MILK it baby!

Last week was a bit of a movie week for Gay Cafe. On Tuesday at our usual meeting time we watched the movie "Milk" about Harvey Milk and his work for LGBT rights and on Saturday we went to the movies and saw "Gravity". I've seen Milk once before and I remember feeling so empowered back then. That hasn't changed since then, I felt the message, and I felt the calling. It's especially moving and timely right now, as next week SETA has its annual meeting where half of the board is being elected and I'm one of the candidates for the open positions. I've been thinking about this since last spring and have talked about it with friends and gotten so much encouragement and it's something I feel like I should do. I need to do this. And as much as I want to affect change and be part of something bigger, I'm also terrified. But nothing worth having/getting is ever easy and it's time I step out of my comfort zone. Again.

One of the things I'd like to influence is activating the LGBT community. Whether it's participating in peer support groups, getting involved in their local SETA's, organizing parties or creating their own peer support groups, I want the community engaged. Engaged in the fight for all of our rights, engaged in creating communities around Finland, engaged in intelligent discussions and engaged in changing the attitudes towards us, especially in small towns.

The further away you go from Helsinki, and the smaller the towns get, the longer the distances become and the further away are the local SETA's where you can get the support and friendships you need. If we can get the LGBT people from those small towns to come out to their families, friends, co-workers and local politicians, maybe we can influence a change in their attitudes. It's going to be more difficult to deny people their rights when it's someone you know and love whose rights you are denying.

If I'm elected to be a board member at SETA, I'd like to work in getting people to become members of their local SETA, or even establish one n their home community. It might not be ideal or possible in some smaller communities, but unless we get more members and branch out all over Finland, it never will be possible.

I've thought about establishing a local SETA here, but right now, as things stand, we are far few people to do so. And Forssa and the surrounding area might be a just a little too small of an area for having one of our own. Maybe in the future when I can get more people to actively participate, then maybe. One viable option is to have one for Kanta-Häme. The population would be big enough, but the problem right now is that I don't know anyone from Hämeenlinna. I'f I'm elected to the board I hope to meet more of the local people who might be interested in local SETA. Forssa as an area isn't really attractive for people to move into, as people are losing jobs and factories are closing and after high school people tend to move into bigger cities, and if they are LGBT and get into the local SETA activities, getting them to move back to this small town is very difficult.

So, there's a lot of work to be done and I hope to be part of it, as a SETA board member or just a Gay Cafe leader/Forssa Pride organizer.

Pride stinks or how does the saying go?

And when I say Pride, I don't mean Forssa Pride, but my super-sized head that's about to burst from happiness from all this praise! Leena is writing a blog to city.fi about her year as a Miss Gay Finland and she just posted about Forssa Pride! And she might have, maybe, sort of, kind of mentioned me by name, so yeah…

I'm not saying that you should read the post, but you should probably read her post. If you can read Finnish, that is.

Forssa should hire Rakel and Leena as spokespeople for the city, since they have done more for Forssa's reputation than any ad firms have done with ad campaigns.

Have a super gay weekend, I'm going to go sweat this pride in the sauna!

Dare to dream!

No, really, I dare to you to dream and then make it a reality! Never in a million years did I think that I would get some of the biggest and hottest LGBT-names in Finland to come to my little shindig, but they did and it was amazing!

You know, there's always room for improvement and we definitely have that in regards to attendance but as far as the program part of Forssa Pride 3 goes, I can't complain. It was everything I wanted it to be and more. I had no doubt that Rakel would deliver, she's a pro at this. She's funny, she's articulate and she was the perfect hostess for the event. I listened carefully when Leena won her Miss Gay Finland crown and her speech after winning was something I could identify with. She wants to have an impact on the same things I do. The one part that I wasn't familiar with was Aleks, but I was really impressed with him. Not a lot of 19-year olds have to do that much self reflection nor are they ready to take on the task of changing peoples perception or fight for human rights. Aleks was very mature and his attitude of "you have to take bad with the good" was really impressive. You can't take everything personally and that's something we should all remember. On top of them bringing their A-game, they were all really lovely people and weren't bothered with all the "Can I get a picture with you" questions they heard throughout the night. I think Aleks with his recent stint in the Celebrity Big Brother house was the biggest hit of the night.

 Backstage beforehand.

 Showtime!

Me with the stars of the night.

The intellectual discussion was something that you don't really get in Forssa, at least not in public, and makes me think about all the things I'm missing. Also, makes me sad that not more people were interested in coming to hear them, because there was a lot of things that could have opened peoples eyes and really make them think about things and their own resources to impact a change, whether in their own lives, in Forssa or even more nationally. Listening to that discussion and also the questions that were posed, made me appreciate my own Gay Cafe group and the "more than a rainbow" group I go to at Pirkanmaan Seta.

On Sunday I heard people I don't personally know talking about Forssa Pride for the first time. I thought it was great, because I haven't heard anybody ever talking about anything LGBT related in Forssa before, and just few weeks ago I saw my first female couple holding hands in Forssa. What a sheltered life I've led so far!

I want to thank Green Whale for sponsoring this event and bar 54 for hosting us. I was also promised that there would be Forssa Pride 4, so I'll see you next Spring! Before that I'll be at Lahti Pride, Gay Cafe will be marching there and some of us were thinking about staying for the after party.

The irony

I think it's just swell how a year after (plus minus few days) I had to leave USA they passed marriage equality in the State of New York. Not that it would have helped me, but still. Then tomorrow, on the anniversary of being dumped it would be possible to get married in my home-state-away-from-home, New Jersey. And since DOMA is no longer in effect, this would actually help me.

I should probably send my application for the diversity visa lottery, because I'd probably get it too, now that it wouldn't matter at all anymore.

Is it really tomorrow?

I can't believe my little chat with Leena before Helsinki Pride Parade resulted in Leena, Aleks and Rakel coming to Forssa tomorrow to headline Forssa Pride! How crazy is that? One day you're imagining this little gay party and then year from it you have some of the biggest lgbt names from Finland coming to your party because you asked them! Asked! That's how easy it was.

I'm once again so happy and humbled and amazed what you can do when you dare to dream.

I'll see see you at Forssa Pride tomorrow!

Feedback feels good

I sometimes feel like I live in a vacuum and don't really see the impact that my actions have. One of the biggest reasons for me leading Gay Cafe and organizing Forssa Pride is to create a Community for people around the area. Sometimes, especially when I was doing everything by myself and no one would show up, I felt like I'm living in this bubble and no one else is around. Why am I doing this again? Only gay in the village

Then we get to Forssa Pride and people are having fun, telling me they've had some much fun and how grateful they are that I've organized it. Same with recurring people at Gay Cafe, or new ones coming in and telling me they had so much fun. It feels amazing to hear that what I've created is helping others.

Last time at Gay Cafe I had invited a friend to lead the discussion, we had a 4 page spread in a local news paper to open the discussion about lgbt people as customers in social services and health care and I invited directors of social services from the 5 local municipalities and none of them showed up and only one had the decency to decline the invitation. Then today I found out that one has also been an active volunteer at FSMS but couldn't even bother to decline or reach out. I feel slighted but at the same time I realize how much this is needed. I won't give up.

I also need to learn not to take these things personally. It's hard, because they're things I've come up with, things I KNOW need improving, things I am doing to improve them and no one is listening. No one is paying attention. We're not important enough. Once again, we are invisible, and I feel it's ME that's invisible. And because I feel invisible here, it's sometimes hard to believe in the positive feedback I get from outside Forssa from people who are doing these things in areas where they have a big organization behind them with like-minded people helping them.

I love what I'm doing, at its best it's so rewarding and at its worst it's so frustrating. And this isn't even anything I get paid to do. I must really love it or be totally bat shit crazy!

It's that time again

So, in case you didn't know, it's the time of the year again when Forssa Pride Party is fast approaching and Eino has, once again, made a fabulous poster for the party. It'll be all over Southern Finland in no time. He also made a badge model for it, which I turned into a t-shirt, which you can buy from here.

And here is the poster in all of its glory!

Our Facebook events page can be found here.

I hope to see many of you there, it's going to be amazing time! We are excited!