IDAHO - Ай-да-го....

IDAHO - ай-да-го...

I've been planning to write this post for a long time and decided to post it today, on the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO), because of what happened a year ago. The Bulgarian part of the title is supposed to be a word play - it sounds like IDAHO but means something like "screw it" - to express my annoyance better... 

So on IDAHO 2013, the EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) presented the findings of the largest EU LGBT survey. More than 93 000 LGBT people from all over the EU responded to the survey, whose aim was to study their experiences with discrimination, hate crimes, hate speech, access to justice, etc. The results of the survey showed that violence, discrimination and hate speech are still wide spread in the EU, while the majority are not reported to the authorities. You can see the results in different graphs here  and here or just some of the main findings in this three-minute video.

 But just to mention some main points: around 50% of respondents felt discriminated on the basis of their sexual orientation and 90% of them did not report this to the authorities; around 66% avoided holding hands in public; 80% had heard jokes about LGBT people and felt insulted; 20% had felt discriminated at work or when looking for work; around 25% had been attacked because of their sexual orientation. And so on. When it comes to trans* people all these numbers are even higher. 

Now you're probably wondering what exactly annoyed me so much... Well, it was the "surprise" with which these results were met. I watched live the conference where the survey results were presented - here in The Hague, at the closing of a two-day conference organised by the Dutch government and attended by, among others, (then) Princess Maxima, Members of the European Parliament, ILGA Europe and EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding. Unfortunately I can't find now a recording of this part of the event but I got really annoyed by the reactions to the survey findings. The MEPs and Reding were acting all surprised, shocked, flabbergasted and what not by the results. They had no idea that homophobia, discrimination, hate speech and hate crimes were so widespread in the EU. They expressed their direst concerns about the position of LGBT people, their strongest condemnation of discrimination and their continued commitment to the improvement of LGBT rights in the EU... I thought that even ILGA Europe's participation was in the same weak "oh this is so terrible, we had no idea" style, even though they publish an annual review of LGBT rights in Europe, called Rainbow Europe, which pretty much confirms the same findings every year. 

I think if you ask any random 20 LGBT people on the street you'll get exactly the same responses about their experiences. Of course I know that official data, based on almost 100 000 responses, is important and necessary and more reliable, but if you live in this world, don't pretend that you don't know how wide spread homophobia is! 

The most reasonable and honest comment I heard at the conference came from Michael Cashman, a British MEP, chair of the Intergroup on LGBT rights in the EP. Cashman said that we need to address the elephant in the room - that there was "political cowardice" among many of his fellow MEPs to work for the improvement of the situation of LGBT people because, even if they support our rights, they still want to be re-elected... And, as we know, LGBT rights is a controversial and unpopular issue in many countries and among many people. Of course this little outburst of honesty was pacified by Reding with some more bla bla about a roadmap, strategy and all sorts of future tenses.. So I tweeted 

#euLGBTsurvey indeed the commission is all about bla bla rights, bla bla concerns, bla bla roadmap... TIME TO ACT and not just BLA BLA!
— Bobby Gerasimov (@BobbyGerasimov) May 17, 2013

Whether in response to my tweet or not, Reding went on to explain what the Commission is doing to further LGBT rights (sorry for not remembering the important details): "Now we're doing ... and this is NOT BLA BLA; then we'll do ... and this is NOT BLA BLA"... However, I remain unconvinced... This survey, whose results were, like I said, obvious and predictable to anyone who cares to ask, was commissioned in 2011, carried out in 2012 and presented in 2013. The EU roadmap against homophobia and discrimination was voted by the Parliament in 2014 but it still has no legislative value. To move forward, the Commission needs to come up with a binding directive, which will then need to be transposed by the member states within, let's say 3 years... At this pace, I wonder if the EU will actually do anything on this matter in my lifetime. Even something as simple (in my opinion) as Member States recognising the civil status of same-sex couples from other Member States, regardless of their domestic marriage legislation. I mean, isn't it ridiculous that if I'm married to a man in the Netherlands, this man will be my no-one in Bulgaria and most other EU countries? Whether we decide to move and live there or just go on holidays and I have to visit him in a hospital? If you have a car, a property, a spouse of the opposite sex, a child or a bank account in one member state you have them in all of the EU but a spouse of the same sex you can have in only certain countries? I mean, even the US went further in this direction and I always thought we in the EU were a bit more ahead when it comes to human rights and civil liberties...

But, the fight continues and let's hope that one day...