This meeting is aimed at the defenders of women’s health, at actresses on the spot, at feminists, at academics, at financial institutions and other networks interfering on women’s health. It creates a platform which allows to exchange, to inform, to question and to act on policies and practices concerning women’s health, their human rights, particularly sexual and reproductive ones.
ILGA has been invited to interfer at the time of the plenary of the 15th September “The dynamic of the movements and networks : forms of resistance, of organisations and advocacy in women mobilisations.
Here is the presentation presented by Patricia Curzi
(presentation in powerpoint below)
Hello everyone,
ILGA, international association of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, trans people and intersex, is a network of more than 800 LGBTI organisations and via its members and it is present in 110 countries in the world. Its goals are to work for the respect of human rights of LGBTI people and fight against discriminations based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
ILGA and its members work on the issues of rights, including the right to health for sexual minorities.
The right to health is a fundamental human right, enunciated in the constitution of numerous countries. This assumes that the government creates conditions such as every person can enjoy the best health possible.
The International Health Organisation counted a set of social determinants of health.
Health depends on age, on social class, on ethnic group, on culture, on where you live, on a possible disability, on gender and, I add, … on sexual orientation and gender identity.
As for every human rights, the principle of non-discrimination is fundamental for the exercise of this right.
When we talk about homosexuality, we associate health, hiv.aids and gay man. ILGA leaned on the right to health for lesbians, often forgotten, ignored, nay despised.
At the international headquarters we coordinated several projects of lesbian health, the latter being on the myths and facts. This project has been conceived in FR, NL and EN.
We wanted to work on stereotypes, because we know that they have a negative impact on lesbians health. Although some generally accepted ideas apply aswell to heterosexual women’s health, we decided to focus on stereotyopes which target specifically lesbians health.
Some of these “myths and facts” are declined through three sheets to tackle the themes of breast and cervix cancers, the HIV/aids and sexually transmitted infections, together with the well-being of lesbians. A quizz about myths allows you to test your knowledge in a playful way.
An example of myths very hard to demystify is that lesbians do not need genycologic monitoring. We forget about the importance of prevention and detection at an early stage of breast and cervix cancers, these two types of cancer are among the most common among women in the world.
Referring to the title of the panel, I would like to give now a good example of resistance met during my work in ILGA.
The head of the Nigerian and feminist association INCRESE organised, in its country, studios about Pleasure as a way of decreasing the violence against women. They were mixed men and women studios with in the key a training of sexual education to make men aware of the fact that thinking about women’s pleasure instead of violate them increases their own pleasure and satisfaction.This is disregarding a sacred taboo!
At the same time she took the opportunity to organise studios exclusively accessible to women where she talked about homosexuality, pleasure and sexual health for women who have sex with women. This brave woman put an act of resistance in a country where, in its north part, death penalty is apllied for people having sex with people of the same sex.
As an example about the forms of organisation I would like to mention ILGA.
The prevention brochure about breast and cervix cancer in FR and NL has been conceived with the help of 8 partners and has been funded by the Belgian Foundation against Cancer. We managed to pool our expertise and benefitted of numerous associations because this brochure has been then translated and adapted in 13 different countries like Fance, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Mexico, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Namibia.
For Myths and facts in FR, and NL we worked with 9 Belgian partners and received a funding that would not have been assigned to 9 different associations.
All the documents of ILGA are, moreover, free of reproduction in order not to duplicate the existing work and maximize the funds, so limited when it deals with health projects for women and even more for health projects for lesbians.
For the advocacy of lesbians in women mobilisations, I would like to underline that, because they undergo a double discrimination, by their gender and by their sexual orientation, they also have a wide sensibility and they participate in the fight for the obtaining of rights which goes beyond their own interests. They showed a solidarity in the fight against dictatorships in Latin America, against the apartheid in South Africa, were and are present in the movements for peace in former Yugoslavia and Palestine.
They showed a solidarity with feminist groups and movements, their historic allies, for the right to abort, to divorce, to have their own body, sexual and reproductive rights, both nationally and to the United Nations.
Feminist movements have not always shown a reciprocal solidarity when it delt with defending also lesbians rights. Thus they often find themselves alone and they have to fight for human rights which concern them more specifically like : the access to information about health, the access to health care, the right to choose a non-heterosexual sexuality, the reproductive rights outside of a heterosexual man/woman schema ; right not to undergo violence, an expression has even been given “curative rape” to straighten them on the right way of heterosexuality. And to finish the right, simply, to live.
Yet lesbians can bring an original reflection to feminist movements. And the RIFS is a model in this way because it offered a space to talk and to express not only in this 11th meeting but also in the previous ones.
Lesbians can bring an original look on the role of the “woman” questioning the concept of “iological woman” and “social woman”. They bring a new look on the woman body, refusing, for instance, breast implants after undergoing a breast ablation following a cancer. Would a woman be less woman with a breast in a less? They also bring a transversal approach to fight against multiple discriminations.
So what can we do?
- Demystify myths and stereotypes : when it applies to a fundamental right as health, it can have harmful consequences.
- Offer an open space to talk respectful of every difference because women are not a monolithic and uniform group.
- Never make an assumption of heterosexuality which excludes every person who does not enter in a heteronormative man/woman schema.
- Pool resources and knowledge and include in health projects the issues of sexual minorities. In a context of economic crisis and decrease in funds women and minorities, whatever thay are, are the most affected. So our strength is to work together beyond our differences.
Networking, internationally goes across cultures, helps to exceed some fixed reference codes, allows to go out a colonialist vision of health and gives the possibility of finding local suitable solutions.
I want to finish with Slogan of the International Women’s March :
As long as all women are not free we will be marching.
Thank you
Patricia Curzi