For three days, being surrounded by over 1500 militants, quite a few of them being of international renown, that’s something very moving. And when you get the chance to get to know them, whether they are from India, China, Africa or from Latin America, something is very obvious : even though we all live in very different cultural and political environments, we are all the same, and we are all looking for a spot under the sun!
Facing
New ZealandDuring the international conference, I had the chance to organize and animate a workshop, and to participate to a second one, both concerning the transsexual problematic.
In the workshop I organized: The difficulty for trans people to organize themselves in order to mobilize and defend their rights, there was this tall beautiful woman in the room, articulate and smiling, that was nodding at everything I was saying.
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photo : Julie-Maude Beauchesne |
Wow! What a feeling to be in front of such a model of personal self-respect and devotion to the allosexual cause.
Long story short, once the emotion had passed, and while exchanging during the workshop, we were both realizing, as were the other participants and the two journalists (
La Presse and Radio-Canada, nothing less…let’s say the presenter was nervous enough!) that even though we were living in countries at the Antipodes on this small planet, we were, on a daily basis, facing the same challenges, the same problems.At last we realize that we are no longer alone in this world living those realities, but that each and every one of us, at home, is both unique and universal!
Changing the world…While discussing with a participant from Quebec, we wondered what would be left of this international conference on human rights. The answer came quite rapidly. The central element of the 200 workshops that were held during those three days can be summed up to this : in spite of the brain’s will to put others in boxes (and it happens to each and everyone from time to time, consciously or not), we are all unique and we are all real, with our own realities.
When we get back home, tomorrow, we will all be armed as never before to answer to the stupidities we hear even amongst our own communities.
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photo : Julie-Maude Beauchesne |
That point will also be one of the elements that will remain of this international conference on human rights. If we want to get accepted, with our differences, in society, we first have to encourage and promote the emergence of those differences amongst the LGBT community itself.
The well-known common saying, “I can change the world, because I can change myself” will not have been more true than when we will be able to apply it to ourselves, as a community, “We will change the world, because we can change our own mentalities first!”
Translated by François Malouin
Équipe AlterHéros
Julie-Maude Beauchesne
François Paquette
Dee Gamme
Samuel A.
Marion Téjédor