Come and be sNotty!

sNot Cabaret Benefit Queer party: 23 May 2009 at the S.C.U.B. Amsterdam

sNot Cabaret arose from the desire of queering the space with intention to disrupt, redefine, re-question, transgress, fulfil and affirm sex, gender, sexual orientation, sexual identities, gender identities, gender expression, and all other concepts the meaning of which is assumed and accepted as ultimate truth.

sNot Cabaret wants to explore the meaning of ‘queer’ and all those letters in ‘LGBTTIQ’ through film, music and performances.

sNot Cabaret represents an open and safe space based on principles of self-definition, self-identification, individuality and freedom of choice.

sNot Cabaret wants freedom, justice and anarcho-love for all, but we know that the way there is mined with contradiction and struggle. Thusly sNot Cabaret is a benefit in solidarity with our fellows from Gayten-LGBT Center from Belgrade, Serbia.

Come and be sNotty.

 

transserbia

TRANS SELF-SUPPORT GROUP - second year!

The first Trans Self-Support Group was formed in Gayten-LGTB Center for the Promotion of Human Rights in Belgrade on the 30th August 2006. Four persons attended the first meeting; two years later the group has almost four times that number. The group currently has 15 permanent members, including members from abroad (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Austria, U.K. and U.S.A.), as well as a number of potential members awaiting their admittance interview. The system of admitting new members remains the same: group coordinator conducts an interview consulting an assistant. Currently, the youngest group members are 16 and are occasionally involved with the group. The number of the group members has increased and a number of transgender persons joined as well. Partners occasionally join in the group meetings and one of the two supervisors is continuously present. The list of persons interested in the group is constantly increasing and many people in Serbia and abroad are very willing to participate in various group activities.

The group has established a list of rules, as well as responsibilities continually respected and applied. The meetings are scheduled twice a month or more often if needed. Topics are varied and are suggested by the participants. Some of the topics include: coming out to family and friends, socialization, work, phases of transition, problems during the transition, doctors' contacts and information, activism, public appearance, etc. In addition to the regular group meetings, the group continues to organize a number of other activities in cooperation with other NGOs. These activities include: lectures, picnics, movie projections, parties, friendly gatherings, etc. Many of the group members socialize together outside of the group setting. New interests have arisen and many persons show interest in the activities and structure of the NGO sector, activism and the Trans movement itself. A number of group members are active in additional Trans section activities and some even preformed publicly at a Victims of Transphobia commemoration day to help support and empower the Trans community.

Contact has been established and it is certain that we will cooperate with the newly established Roma LGBTIQ self-support group within Gayten-LGBT. Cooperation with other groups enables us to gather more comprehensive information and experiences, as well as needs of all Trans persons (transgender, transsexual and transvestites).

Free legal advice and aid is available for all the members and is provided by the two lawyers. A number of psychologists are also available free of charge for group members. Due to the information shared about the group's existence during Labris' seminar for psychologists, new volunteers are available to provide group members with free psychological aid.

Gayten-LGBT team, lead by our lawyer, has analyzed the key legislative areas concerning Trans rights and work necessary to recommend legislative changes. Serbia laws do not recognize the categories of gender identity and expression, transgenderism, or the sex re-assignment process all of which continue to be undefined leaving Trans persons open to economic violence and discrimination of every kind.

A number of international organizations and institutions are interested in this project and necessary information will be sent at a later point.

The work of Gayten's Trans section and the matter of rights and position of the Trans persons in the community were presented during the experts' meeting at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg on the 18th November 2008.

Information regarding the group's existence and work is continually forwarded to safe (LGBTIQ friendly) web sites, organizations and individuals. New information is also regularly sent to doctors: psychiatrist, psychologist, endocrinologist and surgeon, as well as to legal and psychological section of Gayten-LGBT and other persons in frequent contact with the Trans population. Contact information is also given at every seminar or training session in Serbia and abroad. The network of NGOs which could be in contact with potential new members has also increased.

Thanks to the group's improved visibility, a number of journalists (from TV stations and magazines) have contacted the group. A few affirmative magazine texts have already been published and two TV shows talking about transsexuality were aired. Cooperation with the journalists is continuous and they are provided with necessary information to help them understand the problems faced by Trans persons.

A number of group members have taken the initiative and volunteer on the creation and maintenance of the first web site dealing with the Trans issues. Information, news and similar content are available on the web site, as well as relevant medical achievements. Anonymity and protection is provided for all who which to leave suggestions and recommendations. The site is current and has many visitors. Please feel free to visit: www.transserbia.org

We continually collect articles and texts from the newspapers and magazines, various literature and movies with Trans themes from Serbia and abroad. Cooperation with NGOs in the ex-Yu region has enabled us to exchange printed and film materials. All the materials are available to our members, as well as other interested individuals.

International level ? as the first official Trans self-support group in Serbia and the only one in the ex-Yu region, this group helps empower people from the surrounding countries (ex0Yu region) to organize themselves and form their own self-support groups and other activities regarding rights and existence of Trans persons.

Cooperation has been established on different levels with different organizations: Kontra (Zagreb), Iskorak (Zagreb), Lori (Rijeka), Q (Sarajevo). As the number of group members continues to increase, the number of activities and fields of operations of the Trans section within Gayten-LGBT itself increases.

Trans section coordinator continues to hold lectures/workshops in various NGOs involved with the LGBTIQ populations, as well as other interested groups and organizations.

Group's two-year anniversary was celebrated on the 29th August 2008 with a small party attended by the group members, their partners, as well as the friends and guests of the group. The meeting following the party was dedicated to the summation of all the achievements in the previous two years, as well as future growth and development possibilities.

The only funding we have received thus far is from Astraea, New York. However, considering the needs, problems and regular activities, we are hoping that the new project will be taken into consideration and supported.

For any additional information, please contact:

information about the trial of the Queeruption 8, Karcelona

During the first week of June 2005, “Queeruption 8, Karcelona” took place near Barcelona. The event was a self-organized international gathering of radical queers. During the gathering different activities took place both inside and outside of the spaces that had been prepared for the event. One of the many initiatives took the form of a playful, festive, and revindicative demonstration through the commercial gay zone of Barcelona, the Gayxample, and was meant as a critique of the bars, clubs, and businesses which are geared towards the gay public and which play an important role in the creation of the stereotype of what it is to be gay, the ghettoizing and marketing of our sexualities, and pink capitalism. At the same time, the demonstration also had the goal of inviting people to festively “occupy” public space and above all to make visible the existence of other spaces which lie outside of the circuit of commercial exchange – spaces where we can escape from heteronormativity and homo-lesbo-transphobia.

During the course of the this colorful demonstration, explanatory pamphlets were handed out, different slogans were cheered, a lot of noise was made and some people even decorated the walls with their thoughts. But there were also moments of poor communication which caused misunderstandings between some of the clients of the commercial establishments and some of the participants in the demonstration. As part of our fight against lesbo-trans-homophobia, we would have liked to avoid the negative feelings which some people experienced. There were also moments of confusion and tension between some of the demonstrators and the business owners or managers of one of the establishments which ended with a broken flowerpot and damages in the reception lounge of the gay luxury hotel, the Axel.

After the demo had ended, leaving some of the demonstrators in Plaza Universidad, men appeared who, without identifying themselves as agents of the national police, began to attack and brutally arrest the people that they encountered there. People who witnessed how their friends were attacked and thrown to the ground approached with the intention of stopping the attacks but were then also arrested. In the end nine completely arbitrary arrests took place.

The detainees were continuously humiliated. Once at the police station, they were brought one by one to a room where they were forced to undress. The police insulted them, using various homophobic phrases such as, “Faggot, I'm gonna stick my nightstick up your ass,” “You're worthless as a man. You don't count for shit, faggot,” “Girl, you're rougher than a piece of sandpaper.” While this was going on, the rest of the detainees were handcuffed to a bench in the adjoining room where they could easily hear the screams of their peers who were with the police.

Physical aggressions took place, for example, “...[the policeman] hit one detainee in the head so hard with his fist that the person's head bounced against the head of another detainee and after that he kicked the same detainee in the chest, producing a nervous shock which included tremors and loss of breath. We asked for a doctor but the police laughed at us without even giving the injured detainee a glass of water...” (extract from the testimony of one of the detainees).

Some of the detainees were neither Spanish nor Catalan speakers and yet the police denied them access to translators who would have made it easier for them to understand what was happening.

Two days later, after appearing before a judge, the detainees were granted provisional release awaiting trial. Their charges include bodily harm, public disorder, property damage, and resisting authority. The district attorney is asking for 2 ½ years of prison and 11,400 euros in fines for one detainee and 1 ½ years of prison and between 5,700 and 11,000 euros in fines for the others. There is no evidence which links the detainees to the actions of which they are accused, especially as the arrests were made completely arbitrarily, a fact which is demonstrated by the arrest of one woman who was only passing through Plaza Universidad.

Five of the nine detainees made official accusations against the National Police for torture, mistreatment, and trans-lesbo-homophobia suffered at the police station. These accusations were filed away by a local judge two times in a row before being sent to a higher court, the Audiencia Provincial, which ordered an investigation into the events. But on the date when the accused officers were meant to testify before a judge, said officers did not appear in court and the accusations were once again filed away. This fact was cited and denounced by Amnesty International in their 2007 report entitled, Spain: Adding insult to injury: The effective impunity of police officers in cases of torture and other ill-treatment (pages 49-52).
www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/EUR41/006/2007/en

And now, after the police have emerged yet again unpunished for the abuse and torture which they commited, right at this very moment we are awaiting the trial of the nine detainees which will take place on April 27 and which, in the worst case scenario, will result in jail time and 80,000 euros worth of fines for these nine people.

Given the gravity of these events, WE DEMAND:

• The ABSOLUTION of all of the detainees.
  

AND WE DENOUNCE:

• The impunity with which the police act and lie
• The abuse, torture, aggessions, and homo-trans-lesbphobic humiliations which our comrades received at the hands of the police. 

We encourage everyone to come to the concentration in front of the courthouse on April 27, 2009.

Please keep yourselves informed regarding the latest updates.