Yes, but, when it comes to queer history, who were your activists? Your heroes? Same-sex marriage is legal in Greece, so how did it get there?
I think you're trying to assign the US reality to Greece, which has been self-identified as "Iran of the West", where queer people, POC and women saw things in the US that remained only a dream until EXTREMELY recently. We're not the worst case in Europe, but we are at the lowest places.
- We are not the lowest in the world either and I don't want to seem like my annoyance is above anyone else's who has it worse. But still, lgbt+ people in Greece have many problems and I/we are allowed to rant about that. Problems don't stop because somewhere else the situation is worse.
Same-sex marriage is not legal in Greece. Only same-sex cohabitation agreements are allowed. Adoption is not allowed either for a same-sex couple but foster care is allowed since 2018.
The first Pride parade happened in 1970, New York. The first Pride parade in Greece happened in 2015. And only in one city, Athens. Again, we are not talking about 1970, we are talking about freaking 2015.
Local Heroes? We don't have them, they are all US American. Not because the Greek ones don't exist but because the average Greeks don't know them and they're not taught about them or queer past events before 2015 by the popular media or educational institutes. They are actually obscure, and the American ones are usually only known here.
Unless you're studying the field or actively researching you're not going to learn their names. I don't care how bitter this sounds, this is the truth for most Greeks and my own experience. Oh, and nearly all these things happened in one city, Athens. For the rest of Greece it was/is even worse.
Also, most Greek activists haven't died because queer pressure for equal treatment began quite recently. The actions for rights also moved at a snail's pace, and IMO Greece is still at least three decades behind the US. (People don't seem to realize that the US is the blueprinT for half the world on this matter, as well as combating racism). The youth is quite active and this makes some progress but a large part of society is not ready for it.
I found a Diploma Thesis by Vasiliki Polikarpou and it helped me put the events and names in order. (Διπλωματική εργασία Βασιλικής Πολυκάρπου, Αθήνα 2019. Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών Σχολή Οικονομικών και Πολιτικών Επιστημών Τμήμα Πολιτικής Επιστήμης και Δημόσιας Διοίκησης ΠΜΣ «Πολιτική Επιστήμη και Κοινωνιολογία».)
In 1953 the Hellenic Union for Human and Citizen Rights was founded "by reputable members of the middle class" and participated in the lgbt+ rights movement.
Stonewall and the French Revolution of May 1968 influenced the Greek lgbt+ into organization and demanding of rights.
In 1976 ΑΚΟΕ (Απελευθερωτικό Κίνημα Ομοφυλόφιλων Ελλάδας - Homosexual Liberation Movement of Greece) was founded.
The political parties ΠΑΣΟΚ (1981), ΚΚΕ Εσωτερικού and ΚΟΔΗΣΟ (also ΕΚΟΝ (Ελληνική Κομμουνιστική Νεολαία) Ρήγας Φεραίος) slowly became friendlier to the lgbt+ and promoted gender equality. ΑΚΟΕ participated in the festival Αυγής-Θουρίου (Avgis-Thouriou) in 1979 organized by EKON Rigas Feraios, and that's whyEKON's political opponents called them "Rigades-Sisters" (sisters = gay, in a derogatory way).
ΑΚΟΕ, founded by Λουκάς Θεοδωρακόπουλος (Loukas Theodorakopoulos) among others, also published the ΑΜΦΙ magazine. AKOE had a Political them, which mainly made contacts with the youth of the political parties, the AKOE Events Group, which organized indoor gatherings, put up posters, wrote slogans, etc., the Self-Analysis group, a very important group that helped children to realize their problems and accept themselves, as well as various others acts.
Since 1978 Loukas Theodorakopoulos is present in the famous Athens' polythecnical university and participates in the events about the anniversary of the uprising, while advocating for free expression of everyone's sexual identity.
ΑΚΟΕ never became a legal entity, as not even 10 influential people wanted to sign the papers.
It's worth noting that drag shows began to appear in bars and cabaret imitating various stars, divas, gay icons since the '70s - in Athens, as always.
The forming of the Autonomous Group of Homosexual Women in 1979 is one of the most prominent divisions within the wider movement.
It was preceded in 1975 by the Women's Liberation Movement.
The event at the "Lusitania" theater, which took place in Athens on April 25, 1977, on the occasion of the bill "On venereal diseases, protection and regulation of related issues", was crucial for the lgbt+ rights movement. It was organized by the gay Greek men Νίκος Μουρατίδης, Ανδρέας Βελισσαρόπουλος, Λουκάς Θεοδωρακόπουλος.
The "travesti" (the term for trans women used back then but also in the Thesis itself to be historically accurate to the self-identification) had a leading role in that event. They were "the social group hit the most brutally", according to Theodorakopoulos' accounts, and their presence started getting stronger since 1975. The trans woman Μπέτυ Βακαλίδου (Betty Vakalidou) was the main spokesperson in that event, considered by some the equivalent of Marsha Johnson and Sylva Rivera. The trans woman Aloma was very active, too.
After the fall of the Junta, masks, anonymity, and pseudonyms were very common practices, whether it was a public appearance of a lgbt+ person in a political action, or a text on sexual liberation and the demands of the community that might have endangered their creator.
The conference "Sexuality and Politics", another milestone event for the movement, was organized by AKOE at the French Institute on November 7, 1982.
Cavafy wrote "Before Time Changed Them", which is one of the poet's love poems with clear references to his homoerotic desire and experience.
A similar case was the publication of "Her Inamorata", the first lesbian novel published in Greek in 1929 under the author's penname Ντόρα Ρωζέττη (Dora Rosetti) and was a bold confession of her love for another woman. The writer was Νέλλη Καλογλοπούλου (Nelli Kaloglopoulou).
The end of the 90's also marks the end of AKOE. This gap is filled in May 1988 by the Hellenic Homosexual Community ( Ελληνική Ομοφυλοφιλική Κοινότητα (ΕΟΚ)), in the form of a non-profit organization. Βαγγέλης Γιαννέλος (Vangelis Giannelos) was its president for 18 years, while the EOK was the first group of legal status of the Greek lgbt+ community.
More notable members of the Greek LGBT+:
Napoleon Lapathiotis was born in 1888 in Athens and was a Greek poet of the so-called "'20s generation". Ηe was one of the few poets of his time who was openly gay, and that is reflected in his work. Mitsos Papanikolaou was another openly gay poet of the time, and the two knew each other.
Γιάννης Τσαρούχης (Yannis Tsarouchis) (1910-1989) was a gay Greek modernist painter and set designer who achieved international fame, and was "known in particular for his homoerotic subjects," including soldiers, sailors, and nude males. But in his different exhibitions some of his homoerotic paintings were taken down.
Μάνος Χατζιδάκις (Manos Hatzidakis) was one of the first to "dare" to admit that he was gay at the time (1980's): "They say that artists are either communists or homosexuals. However, I am not a communist". He was a Greek composer and theorist of Greek music, widely considered to be one of the greatest Greek composers and one of the most globally recognized. His activism was very intense.
Κώστας Ταχτσής (Kostas Tachtsis), the well-known author of the Third Wreath (Το Τρίτο Στεφάνι), passed away on August 25, 1988 - probably murdered. He was writing about the "travesti" (trans women) at the time. (Again, the term used for historical reasons)
Σπύρος Μπιμπίλας (Spyros Bibilas), being gay himself, he played the first gay man and the first trans woman on Greek TV, and he gave the first gay kiss on the Greek theater stage. While some roles were more stereotypical, others were groundbreaking and exposed the Greek audience to various aspects of queer expression. He is not only one of our most beloved voice, tv and stage actors, but he has fought for worker's rights and the rights of the lgbt+ community.
Μαρίνα Γαλανού (Marina Galanou), trans woman and activist in an international scale. She had drafted dozens of bills, amendments, ministerial decisions, rights circulars, some of which are already state laws and regulatory administrative acts. In 2004 Marina founded the first exclusively gay, lesbian and trans (then) bookstore and publishing house in Athens. The Colorful Planet. She actively contributed to giving the first asylum to a gay Iranian refugee, the first asylum given by the Hellenic Republic due to persecution for one's sexual orientation. This after many years was established as a special reason for asylum in Greek law. In 2010 Marina along with many other trans people founded the Transgender Support Association (Σωματείο Υποστήριξης Διεμφυλικών). Find more about her here!
Ζαχαρίας "Ζακ" Κωστόπουλος (Zacharias "Zach" Kostopoulos) (1985-2018) worked at the "Athens Check Point" (HIV prevention center), volunteered for the Positive Voice (Association of HIV-positive people in Greece), while writing articles on the internet, in the queer magazine Antivirus and in the newspaper Documento on issues related to human rights, sexuality and HIV. He had served as president of ΟΛΚΕ (Homosexual Lesbian Community of Greece). In the last years before his death he participated in drag queen performances in Athens with the persona "Zackie Oh".
Ηλίας Γκιώνης (Ilias Gionis) is not exactly a "hero", from what I've heard but he is surely a known activist, so I thought I shouldn't exclude him. He is known in the lgbt+ community for his activist action and for his drag persona, GingerEla, "initiated" in drag by his friend and roommate Zach Kostopoulos.
Γιώργος Καπουτζίδης (Giorgos Kapoutzidis) is one of the most famous screenwriters and actors of the recent generations. Being openly gay, he speaks about his homosexuality on social media and popular talk shows, encouraging in a very direct way the Greek audience to support human rights for the lgbt+ (like marriage and adoption). He admitted that in his first works he depicted queer people in a stereotypical way and he apologized for that, later writing a non-stereotypical gay couple in the series "Εθνική Ελλάδος". He also played one of the gay men of the show, and as this character addressed the homophobia he faced in Greece. In my opinion he bridges the gap between the not so well informed average Greek viewer and the lgbt+ community in a successful way.
The ΑΜΦΙ (AMFI) magazine was the first gay magazine ever published in Greece and its first issue was published in the spring of 1978. It was one of the main propagandists of issues related to sexual liberation and reached 25 issues, the last of which was published in 1990.
The Κράξιμο (Kraximo) magazine published fourteen issues from 1981 to 1993 by the well known trans woman activist Paola Revenioti, also known as Paola.
Λάβρυς (Lavrys) Magazine ran from the spring of 1982 to the summer of 1983 in three issues. One of the main reasons for its publication was the "absence of any analysis / expression of feminism from a purely Lesbian point of view".
To the acceptance of queer people, the magazine ΚΛΙΚ (CLICK) also helped, by promoting gay role models. The first issue was published in May 1987. The "lifestyle" way of life the magazine promoted to the average Greek contributed a lot to "gay liberation".
Τα Καλιαρντά (Kaliarda, plural):
The Kaliarda was not just a language, but also the depiction of a period politically charged and with elements from the popular culture that accompanied the gay, transvestite, lesbian community, already recorded since 1904 and used fun until today.
The trans woman Paola Revenioti says: "From Kaliarda we can see a whole era of homosexual life in Greece, from shortly before the First World War until the fall of the Junta."
