Olympics in Sochi

For the last couple of weeks/months, the discussion on the Olympics in Sochi and the anti-LGBT laws in Russia have intensified.

It went from the International Olympic Committee announcing that athletes and fans would not be affected, to many Russian politicians saying it will, in fact, be in effect during the games, to IOC saying  it won't participate in politics etc.

In all likelihood, the games will be held in Russia, but I, for one, won't be watching. I would love it, if the games were transferred to another location, or if the athlete community would boycott it, or even countries at large. But I doubt it will happen.

The violence against lgbt people in Russia has intensified since the law was passed, and it seems like it is all the validation neo-nazis and other homophobes need to justify beating up innocent people for just being themselves.

It's not even about athletes being able to be themselves and feel proud about themselves. It will be very difficult to arrest international athletes without anyone noticing, or without it becoming a major news story and reflect badly on Russia. But who will defend the fans? Suspicion of gay propaganda is enough to arrest people, whether it's true or not. So who will make sure that the international fans will be treated right, or won't disappear in the dungeons of Russian prison system, or won't be beaten to death by locals defending this law? And what about the local LGBT community? How is any of this fair to them? The talk so far has been about the international community and ensuring their safety. Is it ok to beat and jail the locals then? And if a gay fan of an athlete is killed while there, was it worth for the athlete to participate, or to win? Is that olympic medal more valuable than the lives of others?

One of the arguments against boycotting has been that the athletes have trained for years for this. By all means then, the athletes have trained, they must compete. Go ahead Russia, carry on, beat and jail your gays and lesbians as long as the athletes won't be affected. LGBT athletes eligible to compete in these games, who decide to stay home won't really make much of a difference, since there are like 2 male athletes who are out. And there really is no way Johnny Weir will be mistaken as being straight. And his husband is Russian born...as a matter of fact, we share a family name. Maybe we are related?

I've also heard that you shouldn't mix sports and politics. Let the athletes compete and let the politicians do the politics and diplomacy. Once the games are over and done with in Russia, will the big countries remember the LGBT people in Russia? They'll be forgotten. So I will not have anything to do with the olympics as long as they are held in Russia. I will not support anything that would make it ok to put me in jail just because of who I am. I'm very disappointed with Obama as well, because he said USA will not boycott the games. He did elect to not go to Russia for a visit because of this, but still. Someone needs to step up.

I've been to Sochi back in 1991. I actually have two portraits of myself on my walls that were made by artist at a park in Sochi. They look totally different, but still are so me. I was few years younger in these, as you can see.

 The artist put the city and year in this one.

 This one was hard to take a picture of. Flash came up horrible, so this is not the clearest.

Few weeks ago, as part of my job, we do test fishing on 5 lakes this summer. Well, professional fishermen do it, I just go and take pictures. The purpose is to determine the state of the lakes fisheries as well as the water quality. There was a local news paper making a story about the first lake, so I thought it was the perfect gay propaganda photo op, especially since that macho LGBT hating president of Russia had just allegedly caught a "21kg" northern pike from somewhere in Siberia. I'd like to say that the fish I'm posing with is at least 23 kg, but I'd be lying, and we don't lie about my work so...it's just about 400g. Notice my Gay Cafe tee! Unfortunately my t-shirt did not make it to news paper article, but it was one of the most liked picture on Facebook I've posted.

So Russia and Putin, you can keep your olympics, you can keep your track and field World Championships and you can just go. to. hell. It's safe to say, we will not be meeting in the near future. If ever.

Gay Autumn in Forssa

I know it's way early to be thinking about fall as we have been having some amazing summer weather in Finland and it doesn't look like it's going away, but before we know it, it'll be my birthday and the fall semester for Gay Cafe will be fully on. So keeping that in mind, I had couple of friends over today to brainstorm for Forssa Pride Party and Gay Cafe.

There's really no limits for girl power. When it comes to the things I manage, I'm kind of a control freak, but it does become tedious if it's just me trying to come up with things. So as I'm keeping the leash close to me, I do accept some help. And these ladies came equipped with great ideas. We pretty much have the fall program set for Gay Cafe and Forssa Pride Party 3 is going to rock! We have a theme and we have a program, as long as the schedule clears. I'm super excited and can't wait to announce it, and my team is super excited! What we are doing now is pretty much what I envisioned when I was dreaming about a organizing gay parties in Forssa and it can only get better from here. I'm proud of us!

So stay tuned! I will post about both as soon as I have the all clear! (Which is funny, because I'm the boss, so basically if I wanted, I could tell you our ideas already!)

Wild cats

Back to reality from my week long Pride high! I had a Monday off to vacay from vacay. On Tuesday I came down with a migraine after the afternoon coffee break and had to come home in the middle of the day. I feel like cramming up and trying to finalize all my work before vacation as well, because both of my bosses are going to be off the next 3 weeks so there's no one to make decisions. So everything that needs an approval right now, has to be finished. And on top of that, tomorrow afternoon is the annual summer resident day in the municipality building, so I have to give a little presentation on how my projects are going. Not a public speaker, remember!

My cats were not happy that I left them home for a week to fend for themselves. Ybi was here every day feeding them and cleaning the little box, but my cats are afraid of him so they didn't get any human contact during that time. When I came home on Sunday, they were super excited, but just like toddlers they couldn't control their excitement and started fighting. They were wild.

Now, before my vacation, I was able to take Dunkin Donuts outside in her harness and walk around the building, TWICE in consecutive days! That's huge for my timid little scaredy cat! Then yesterday, I took Brooklyn outside for a walk and he walked at least 800m, about twice the usual little walk we make. And When I took DD outside, she didn't wanna come inside until there were some dogs outside who started barking and she got scared. But then she wanted outside again, so she started scratching the  door outside and tried to open the handle! Like I said, I'll have 2 dogs by the end of the summer! Balcony's not enough for them anymore.

Brooklyn has been extra cuddly lately and he's very jealous as well. He was yelling inside the whole time me and DD were outside, he could be heard in the hallway, and he gives me the evil eye when I brush or hold DD. And he yells constantly! Super bossy, that one.

I'm waiting for them to start bringing me their harnesses and leash, because they know which drawer to break into, and when they do, we are joining the circus!

Helsinki Pride 2013 was a blast!

I can honestly say that this was the best pride I've ever attended and I've been to 3 parades in NYC! I had the whole week to soak in on all the gay and that's exactly what I did! Starting from Monday with the roller derby, Tuesday with 2 lectures and a movie, Wednesday with Korkeasaari Zoo in the afternoon and almost gay walk around Helsinki (guide didn't have a micro- or megaphone and there was way too many people to hear anything so we decided to go for a drink instead) and the Miss Gay Finland final in the evening, Thursday with meeting with friends and Friday with Linnanmäki with Ella, a marriage equality lecture in the afternoon and Women's Party that night and the icing on the cake being yesterday's parade and picnic and the party at night...

One of my favorite part of this week was my talk with the new Miss Gay Finland, Leena Luuri before the parade started. Finland's got a woman who can represent the lesbian community and she was just as beautiful and sweet in person as she was on stage. Well spoken, and the fact that in her "coronation speech" she was talking about small towns and cities needing lgbt support groups and activities and how important it is to not forget those places just because they have small seta's or no seta's. Basically putting my thoughts into words. And that's what I told her when I went to speak to her. And when I told her about Gay Cafe and Forssa Pride, she offered to help if she could. I'm glad the panel chose her.

Finnish member of the parliament from my home town, Sanni Grahn-Laasonen walked with us. We had a really good discussion on how to promote Gay Cafe and how very important this group is for Forssa area. We also briefly touched on marriage equality and how she thinks the vote will go when the bill is introduced.

Our super amazing logo!

Kirsi and Toni at the rendezvous point chilling before the parade. Notice Kirsi's tuned tee!

 The whole Gay Cafe gang with few guest stars. One of my favorite pictures from the whole day!

Me in all my glory and Gay Cafe and Forssa Pride stuff.

I sent this picture of us to our home town newspaper as they publish readers pictures on Sundays and they published it today!

 Another picture from our photo shoot at the park!

Heidi has a birthday tomorrow so for her birthday her friend baked her a cake! How cool is this?

At 5:35 you can see Gay Cafe at the parade!

Yle Uutiset also had a segment about the pride. On their website they had few pictures from the parade and Gay Cafe's logo can clearly be seen from it, as well as Heidi and Ella. The US ambassador to Finland was also marching at the parade. He's a cool dude!

Like I said before, Gay Cafe was placed with the SETA member organizations and I'm so proud for that. All this is so huge for a small town group like ours. I'll post more pictures and clips if I find any. I can't post any more pictures, as I accidentally shot off my camera as it was transferring pictures to my computer and lost every. single. picture from my camera! Thankfully I uploaded them to Heidi's computer yesterday and she hadn't had a chance of deleting them yet, so she'll send me all of them on a memory stick.

Helsinki pride parade

I got an e-mail today from the parade organizer with a list of the march order. Gay Cafe has been put in with quite the group; we will be surrounded with all the different SETA organizations! And we'll be at the beginning of the the parade. Once again, I'm so proud of our group and what we've been able to achieve in such a short time. I'd still like to see more people participate in the group, but as far as recognition from around Finland goes, we've got it.

We will meet at the left side of the steps of the cathedral between 12:15 and 12:30 on Saturday if you'd like to march with us. You can find us from our Gay Cafe t-shirts and flags.

We went to see roller derby exhibition game today...from what I saw, wasn't really my thing. Tomorrow I'm going to listen a lecture on lgbtiq literature and then we'll go see a movie.  Part of my program for Wednesday is still open, but we are going to watch Miss Gay Finland that night. There are way too many great lectures and happenings going on at the same time to choose from so I'm having problems deciding! It's gonna be a great vacation, the only thing I'm sad about is not seeing my cats this week.

The wet t-shirt race

Suvi-ilta's marathon tomorrow is turning into a wet t-shirt competition. I have a white Forssa Pride t-shirt I'm wearing so if it's raining like it's supposed to...

Dunkin Donuts wants to participate as well.

My Gay Cafe t-shirts finally arrived today! YAY! And they are fabulous! I'm spending the whole week in Helsinki and will be wearing a GC t-shirt every day. Gotta represent! Now the question is, which one should I wear tomorrow for Pirkanmaan Pride?

I think the one in top left corner is my favorite.

All the gay

Gay Cafe had its last meeting for the spring this past Tuesday. We ended up tying the record attendance of 5 people, which I was really happy about. And if you don't include me, none of them were the people who started. I guess in a way it's sad, but it also shows that we have done something right and the word has gotten out.

We are going to Helsinki Pride as a group and we'll be visually pleasing. Not that we, as a people aren't, but we will have flags and and t-shirts with the logo on them. Charlie did a fantastic job with the t-shirts as well, and I might have bought 6...another person who's coming to march with us bought 2...And I've advertised it on the Facebook page as well as with people who have shown interest so we'll be seen. I'm really excited about it but also really proud of the little group we've gathered. And the ideas people have come up with for PR for our group has been really great. I don't see any reason why Gay Cafe wouldn't be around for years to come. And the community and sense of belonging has been great. What I visioned when I started with Forssa Pride and what is happening now through Gay Cafe is exactly what we need in Forssa. Small steps but we'll get there.

If you are so inclined, you can buy a Gay Cafe t-shirt from here. There are 5 different designs, at least 21 color options, t-shirt models for men, girly fit, zip up and pullover hoodies, v-necks etc. And even with the most absurd color matches, the logo comes out nicely. I bought 6 for now, but I will definitely buy hoodies for the fall. I don't get anything from the t-shirts, all proceeds go to the designer, but she has definitely earned every penny and I hope these will be a hit.

The radio interview I gave about Gay Cafe and Forssa Pride before FPP 2.0 was translated into Russian! The leader of the english speaking group I go to in Tampere is Russian and he told me about it. If you are Russian or speak Russian, here is the link for it. My Russian is so rusty these days that I didn't even try to read it. I just saw my name and Forssa and I was happy. And since my friend didn't tell me it saying anything bad, I'm pretty sure it's "straight up" translation of what was written in Finnish. Which at least in the beginning gave the impression I might be transgendered, but whatever. I can't be doing this and be afraid of labels, even if they are the wrong labels.

I'm going back in time in about a weeks time. Or back to the beginning in a way. Putting my gay advocate training in use and Mikko and I are going to a summer camp for 15-16 year olds to talk about sexual and gender minority issues. I had the training in March of 2011 and this will be my first session. I'm excited but also a little afraid. It'll be fine and Mikko is great, but it's the first time jitters.

Pirkanmaa Pride is in 2 weeks. I'm running the 10k in Forssa at 4pm and then head to Tampere for the party. Midsummer is in 3 weeks and my first stint of summer vacation starts from there. I'm heading to Helsinki for the Pride and staying for the week. I'm going to enjoy the hell out of this summer and all the gay I can. No regrets and no thinking about the money spent. You only live once! At the end of August I'm going to New Jersey and I'm not sure which will weigh more, me after I've eaten n all the places I wanna eat, or the luggage after the shopping spree I'm going for. Every day I send a place or restaurant to Candice and am like "We need to go here too" or "I wanna eat here too". There's no dieting while I'm there! And I'm organizing a MSU reunion as well. Everybody except one guy has said they're on board, so it'll be great!

The weather has been crazy in Finland for the past few weeks. We usually don't have this consistent heat wave even in July, and this started in May and is continuing for the foreseeable future. I love it, but  it's frigging hot in my apartment. But we do deserve this after the snowy and cold winters we've had for the past few years.

I'll post some pictures of my gay cafe t-shirts and from all the events I'm going this summer soon. Happy Pride month!