Baltic Pride

June brings long, warm, green days--and pride. Lesbians, gay men, bisexual and transgender folks gather to celebrate their lives, their families, their organizations and movements, in a public way. People who a generation ago were invisible even to their sisters and brothers are now much more often "out." At least, this is the case in much of western Europe and the U.S.

In eastern Europe (as well of course as some other parts of the world), LGBT people are often much more hidden, less visible, more closeted, with stories that have yet to be told. Here in Tallin, this year's host for "Baltic Pride" (the celebration which rotates among the capitals of the three Baltic nations--Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), it's entirely appropriate that a large exhibition of LGBT art, photos, films, and installations is titled "Untold Stories"--and that it has sought to provide a venue in which stories from Estonia--and from Hungary, Russia, Latvia, but also Finland and Sweden--can be told in a variety of creative ways.

Even Indonesia is represented in the exhibit, by a 75-minute documentary on "transwomen" known there as "warias" (people who started life apparently as boys, but have taken on a female identity and appearance as much as possible). I'd had conversations with some of the exhibition organizers, and was honored to be asked to introduce the film with a short talk about transgender traditions in several cultures to put this film in a larger context (transgender issues are still far below the radar here), followed by a discussion with the two Estonian filmmakers (one a young anthropologist, the other an artist). (I was also asked to write an article for the local arts magazine, SIRP, about the exhibition, to provide an introduction to the issues it raised for visitors who might find them unfamiliar, which I can e-mail to anyone interested!)

Barbara and I have been involved in several other events for Baltic Pride. One was the public reading of a poem which begins "I want a dyke [lesbian] for president" and continues on to call for politicians who've been poor, or ill, or lost someone to AIDS--leaders who can understand the real feelings and needs of ordinary folks." The words themselves are challenging, but in some ways the most meaningful part of the reading (we read the poem, in Estonian, Russian, and English, over and over for an hour) was that we spoke from the steps on Freedom Square where the memorials to the struggles for Estonian freedom are to be found (note the words in the background, recalling the 1918-1920 war with Russian to win independence), in effect linking LGBT and other human rights issues with the political freedom that Estonians are at this point still much more willing to acknowledge as crucial.

We also attended the "Diversity Enriches" conference during Baltic Pride, which this year focussed on same-sex equality issues, in particular whether some form of domestic partnership law should be adopted (there are currently no legal protections for those not legally married as husband and wife). (See photo below, with glowing PowerPoint slide in the corner, of one of the sessions.) Keynote speakers from nearby countries which have adopted same-sex marriage (Sweden, Belgium) spoke about that experience, including the way in which "gay marriage," at first very controversial as an issue, was fairly quickly accepted once adopted and people saw that their worst fears about the consequences were simply not realized. Yet initial passage involved support from key popular political leaders as well as strong LGBT movements, neither of which yet exist in Estonia.

Why might that be? There seem to be a number of possible reasons, at least that I've heard in conversation with gay and lesbian Estonians and human rights workers. Eastern Europe was largely cut off from the development of the gay and lesbian movements in the U.S. and western Europe until independence (early 90's), missing direct contact with the movements for their first 20+ years, and experiencing no real "Stonewall" moments of their own. Equality for women (and the crucial energy from the early women's movement in the West) was largely co-opted by planned economies' need for women workers in the East. We're told that people here feel ambivalently about "human rights"--perhaps a legacy of Soviet ideology (in spite of Estonians' strong belief in their own political independence and freedoms), perhaps because it's been pushed by a European Union about which Estonians may find to be another outside influence with its own plans for a small country like their own (in spite of their attraction to things Western).

Some Estonians fear that their small population and low birth rate will be threatened by gay and lesbian families--not yet really realizing that gays and lesbians can HAVE families, and that providing them legal status would encourage them to likely have more children. Some Estonians still have traditional religious or cultural judgments or stereotypes about gays and lesbians (though the church itself is relatively weak here). And the very fact that LGBT folks are so often living "invisible" lives (or sometimes move to the West) means that such stereotypes aren't contradicted by friends or co-workers who turn out to be LGBT.

This also means that a public celebration of LGBT life is especially important in a place like Estonia. Some, as the banner proclaimed, are "out" for those who yet cannot be (though in fact there was no "march" or "Pride Parade" as in traditional Western venues--Russian police recently violently broke up the Moscow parade once again--and though such police repression, or even citizen violence, would be unusual here, local folks were still reluctant to actually parade.

But, still, we did gather, the organizers (photo below) were cheered, we heard some good music (the opening song was "Over the Rainbow"), and there were encouraging words from both Britain's and America's ambassadors to Estonia (the embassy here was been quite supportive).

And so the 100-150 of us who gathered for Pride did celebrate, with rainbow flags waving, with the flags of the three Baltic nations flying, with a few couples cuddling (the most edgy of what seemed to be pretty tame and un-outrageous behavior even by Minnesota standards), surrounded by a presence of security guards and armed policemen, we encouraged each other, and were invited to Riga for next year's Pride. All the while knowing that there's still a long way to go.

All for now...Bruce