This years’ events are putting the spotlight on past and present LGBTQI rights around the globe
BY NIC CROSARA, IMAGE BY LGBT YOUTH SCOTLAND
LGBT History Month Scotland, co-ordinated by LGBT Youth Scotland, supports organisations in hosting their own events for the month of February by creating an annual theme, sharing content to raise awareness and hosting the website. The theme chosen for this year is Blurring Borders: A World In Motion. There are already 30 events registered on the website with more coming in each day. That’s more events than there are days in the month!
Chief executive of LGBT Youth Scotland Mhairi Crawford commented: “This year, it felt more important than ever to use LGBT History Month to demonstrate the strength of solidarity at home and around the world. Globally, LGBT people and their allies are living through a fragile moment in history. Across Europe, there are efforts being made to roll back LGBT rights.”
“Meanwhile, the UK has just been marked out by the Council of Europe as one among a few countries where rising anti-LGBT hate is of particular concern. We also know that the UK Government plans to host its first global LGBT conference, ‘Safe to Be Me’, in London this summer.”
“By giving History Month an international focus, we’re inviting people and organisations across Scotland to share their ideas about what an equal world for LGBT people would really look like – and how we can work together to achieve it.”
🗺️ For #LGBTHistoryMonth, our youth groups around Scotland learned about different countries and what LGBT rights are like there.
— LGBT Youth Scotland (@LGBTYS) February 2, 2022
🗣️ They’ll present their findings at a closing event on 28 Feb!
🇭🇷 Our InfiniT group in Edinburgh researched Croatia.
Here’s what they found 👇 pic.twitter.com/uZjn3iAbTx
LGBT History Month Scotland is part of an International Committee on LGBTQI History Months. So far, the committee includes sixteen locations: Scotland, Wales, USA, UK, Norway, Northern Ireland, New Zealand, Italy, Ireland, Hungary, Finland, Cuba, Canada, Berlin, Australia, and the LGBT caucus of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The development of the committee was spearheaded by Rodney Wilson, founder of the world’s first LGBTQ+ History Month in the USA and has said: “In some areas of our world we’re experiencing what Australian historian Graham Willett has called ‘a Queer moment’ – a surge of interest in LGBT+ history and heightened awareness about the rights of LGBT+ individuals.”
“At the same time, hundreds of millions of LGBT+ people in other parts of the world do not even enjoy the freedom to be themselves, or to know their history. And so this month in Scotland – and across the UK and Hungary – we take a bright light and shine it on the history of the struggles and achievements of LGBT+ people in our homelands and elsewhere, drawing strength from their stories and hope from their triumphs.”
Find out more about LGBT History Month Scotland here:
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