The Frontline

In this episode of The Frontline, we are looking back at the year that was 2021, and what it meant for the LGBTI movement in Europe. It was a year of further lockdowns, of new strains of the COVID virus, and the uncertainty they have brought, and most of all, enormous reverberations of the unprecedented events of 2020 on people’s lives. At ILGA-Europe, when the pandemic first kicked in, our motto was ‘the work goes on’, and that work most certainly continued apace throughout 2021, with the growth of a perceived east-west divide in Europe over LGBTI rights, infringement procedures taken by the European Commission against Hungary and Poland because of their anti-LGBTI laws and programs, a sharp rise in the demonisation and isolation of trans people from the women’s movement, and an overall rise in authoritarian regimes seeking to instrumentalise LGBTI lives to limit the rights of others. So, it’s perhaps strange that our guest in this episode, ILGA-Europe's Executive Director, Evelyne Paradis finds great hope for the LGBTI movement amid the storm. Listen now, and find out why!  

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Since the beginning of 2020, we have been deeply reminded that change can come unexpectedly and can wreak havoc. We’ve also seen in stark ways how our ability to deal with change is so often framed by bigger structures of inequalities, and most of us have been left with more questions than we have answers. 

This episode of The Frontline features an enlightening conversation about navigating change as an activist, between ILGA-Europe’s Executive Director Evelyne Paradis and Natia Gvianishvili, who has been actively engaged with local, regional and international LGBTI and feminist movements for over a decade now. Natia began her activist life in Georgia, and she currently resides in Sweden, where she works with the Swedish

Evelyne and Natia chat about how change affects activists and activism, and deliberately exploring our relationship with change so that we can find our own compass when navigating a constantly transforming world.  

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One thing is always clear, no activist or activism organisation can work alone, and the work needs support. But where can that support be found, how can it be accessed, and when it comes through, how can you use it effectively? In this episode, we’re exploring what it means and what it takes to be supported during the highs and lows of everyday activism. We’ll be taking a look at how international and foreign support can be experienced by LGBTI activists in the movement, the difference it can make, and what it takes to get that support and make real use of it.  

Joining us to chat about support and empowerment are Stefan Sparavalo from Da se Zna in Serbia">Da se Zna in Serbia and Marty Huber, from Queer Base in Austria">Queer Base in Austria.  

• For more about how we support the LGBTI movement in Europe and Central Asia, click here "> click here  

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Wellbeing challenges have been affecting the work of the LGBTI movement for decades, but it is only recently that activists have begun talking about their wellbeing as an issue. While a number organisations and groups have already taken concrete steps to address wellbeing, there’s no golden rule on how to approach these challenges. In this episode we share what ILGA-Europe has been doing to support the wellbeing of the movement.

Joining us are David Kakhaberi, the executive director of Equality Movement in Georgia, and Eka Tseriteli, executive director of Women’s Initiatives Supporting Group, also in Georgia, to talk about the distinctive approaches they’ve used to tackle wellbeing issues for their teams.  

• For more about how we support the LGBTI movement in Europe and Central Asia, click here "> click here  

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To introduce our new series on empowering LGBTI activism, Bjorn Van Roozendaal from ILGA-Europe talks about the priorities of our work with activists in a world that’s going through enormous change, and what to expect as we explore the challenges are activists face in doing the work, and some of the key ways they are addressing those challenges.   

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What’s it like to be an LGBTI activist at this moment of enormous change for the world? What are the new challenges, and what’s the daily life of an LGBTI organisation like nowadays?  

Joining us to talk about the reality of queer activism in the current context, the good sides and bad, are ILGA-Europe’s Programmes Director, Bjorn van Roozendaal; Ola Kaczorek, founding member of Love Does Not Exclude,">Love Does Not Exclude, the first organisation to demand marriage equality in Poland; Irena Cvetkovic, the Executive Director of Coalition Margins">Coalition Margins in North Macedonia, which works to promote and protect the human rights of marginalised communities, and Ruslana Hnatchenko from the Ukrainian lesbian feminist NGO, Women Association Sphere">Women Association Sphere.  

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In 2019, the BBC appointed its first ever LGBT correspondent, Ben Hunte. Whenever an LGBT story breaks, he appears on the 6 or 10 o’clock news and across the BBC’s global websites. His first year on the job has been an unprecedented one, with the rise of anti-LGBT hatred in Europe, marked by stark developments in Poland and Hungary. In this episode of The Frontline, Ben sits down with us to talk about the relationship between the media and LGBTI issues, why some stories get all the attention to the detriment of others, the rise of anti-trans voices in newspapers and broadcasting, and ways we might get the real diversity of LGBTI stories picked up.   

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In this episode we welcome the internationally acclaimed Turkish novelist, essayist, and advocate for women’s and LGBTI rights and freedom of expression, Elif Shafak. The author of 18 books of fiction and non-fiction, including The Bastard of Istanbul, Honour, and Three Daughters of Eve, Elif has come under fire from the Turkish authorities for writing about human rights abuses that its government denies. Her most recent novel, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World, which tells the story of a sex worker in Istanbul, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2019. It sparked another investigation by Turkish prosecutors for addressing child abuse and sexual violence in her writing.

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In this episode we’re discussing the results of ILGA-Europe’s 12th Rainbow Europe Map, which was published on May 17, International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) 2021.

Every year, Rainbow Europe ranks all 49 European countries based on the laws and policies in each to ensure equal rights and protection for LGBTI people. Countries are ranked from zero percent to one hundred, with zero representing gross violations of human rights and discrimination and one-hundred representing full respect for human rights and equality.

The past 12 months have marked an unprecedented year in the map’s 12-year history, with almost no positive legislative change for LGBTI people in Europe. With us to discuss this disturbing stand-still, on both European and national levels, and the ways forward both at  European and national levels, are ILGA-Europe’s Executive Director, Evelyne Paradis, our colleague, Bjorn Van Roozendaal, Alexa Moore from Transgender NI in Northern Ireland, Alexa Moore, and Kaspars Zalitis from Mozaika in Latvia.

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In this episode of The Frontline, we looking at the rising issue of LGBTIQ youth homelessness in Europe. A new report from ILGA-Europe, in association with Cyndi Lauper’s LGBTIQ Youth Homelessness organisation True Colors United, and the Silberman Centre for Sexuality and Gender (SCSG) at Hunter College in New York, explores the experiences of LGBTIQ focused organisations in Europe working in with young people who have experienced homelessness. Over 60% of LGBTIQ organisations surveyed for the report said they had worked on the issue.

A comparative report from the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless (FEANTSA), also  finds that over 60% of homeless services organisations have dealt with young LGBTIQ people, but often without any training or support. 

Our guests for this conversation about the rising issue of young LGBTI people being made homeless in Europe are author of the ILGA-Europe report, Dr Jama Shelton from True Colors United, Policy officer with FEANTSA, Robbie Stakelum, ILGA-Europe’s programmes director, Bjorn Van Roozendaal, and Silvia Magino from Association Quore in Turin, Italy, which has set up a housing project for LGBTIQ people in difficulty.

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