Tuesday, October 26, 2010

50 LGBT Books everyone should read

Definitively recommended. A very nice guide to a wide LGBT reading base book collection.


for a bigger size and comfortable reading
http://issuu.com/alysonbooks/docs/50_gay_and_lesbian

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Purple days

1.717.455 Attending, 348.918 Maybe attending,10.000 Awaiting reply,1.229.312 Not attending.

Este ha sido el resultado al dia de hoy de la convocatoria realizada por Tierney Michele Pomo una chica adolescente que se ha involucrado con el tema de los suicidios de adolescentes lgbt a raiz del bullying que sufren en sus escuelas y su vida diaria.

"...READ: ****This event was not created by me. It was created by someone who cares deeply on Tumblr, and I am only spreading the word.****

It’s been decided. On October 20th, 2010, we will wear purple in honor of the 6 gay boys who committed suicide in recent weeks/months due to homophobic abuse in their homes and at their schools. 

Purple represents Spirit on the LGBTQ flag and that’s exactly what we’d like all of you to have with you: spirit. Please know that times will get better and that you will meet people who will love you and respect you for who you are, no matter your sexuality. 

Please wear purple on October 20th. Tell your friends, family, co-workers, neighbors and schools. RIP Tyler Clementi, Asher Brown, Seth Walsh, Justin Aaberg, Raymond Chase and Billy Lucas. You are loved.

Join this event and invite everyone on your friends list. Don't let their deaths be for nothing. Let it mean something, and let's do something to change this country for once..."

Un movimiento mundial de solidaridad basado en esta acción y el discurso del político norteamericano Joel Burns en el cual se dirigía a los adolescentes de su país diciéndoles: " It gets Better" como apoyo a la campaña del columnista y activista Dan Savage, publicada en Youtube con mas de 2 millones de visitas   Intentan llamar la atención acerca de la gran cantidad de suicidios que viene sucediendo debido a la violencia homófoba dirigida a adolescentes en muchos países.

Y es aquí cuando nos damos cuenta que  países como los Estados Unidos, los miembros de la UE, el bloque musulmán y africano, padecen y generan problemas sociales de raíz, en donde a pesar de proclamarse abanderados del progreso y los derechos civiles, su mismo sistema genera situaciones de dio y falta de convivencia profundas, falta de solidaridad y humanidad sobre la cual las nuevas generaciones se movilizan.

Factores como las tradiciones arraigadas, la diferencia vista como peligro, la religión opuesta a la espiritualidad y la insistencia en la segregación de todo, tipo hacen que sea imposible para muchos jóvenes poder seguir viviendo.

Tenemos una gran incapacidad de percibirnos como seres humanos, como un grupo heterogéneo y  plural, lo cual sin duda tiene su raíz en la insistente actitud de superioridad que por siglos la sociedad europea occidental ha proclamado ante el mundo. esta insistencia en la diferencia, en la clasificación y en la estratificación solo ha logrado que algunos se perciban como validos y otros como repudiables. Esta diferenciación ha otorgado a bullyiers el derecho a abusar y molestar a sus victimas. les ha permitido pensarse superiores, mejores o validos.

Es posible que nuestra evolución nos lleve algún día a considerar a todos los seres humanos como válidos sin necesidad de tener que transformarse, aparentar o dejar de ser si mismos.

No creo en superioridades, no creo en clasificaciones, no creo en las religiones ni en los discursos diferenciadores. Solo creo en el ser humano, como otro ser mas que habita la tierra, ya no podemos ser los bárbaros que se matan entre si o se odian entre si por diferencias y medios. Realmente esperamos y trabajamos para que It gets a lot better.

http://www.itgetsbetterproject.com

 

Thursday, October 14, 2010

European Rainbow Cities Barcelona

Rainbow Cities is an European conference part of AHEAD (Against Homophobia. European Local Adminstration Devices. Currently being held in Barcelona with the purpose of creating a white paper on LGBT successful practices and public policies to be used a guideline for policy makers  and local governments across the EU.

Some highlights on the first day of the conference would be:

A general tension between EU policies, local initiatives and social realities reflected on a very wide variety of points of view across the the 27 states of the union. eastern and western Europe perspectives and legislation. Being very different culturally and historically  as Roman Kuhar from the University of Ljubljana (Slovenja) revealed on his presentation, Western and Eastern European countries show the whole spectrum of Homonegative attitudes towards LGBT diversity in their societies.

In contrast a very big number of educational, social and civil society initiatives to fight homophobia are taking place in all countries and a network that connects them seem to be a very urgent need to articulate a powerful change in the future of the young generations. The tools seem to be there but the interconnection channel between thm seem to be non-existent.
The Italian network RE.A.DY as presented by Luca Cipriani from the Torino Town hall seem to have no political objections or inconveniences for their activities during any government (left or right winged) a presentation that really generated doubts among participates knowing the current realities widespread in the news about the conservative government and lgbt rights in Italy.

Even when LGBT and the Fight against Homophobia  is generally underfunded in most countries of the union, we could say there is a generalized awareness and a positive trend in the EU for achieving more and better standards for LGBT communities and homophobia eradication. We just hope underfunding is just a temporary situation and not an strategy to keep activists quiet and networks grow as strong as RE:A:DY claims to be to make homophobia a problem of the past.

Multidiscrimination and Interseccionality are also on the spotlight of the conference. This approach considers discrimination as being possible from multiple aspects combined with sexual orientation and gender identity as could be religion, origin, social or economic background, etc.

Conclusions are still to be heard and hopefully a very good with the withe paper will be done.