenced by their many powerful female deities, they did not believe mortal women could effectively wield power.

 

Greece

 

The cult of the Phrygian goddess Cybele and her consort Attis flourished in ancient Greece c. 300 BCE, and one of its defining characteristics was the galli (also given as gallae), the transgender clergy who identified as female. The myth may have been influenced by the goddess Inanna, although homosexuality was widespread in Greece way before that

 

Plato praises the relationship between men in a number of dialogues, although he re-evaluated this view in his writings on old age, which may be due to the devastating passion that accompanies such relationships. Homosexuality bothered Aristotle only when a man gave up his own masculinity in such relationships. The founder of Stoicism, Zeno of Citium, considered the relationship between men as a source of sorrow and nobility. In Sparta, sex between soldiers was considered favorable, because it was believed that a soldier would fight with a much greater attitude to protect a loved one. This paradigm is famously proven by the Sacred Band of Thebes, a troop of same-sex lovers, who were undefeated for a long time until they were killed, to a man, at the Battle of Chaeronea.

 

Rome

 

Hadrian an Antinous

 

As in Greece, the sexual aspect of the relationship was the least important, and there had to be genuine affection and respect shared by both parties for their association to be considered honorable. The only dishonor or stigma attached to such a relationship was a male of some standing playing a passive role, although criticism of other sexual positions has not been confirmed. Julius Caesar (l. 100-44 BCE) famously engaged in same-sex relationships, and attempts were made to disparage his character for assuming the passive role in sex. Among the most famous committed same-sex relationships in Rome was that between the Roman emperor Hadrian (r. 117-138 CE) and his young lover Antinous (l. c. 110-130 CE), but there are many others recorded and, no doubt, many more among people no historian ever cared to write about.

 

Gender Identification in Other Ancient Cultures

 

These same paradigms existed in virtually every other culture in the ancient world. In Thailand, a third gender, known as the Kathoey (“lady boys”) have been recognized since the 14th century CE, although they almost certainly existed previously.

 

Native American tribes recognized a third gender known in the present day as a Two-Spirit who was both male and female. Sadly, the ancient term for this gender has been lost. The Two-Spirit was greatly valued by the community and, as with the adherents of Inanna and Cybele, were thought to have been transformed from male to female by the gods. A boy who embarked on the vision quest rite of passage to manhood would be visited by a deity and shown who he truly was and, if chosen as a Two-Spirit, would return to his community and begin dressing as a woman and performing work associated with the female members of the tribe.

 

The concept of a third gender also existed in Africa. Those people that are marginalized today, used to be equal members of society in the past, participating in tribal life and even getting married.

 

The first change in this paradigm came with the rise of Christianity and its intolerance of other faiths and earlier practices. Once it was embraced by the Roman Empire after Constantine’s conversion to Christianity and its precepts were understood as ultimate truth, there was no room for consideration of other, alternate narratives.

 

The Bible itself, however, does not condemn same-sex relationships and has nothing to say on third genders at all. One of the most commonly cited lines condemning LGBTQ+ individuals in the present day is Leviticus 18:22 – “Thou shalt not lie with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination” – which is only articulating the same position many ancient cultures took regarding a man “playing the part of a woman” in sex; it has nothing to do with a same-sex relationship.

 

Same-sex relations in all of the above cultures were negatively impacted at first by Christianity and Christian missionaries before that same kind of religious intolerance was spread by Islam and even faiths such as Buddhism, which, as noted, initially encouraged same-sex relationships. This kind of intolerance is born of and fed by ignorance and fear which is perpetuated by societies and communities trying to preserve what they see as “traditional values” without understanding that among the most basic of such values is love and respect for other people.

 

Spencer comments: “Sexuality exists in all its depth and complexity regardless of how society tries to control or guide it. Some would say it is the greatest force within us and perhaps this is why we show such fear of it, continuing to subjugate and tame it, often when there is no need. “Uncontrolled sex” is linked in our minds to barbarism, to the decay of the fabric of civilization, perhaps to our own evolution. Perhaps this is why for so many centuries society has reserved its greatest moral censure for unorthodox sexual behavior. What a different history we might have had if “morals” had been exclusively concerned with how humane and tolerant a society was, instead of being obsessed with how we have an orgasm.”

 

The LGBTQ+ community remained marginalized for almost 2,000 years until the latter part of the 20th century when individuals began asserting their right to live as freely with their own sexual identification as anyone else. With the Stonewall Riots of 1969 people stood up for their rights in a way that left a permanent mark in the history. The example of the freedom fighters at the Stonewall Inn inspired others around the world to emulate them in demanding an acceptance from the modern world which was freely given by the ancients.

 

Source: World History Encyclopedia

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Germany Appoints First “Commissioner for Queer Affairs”

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Germany has appointed a commissioner for the acceptance of sexual and gender diversity. Green Party lawmaker Sven Lehmann will oversee a LGBTQ+ national action plan. The Central Government Commissioner for the acceptance Sexual and Gender Diversity will work with government agencies on issues that affect the daily lives of LGBTQ + people. Sven Lehmann will lead the Coalition Government’s Action Plan on Ensuring Sexual and Gender Diversity.

 Photo: Wikipedia

Lehman said that protection of all people regardless of their sexual and gender identity “must be ensured in accordance with the Basic Law” (Germany’s constitution) and that “the fundamental rights of trans, inter and non-binary people must finally be fully enforced.”

“We also need a broad strategy to combat hatred directed at groups — which explicitly includes ‘queerphobia’,” Lehmann said.

In 2018, Germany became one of the few countries worldwide that officially recognizes the existence of more than two genders. In the new government’s coalition deal, the three ruling parties pledged sweeping reforms for LGBTQ+ rights including an end to restrictions on blood donations by gay men, as well as legal changes to allow trans people to determine their own gender.

Source: DW

Photo: Wikimedia

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Coming Out as a Football Player Equals the End of a Career – Patrice Evra

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The legendary Manchester United defender Patrice Evra, in an interview with Le Parisien, talked about the homophobia in the football society. According to the veteran player, he has witnessed homophobic attacks by his colleagues many times throughout his career.

“When I was in England, they brought someone to talk to the team about homosexuality. Some of my colleagues said ‘it is against my religion, if there is a homosexual in this locker room, let him leave the club.’ At that time, I said, ‘shut up’. There are at least two players per club who are gay. But in the world of football, if you say so, it’s over” – said Evra.

The experience of homophobic attitudes in the football world is also evidenced by the experience of the only openly homosexual professional football player, Josh Cavallo. In early January, during a game between Adelaide United and Melbourne Victory, the player became the target of an attack by the opposing team’s fans.

Cavallo posted on his Instagram: “I’m not going to pretend that I didn’t see or hear the homophobic abuse at the game last night. There are no words to tell you how disappointed I was. This shouldn’t be acceptable and we need to do more to hold these people accountable. I will never apologize for living my truth and most recently who I am outside of football.

Source: Sport Bible

Photo: Getty images

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Self-preservation, Emigration and First Love – Story of a Lesbian Woman

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“For the first time in my life, at age 37, I am certain that I’m happy. I never would have imagined that this is where failing to meet parental expectations, a divorce, and finally emigration and raising my child alone would’ve brought me, but everything happened the way it was supposed to” – says Natia, a lesbian woman who has been living in Greece for 16 years now. Until then, she survived a long period of domestic violence and one day decided that she had to save herself and her only child.

“I was 15 years old when a boy whom I barely knew asked me to marry him and I agreed right away. At home I had a dad, who beat my mother and I every time he got drunk so I thought that I didn’t have anything to lose. I don’t even know what else I could’ve done then. I told my mom about the marriage and we cried a lot together, but she also thought that it would’ve been better for me to get away from my house. When the boy came over to propose, my dad didn’t let him into the house so we eloped. Dad never spoke to me again. He didn’t even let me speak to my mom – I only heard about her from the neighbors and relatives. During the 5 years of my marriage I probably saw her only 2 or 3 times.”- Natia recalls as she says that the desire to escape her father led her to even a worse situation – “I couldn’t go back home, I already knew that but at first I didn’t really think about the fact that I might have wanted to do that. The teenagers nowadays are much more prudent, like my daughter. But back then, many eloped or just got married, many were beaten by both their parents and none of us really had a choice. I’m not sure when I first saw the connection between my father and my husband. The first time he beat me was when I was pregnant, but he had sworn at me many times before that too. It happened when I went out to visit my neighbors, so I stayed at home all the time, but there was always a reason to scream at me. At first that’s what I thought about – that nothing happens without a reason, but then I stopped searching for the reasons. I knew that I didn’t really have a choice and it’s hard to explain how I got used to the screaming, the beating, how I managed to cook him meals after huge fights without even replying anything.”

“Whenever he would leave the house I would fantasize about him not coming back, that’d be the only thing that would change everything. However, he always returned and he also brought his friends over. I would come up with a new lie for every bruise, but everyone always knew the truth. The only comparatively normal person was my mother-in-law, who would take my child after the fights and give me some time to calm down, she never criticized me for anything, and I couldn’t ask for anything more than that,” – Natia recalls as she tells us about a moment which made her realize that she had to save herself – “the kid was 4 when he tried to beat them for the first time, and also for the first time I fought back, and as a result he tried to cut me with a knife. As I was holding my child in my hands, I jumped off the second floor. After that I constantly kept imagining how things could’ve been if I had broken a leg or if the neighbors hadn’t let us in at that time.

“I went to Rustavi to a relative. I didn’t even have any money for commuting. I was working at a bazaar and he came over a few times to make up with me, but I never saw him. He didn’t try too hard either, there was no chance of me returning. So I took my child and went to Greece. One person helped my find a job on one of the islands. The job was very difficult, but I still remember it as a pleasant experience – it was the first time I realized everything, came over my trauma and after paying off my debts, started to put some money aside. For years I didn’t even think about new relationships, it was very hard to trust anyone and I didn’t want to have sex” – Natia tells us as she recalls memories of her first love – “3 years ago, when I was in Athens, I met her and we would meet once a week. We became close friends and she was the first time whom I told my whole story to. We didn’t have anyone else apart from each other and that’s how everything started, and slowly I realized that she wasn’t just a friend. From talks we moved on to kissing and then to having sex. There was not a single moment in which I thought that I was doing something wrong, I will always view that as my first sex. Few close friends know about our relationship, at first I didn’t tell anyone and I was also hiding it from my daughter. But one day, she came to me and told me that she likes girls, so I decided not to hide it anymore either.”

“The first time I came back to Georgia was in 2021. After these many years I saw my mom for the first time. We didn’t even mention those years; I didn’t tell her anything about my relationship. I want her to spend her older ages in peace. Now I’m thinking that I do want to leave in Georgia. Years ago I couldn’t even have considered it, but now I’m planning my life there. I spent so many years on suffering, my life was in danger, but what matters is that those memories aren’t painful anymore and now I’m better than ever,” – says Natia at the end of our conversation.

Illustration: NJ

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Luna Abezarova’s Journey in the Magical Genderland

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I tend to fall into two extremes everywhere and in everything: any of my traits can be paired up with the complete opposite trait. For example, I can be emotional and phlegmatic, sensitive and thick-skinned, brave and scared, balanced and explosive, fantasizing and pragmatic, pedant and spontaneous, shy and bold, obedient and dominant… However, in all of these pairs, there are some that characterize me more and reveal themselves more often: sensitive (I cry to TV shows all the time), pedant (sometimes even pathologically), and persistent (giving up on something is something I am physically not capable of doing). As a bonus I would add that I’m extroverted and I constantly joke and speak a lot.

 

The most impressive memory

 I’m a 90ies kid and I don’t think that anyone from my generation had an easy or a boring childhood. For me it’s a permanent memory – to say the least, we witnessed the change of an epoch. However, along these shared memories, all of us have gone through something that is something very private and personal to us.

Books and music – without these, I couldn’t even imagine my childhood. I used to read all the time, everything that I could get my hands on, and I fell in love with music at a young age too. “Master and Margarita” had the most impact on me out of the books. I know I sound basic because it’s a very famous book, but I read it at quite a young age and it changed me as a person.  The first real shock for me in music was encountering a Swedish pop-group – Army of lovers. Of course I liked the songs, but watching their videos was a very special pleasure to me – shamelessly bold, full of eroticism and homoeroticism, these videos became the first video and audio symbol of freedom of love for me.

But still, the most impressive memory that had a fundamental impact on me and changed the course of my whole life is connected to my younger childhood. It’s my first sexual experience that I had with a peer boy. There was no sexual act as such, because we were very young, just 7-8 years old. This was a play of a sexual nature, the initiator and leader was him. There was no pressuring at all. He offered me to play the role of a wife and I did, agreeing that we would swap the roles later.  Despite that, the next time I was still offered the role, which I formally protested but still agreed to. I instinctively felt that I was more comfortable with the role of the wife. After this we didn’t even talk about it: we kind of accepted that I would always be the wife. I liked it, I adjusted to the role and didn’t feel any shame or discomfort with it. Our “husband-wife” play was very childish at first, but in the last episode, which I remember so vividly, it became of very intimate nature and ended in a very childish but accurate imitation of a sexual act. This was the first time when I fully realized my gender role and understood that it didn’t match my biological sex. Some might say that it’s impossible to know at such a young age, but I still remember all of my thoughts and feelings so vividly and I can assure you, it is quite possible.

Our relationship was pure and pretty, without any excessiveness and viciousness. I still remember those days with great love and warmth. Those memories only arise pleasant emotions in me, I don’t have any regret or feeling that I was doing something wrong. During that last play that we had everything went back to its place – this boy treated me with so sensitively and with so much love, that the wall that had already had cracks in it finally broke down and for the first time in my life, I felt like a little girl. I don’t know how to describe it, so I’ll just say that it was a very euphoric experience. After that I have been chasing those emotions, trying to recreate them with my fantasies and playing with my own body in intimate moments. But I couldn’t fully achieve that even decades later until many years passed and in a foreign country I, for the first time, slept with a true man.

 

Journey in the magical Genderland

 The process of identifying myself was quite a long process and I’m still not sure that it’s over. At this stage I can say that I identify as bigender, which means that I feel comfortable both in the roles of a man and a woman.

Gender studies is not a precise science, and it is also quite new and it’s only natural that there is no universal consensus concerning the terminology and systematization. It might even be impossible to reach a consensus – sorting out the gender identities isn’t an easy job, and I think that there will always be many things that are subjective and arguable.

Bigendered people have two gender identities, either at once or interchangeably. In my case those identities are masculine and feminine, but for others it can be any other combination, including non-binary gender identities. The identity of a bigender person might change through time, be dependent on the environment, or react to specific triggers. This is the type of gender identity that I personally refer to as gender fluid. Bigender people, generally, are always in control and they decide when to switch one role to another, while in case of gender fluid individuals, this process can be spontaneous. Not every bigender person expresses their genders in the same way. For me, for example, this change is always accompanied with the visual changes, which in practice means that I’m more comfortable being in a woman’s role when I look like a woman (clothes, make-up, removing body hair, etc.) and vice versa, when being in a role of a male – I prefer to look masculine. For others the physical appearance might not matter at all and just a mental switch might be enough. Some bigenders prefer androgynous appearances, joining their identities and getting rid of the borders between them through their behaviors and appearances.

I would also like to mention dysphoria, since it’s important when talking about bigender identity. For example, if for a transgender person feminization isn’t a problem because their final goal is to permanently transition into a female’s role, for a bigender person it might be a problem, because they need to have a body with visual characteristics of both genders at once, which is incredibly hard to achieve. Because of this a bigender individual might experience dysphoria – the dislike of one’s own appearance, and a feeling that at a given moment they do not visually correspond to the chosen gender role. I also have mild dysphoria because of my “Caucasian” nose, which I really like in a male’s role, but often gets in the way when I transition into a woman. The visual aspect might be so important for some individuals that they even have hormone therapy, even though transitioning is not their main goal. Even I have thought about that, however, at my age there are some health risks so I’ve chosen to refrain from it for now.

A very important aspect of bigenderism that many find it hard to understand is sexuality – being bigender doesn’t automatically make someone bisexual. A person with such identity might have any kind of sexual orientation, or in some cases, have 2 sexualities – depending on their gender identity. I, personally, in a role of a men, am straight – interested only in woman and can’t even think about being with other man. I can only have sexual intercourse with a man when I’m in a role of a woman, when I’ve both mentally and visually transformed.

Maybe at some point the female part of me will become dominant in the future. Or maybe the opposite. Nothing is set in stone and my journey in Genderlend goes on.

 

Emigrant of Love

 It’s been over 10 years since I left Georgia. This was related to self-expression. Here, in Lithuania, they call me meilės emigrantas (Emigrant of love). I have a partner here and they are the main reason I left Georgia. The relationship started with an online friendship. When I first met them, my identity was so far hidden that I didn’t even think about talking to them about it. Despite this, we became close very soon and told each other everything. I believed that my feminine nature was hidden away forever and once our relationship became romantic, those childhood feelings that I thought I had blocked away forever, suddenly came back.

When I lived in Georgia, putting on a dress and going outside is something I only dreamed and fantasized of. I never managed to overcome my fears and I was always surprised how transgender women and girls leaving in Georgia did it – I have great respect for them and I bow to their bravery and confidence. When I decided to leave Georgia I was really out of touch with my feminine side. I wouldn’t even call it a closet, it was somewhere in a dark basement, under the floor, and I had swallowed the keys to the basement door. Only very rarely, alone with myself, I allowed myself to fantasize about the feelings from my childhood.

 

The architect of my happiness.

 The first years of marriage were peaceful. Suddenly, something that I was least expecting happened: the womanhood that had been asleep inside me for decades woke up. Turned out that for all these years I was falsely persuading myself that my bigenderism was just a child’s game and nothing else. The role of the trigger was played by a funny little thing: it was just some orthopedic slippers! I didn’t know what to do. I had always been honest with my wife, but at that moment I definitely wasn’t ready to tell her about this. So I started dressing up in secret (luckily most of my wife’s clothes fit me) and all my youthful sexual fantasies came rushing back.

A few years passed like this. At some moment I realized that I was doing it all in secret from my wife and that made me come to my senses. I was sure that she would understand it, but telling such a thing to a lover, after so many years of living together, still wasn’t easy. But I didn’t have any other choice so one night, about three years ago, I told her everything, starting with my childhood “husband-wife” game and ending with the newly awakened femininity. She took everything just the way I expected her to, she’s an incredible person and I’m very lucky that we found each other.  She offered her full support, without any time apart or conditions. Since that night, basically on the next day she was already helping me put a bra on and wear make-up. That’s how Luna was born, my female alter-ego, whom you’re speaking with today.

From the very beginning we agreed that for some time it would be enough for me to dress up as a woman and have sex toys, but sooner or later I would want to meet a man and have sex, because otherwise I would never feel fulfilled. She advised me not to rush and just get used to being in a woman’s role. Two years went by like that. Monday to Friday I lead a normal life, I worked and lived as a man. And on weekends, I would transform into a woman. At first it only happened at home, and then I started going outside like that too, together with my wife, mostly to shops and supermarkets, sometimes just taking a walk.

It’s probably easy to imagine what it felt like for me to put on a dress and go outside after decades of dreaming about it. All if this was only possible thanks to the love and support of my wife. In the beginning of the last year I got the green light and finally downloaded every dating up, starting from Grinder ending with Tinder. This happened last year, in February. By the end of March, it was my first time with a man, which persuaded me that my femininity wasn’t just some obsessive fantasy. Physical intimacy with a man turned out to be quite natural and pleasant for me, just like for any other heterosexual woman.

But I don’t want anyone to think that making decisions was easy and nice for my wife. For her, the hardest process was meeting with men. It is hard for anyone to let their partner be with someone else. She also had her own internal struggles, but, luckily for me, the belief that it was the right way for me to achieve spiritual piece and internal harmony took over.

At this point in my life I can say confidently that I am happy because my sexuality is not hidden anymore, both of its components are balanced and in harmony. Now I’m living my full life not only as a man, but as a woman too. Of course, I still have a long way to go. Sometimes I still have to be discrete about my feminine persona and be careful, but three years ago I couldn’t even have imagined that I would go outside dressed as a woman, and meeting with men was something that even exceeded my realm of fantasies!

The architect of all of my happiness is my wife, and the thing that I needed to do is to be brave enough to share my hidden side, the existence of which no one knew about. I only regret that I didn’t do this sooner.

 

Luna Abezarova

 The story of my “surname” is quite funny. A male friend of mine, who’s Georgian, and I met them in Vilnius, asked me to help them with the disposal of some construction waste. This needed hiring of a construction minibus, which he couldn’t do himself because he didn’t have a driving license. As you’ve probably already guessed, this person was my intimate partner and only knew me as Luna, so, naturally, I would have to help with the task dressed as Luna. This was a kind of a challenge for me, because a construction truck, one that is a manual, was something I’d never driven before. It was a bit difficult at first but I got used to it soon. It was a weird and fun road trip, we joked around a lot on our way. The task was carried out successfully.

That day, because of my friskiness and successful driving, my partner came up with a nickname for me – Abezara. There’s a Georgian comedy, in which Leila Abashidze plays a funky and frisky driver. I really liked the nickname so I made it my thing. When I was creating a Facebook account for Luna, I needed to come up with a last name and that’s when I remembered my nickname. I chose a Russian ending (Ova) for 2 reasons: Firstly, the female ending emphasizes the femininity; Secondly, “Abezarova” is an ethnically-incongruent last name – it’s not Russian, nor Georgian, kinda sounds like Armenian or just North-Caucasian. I’m not hiding my Georgian descent, but I like it when it’s hard for someone to guess my ethnicity, it’s kind of like a small game to me.

 

The world moves forward and time is on our side

I might not be involved in activism, but I consider myself as a part of the LGBTQ+ community, and the attitudes toward our community still affect me. I’m not distanced from those challenges that sexual minorities have to face in the modern reality. Here, in Vilnius, there is one gathering place, where the queer community members and activists meet up and sometimes I attend those gatherings too.

I think that transgender people need extra attention and support in the community. In that sense, the situation is not only bad in Georgia, but even in comparatively tolerant countries, such as Lithuania. Transgender people are always under twice as much pressure. On the one hand, there’s the intolerant attitudes that all of the LGBTQ+ community experiences to a point, and on the other hand, an extreme financial strain, stemming from the costs linked with hormonal therapy and transitioning. The government does absolutely nothing in order to help this people, on the contrary, they create additional obstacles.

If Georgia is on the European path not only on paper, but also in action, then our country must definitely understand its role in dealing with sexual minorities and actually start thinking about solving their problems, which, in my opinion, manifests in the cooperation with LGBTQ+ community and their rights organizations. Unfortunately, what I see today is the complete opposite of this situation. I do not want to get too involved in politics, but I can’t not mention that our current government not only does not cooperate with the LGBTQ+ community, but sees it as a problem, an irritating inconvenience that often escapes them and prevents them from doing “more important things.” We see a clear proof of this during any activity organized by the LGBTQ+ community. Moreover, we often hear shameful and dangerous rhetoric from the country’s leaders, which directly encourages the vicious and violent parties. This is simply unacceptable.

What should we, the queer people do, in order for the situation to get better? We simply have to not give up, continue to fight for our rights with stubbornness, however much we can. Activists – in their own organizations, and the community members – in private conversations, changing people’s minds on social media, raising various issues and sharing about important topics.

The world moves forward and time is on our side, we only need to stay patient and strong. I don’t want it to sound like a toast, but I sincerely believe that love will surely win!

 

 

The interview was prepared with the support of the Women’s Fund in Georgia (WFG)

Prepared by Nino Urushadze

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