International Day Against HOmophobia, BIphobia & Transphobia, May 17
Founded by Luis-Georges Tin;
Originally called just IDAHO, first celebrared in 2005;
Transphobia and Biphobia were added in 2009 and 2015, respectively;
The date, May 17, was chosen as it's the day Homosexuality was removed from the International Classification of Diseases in 1990.
A few things I wanted to say:
It's particularly important that on the occasion of a widely recognized day are recognized multiple kinds of discrimination, as everyone's struggles are different. It is vital for us to recognize that, and better understand them; the community is extremely varied and we must listen to each other so as to better offer support and help. We also have to understand and recognize when multiple kinds of bigotry ovrlap, causing a very specific discrimination, different from the mere sum of its parts. I'd like to dedicate this to all of you:
To the lesbians, who are constantly fetishisized and invalidated because such a misogynistic society can't accept the concept of a sexuality which doesn't cater to men in any way;
To the gay men, fetishisized as well, who are told to "man up" and showered in toxic masculinity, because loving another man is apparently unacceptable and means you failed your "duty" to originate a picket-fence-2.5-kids family;
To the bisexuals and pansexuals, who are constantly told they need to "pick a side"- usually, "gay man in denial" and "just an attention seeking straight woman"; whose struggles are often invalidated by the community itself because they "can pass as straight", constantly erased by both gay and straight people, often put in either of those boxes, and being accused of transphobia by each other;
To transgender people, often invalidated and silenced, or treated as a fetish, forced to have their privacy violated by medical professionals just to recieve treatment, seen as a sick people to pity and as if they couldn't know for themselves, dismissed if they don't "pass", victims of so many hate crimes- especially trans women;
And specifically, trans non binary people, who live their identity in potentially infinite ways, but are dismissed if they don't meet the expectation of "perfect" androgyny;
To the Aces and Aros, invisible, considered ill and pushed to "get cured", victims of "corrective" r*pe, aces dismissed as prudes, aros as promiscuous, aroaces as inherently sad, all told they need to "find the one" since society is amatonormative;
To all the people who use lesser know labels, agender, bigender, demigender folks and all others, who never know whether coming out will have them explaining their identity yet again;
To queer poc, underrepresented in an underrepresented community, victims of racism from and stereotyped by people within the community, and majority of the victims of hate crimes;
And to all those whose identity I've failed to address, and struggles to highlight:
You're valid. Dont let anyone take that away from you, You know your identity and are allowed to live with it in peace. Respect others', too, and everyone's pronouns.
We can make it through despite all the hate. We can make it.
17/5/2020 Luca, he/him and they/them
