Comments | emilygrrl: First post; A little about myself

emilygrrl

First post; A little about myself

Aug 21, 2004 10:13

Hey all ( Read more... )

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Tired Reflections anonymous August 21 2004, 21:52:14 UTC

Hi Emily,

I think this is great too, and even though I am pretty out and confident in my identity as a lesbian, I'd be the first to admit there is a lot to learn about gender, queer issues and such. The reason why I am compelled to post here today, is because of one experience. So here is my story -

I am a lesbian, I love both my feminine and my masculine sides, but I don't feel like one is strong enough for me to have to give it a name...I am also an immigrant to Canada, and I am Bulgarian. For the last 5 years, which I have spent in Canada, one of the hardest things to live with, is the reconciliation of my sexuality with my ethnicity. When i found no other Bulgarian queers out here, I have been on the search for queers back in Bulgaria, and recently found a great organization called Gemini, which does advocacy work under a larger European organization, in Bulgaria.

They have a great website full of recources, and a discussion list, which I was sooooo excited about, being the very first time I would talk to OUT Bulgarians...queers of all sorts. Yet, however nice and inspiring...this has been also an extremely trying experience for me, because the whole gender/feminist/etc. movement is soooooo rudimentary there. So many ideas, from feminism and queer theory are misunderstood, misrepresented and revoked.

My last experience there was to be called a "feminist" in an obviously derogatory manner, because I tried to explain to a bisexual man that just becuase heterosexual men love lesbo-erotica this doesn't mean success for the queer rights movement in Bulgaria.

There is so much internalized homophobia on this forum that it fills me with even more sorrow than before I even participated in it. I guess I am saying all of this becuase I need a safe place to do so, and I need some support...

Milena

Re: Tired Reflections emilygrrl August 21 2004, 22:07:46 UTC

Hi Milena,

You are definitely not alone here; while I don't have any friends who are Bulgarian, I do have a queer friend who is Romanian. Wrong nation, I realize, but same region. With that in mind, I'm sure there are many more Bulgarian queer people here in Canada.

Would you like to post links to the online resources here? Perhaps there are some readers who are interested to know about the resources you mentioned.

There are definitely safe places to go to express your feelings offline as well. If you are living in Vancouver, then the Centre is located at 1180 Bute St. (near the corner of Bute and Davie) - it is a great place to start.

Good luck, and thank you for your support as well. This is definitely a safe space to express your thoughts about queer issues. Let's keep on supporting each other, readers!

Re: Tired Reflections anonymous August 23 2004, 12:54:37 UTC

Hi Emily, thanks for your kind words. i guess this is as good place as any to run into other queers from the East Block (and Romania certainly falls into that) so here are two links:

http://www.bgogemini.org
This is the site I mentioned in my first post. Unfortunately only the bulgarian version works, the english is under construction. However, this next site, is the personal english-language site of the Gemini LGBT organization chair which contains lots of resources, some current, many outdated, but lots of regional information.

http://www.s-news.co.uk/en/home.html

Cheers, Milena

Re: Tired Reflections emilygrrl August 25 2004, 06:59:50 UTC

Just correcting a mistake of mine: The Centre is located at 1170 Bute St.

Re: Tired Reflections emilygrrl August 27 2004, 08:09:42 UTC

By the way, Milena, I just wanted to say благодаря! (Hope I got it right...)

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