PinkPurple: The First Activity for Lesbians and Bisexuals living in Turkey
17/03/2009
Submitted by
Kaos GL Women Group
PINKPURPLE
Kaos GL Women Group has organized the first activity for lesbians and bisexual women in Turkey on 21st and 22nd of February 2009. Best Hotel was the gathering point for the women from different cities, for them to stay, rest and participate in the activity. The aim was to determine and discuss the problems of “LB women” community living in Turkey with some speeches and workshops while sharing experiences and have fun together.
On Saturday morning, women got together at conference hall to meet. Firstly, we played three little games for the ices can break and learning our names. Then we stepped forward to listen our first speech from Melek Goregenli, who is a respectful socio-psychologist. The main issue was “Homophobia- Within the Perspectives of Sexism”. She performed an informational and beneficial speech, in which she told about where the homophobia stems from and by learning this origin she pointed how the homophobic ideas can be changed. After her speech, participants had their lunches together.
Then one of the moderators from the organisation group, encouraged us to participate in her exercise aiming to change our sleepy moods because of the lunch into a refreshed one. She used a special technique, a mixed of shiatsu healing and training. We, by touching the pre-determined acupunctural points, i.e. the territory around the thumb, we relieved our bodies and jumped into a better mood. After these exercise, there was a monologue performance play workshop, which is a participatory. These monologues was collected from some lesbians and bisexual women outside and in this workshop, by reading and sharing them, women had a chance to see a different side of lives of different women.
After a little break, there was an interactive presentation, named as “The Language of Media” by a member of Kaos GL Women. In this presentation, media instruments and the critique of sarcastic language of the media towards homosexual community are evaluated and determine the ways how these language is positively changed for the sake of equilibrium of all human kind. At the end of the presentation, the participants created their own news with the help of the five predetermined words that is given by the moderator. The purpose was to focus on the effects of homophobia while creating the news about LGBT Community
Then, there was another speech that took part in this day. This was a speech about the short historical background for feminist and lesbian movement in Turkey and the present activities that is held by Kaos GL. Then there was a free time to have dinner and take a shower and maybe a little nap before our Pink Purple Night. We drank our wines while watching the two short films which was about an incident love story of two lesbians, named “2 plus 1” directed by Anıl Temur and the first documentary about lesbians living in Turkey, named “Prince Charming Don’t Come” produced by the women from Lambdaistanbul. Then we listened music and danced all the night.
On Sunday Morning, we together had our breakfast and after then we participated in the first workshop of the day. This was named “Gender Workshop”. It was an introductory and participatory workshop, which was showing the effects of gender over our sexuality and daily lives. Then there was another speech, named as “Invisibility Problem of Lesbian and Bisexual Women” presented by the women from Lambdaistanbul. It had a thematic focus on the violations of their human rights and what kind of arrangements has to be done to change the laws in favor of them. Then we had two simultaneous workshops respectively “Encountering- An Activity to open up our inner fears and internalized homophobia” by Mahmut Sefik Nil, who is a respectful psychologist; the other workshop, moderated by the members of Kaos GL women, is “Sexuality”, a workshop to share our sexuality in a public sphere to free ourselves from the obstacles of bias and taboos.
After these activities, we gathered once more for the last time to evaluate PinkPurple Weekend. This was a very informative, participatory and hilarious activity. As Kaos GL Women Group, we hope to realize more Pink Purple Weekends to color us and sky into PinkPurple. With Our Best Regards and Solidarity...
Kaos GL Women Group has organized the first activity for lesbians and bisexual women in Turkey on 21st and 22nd of February 2009. Best Hotel was the gathering point for the women from different cities, for them to stay, rest and participate in the activity. The aim was to determine and discuss the problems of “LB women” community living in Turkey with some speeches and workshops while sharing experiences and have fun together.
On Saturday morning, women got together at conference hall to meet. Firstly, we played three little games for the ices can break and learning our names. Then we stepped forward to listen our first speech from Melek Goregenli, who is a respectful socio-psychologist. The main issue was “Homophobia- Within the Perspectives of Sexism”. She performed an informational and beneficial speech, in which she told about where the homophobia stems from and by learning this origin she pointed how the homophobic ideas can be changed. After her speech, participants had their lunches together.
Then one of the moderators from the organisation group, encouraged us to participate in her exercise aiming to change our sleepy moods because of the lunch into a refreshed one. She used a special technique, a mixed of shiatsu healing and training. We, by touching the pre-determined acupunctural points, i.e. the territory around the thumb, we relieved our bodies and jumped into a better mood. After these exercise, there was a monologue performance play workshop, which is a participatory. These monologues was collected from some lesbians and bisexual women outside and in this workshop, by reading and sharing them, women had a chance to see a different side of lives of different women.
After a little break, there was an interactive presentation, named as “The Language of Media” by a member of Kaos GL Women. In this presentation, media instruments and the critique of sarcastic language of the media towards homosexual community are evaluated and determine the ways how these language is positively changed for the sake of equilibrium of all human kind. At the end of the presentation, the participants created their own news with the help of the five predetermined words that is given by the moderator. The purpose was to focus on the effects of homophobia while creating the news about LGBT Community
Then, there was another speech that took part in this day. This was a speech about the short historical background for feminist and lesbian movement in Turkey and the present activities that is held by Kaos GL. Then there was a free time to have dinner and take a shower and maybe a little nap before our Pink Purple Night. We drank our wines while watching the two short films which was about an incident love story of two lesbians, named “2 plus 1” directed by Anıl Temur and the first documentary about lesbians living in Turkey, named “Prince Charming Don’t Come” produced by the women from Lambdaistanbul. Then we listened music and danced all the night.
On Sunday Morning, we together had our breakfast and after then we participated in the first workshop of the day. This was named “Gender Workshop”. It was an introductory and participatory workshop, which was showing the effects of gender over our sexuality and daily lives. Then there was another speech, named as “Invisibility Problem of Lesbian and Bisexual Women” presented by the women from Lambdaistanbul. It had a thematic focus on the violations of their human rights and what kind of arrangements has to be done to change the laws in favor of them. Then we had two simultaneous workshops respectively “Encountering- An Activity to open up our inner fears and internalized homophobia” by Mahmut Sefik Nil, who is a respectful psychologist; the other workshop, moderated by the members of Kaos GL women, is “Sexuality”, a workshop to share our sexuality in a public sphere to free ourselves from the obstacles of bias and taboos.
After these activities, we gathered once more for the last time to evaluate PinkPurple Weekend. This was a very informative, participatory and hilarious activity. As Kaos GL Women Group, we hope to realize more Pink Purple Weekends to color us and sky into PinkPurple. With Our Best Regards and Solidarity...
