On the 22-28 of February, 2008 a study session “Intercultural and Ethnic Diversity within Youth LGBT Communities” took place in Strasbourg. It has been organized by Council of Europe and IGLYO (International Gay Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Youth and Student Organization)

Being a member of “Coming Out”, I managed to pass a test and take part in this seminar!

Interaction of different cultures, misunderstanding problems, discrimination, and exclusion of some minor groups within LGBT-Community were discussed on the seminar.

I had an opportunity to get acquainted with young LGBT activists from more than 30 countries of the world, from India to Canada…

… as well as to share my experience and learn a lot of new things. The main idea I’d found for myself turned out to be quite simple, but very fantastic: one shouldn’t divide the world into “we” and “they”. LGBT-community is miscellaneous, and during communication and study we had to overcome many obstacles and stereotypes, that are common for all nations: cultural, national, ethnical, class-specific, and racial and gender… It was not easy and sometimes even painful. Informal communication helped us smooth things over and prevent fights.

Such different we are (Russian Federation, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lebanon):

The organisers might have been facing difficulties with such a mixed team as well:
we changed the programme the way it was necessary, during arguments we didn’t mince our words and threw any authorities down. On coming home and exchanging letters we decided to rename a French wonderful town, where the seminar took place, from Strasbourg into Stressbourg.

I brought lots of new contacts, ideas and some training materials with me, that I hope will be of great help for «Coming Out» and make its activity more diverse and interesting, and will also add something new to the life of LGBT-Community in Saint-Petersburg.

The Netherlands, Finland, India, Moldova and Russian Federation.

WC in European Youth Centre of Council of Europe, where the seminar took place – politically correct!

A dining hall of Youth Center – they say that the future of Europe is built there. That means “Coming Out” has also made a contribution thereto!

I liked this poster very much: “Everyone is different – everyone is equal. There is enough places for all in the space”. Translation is quite conventional, of course. The planets are signed “gay”, “hetero”, “bisexual”, “lesbian”, “queer”, and “transgender”.

The report is prepared by Sasha, a member of the organization “Coming Out”.