Heavy Issue 76 - ScotsGay Magazine

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Queer in Eastern Europe by John Murphy feature >>> Worldwide news from Rex Wockner on page 20 Ah, what a wonderful world we gays and lesbians live in here in the UK! Every major town and city throughout the land offers us a choice of bars, clubs and gay/gay friendly restaurants and hotels (as well as magazines) are springing up like daffodils. The summer, as always, sees a plethora of Pride marches as we celebrate our sexuality and – more importantly – debate the worth of them and their place in the Twenty First Century. And how we take all this for granted folks. What would our life be like without our local gay scene, however much we moan and bitch about it? What would we all do without our local on a Saturday night in which to drink, chat and cruise? However, do we really appreciate what we have on our own doorstep and, love them or hate them; do we simply take for granted our right to walk in Gay Pride marches? It is worth remembering that not too far from us our gay and lesbian cousins in many Eastern European countries simply do not have these opportunities. The fall of communism and the break down of the former Soviet Union has seen democracy granted to millions of people - but unfortunately, it seems, only if they are heterosexual. Civil liberties and basic human rights are being denied to many gays and lesbians, and those who demand them face violence, intimidation and sometimes prison sentences. On 27th May this year, protesters from around the world marched through the streets of Moscow in Russia demanding equality for gay Muscovites and their right to hold a Gay Pride March. This was the second year such a demonstration had taken place, and once again it descended into violence and mayhem as peaceful protesters were attacked by anti-gay extremists. The police were accused of doing nothing to protect them and when an Italian MP, Marco Cappato, demanded police protection it was he who got detained!! British gay rights Let’s start to appreciate how lucky we are to have the choice about Gay Pride marches veteran Peter Tatchell was beaten and detained by police and “Right Said Fred” singer Richard Fairbrass also came under attack suffering head injuries. Ironically, being gay or lesbian in Russia is not illegal and it was decriminalised in 1993 and an equal age of consent is also in existence. However there are no equality laws in place and over the last few years many gay bars and clubs have frequently come under attack culminating in many of them being blockaded in May 2006 by anti-gay protesters, where yet again the police were accused of refusing to take any action against the protesters. The Mayor of Moscow’s decision to ban Gay Pride marches was upheld by the courts and Russia’s Grand Mufti – the head of the Islamic community – stated that if gay rights protesters took to the streets they should be flogged “any normal person would do that” he stated. Charming!! Sadly Russia is by no means the only such country, or indeed the worst. Gays and lesbians in Poland face a major dichotomy with, on one hand, a lively and thriving gay scene in many cities but on the other many government officials and the Catholic Church being vehemently opposed. This objection is currently reflected in Polish society where a staggering 89% of the population state they consider homosexuality an “abnormal activity”! In 2004 and 2005, cities such as Warsaw and Krakow banned Gay Pride marches, and since the election of Warsaw’s mayor Lech Kaczynski as President, many Western European countries have expressed their concern about the gay and lesbian community. Already the President has stated that he is not happy with gays becoming teachers and has voiced his opposition to gay and lesbian marriages calling them “unnatural”. As in Russia, the difficulty with voicing opposition comes with the fact that homosexuality was decriminalised in 1932, although the protection of individuals on the grounds of sexuality was not added to the constitution after objections, once again, from the Catholic Church. Even more worrying are plans by the Polish government to introduce laws similar to our own infamous “Section 28” which would ban any discussions on homosexuality in the country’s schools. Needless to say this has been strongly backed once again by the Catholic Church!! Latvia joined the EU in 2004 and was the only country within it without legislation specifically outlawing discrimination at work on the grounds of sexual orientation. Agreeing to introduce such a law was originally a condition of Latvia’s joining the EU but MPs refused to implement it in full after a heated parliamentary debate where homosexuality was described as a sin and homosexuals as “degenerates”. The country’s biggest political party, The Christian Democratic Party, were the leading opponents of this and were backed by leaders of the country’s Lutheran church. However in Sep 2006 the country’s president, Vaira Vike- Freiberga, refused to pass the country’s Labour Code unless protection for gays and Lesbians was added. Perhaps a sign of progress at last! I visited Riga, the Latvian capital, last year and the gay scene is tiny and a good twenty to thirty years behind our own. Riga is the only town in the country with a gay scene and there are very few public figures who are openly gay. Indeed many Latvians still live with beliefs from its Soviet past and refuse to accept homosexuality in themselves or others. Many still hold on to the Soviet opinion that homosexuality and pædophilia are linked phenomena - a belief that has been increasingly exploited by various religious leaders and politicians. A survey carried out in Dec 2006 found that within Latvia only 12% of Latvians supported same sex marriages and a mere 8% backed same sex couples’ rights to adopt. (Within the EU as a whole the figures are 44% and 32% respectively) The European country with possibly the worst gay rights record however is Belarus where attitudes have refused to move on from its Soviet past. A recent survey found that 47% of the population thought that all homosexuals should be imprisoned and no laws to protect gays and lesbians have ever been passed – the only laws which mention homosexuality are to prosecute and not to defend. The In Moscow... British gay rights veteran Peter Tatchell was beaten and detained by police country’s President Lukashenka is arguably the most anti-gay leader in the whole of Europe and has accused the USA and EU of “spreading sexual perversions here”. Since gaining independence there have been an alarming number of anti-gay crimes reported to LAMBDA Belarus (the country’s LGBT group) which have included the murders of many people who were known to be gay. The owner of one of the country’s few gay clubs was also killed and many of the leaders and founders of LAMBDA Belarus have themselves been tortured and raped and their homes and offices have been ransacked! Internet cafes and libraries have blocked access to gay and lesbian websites and even the country’s Universities have banned the discussion of LGBT rights. Police officers have been accused of failing to investigate attacks on the gay community instead focussing on gathering information and pictures of those accused of visiting cruising areas. Belarus is believed to have the highest suicide rate in Europe amongst gays and lesbians and psychological help and counselling is not readily available. Similar anti-gay attitudes are reflected in many other Eastern European countries – though thankfully nowhere near as vitriolic and hateful as in Belarus. Gays and lesbians in Ukraine are constantly battling for equality in their country where only 15% of the population agree with the existence of same sex couples. Their president, Viktor Yushchenko, has however openly supported gay rights so changes are hopefully coming here. In nearby Lithuania gay rights groups have increasingly come under attack from various youth organisations with links to the major political parties with the Lithuanian Gay League being described as perverted and having to face demands for its closure. Progress has been made in many other countries however. Romania in particular has been praised by Human Rights Watch and named as one of the top five countries for combating rights abuses based on sexual orientation. Estonia has passed legislation protecting gays and lesbians in the workplace and they are also free to join the country’s armed forces. One of the saddest and most frightening results of such rampant homophobia is the increase of HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe. According to UN reports the disease is spreading faster there than anywhere else in the world and it is reckoned that more than 1% of the population are infected. However many experts believe that true figures may well be five times higher than this but that efforts to fight this alarming spread are being hindered due to rampant homophobia. On 16th Jun Elton John played a free concert in Ukranian capital Kiev to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS in a country where it is reckoned that there is one new case every ten minutes. Sadly his concert attracted wide spread criticism from the country’s religious leaders because of his sexuality. “Elton John is gay and we don’t want him promoting that kind of lifestyle here”, said the leader of The Union Of Orthodox Citizens of Ukraine. So is there anything we can do to support the LGBT communities in these countries and change the opinions of many of the others? Well we can write to our MPs, MSPs and MEPs and demand that all parliaments attack countries who deny basic civil rights to their citizens. We could also contact the embassies of these countries and ask them to explain their country’s attitudes. A lot of these countries are also desperately trying to attract visitors to boost their tourist trade so this gives us two choices. We could either show our support to gays and lesbians by refusing to visit such countries or we could visit them and raise the visibility of gays and lesbians there. Now I am not suggesting we all go en masse to Belarus and march through the streets of Minsk demanding equality (too dangerous!) but by meeting locals from other places we can show them that we are not deviants, we are not a threat but that we are – like them – human beings who deserve to be treated accordingly! In the meantime let’s celebrate what we do have in our own country. The next time we moan about our gay bars and clubs and what they offer shouldn’t we spare a thought and be thankful we do have them and can use them safely? Similarly start to appreciate how lucky we are to have the choice about Gay Pride marches and rallies and be grateful that we live in a country that allows us the opportunity to take part in them or not! Page 6 Richard Fairbrass of Right Said Fred in Russia Page 7 Peter Tatchell and below Elton John 6 ScotsGay ScotsGay 7
Butch/Femme - Reclaiming Our Pride by Jodie Fleming - dedicated to Dawn, my handsome Butch feature >>> Jodie’s Edinburgh Scene report on page 24 Once upon a time lesbian identity was pretty much a binary concept – you were either butch or femme. But now women who identify as butch or femme find ourselves a minority within a minority, a dirty word on the tongues of the hettie-pleasing andros who dominate the lesbian community. But enough is enough! It’s time for us to stand up and reclaim our place in lesbian society, time to stop closeting ourselves all over again for fear of displeasing the lesbian community which we were instrumental in creating. At one time butch-femme was considered the norm among lesbians, and deviance from these identities was stigmatized. Women who didn’t fall into either category were deemed ‘confused’. Butch and femme women created a dynamic together which was passionate, alive and most of all proud. Now we have a generation of dykes emerging who are scared of the words; the whole concept of butch-femme is shrouded in shame and lesbians who do identify as such are scared to fully explore this dynamic. Just how did lesbians go from being more empowered and independent to enforcing andro as the norm? Instead of being respected and revered for being a vital part of the origin of the gay liberation movement, life for a butch or a femme in the lesbian community now can be made impossible. Butches in particular can’t even go to the toilet in a gay bar without being made to feel like freaks. Biting comments from pathetic little L-Word wannabees and even worse, pseudo-lesbians, about ‘this being the women’s toilets’… mini Alex-Parks-lookalikes who recoil in disgust if a butch so much as looks in their direction …. They look at this beautiful person who fights so hard against discrimination in the hettie world, and decide that they no longer belong in the gay world either. How fucking dare they? How dare they make us ashamed to be who we are? It makes me so sad when I hear baby butches calling themselves ‘trannies’ and ‘camp bois’, and I feel like grabbing them and screaming, ‘No, you’re not, you’re butch! Be proud of it!’ But the pride just isn’t there anymore, so the whole thing becomes reduced to a comedy farce. Gone are the days of butch mentoring and positive role models – Butches can’t even go to the toilet in a gay bar without being made to feel like freaks most young lesbians haven’t even heard of Horse, and their idea of getting dressed up is sticking an extra belt over the jeans hanging half way down their ass. So exactly how did our perceptions go awry? Well it began when part of the radical lesbian feminist movement in the 70’s and 80’s dismissed butchfemme culture as politically incorrect. A particular strand of ‘extreme feminism’ believed a butch-femme lifestyle was an attempt to replicate heterosexual gender roles, though this argument is severely flawed. This is a hetero-normative assumption in itself, basing its argument on heterosexuality being the norm and all other forms of sexuality being only weak imitations of it. Butch-femme need not be an imitation of anything – it is a unique dynamic incomparable to any other lifestyle. Extreme feminists failed to see that butch-femme was part of a defiance that forced these women to stand out in the 1920’s and 30’s, when lesbians were otherwise invisible. Rather than mirroring heterosexual relationships, butch-femme was an evolving forum to the resistance of male oppression. Butch-femme women enjoyed a rich and fulfilling sex life at a time when sexual expression was not the norm for women. Radical lesbian feminists concluded that butch and femme appeared to have something to do with male and female, creating a knee-jerk reaction which attempted to abolish this unique lesbian construct. What they didn’t take into account is that the male sexual role certainly does not define its goal as the giving of sexual pleasure to women, whereas the butch role most certainly does. Males take, whereas butches give. And far from being passive and accepting, femme women define what they want, what they need and know how to ask for it. Butchfemme roles essentially turned heterosexuality on its head. In pushing for total equality, radical feminism believed that everything had to be equal and that included sex. Both women had to enjoy and perform the same sex acts equally, to initiate equally, always making sure that one partner wasn’t more dominant than the other. I’m sorry, but I thought being a lesbian was about two women enjoying each other, and there are many ways of doing this! You don’t have to enjoy the same acts or initiate the same for it to be real lesbian love. There’s this expectation that we each become powerful and equal in exactly the same way, but this is just not true. Instead of idealising a relationship with no power differences, surely it’s better to embrace these differences. There is after all no way you can keep a relationship of any sort power-free! When two people exchange energy, they’re inevitably passing power back and forth. Radical lesbian feminists’ response to the political climate of the time was to strengthen their visibility, and to do this they felt they all had to look the same. They required an identification that allowed them to become a group… and from this, androgyny was born. Gender-neutral hair and clothing were adopted, and all feminine finery was discarded. And it was considered very un-PC not to subscribe to this! Lesbians who wanted to wear clothing other than androgynous items were criticised and shown the error of their ways, and risked vanishing into lesbian obscurity if they didn’t modify themselves accordingly. A big criticism of femmes was, and still is, that we get the best of both worlds, that femmes who are able to ‘pass’ as heterosexual get to enjoy the privileges of looking straight along with the pleasures of loving women. This however is an incredibly simplistic ideology. Passing personally makes me feel like I’ve got rats crawling all over my skin, as if I’m some unattached filthy het. Passing is denial, and I didn’t ‘come out’ just to hide in the closet all over again. It makes me so angry when anyone dares to ‘assume’ I’m heterosexual on a superficial basis. Anyone who does purposefully pass as heterosexual must surely pay a very high emotional price for concealing who they really are. Femmes are ostracised by the lesbian community both for loving butches and rejecting this ‘andro’ look which has somehow become the look de jour for both hets and dykes alike. Andros take it as a personal insult that femmes don’t find them attractive, or indeed aspire to that look themselves. And then there’s the barrage of stupid questions. ‘Why do you fancy women who look like men?’ ‘Are you secretly heterosexual?’ As a feminist and proud heterophobe, I find both those questions very insulting. For those who take the time and attention to look at a butch woman, really look at her, you’ll see a softness that is anything but male. A butch is still a woman. She’s just not a feminine woman. Butches may wear masculine clothing and keep their hair short, not because they want to be men, but because they are expressing a different way of being a woman. Rather than attempting to replicate traditional masculinity, butches present a challenge in their rejection of how a patriarchal dominated society has decided a woman should look and act. The epitome of true feminism, butch women defy the world! Butches are a beautiful example of how women don’t have to be vulnerable to be valuable, that you don’t have to be pretty to be attractive, and that you can be smart and strong and loud and other women will find this irresistibly sexy and appealing When are we all going to start realising and believing that again? Gay people nowadays though are so depoliticized. They’ve fallen hook, line and sinker for a heterosexual ideal of female attractiveness and shut out anyone that they consider doesn’t fit into that box. It’s all been so easy for us now to be who we are, to live our lives as gay women, compared to what it was like for women 50 years ago and that’s a big problem. This means people don’t question themselves or their belief systems anymore. We’ve adapted and compromised; we’ve sold our souls to the hetties for their acceptance to such an extent that there are now ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ ways of being gay. And being butch or femme is now apparently unacceptable! The saddest thing about rejecting butch-femme in our community is that we’re losing a part of our diversity; we’re losing a different way of loving. The butch-femme dynamic is one of strength and beauty, a combination of energies which complement and nurture each other. It’s about opposites attracting, yin-and-yang coming together to create a magical union. Do Butch-femme roles essentially turned heterosexuality on its head we really want to lose this in favour of some clone-like community where everyone looks and acts the same? Being a lesbian in the twenty first century is about the energies between two women connecting. That’s the only definition and there are no conditions attached. As a femme, I’m drawn to butch energy. I’m not sexually attracted to every butch, but I’m only attracted to butches and it’s essentially their butch energy which draws me in. I can only describe it as a presence which allows for strengths different to mines, which compliments mines. Sexual and powerful, butches have a way of moving, combining strength with loving and assertiveness with giving. And femmes, far from being passive lipstick/stiletto wearing doormats, are strong, assertive, powerful, sexual, nurturing and loving women who possess an intrinsic chemistry with butches – and that’s what differentiates a femme from a ‘lipstick lesbian’. Butch energy is this overtly powerful female energy. Butch women aren’t begging for crumbs from the hettie world like some lesbians do. They’re just there, in all their power, being their mysterious, intriguing, sexual selves. Externally a vision of strength, a real butch is soft and vulnerable inside, hiding a part of themselves they don’t show to anyone at first. Femmes can reach this part of a butch and when they do, what’s inside is something so special, something they’ve fought hard to keep safe from a lifetime of fighting the world. And it’s this connection that infuses the undeniable chemistry in a butch-femme dynamic. It’s sad that we’ve gone so far in liberalising our identities that we’re now actually eradicating them! There’s a real danger in saying ‘everybody is everything’, that identity is fluid – because everybody isn’t everything! We all have different ways, styles and turnons. We’ve tried to push butch-femme from the lesbian world, ignored our sexual energy and acted like there are no differences between lesbians. But nothing can be more painful than trying to stop being who we really are. This is the time for us to reclaim what we’ve tried to repress, and develop a way to re-introduce butch-femme into the context of today’s lesbian society. Lose the shame, because the only real shame is in rejecting a beautiful, nurturing and loving dynamic simply because someone else, a long time ago, decided it was no longer relevant. Page 8 Panther & Helen Page 9 Klein & Trish Photographs by Sara Budd 8 ScotsGay ScotsGay 9
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