Supporting feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements to thrive, to be a driving force in challenging systems of oppression, and to co-create feminist realities.
While we dream of a feminist world, there are those who are already building and living it. These are our Feminist Realities!
What are Feminist Realities?
Feminist Realities are the living, breathing examples of the just world we are co-creating. They exist now, in the many ways we live, struggle and build our lives.
Feminist Realities go beyond resisting oppressive systems to show us what a world without domination, exploitation and supremacy look like.
These are the narratives we want to unearth, share and amplify throughout this Feminist Realities journey.
Transforming Visions into Lived Experiences
Through this initiative, we:
Create and amplify alternatives: We co-create art and creative expressions that center and celebrate the hope, optimism, healing and radical imagination that feminist realities inspire.
Build knowledge: We document, demonstrate & disseminate methodologies that will help identify the feminist realities in our diverse communities.
Advance feminist agendas: We expand and deepen our collective thinking and organizing to advance just solutions and systems that embody feminist values and visions.
Mobilize solidarity actions: We engage feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements and allies in sharing, exchanging and jointly creating feminist realities, narratives and proposals at the 14th AWID International Forum.
The AWID International Forum
As much as we emphasize the process leading up to, and beyond, the four-day Forum, the event itself is an important part of where the magic happens, thanks to the unique energy and opportunity that comes with bringing people together.
We expect the next Forum to:
Build the power of Feminist Realities, by naming, celebrating, amplifying and contributing to build momentum around experiences and propositions that shine light on what is possible and feed our collective imaginations
Replenish wells of hope and energy as much needed fuel for rights and justice activism and resilience
Strengthen connectivity, reciprocity and solidarity across the diversity of feminist movements and with other rights and justice-oriented movements
Anti-rights actors adopt a double strategy. As well as launching outright attacks on the multilateral system, anti-rights actors also undermine human rights from within. Anti-rights actors engage with the aim of co-opting processes, entrenching regressive norms, and undermining accountability.
Anti-rights actors’ engagement in international human rights spaces has a principal purpose: to undermine the system and its ability to respect, protect and fulfill human rights for all people, and to hold member states accountable for violations. Some anti-rights tactics operate from outside the UN and include delegitimization and political pressure to defund the UN, or to withdraw from international human rights agreements. In recent years, anti-rights actors have also gained increasing influence inside the UN. Their inside tactics include training of delegates, distortion of human rights frameworks, watering down human rights agreements, infiltrating NGO committees, applying for ECOSOC status under neutral names, infiltrating youth spaces, and lobbying to place anti-rights actors in key positions.
Table of Contents
Institutionalization of Anti-rights Actors in UN Mechanisms
Tshegofatso Senne is a Black, chronically-ill, genderqueer feminist who does the most. Much of their work is rooted in pleasure, community, and dreaming, while being informed by somatic abolitionism and disability, healing, and transformative justices. Writing, researching, and speaking on issues concerning feminism, community, sexual and reproductive justice, consent, rape culture, and justice, Tshegofatso has 8 years of experience theorising on the ways in which these topics intersect with pleasure. They run their own business, Thembekile Stationery, and their community platform Hedone brings people together to explore and understand the power of trauma-awareness and pleasure in their daily lives. Tshegofatso believes deeply in the individual and collective potential of regenerative and sustainable change, pleasure, and care work.
The body. The most permanent home we have.
The body, not the thinking brain, is where we experience most of our pain, pleasure, and joy, and where we process most of what happens to us. It is also where we do most of our healing, including our emotional and psychological healing. And it is where we experience resilience and a sense of flow.
These words, said by Resmaa Menakem in his book My Grandmother’s Hands, have stayed with me.
The body; it holds our experiences. Our memories. Our resilience. And as Menakem has written, the body also holds our traumas. It responds with spontaneous protective mechanisms to stop or prevent more damage. That is the power of the body. Trauma is not the event; it is how our bodies respond to events that feel dangerous to us. It is often left stuck in the body, until we address it. There’s no talking our body out of this response – it just is.
Using Ling Tan’s Digital Superpower app, I tracked how my body felt as I travelled around different parts of my city, Johannesburg, South Africa. The app is a gesture-driven online platform that allows you to trace your perceptions as you move through locations by logging and recording the data. I used it to track my psychosomatic symptoms – physical reactions connected to a mental cause. Whether that be flashbacks. Panic attacks. Tightness in the chest. A fast heartbeat. Tension headaches. Muscle pain. Insomnia. Struggling to breathe. I tracked these symptoms as I walked and travelled to different areas in Johannesburg. And I asked myself.
Where can we be safe? Can we be safe?
Psychosomatic responses can be caused by a number of things, and some are not as severe as others. After experiencing any kind of trauma you may feel intense distress in similar events or situations. I tracked my sensations, ranked on a scale of 1-5, where 1 were the instances I barely felt any of these symptoms – I felt at ease rather than on-guard and jumpy, my breath and heart rate were stable, I was not looking over my shoulder – and number 5 being the opposite – symptoms that had me close to a panic attack.
As a Black person. As a queer person. As a genderqueer person who could be perceived as a woman, depending on what my gender expression is that day.
I asked myself.
Where can we be safe?
Even in neighbourhoods one might consider “safe,” I felt constantly panicked. Looking around me to make sure I wasn’t being followed, adjusting the way my T-shirt sat so my breasts wouldn’t show up as much, looking around to make sure I knew multiple routes to get out of the place I was should I sense danger. An empty road brings anxiety. A packed one does too. Being in an Uber does. Walking on a public road does. Being in my apartment does. So does picking up a delivery from the front of the building.
Can we be safe?
Pumla Dineo Gqola speaks of the Female Fear Factory. It may or may not be familiar, but if you’re someone socialised as a woman, you’ll know this feeling well. The feeling that has you planning every step you take, whether you’re going to work, school, or just running an errand. The feeling that you have to watch how you dress, act, speak in public and private spaces. The feeling in the pit of your stomach if you have to travel at night, get a delivery, or deal with any person who continues to socialise as a cis man. Harassed on the street, always with the threat of violence. Us existing in any space comes with an innate fear.
Fear is both an individual and a socio-political phenomenon. At an individual level, fear can be present as part of a healthy well developing warning system […] When we think about fear, it is important to hold both notions of individual emotional experience and the political ways in which fear has been used in different epochs for control. - Pumla Dineo Gqola, in her book Rape: A South African Nightmare
South African women, femmes, and queers know that every step we take outside – steps to do ordinary things: a walk to the shops, a taxi to work, an Uber from a party – all of these acts are a negotiation with violence. This fear, is part of the trauma. To cope with the trauma we carry in our bodies, we develop responses to detect danger – watching the emotional responses of those around us, reading for “friendliness.” We’re constantly on guard.
Day after day. Year after year. Life after life. Generation after generation.
On the additional challenge of this learned defence system, author of The Body Keeps Score, Bessel Van Der Kolk, has said
It disrupts this ability to accurately read others, rendering the trauma survivor either less able to detect danger or more likely to misperceive danger where there is none. It takes tremendous energy to keep functioning while carrying the memory of terror, and the shame of utter weakness and vulnerability.
As Resmaa Menakem has said, trauma is in everything; it infiltrates the air we breathe, the water we drink, the foods we eat. It is in the systems that govern us, the institutions that teach and also traumatise us, and within the social contracts we enter into with each other. Most importantly, we take it with us everywhere we go, in our bodies, exhausting us and eroding our health and happiness. We carry that truth in our bodies. Generations of us have.
So, as I walk around my city, whether an area is considered “safe” or not, I carry the traumas of generations whose responses are embedded in my body. My heart palpitates, it becomes difficult to breathe, my chest tightens – because my body feels as though the trauma is happening in that very moment. I live hyper vigilant. To the point where one is either too on-guard to mindfully enjoy their life, or too numb to absorb new experiences.
For us to begin to heal, we need to acknowledge these truths.
These truths that live in our bodies.
This trauma is what keeps many of us from living the lives we want. Ask any femme or queer person what safety looks like to them and they’ll mostly share examples that are simple tasks – being able to simply live joyful lives, without the constant threat of violence.
Feelings of safety, of comfort and ease, are spatial. When we embody our trauma, it affects the ways we perceive our own safety, affects the ways we interact with the world, and alters the ways we are able to experience and embody anything pleasurable and joyful.
We have to refuse this burdensome responsibility and fight for a safe world for all of us. Walking wounded as many of us are, we are fighters. Patriarchy may terrorise and brutalise us, but we will not give up the fight. As we repeatedly take to the streets, defying the fear in spectacular and seemingly insignificant ways, we defend ourselves and speak in our own name. - Pumla Dineo Gqola, in her book Rape: A South African Nightmare
Where can we be safe? How do we begin to defend ourselves, not just in the physical sense, but in the emotional, psychological, and spiritual senses?
“Trauma makes weapons out of us all,” adrienne maree brown has said in an interview conducted by Justin Scott Campbell. And her work, Pleasure Activism, offers us multiple methodologies to heal that trauma and ground ourselves in the understanding that healing, justice, and liberation can also be pleasurable experiences. Especially those of us who are the most marginalised, who may have been raised to equate suffering with “The Work.” The Work that so many of us have gone into as activists, community builders and workers, those serving the most marginalised, The Work that we struggle in order to do, burning ourselves out and rarely caring for our minds and bodies. The alternative is becoming more informed about our trauma, able to identify our own needs, and becoming deeply embodied. That embodiment means we are simply more able to experience the world through the senses and sensations in our bodies, acknowledging what they tell us rather than suppressing and ignoring the information it is communicating with us.
Being constantly in conversation with our living body and intentionally practising those conversations connects us to embodiment more deeply; it allows us to make tangible the emotions we feel as we interact with the world, befriend our bodies, and understand all that they try to teach us. When understanding trauma and embodiment paired, we can begin to start the healing and access pleasure more holistically, healthily, and in our daily lives without shame and guilt. We can begin to access pleasure as a tool for individual and social change, tapping into the power of the erotic as Audre Lorde described it. A power that allows us to share the joy we access and experience, expanding our capacity for happiness and understanding that we are deserving of it, even with our trauma.
Tapping into pleasure and embodying the erotic gives us the expansion of being deliberately alive, feeling grounded and stable and understanding our nervous systems. It allows us to understand and shed the generational baggage we’ve been carrying without realising; we can be empowered with the knowledge that even as traumatised as we are, as traumatised as we potentially could be in the future, we are still deserving of pleasurable and joyful lives, that we can share that power with our people. It is the community aspect that is missing from the ways we care for ourselves; self-care cannot exist without community care. We are able to feel a deeper internal trust, safety, and power of ourselves, especially in the face of future traumas that will trigger us, knowing how to soothe and stabilise ourselves. All this understanding leads us to a deep internal power that is resourced to meet any challenges that come your way.
As those living with deep generational traumas, we have come to distrust and perhaps think we are incapable of containing and accessing the power we have. In “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power,” Lorde teaches us that the erotic offers a source of replenishment, a way to demand better for ourselves and our lives.
For the erotic is not a question only of what we do; it is a question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing. Once we know the extent to which we are capable of feeling that sense of satisfaction and completion, we can then observe which of our various life endeavours brings us closest to that fullness.
I don’t say any of this lightly – I know that this is easier said than done. I know that many of us are prevented from understanding these truths, from internalising or even healing them. Resistance comes with acts of feeling unsafe, but is not impossible. Resisting power structures that keep the most powerful safe will always endanger those of us shoved to the margins. Acknowledging the traumas you’ve faced is a reclamation of your lived experiences, those that have passed and those that will follow; it is resistance that embodies that knowledge that we are deserving of more than the breadcrumbs these systems have forced us to lap up. It is a resistance that understands that pleasure is complicated by trauma, but it can be accessed in arbitrary and powerful ways. It is a resistance that acknowledges that our trauma is a resource that connects us to each other, and can allow us to keep each other safe. It is a resistance that understands that even with pleasure and joy, this is not a utopia; we will still harm and be harmed, but we will be better equipped for survival and thrive in a community of diverse care and kindness. A resistance that makes way for healing and connecting to our full human selves.
Healing will never be an easy and rosy journey, but it begins with the acknowledgment of the possibility. When oppression makes us believe that pleasure is not something that we all have equal access to, one of the ways that we start doing the work of reclaiming our full selves — our whole liberated, free selves — is by reclaiming our access to pleasure.
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha has said in her article in Pleasure Activism (to which she contributed),
I know that for most people, the words “care” and “pleasure” can’t even be in the same sentence. We’re all soaking in ableism’s hatred of bodies that have needs, and we’re given a really shitty choice: either have no needs and get to have autonomy, dignity, and control over your life or admit you need care and lose all of the above.
The power that this has? We understand our traumas, so we understand those of others; we embody the sensations we experience and tend to them rather than distract and avoid. We access pleasure in ways that make us want to share that joy with those in our communities. When we are trauma-informed, we give ourselves more room to experience all this and give ourselves, and others, permission to heal. Imagine, a community in which everyone has access, resources, and time to live pleasurable lives, in whichever way they want and deserve. In which spatial traumas are lessened because the people that occupy them are trauma-aware, are filled with a tender care. Isn’t that healing? Is that not working through generational traumas? Does that not build and sustain healthier futures for us all?
It is time we reconnected with the ancestral knowledge that we deserve to live full lives. We need to get back in touch with our natural right to joy and existing for ourselves. To feel pleasure simply for the sake of it. To not live lives of terror. It sounds radical; it feels radical. In a world where we have been socialised and traumatised to numb, to fear, to feel and remain powerless, to be greedy and live with structural issues that lead to mental illness, what a gift and wonder it is to begin to feel, to be in community with those who feel, to be healthily interdependent in, to love each other boldly. Feeling is radical. Pleasure is radical. Healing is radical.
You have permission to feel pleasure. You have permission to dance, create, make love to yourself and others, celebrate and cultivate joy. You are encouraged to do so. You have permission to heal. Don’t bottle it up inside, don’t try to move through this time alone. You have permission to grieve. And you have permission to live. - adrienne maree brown, “You Have Permission”
Somatic embodiment allows us to explore our trauma, work through it and make meaningful connections to ourselves and the collective. Doing this over time sustains our healing; just like trauma, healing is not a one-time only event. This healing helps move us toward individual and collective liberation.
In “A Queer Politics of Pleasure,” Andy Johnson speaks about the ways in which the queering of pleasure offers us sources of healing, acceptance, release, playfulness, wholeness, defiance, subversion, and freedom. How expansive! When we embody pleasure in ways that are this holistic, this queer, we are able to acknowledge the limitation.
Queering pleasure also asks us the questions that intersect our dreaming with our lived realities.
Who is free or deemed worthy enough to feel pleasure? When is one allowed to feel pleasure or pleased? With whom can one experience pleasure? What kind of pleasure is accessible? What limits one from accessing their full erotic and pleased potential? - Andy Johnson, “A Queer Politics
of Pleasure”
When our trauma-informed pleasure practices are grounded in community care, we begin to answer some of these questions. We begin to understand the liberating potential. As pleasure activists, this is the reality we ground ourselves within. The reality that says, my pleasure may be fractal, but it has the potential to heal not only me and my community, but future bloodlines.
I am a whole system; we are whole systems. We are not just our pains, not just our fears, and not just our thoughts. We are entire systems wired for pleasure, and we can learn how to say yes from the inside out. - Prentis Hemphill, interviewed by Shar Jossell
There’s a world of pleasure that allows us to begin to understand ourselves holistically, in ways that give us room to rebuild the realities that affirm that we are capable and deserving of daily pleasure. BDSM, one of my deepest pleasures, allows me a glimpse into these realities where I can both feel and heal my trauma, as well as feel immeasurable opportunities to say yes from the inside out. While trauma keeps me stuck in a cycle of fight or flight, bondage, kneeling, impact, and breath play encourage me to stay grounded and connected, reconnecting to restoration. Pleasure that is playful allows me to heal, to identify where traumatic energy is stored in my body and focus my energy there. It allows me to express the sensations my body feels through screams of pain and delight, to express my no with no fear and revel in the fuck yes. With a safety plan, aftercare, and a deeper understanding of trauma, kink offers a place of pleasure and healing that is invaluable.
So whether your pleasure looks like cooking a meal at your leisure, engaging in sex, having bed days with your people, participating in disability care collectives, having someone spit in your mouth, going on accessible outings, having cuddle dates, attending an online dance party, spending time in your garden, being choked out in a dungeon,
I hope you take pleasure with you wherever you go. I hope it heals you and your people.
Recognising the power of the erotic within our lives can give us the energy to pursue genuine change within our world. - Audre Lorde, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power”
ExploreTransnational Embodiments
This journal edition in partnership with Kohl: a Journal for Body and Gender Research, will explore feminist solutions, proposals and realities for transforming our current world, our bodies and our sexualities.
نصدر النسخة هذه من المجلة بالشراكة مع «كحل: مجلة لأبحاث الجسد والجندر»، وسنستكشف عبرها الحلول والاقتراحات وأنواع الواقع النسوية لتغيير عالمنا الحالي وكذلك أجسادنا وجنسانياتنا.
I have many fond memories in my journey with feminism, but one in particular that stands out. It was during my time at graduate school, at a lecture I attended as part of a Feminist Theory course. This lecture was on African feminism and in it the professor talked about the history of Pan Africanism and the ways in which it was patriarchal, male-centric, and how Pan Africanist scholars perpetuated the erasure of African women. She talked about how African women’s contributions to the anti-colonial and decolonial struggles on the continent are rarely, if ever, discussed and given their due credit. We read about the African feminist scholars challenging this erasure and actively unearthing these stories of African women led movements and resistance efforts. It seems so simple but what stood out to me the most was that somebody put the words African and feminist together. Better yet, that there were many more of us out there wrestling with the complicated history, politics and societal norms in the various corners of the continent and we were all using a feminist lens to do this. I came out of that lecture feeling moved and completely mind-blown. After the lecture three of my friends (all African feminists) and I spent some time debriefing outside the classroom. We were all so struck by the brilliance of the lecture and the content but, more than anything, we all felt so seen. That feeling stood out to me.
Falling in love feminism was thrilling. It felt like finally getting to talk to your longtime crush and finding out that they like you back. I call it my crush because in high school I referred to myself as a feminist but I didn’t feel like I knew enough about it. Was there a right way to be feminist? What if I wasn’t doing it right? Attending my first Women’s Studies lecture answered some of these questions for me. It was thrilling to learn about stories of feminist resistance and dismantling the patriarchy. I felt so affirmed and validated, but I also felt like something was missing.
Deepening my relationship with feminism through academia, at an institution where the students and teaching staff were mostly white meant that, for those first few years, I noticed that we rarely had discussions about how race and anti-blackness show up in mainstream feminist movements. In most courses we had maybe 1 week, or worse 1 lecture, dedicated to race and we would usually read something by bell hooks, Kimberly Crenshaw’s work on intersectionality, and maybe Patricia Hill Collins. The following week we were back to sidelining the topic. I dealt with this by centring race and black feminism in almost all my assignments, by writing about black hair and respectability politics, the hypersexualization of black women’s bodies, and so much more. Over time I realized that I was trying to fill a gap but didn’t quite know what it was.
Encountering and learning about African feminism was a full circle moment. I realized that there was so much more I had to learn.
Mainly that my Africanness and my feminist politics did not have to be separate. In fact, there was so much that they could learn from each other and there were African feminists out there already doing this work. It was the missing piece that felt so elusive during my exploration of feminism throughout my academic journey.
Feminism to me is the antithesis to social and political apathy. It also means once you adopt a feminist lens, nothing can ever be the same. My friends and I used to talk about how it was like putting on glasses that you can never take off because you now see the world for what it is, mess and all. A mess you can’t simply ignore or walk away from. Therefore my vow to the feminist movement is to never stop learning, to keep stretching the bounds of my empathy and to never live passively. To dedicate more time and space in my life to feminist movements and to continue to amplify, celebrate, document and cite the work of African feminists. I also commit to centring care and prioritizing pleasure in this feminist journey because we can’t sustain our movements without this.
Co-Creating a Political Home for Feminist Movements
Love letter to Feminist Movements #10
I never knew I have a close family who loves me and wants me to grow, My mum has always been there for me, but I never imagined I would have thousands of families out there who are not related to me by blood.
I found out family are not just people related by blood ties, but people who love you unconditionally, not minding your sexual orientation, your health status, social status, or your race.
Thinking about the precious moments I listened to all my sisters around the world who are strong feminists, people I have not meet physically, but who support me, teach me, fight for me: I am short of words, words cannot express how much I love you mentors and other feminists, you’re a mother, a sister, a friend to millions of girls.
You are amazing, you fought for people you don’t know - and that is what makes you so special.
It gladdens my heart to express this through writing.
I love you all and will continue to love you. I have not seen any one of you physically but it seems we have known each other for decades.
We are feminists and we are proud to be women.
We will keep letting the world know that our courage is our crown.
A love letter from FAITH ONUH, a young feminist from Nigeria
WHRDs are self-identified women and lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LBTQI) people and others who defend rights and are subject to gender-specific risks and threats due to their human rights work and/or as a direct consequence of their gender identity or sexual orientation.
WHRDs are subject to systematic violence and discrimination due to their identities and unyielding struggles for rights, equality and justice.
The WHRD Program collaborates with international and regional partners as well as the AWID membership to raise awareness about these risks and threats, advocate for feminist and holistic measures of protection and safety, and actively promote a culture of self-care and collective well being in our movements.
Risks and threats targeting WHRDs
WHRDs are exposed to the same types of risks that all other defenders who defend human rights, communities, and the environment face. However, they are also exposed to gender-based violence and gender-specific risks because they challenge existing gender norms within their communities and societies.
By defending rights, WHRDs are at risk of:
Physical assault and death
Intimidation and harassment, including in online spaces
Judicial harassment and criminalization
Burnout
A collaborative, holistic approach to safety
We work collaboratively with international and regional networks and our membership
to raise awareness about human rights abuses and violations against WHRDs and the systemic violence and discrimination they experience
to strengthen protection mechanisms and ensure more effective and timely responses to WHRDs at risk
We work to promote a holistic approach to protection which includes:
emphasizing the importance of self-care and collective well being, and recognizing that what care and wellbeing mean may differ across cultures
documenting the violations targeting WHRDs using a feminist intersectional perspective;
promoting the social recognition and celebration of the work and resilience of WHRDs ; and
building civic spaces that are conducive to dismantling structural inequalities without restrictions or obstacles
Our Actions
We aim to contribute to a safer world for WHRDs, their families and communities. We believe that action for rights and justice should not put WHRDs at risk; it should be appreciated and celebrated.
Promoting collaboration and coordination among human rights and women’s rights organizations at the international level to strengthen responses concerning safety and wellbeing of WHRDs.
Supporting regional networks of WHRDs and their organizations, such as the Mesoamerican Initiative for WHRDs and the WHRD Middle East and North Africa Coalition, in promoting and strengthening collective action for protection - emphasizing the establishment of solidarity and protection networks, the promotion of self-care, and advocacy and mobilization for the safety of WHRDs;
Increasing the visibility and recognition of WHRDs and their struggles, as well as the risks that they encounter by documenting the attacks that they face, and researching, producing, and disseminating information on their struggles, strategies, and challenges:
Mobilizing urgent responses of international solidarity for WHRDs at risk through our international and regional networks, and our active membership.
After Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex (LGBTQI) rights and communities on the peninsula became subject to the discriminatory and repressive‘anti-gay propaganda’ law.
Tangarr was born in Sevastopol, a city on the Black Sea. But as a gay transman, with strong views and principles supporting feminism, LGBTQI rights and human rights in general, he now considers Crimea a dangerous place and has fled with his partner to the continental part of Ukraine.
About Identity
Unlike most transgender people, Tangarr discovered somewhat later in life that his gender identity didn't match his sex assigned at birth. He told us about his childhood being relatively happy and his parents holding fairly liberal views on how a child is supposed to behave. He and his brother were treated equally, and Tangarr wasn’t persuaded to 'act like a normal girl' or do things traditionally considered feminine by society.
"I was playing Cowboys and Indians, climbing mountains with my parents and my brother, we went backpacking. I practiced Judo. I had no problem with being myself."
The coming of puberty, though, brought challenges for him. He wasn’t happy about everything his mother cherished, particularly the notion that this was the time that ‘turns girls into beautiful women’, an idea often romanticized.
His feelings about those changes were based on worry and frustration, he remembers, “it's hard to realize that your body develops in a way contradictory to your psyche”.
Society didn’t treat him the way he wanted to be treated, people saw in him a young girl, and all he felt was a sense of wrongness and confusion related to the fact that their perception disappointed him.
“I thought I was lesbian (because they're, you know, stereotypically portrayed as masculine women), but I preferred men. It’s one of the moments when you realize how important enlightenment on issues of gender and sexual orientation is.”
Tangarr describes how he lacked information about transgender people, so he thought that the main problem was his body. He worked out, “became more muscular and athletic, yet something was definitely missing”. The sense of wrongness still persisted even if it was diminished by a quite liberal environment, including the understanding and support of friends.
His life was changed by someone (he used to know) attempting to insult him by saying “no matter how hard you work out, you’ll never be a man”. At this point, Tangarr realized something he said he never thought about before...
“I thought I was alone. A girl who feels like a guy — moreover, a gay guy.”
Legal changes and challenges
Prior to his legal sex change, the information Tangarr found online and the people he talked to helped guide him to learn all he needed to know about this process in Ukraine. He read stories, medical articles, basically everything about appearance changes and hormone replacement therapy.
He started the therapy and went through mastectomy (removal of breasts) procedure in Moscow, Russia as there “are no surgeons in Ukraine who are famed for quality in this matter”. For him this also reflects general “ignorance among the population on transgender issues, even among medical workers”.
“For everything we hold dear, it’s unthinkable to refuse facing the challenge.”
However, to complete the legal sex change in Ukraine, irreversible sterilization is mandatory. Tangarr protested against this because, “forced sterilization is discriminatory for too many reasons to count”. With support of a friend, he was able to change documents legally, without undergoing hysterectomy (removal of the uterus). He is one of the very few people who has done so in Ukraine.
Discrimination/Bias/Violence and joining movement(s)
“I always found it weird that nobody does anything to stop it from happening… But then I understood that this nobody is me”
Tangarr’s experiences during his life (as a woman) moved him to join the feminist movement, “as further male socialization highlighted all the challenges girls and women must overcome on a daily basis”. He is an activist in "Lavender Menace", a group whose main fields of interest are queer theory, feminism and transgender rights, and is an active member of the Trans* Coalition, which unites transgender people and their allies in countries of the former Soviet Union.
He has participated in creating an information booklet about gender, has authored articles on transgender issues, has worked on a video to support Odessa Pride, and has spoken on a television show about challenges transgender people face when trying to change legal sex.
In the Kirovograd (central Ukraine) Centre for Fight against HIV and AIDS, Tangarr has been invited to lecture journalists, human rights activists, medical workers and the police on transgender issues.
Tangarr firmly believes that “education is a panacea for biases and misconceptions, discrimination and xenophobia”. His motto: “surrender to the truth as fast as you can”.
“The more we know about gender identity and sexual orientation issues, the less biased we become. With prejudice comes suffering, and to dispel ignorance is to diminish distress caused by it.”
Después de que Rusia le quitara Crimea a Ucrania y la anexara en marzo de 2014, las comunidades de personas lesbianas, gay, bisexuales, trans, queer e intersex (LGBTQI) de la península y sus derechos quedaron sujetos a una ley discriminatoria y represiva conocida como ley de «propaganda anti-gay».
Tangarr nació en Sebastopol, una ciudad sobre el Mar Negro. Como hombre trans y gay con firmes convicciones y principios que apoyan el feminismo, los derechos LGBTQI y los derechos humanos en general, considera que Crimea se ha tornado un lugar peligroso y por eso huyó con su pareja a la parte continental de Ucrania.
Sobre la identidad
A diferencia de la mayoría de las personas trans, Tangarr descubrió relativamente tarde que su identidad de género no coincidía con el sexo que le habían asignado al nacer. Nos contó que su infancia fue relativamente feliz y que su madre y su padre tenían una visión bastante liberal de cómo se supone que lxs niñxs deben comportarse. Los trataban a él y a su hermano de igual manera y nunca intentaron persuadir a Tangarr de que «actuara como una niña normal» o que hiciera cosas que la sociedad tradicionalmente considera como femeninas.
«Jugaba a indios y vaqueros, escalaba montañas con mis padres y mi hermano, íbamos de mochileros. Practicaba judo. No tenía ningún problema en ser yo mismo.»
Pero la llegada de la pubertad implicó desafíos para él. No estaba contento con nada lo que su madre valoraba, sobre todo la idea a menudo idealizada de que ese es el momento en que «las chicas se convierten en bellas mujeres».
Sus sentimientos en relación a esos cambios tenían que ver más con la preocupación y la frustración, y recuerda lo «difícil que es darse cuenta que tu cuerpo se desarrolla de una forma que contradice a tu alma».
La sociedad no lo trataba de la forma en que él quería ser tratado; la gente veía en él a una joven y lo único que él sentía era que algo no estaba bien. Su confusión estaba relacionada con el hecho de que la percepción que la gente tenía de él lo decepcionaba.
«Pensé que era lesbiana (porque, como ya saben, el estereotipo las muestra como mujeres masculinas), pero prefería a los hombres. Es uno de los momentos en los que te das cuenta de lo importante que es entender las cuestiones del género y la orientación sexual».
Tangarr relata que como carecía de información acerca de las personas transgénero, pensó que el problema principal era su cuerpo. Hizo ejercicio y logró «volverse más musculoso y atlético, pero definitivamente algo estaba faltando». Sin embargo, la sensación persistente de que algo no estaba bien se veía atenuada por un entorno bastante liberal en el que contaba con la comprensión y el apoyo de sus amigxs.
Fue una persona (que él conocía) quien cambió su vida cuando intentó insultarle diciendo «No importa cuánto ejercicio hagas, nunca serás un hombre». En ese momento Tangarr se dio cuenta de algo que nunca se le había ocurrido antes...
«Pensé que estaba solx. Una chica que se sentía como un chico — lo que es más, un chico gay».
Cambios legales y desafíos
Antes de su cambio de sexo legal, Tangarr encontró información en línea y habló con gente que le ayudó y le guió mientras aprendía todo lo que necesitaba saber acerca de este proceso en Ucrania. Leyó historias, artículos médicos, básicamente todo lo relacionado con los cambios en la apariencia y la terapia de reemplazo hormonal.
Tangarr comenzó la terapia y se hizo una mastectomía (extirpación de los senos) en Moscú, Rusia, ya que «no hay cirujanos en Ucrania que sean conocidos por su pericia en este tema». Para él, esta situación también refleja el estado general de «ignorancia sobre los temas trans que existe entre la población, incluso entre lxs trabajadorxs de la salud».
«Por todo aquello que atesoramos, es impensable negarse a enfrentar el desafío.»
Sin embargo, en Ucrania, para completar el cambio de sexo legal es obligatoria la esterilización irreversible. Tangarr protestó contra eso porque «las razones por las que la esterilización forzada es discriminatoria son demasiadas para ser enumeradas». Con el apoyo de una persona amiga pudo cambiar sus documentos legalmente, sin someterse a una histerectomía (extracción del útero). Tangarr es una de las pocas personas que lo ha hecho en Ucrania.
Discriminación/Prejuicios/Violencia y la afiliación al/los movimiento(s)
«Siempre me pareció raro que nadie hiciera nada para evitar que eso sucediera... Pero luego entendí que ese nadie era yo.»
Las experiencias de Tangarr durante su vida (como mujer) le llevaron a unirse al movimiento feminista, «ya que el proceso adicional de socialización masculina puso de relieve todos los desafíos que las niñas y mujeres deben superar día a día». Desde entonces es activista en la «Amenaza Violeta», un grupo cuyas principales áreas de interés son la teoría queer, el feminismo y los derechos trans y miembro activo de la Trans* Coalition [Coalición Trans*], grupo que une a las personas trans y sus aliadxs en los países de la antigua Unión Soviética.
En diciembre de 2015 Tangarr comenzó su trabajo como activista participando en un coloquio entre representantes de la comunidad trans de los países de Europa Oriental y Asia Central (EECA, por sus siglas en inglés) y la Eurasian Coalition on Male Health (ECOM) [Coalición Euroasiática sobre Salud Masculina], para discutir sobre prevención y tratamiento de VIH y SIDA entre las personas trans como grupo socialmente vulnerable. Allí hizo una presentación sobre los «Los sesgos cognitivos como razones por las cuales los hombres trans corren un alto riesgo de infección por VIH, métodos de prevención y cómo mejorar la situación».
Tangarr ha colaborado en la creación de un folleto informativo sobre género, ha escrito artículos sobre temas trans, ha trabajado en un video que apoya al grupo Odessa Pride [Orgullo Odesa] y ha hablado en un programa de televisión acerca de los desafíos que enfrentan las personas trans cuando intentan hacer un cambio de sexo legalmente.
En el Centro de Lucha contra el VIH y el SIDA de Kirovogrado (Ucrania central), Tangarr ha sido invitado a dar una conferencia para periodistas, activistas de derechos humanos, trabajadorxs de la salud y policías sobre temas trans.
Tangarr cree firmemente que «la educación es una panacea contra los prejuicios y conceptos erróneos, la discriminación y la xenofobia». Su lema es: «Ríndete a la verdad tan rápido como puedas».
«Cuanto más sepamos sobre identidad de género y orientación sexual, menos prejuicios tendremos. El prejuicio trae aparejado sufrimiento, por eso barrer con la ignorancia es reducir el dolor que ella causa».
Depuis l’annexion de la Crimée à la Russie en mars 2014, les droits et les communautés des personnes lesbiennes, gaies, bisexuelles, trans*, queers et intersexes (LGBT*QI) de la péninsule sont soumis à la loi discriminatoire et répressive de « propagande anti-gays » (lien en anglais).
Tangarr est né à Sébastopol, une ville située au bord de la Mer Noire. Mais cet homme trans* aux convictions et aux principes bien ancrés, soutenant le féminisme, les droits LGBT*QI et les droits humains en général, estime que la Crimée est aujourd’hui un lieu dangereux (lien en anglais) et a fui avec son partenaire en Ukraine continentale.
De l’identité
Contrairement à la plupart des personnes trans*, Tangarr a découvert un peu plus tard que son identité de genre n’était pas en accord avec le sexe qui lui avait été assigné à la naissance. Il nous a raconté que son enfance avait été relativement heureuse, que ses parents avaient une vision plutôt libérale du comportement que l’on attend d’un enfant. Son frère et lui ont été traités de la même façon, et on ne demandait pas à Tangarr « d’avoir le comportement d’une fille normale » ou de faire des choses que la société considère féminines.
« Je jouais aux cowboys et aux indiens, j’escaladais des montagnes avec mes parents et mon frère, on voyageait en sac à dos. Je faisais du judo. J’étais moi-même et je me sentais bien. »
Mais avec la puberté, il a vu surgir les difficultés. Il vivait mal les aspirations de sa mère, en particulier l’idée selon laquelle la puberté était la période qui « transforme les filles en de belles femmes », une idée qui est souvent enjolivée.
Cette métamorphose suscitait en lui des sentiments de frustration et du tourment. Il se souvient : « C’est dur de réaliser que le développement de votre corps prend une direction opposée à celle de votre psyché ».
La société ne l’a pas toujours traité comme il l’aurait souhaité, les gens voyaient en lui une jeune fille. Cela ne lui inspirait qu’une confusion et une impression d’incongruité, toutes deux liées au fait que leur perception le décevait.
« J’ai cru que j’étais lesbienne (parce que, vous savez, elles sont stéréotypées comme étant des femmes masculines), mais je préférais les hommes. C’est là qu’on se rend compte à quel point il est important d’éclairer les gens sur les questions d’orientation de genre et sexuelle. »
Tangarr décrit qu’il a cruellement manqué d’informations concernant les personnes trans*, ce qui l’a amené à croire que le plus gros problème venait de son corps. Il s’est mis à s’entraîner, « [est] devenu plus musclé et athlétique, mais quelque chose manquait clairement ». Bien qu’atténuée par un environnement assez libéral et par la compréhension et le soutien de ses ami-e-s, cette impression d’incongruité a continué de persister.
Sa vie a changé lorsque quelqu’un (qu’il connaissait) a cherché à l’insulter en lui disant : « Tu peux t’entraîner autant que tu veux, tu ne seras jamais un homme ». À cet instant, Tangarr a réalisé une chose à laquelle il dit n’avoir jamais pensé auparavant…
« Je me suis dit que j’étais seul. Une fille qui se sent comme un mec — un mec gay, qui plus est. »
Changements juridiques et obstacles
Avant de changer légalement de sexe, les renseignements que Tangarr a trouvés sur le net et les gens avec lesquels il a échangé l’ont aidé à s’orienter afin d’obtenir toutes les informations nécessaires au sujet de ce processus en Ukraine. Il a lu des témoignages, des articles médicaux, essentiellement tout ce qu’il pouvait sur les changements au niveau de l’apparence et sur le traitement hormonal de substitution.
Il a entamé sa thérapie et subi une mastectomie (ablation des seins) à Moscou, en Russie, puisqu’il « n’existe en Ukraine aucun chirurgien de qualité réputé dans ce domaine ». Pour lui, cela reflète aussi « l’ignorance générale de la population sur les questions trans*, et cela même parmi le corps médical ».
« Au nom de tout ce qui nous tient à cœur, il est impensable de refuser de relever ce défi. »
Mais l’Ukraine exige qu’une stérilisation irréversible soit pratiquée afin d’effectuer le changement de sexe. Tangarr s’est insurgé contre cette condition, car « la stérilisation forcée est discriminatoire pour mille et une raisons ». Avec l’aide d’un ami, il est parvenu à modifier ses documents légalement, sans avoir à subir d’hystérectomie (ablation de l’utérus). Il est l’une des très rares personnes à avoir procédé ainsi en Ukraine.
Discrimination/préjugés/violence et adhérer à des mouvements
« J’ai toujours trouvé bizarre que personne ne fasse rien pour empêcher que cela n’arrive… Et puis j’ai compris que ‘personne’, c’était moi ».
Les expériences que Tangarr a faites au cours de sa vie (de femme) l’ont amené à rejoindre le mouvement féministe, « dans la mesure où sa socialisation en tant qu’homme a mis en évidence tous les obstacles que les filles et les femmes ont à surmonter jour après jour ». C’est un activiste de Lavender Menace, un groupe dont les principaux domaines d’intérêt sont la théorie queer, le féminisme et les droits trans*. Il est aussi membre actif de la Trans* Coalition, qui rassemble les personnes trans* et leurs allié-e-s des pays de l’ex Union soviétique.
En décembre 2015, Tangarr a entamé son travail activiste et participé à un dialogue entre représentant-e-s de la communauté trans* des pays de l'Europe de l'Est et d'Asie centrale (EEAC, en anglais) et de l’Eurasian Coalition on Male Healthou ECOM (Coalition eurasienne sur la santé des hommes), afin de parler des stratégies de prévention et des traitements du VIH et du SIDA au sein de la communauté trans* en tant que groupe socialement vulnérable. Il a présenté un exposé sur « les préjugés cognitifs comme causes de la forte exposition des hommes trans* à l’infection du VIH, les méthodes de prévention et l’amélioration de la situation ».
Il a participé à la création d’un ouvrage d’information sur le genre, rédigé des articles sur le thème trans*, travaillé à une vidéo de soutien à Odessa Pride et s’est exprimé lors d’une émission télévisée au sujet des obstacles juridiques auxquels les personnes trans* sont confrontées lorsqu’elles tentent de changer de sexe.
Le Centre de la lutte contre le VIH et le SIDA de Kirovohrad (au centre de l'Ukraine) a invité Tangarr à donner une conférence sur les questions trans* à des journalistes, des activistes œuvrant en faveur des droits humains, des travailleur-euse-s de la santé et à la police.
Tangarr est fermement convaincu que « l’éducation est une panacée capable d’éliminer les préjugés et les idées erronées, la discrimination et la xénophobie ». Il a pour devise : « Optez pour la vérité le plus rapidement possible ».
« Plus nous savons de choses sur ce qui a trait à l’identité de genre et l’orientation sexuelle, moins nous nourrissons de préjugés. Les idées reçues engendrent de la souffrance. En abolissant l’ignorance, on diminue la détresse qu’elle provoque. »
This calendar invites us to immerse ourselves in the inspiring world of feminist artistry. Each month, as it gently unfolds, brings forth the vivid artwork of feminist and queer artists from our communities. Their creations are not mere images; they are profound narratives that resonate with the experiences of struggle, triumph, and undying courage that define our collective quest. These visual stories, bursting with color and emotion, serve to bridge distances and weave together our diverse experiences, bringing us closer in our shared missions.
This calendar is our call to you: Use it, print it, share it. Let it be a daily companion in your journey, a constant reminder of our interconnectedness and our shared visions for a better world.
Let it inspire you, as it inspires us, to keep moving forward together.
