Queer Perspectives

Early this morning police raided the home of the director of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe, Chesterfield Samba. Chesterfield - a former member of the WRI Council - was not there, but they confiscated his passport, birth certificate and various other belongings.

Zimbabwean Lawyers for Human Rights issued the following press release:

Police on Monday 24 May 2010 pressed fresh charges against two employees of WRI affiliate Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ), who were arrested last week after the police raided their offices in the capital.

Police on Monday charged Ellen Chademana, who attended the WRI conference in India in January 2010, and Ignatius Muhambi with contravening Section 33 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act for allegedly undermining the authority of President Robert Mugabe.

Refusing militarism is not possible without refusing hegemonic masculinity

Andreas Speck, War Resisters' International

“Questioning
the militarist value system and its practices which are identified
with military service, one is also obliged to question the hegemonic
understanding of masculinity. In Turkey, military service is a
laboratory in which masculinity is reproduced. The patriarchal system
is solidified through military service.

It is with deep regret and sorrow that Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) informs all our friends and partners of the passing away of our Director - Keith Goddard, one of the champions for the struggle for lesbians, gay men, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) peoples rights in Zimbabwe.

editorial by Ariel Attack, originally written for the Queers Against Obama blog, March 9, 2009. Some edits made.
Taken from: Bash Back Denver: Be one of those queers you've heard about: undermine the army's ability to fight! Queer Counter-Recruitment, May 2009

Interview with Mehmet Tarhan for the Spanish newspaper Diagonal, January 2006

As you know, it took a long time for your questions to reach me. It took me quite some time to pick up the pen and answer your questions too. For unpleasant things happened. And I was afraid my answers would be unlike me when my thoughts and emotions were in such turmoil.

Andreas Speck

Collective identities"we" as queers, as whatever group you likeare often perceived as empowering, as providing a sense of belonging. On the other hand through their very existence, collective identities produce new boundaries of "in" and "out", and new norms of behaviour that limit peoples' freedom to be and to do. Not only can identity be disempowering, but it can also threaten peoples' lives, as nationalist and homophobic attacks show.

Keith Goddard

Keith Goddard

The Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) was founded in 1990 to provide support services to lesbian and gay communities in Zimbabwe. Frustrated by the Zimbabwe government's attempts to silence the organization and prevent it from reaching out to potential members, GALZ was forced to transform itself into a human rights lobby group and to adopt a highly political profile.

Andreas Speck

Collective identities--"we" as queers, or whatever group you like--are often perceived as empowering by providing a sense of belonging. At the same time, by the very existence of these collective identities produce new boundaries of "in" and "out" and new norms of behavior that limit people's freedom to be and to do. Thus, identity can be disempowering and even threaten people's lives, in the case of nationalist or homophobic attacks.

by Lepa Mladjenovic

In November 1990 some of us and our friends (and friends of our friends) met for the first time in one of the local cafes. After that we met off and on, mostly in private flats. The number of activists varied.

[from The China News, 26 May 1991]

On February 23, 1990, the first lesbian group in Taiwan was started. Its name is Wo Men Zhi Jian (Between Ourselves).

The first task of the founders after starting was to network and start letting other lesbians know about the group. They got a post office box in Taipei (number 10464) to give women a way to Contact the group. Roberta, one of the members, went to the Asian Lesbian Conference in Thailand in December 1990.