Friday 24 July 1998, 00.30

Robert does EuroPride Thursday: a personal reflection in two parts. Or something.

I spent the afternoon at the Intergender Cafe, a sort of seminar/discussion/social event at the EuroPride Conference Centre. What was I doing there? Good question, answer later. We must have been about fifty people, using up all the chairs in Södermalm School's dining hall. A nice cross-section of different gender identities and sexualities, inasmuch as one can judge such things. Bee Sundin, clearly the doyenne of the Swedish trans movement, filled us in on transgender history from both a world and Swedish perspective. She's a thoughtful, entertaining and informative speaker. It became quite clear that the legal and political situation for trans folk in Sweden is pretty miserable, and the national organisation RFTS is very short of resources, specially compared to RFSL. Among the cafe guests was RFSL chair Christine Gilljam, who reiterated the federation's commitment to look into trans people's situation, both within RFSL and in general. RFSL kind of have a reputation for not being particularly trans-friendly - in fact each RFSL branch has its own constitution, and some do have a commitment to work for trans rights as well as for traditionally-gendered GLB folks.

After a break, we had what you might call a plenary discussion. Starting from the words some of the participants use to identify their own particular gender identity. The huge variety in experience became obvious pretty soon, as did the terrible difficulties we humans have with definitions of words. Sure, we all had that humanity in common, but how much else? Cross-dressers, pre- and post-op transexuals, transgendered people, homosexual folks who don't seem to have quite the usual set of inclinations (Petra, for example, and maybe me), and one self-confessed nelly queen. It's hard to sum up the exchange of views, which was lively and fascinating. I felt that not everyone had realised just how much the way we think about gender and sexuality is shaped by the grossly normal heterosexual, two-gendered society we live in. And that behind a lot of what we think of as quite harmless statements about equality lie sexism and homophobia. It's far easier to be, or appear to be a man than a woman, it's easier to appear to be straight than gay, and it's easier to appear to be definitely either a man or a woman. If there's anything we share, it's that we're all both the oppressed and the oppressors, in different situations. But we are asking a lot of the right questions, and listening to each other, maybe for the first time, and that's great. It was fun to meet people, and not for the last time, I hope.

Being me, I expressed my own idiosyncratic preferences buy rushing back to PridePark to catch Poikatyttöt (The Girlboys) playing live. And they were just as good as I'd hoped they'd be. A tough rock band, playing what I think they call emocore, and singing about lesbian sex in Finnish. Easily the most interesting and best music at PridePark so far. Like I said, I like butch lesbian things and I don't care what people think about it. As if to confirm all my darkest suspicions, I complimented Helena Westin on her rather wonderful denim hat, and was informed that I was the first gay bloke to appreciate it. And that all the dykes thought it was great. :-o

Then followed another warm, cheery social evening in PridePark under a darkening but always blue sky. Two unexpected kisses to round it off. Thank you!