Media Reporting and Reference Guide on LGBT Issues

2. LGBT people <strong>and</strong> issues in Greek media.
During the late 1970s <strong>and</strong> early 1980s, Greek LGBT activists tried to give voice to the
marginalized Greek LGBT community, by creating <strong>Media</strong> that would focus on LGBT issues.
Just a few years after the fall of the Greek junta (1967-1974), the Liberation Movement
of Greek Homosexuals 11 (AKOE) published the magazine Amphi, which was developed <strong>and</strong>
directed by LGBT activist, historian of the Greek LGBT movement, writer, poet <strong>and</strong> translator,
Loukas Theodoropoulos (Ioannidis 2013 February 2; LIfo.gr 2014 April 26). Another worth
mentioning effort was the magazine Kraximo, 12 which was published by Paola Revenioti,
trans woman <strong>and</strong> activist, during the 1980s <strong>and</strong> until the early 1990s, <strong>and</strong> also included
texts by famous artists, poets <strong>and</strong> writers (Karouzakis 2008; Calvi 2013 January 18). Both of
these magazines covered issues of the LGBT community <strong>and</strong> were a very bold movement
for the time.
Nowadays, there is an important number of Greek LGBT focused <strong>Media</strong>, which give voice to
LGBT people <strong>and</strong> issues. Some of them focus on specific groups within the LGBT spectrum,
while others cover topics from the whole community. For example, T-Zine mostly focuses on
Trans people, LesbianGr mostly focuses on lesbian women <strong>and</strong> GayHellas.gr mostly focuses
on gay men, while Antivirus Magazine covers issues that are relevant to the whole LGBT
community. But even the more specialized LGBT <strong>Media</strong> are not limited to their specific
target groups <strong>and</strong> often refer to different sub-groups from the LGBT population, as well as
cover important news that affect the whole community.
Beside these specialized <strong>Media</strong>, there is a great number of mainstream, popular media
which are friendly towards LGBT people. These media portray LGBT people in a positive
<strong>and</strong> not stereotypical way, they give space <strong>and</strong> time to LGBT people <strong>and</strong> issues, <strong>and</strong> they
often adopt a clearly <strong>and</strong> openly supportive stance towards LGBT events <strong>and</strong> – most importantly
– human rights of LGBT people. According to E.T.Ho.S. field research, some examples of such
mainstream media are the newspaper <strong>and</strong> website Efimerida ton Syntakton, the free press <strong>and</strong>
websites Athens Voice <strong>and</strong> Lifo, websites such as Popag<strong>and</strong>a <strong>and</strong> the Greek edition of Vice.
Unfortunately, there is also a dark side. There are numerous of <strong>Media</strong> – mainly newspapers
<strong>and</strong> websites - controlled by or friendly towards extreme right or very conservative parties
<strong>and</strong> ideas in general. Beside these “visible” enemies of equality <strong>and</strong> human rights, in
turned to the other <strong>and</strong> said “Come on, I don’t see any serious harm here” <strong>and</strong> they both took off. The two
victims were then taken to hospital, where they received first aid care, underwent medical examinations, had
their injuries taken care of <strong>and</strong> were eventually released. One of the two victims stated that both the medical
crew on the ambulance <strong>and</strong> the medical staff at the hospital had treated them very nicely. However, once
again the RVRN established a poor response on the part of the authorities, in terms of encouraging the victims
to report the incident (in this case, an assault by multiple persons), despite the fact that only light injuries were
caused as a result” (RVRN, 2018 March 28: 20-21).
11
Although “homosexual” is not an appropriate term to refer to gay people, it was the term originally used in
the name of AKOE (Απελευθερωτικό Κίνημα Ομοφυλόφιλων Ελλάδος).
12
A Greek word for “gay bashing”.
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