{"id":9083,"date":"2017-12-24T13:31:11","date_gmt":"2017-12-24T07:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pahichan.com\/?p=9083"},"modified":"2017-12-24T13:31:11","modified_gmt":"2017-12-24T07:46:11","slug":"fuel-for-your-fire-lgbtiq-activists-from-around-the-world-share-their-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/fuel-for-your-fire-lgbtiq-activists-from-around-the-world-share-their-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Fuel For Your Fire: LGBTIQ Activists From Around the World Share Their Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kathmandu (Pahichan) December 24 – On Saturday in New York, LGBTIQ+ activists from around the world gathered to discuss the challenges and the solutions from the frontlines around the world atOutSummit<\/a>. It comes on the heels of \u201cAdvocacy Week,\u201d organized by OutRight Action International, where LGBTIQ activists from around the world meet with UN officials to discuss their priorities and demand accountability.<\/p>\n

This is a very brief summary of a day filled with super important conversations \u2014 I strongly encourage you to look into these amazing humans, follow them, and learn more about the international fight for humanity.<\/p>\n

Because I certainly can\u2019t say it better than the 250 beautiful international changemakers, here\u2019s a full dose of inspiration and fuel for your fire.<\/p>\n

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On why we do the work:<\/h3>\n

\u201cPeople who weren\u2019t like me [were] telling my story \u2014 I had to be in control of my narrative, my story.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014\u00a0Karamo Brown<\/a><\/strong>, American activist, television producer and host (catch him on the new\u00a0Queer Eye<\/em>\u00a0coming to Netflix), and co-founder of 6in10.org on why he left a career in social work and psychotherapy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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\u201cThe day I put on a skirt I vanished\u201d \u2013\u00a0Julia Ehrt<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThe day I put on a skirt I vanished \u2014 people like me were not anymore seen on TV. I grew up believing I was a white heterosexual male and sitting here today you can see how wrong you can be \u2014 and the day I came out I realized trans people are not in the news. They are not politicians, they\u2019re nowhere to be seen.<\/p>\n

I thought, well I am still the same person. I am still as smart and as dumb as I was before.\u00a0The day I changed my gender it changed my life dramatically and I thought that was inappropriate. That\u2019s why I started organizing\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014\u00a0Julia Ehrt<\/a><\/strong>, Germany-based trans activist, human rights advocate, and Executive Director of\u00a0Transgender Europe<\/a>\u00a0on why she has devoted her life to the fight<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Steve Letsike<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cPart of organizing [is] when you leave your township, when you leave your village, and come across many people that have gone through the same, you share that experience and you realize there is a problem and \u2026 that\u2019s when when you start to unpack and say, \u2018how do we address that?\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2013\u00a0Steve Letsike<\/a><\/strong>, South African activist, feminist, leader, mentor, and human rights advocate, co-chairperson of the\u00a0South African National AIDS Council<\/a>, co-chair of the National Task Team established by the South African Department of Justice and Constitutional Development to address hate crimes and gender-based violence affecting LGBTI people, and\u00a0Founding Director of Access Chapter 2\u00a0<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Jennifer Lu<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI love my country. I don\u2019t want to leave my country. I want to live in my country with full equal rights.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014\u00a0Jennifer Lu<\/strong>, Taiwanese social worker, activist, writer, and political worker, Main Coordinator or Marriage Equality Coalition Taiwan, Senior Research Fellow at\u00a0Taiwan Tongzhi (LGBTQI+) Hotline Association.<\/a>\u00a0She also ran for a seat in the Taiwan Parliament as Social Democrat candidate and raised the visibility of LGBT issues on the campaign trail in her fight to live in a country with full equal rights.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Vice Mayor\u00a0Joy Belmont<\/strong>\u00a0of Quezon City, Philippines shows what local governments can do. Her flagship programs includes a Protection Center for Women, Children, and LGBT at the Quezon City Hospital and she helped Quezon City approve a \u201cGender-Fair City\u201d ordinance which protects LGBT rights.<\/p>\n

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\u201cDiversity and Inclusion are actually separate. Diversity is about inviting someone to the party. Inclusion is inviting them to dance. The company invites people to the party. The employees invite them to dance.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

An important conversation was that of corporate pink washing \u2014 we in westernized countries have to remember that while we often raise a fight with corporate money, to many people fighting the good fight in developing countries these donations are the only lifeline to continue their programs. Nothing is entirely evil or entirely good.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is the irony of the work \u2014 you need money, there is no answer, there is no silver bullet there.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014\u00a0Aalap Shah<\/strong>, Member of the OutRight Action International Board of Directors, Senior Mobile Product Manager for Capitol One\u2019s Digital and Innovation Lab. Shah has spent his career committed to social justice, financial inclusion, and public-private partnership specializing in marginalized communities\u2019 access to income, markets, and technology.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Tatenda Ngwaru speaking on the Global Intersex Rights Panel<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThe reason why I keep on speaking is because I need the support of the media most importantly because people are familiar with things that are spoken about everyday and Intersex people are not shown on media platforms. I can barely recognize one person that stands as an intersex person who is shown as just a normal human being.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014\u00a0Tatenda Ngwaru<\/strong>, Zimbabwean Intersex Activist, Founder and former Director of the True Identity, the first intersex and transgender organization in Zimbabwe. She is now based in New York as an asylum seeker hoping to one day return to Zimbabwe and continue her work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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On backlash and how to keep going:<\/h3>\n

\u201cFor every time there is success, for every time LBGTQI+ issues become a little more visible\u2026 when there is progress\u2026 when all these things happen there is backlash.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014\u00a0Grace Poore<\/strong>, Malaysian writer, documentary filmmaker, and Regional Program Coordinator for Asia and the Pacific Islands at Outright Action International where she oversees multi-country documentation and advocacy projects, conducts trainings on human rights documentation, and facilitates LGBT engagement with UN mechanisms.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Kimberly Zieselman<\/a>\u00a0(Executive Director of\u00a0InterACT<\/a>),\u00a0Miki Wali<\/a>, and\u00a0Eric Gitari<\/a>\u00a0on the Future of LGBTIQ Rights: Intersectional, Inclusive, and Courageous<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cIf there is backlash it means we are doing something right.\u201d \u2013\u00a0Eric Gitari<\/a>, human rights lawyer, queer activist, writer, Founder and Executive Director of the Kenyan LGBTI rights organization, the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Miki Wali<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThe reality is such, in the Pacific, we may be drowning, literally too, our islands are sinking but girl we\u2019re fighting.\u00a0That\u2019s the reality \u2014 we\u2019re constantly fighting. That\u2019s why we go where the power is.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We\u2019re there to remind our governments that there is an intersectionality of climate justice and gender. We\u2019re there wherever conversations are taking place\u2026 We are there to present any form of manifestos or whatever we can to start this conversation. We may be angry, we may be pissed off because these conversations are quite f***-ed up but that\u2019s the reality \u2014 we have to go where these powers are.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We need to systematically re-strategize our plans as we move forward \u2014 and coming into spaces like this where we can also find each other and hold each other\u2019s hands and also hold each other.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014\u00a0Miki Wali<\/a>, Fijian Trans and youth feminist activist, human rights defender, gender advocate, co-founder and Programme Support Officer of the\u00a0Haus of Khalemeon,<\/a>\u00a0(the youngest) board member of the Pacific Sexual Diversity Network, former Executive Board member of the Fiji National Youth Council and the St. Piers Catholic Youth Wing, member of the UN Working Group on Youth and Children, first Trans activist from Fiji to attend the Commission on the Status of Women.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kathmandu (Pahichan) December 24 – On Saturday in New York, LGBTIQ+ activists from around the world gathered to discuss the challenges and the solutions from the frontlines around the world atOutSummit. It comes on the heels of \u201cAdvocacy Week,\u201d organized by OutRight Action International, where LGBTIQ activists from around the world meet with UN officials to discuss their priorities and demand accountability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":9084,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[621,490,11],"tags":[1658,1657],"class_list":["post-9083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-slider","category-world","tag-lbgtq","tag-lesbian-human-rights-commission"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9083"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9085,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9083\/revisions\/9085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}