Jeppis Pride, oh Jeppis Pride

I know I've said that I will post things from Lahti Pride, and never did, and from Helsinki Pride, and never did, but now I'm wondering is it really relevant anymore? It's been so long…

And there was a new and exciting Pride in Pietarsaari this past weekend, Jeppis Pride, which was just fantastisk! so I'm gonna write about that instead.

I went there with Mikko as his arm candy/helper/map reader. He was there working for Sinuiksi.fi (advice and support service for LGBTI-people, check it out) and had room in his car and I was on a vacation so it worked out perfectly. On top of that, we got to hang out with some of the people from SETA's board, who I don't get to see often, so that was nice. AND, on top of that, they are now being utilized in my quest to find my better half, as are some of the employees, so that's great. Now that led to some hilarious and embarrassing situations, but that's neither here nor there!  We clearly didn't think the whole thing trough, as we had to leave on Saturday night to drive home the 4h drive it took to get to Mikko's place. The party on Saturday could have yielded some stories, phone numbers or smoke signals later on, but alas, I was tired. We kept around midnight and got to his place around 3:30am.

We started Thursday with an LGBTIQ-presentation/discussion at summer camp after which we went to Mikko's place, left my car there and hit the road. We left around 8pm and I live tweeted our road trip with the hashtag RoadTripToJeppisPride, which you can find from Instagram and Twitter.

Me and Mikko at Prometheus Camp. I went to visit my dads grave beforehand and let me tell you, it felt weird being there in all of my rainbow glory.

The "Sinuiksi/SETA" mobile.

On our way.

Blinding sun.

Route 66 was long! About halfway there.

Rainbow lights welcomed us to our hotel.

Gay Cafe was there too!

Friday was the day for panel discussions and Jeppis Pride was selling merchandise at the high school. I think my new Jeppis Pride shopping back is setting off alarms at stores, but I need to investigate further.

Being truly bilingual Pride, everything was in Swedish and in Finnish.

Our sinuiksi/Seta booth.

Seriously people, check out sinuiksi.fi. Also on twitter @sinuiksi.

Mikko and one of the organizers, Katarina.

Me with a smirk. I come out as a ax murderer in every picture, so don't mind me. I'm "quite ok" in real life and don't even own an ax.

Pietarsaari's mayor Mikael Jacobsson opened the Pride festival. "If even one person leaves here feeling like they are ok the way they are, Jeppis Pride has done its job"

Forssa Pride was also proud.

Right for culture panel discussion. I got some great ideas which I will try to make happen in Forssa in my limited time still here!

Panel discussion on trans issues.

We're already here! Art exhibition opening. After this we had a bite to eat and drinks with some fantastic, awesome people. No pictures were taken, but those people know who they are. I hope!

We finished our evening with a visit to the ocean. 

Before the parade started. With someone's finger. 

That flag was like a sail and with me having to carry 2 poles I got tired midway through and this gentleman was nice enough and offered to carry it for me. 

Awesome rainbow dress. Unfortunately I don't remember her name, but she offered to carry some of the extra material we had with us. Same with few girls from Turku who had decided to come and support the Pride. 

From After Eight after the parade.

I probably have not mentioned Sinuiksi-project yet, so you know, do your thing.

Pride organizer Jeanette on stage.

Sara Sundell brought the greetings from SETA to Jeppis Pride. One of those cool peeps I got to hang out with and who was telling me things about Finnish Swedish girls. 

Mandatory picture of my iced coffee, with an ice-cream as a mixer.

I want to see Pride flags in Forssa as well. Working on that.

On our way home we came across a UFO. 

Anyway, I want to thank Mikko, Sara, Aija, Suvi, Anna, Ulli, Heidi, Rita, Sirkka and all the other amazing and beautiful people I got to meet and hang out with this weekend and especially your willingness to speak Finnish around this language challenged person. I appreciated it! And to Jeppis Pride organizers: You should be really proud of yourselves, that was possibly the Pride event of the year! At least one of the best I've ever attended! Thank you!

(Edit: if we hung out and/or spoke and your name isn't on the list but you recognize yourself from the description, I'm sorry, I suck! Please forgive me?

Edit number 2: I never should have put any names here, I forgot a really obvious one, Jouko!)

Be still my shipper heart

Let's take a minute from the serious grind of Forssa Pride and Gay Cafe and Seta and human rights stuff and marriage equality and focus on something less serious but still so wonderfull (terrible).

At 33 and a half I'm probably too old to be swooning over fictional teenage lesbian couples and/or characters, and I sort of thought I was over my fixation on Glee and especially Brittana, but it turns out, I'm not. Not having Heather Morris on Glee anymore, and Santana having imaginary off screen girlfriend that we never see, and overall Glee sucking so badly I haven't watched an episode of Glee since before season 4 ended.

Now though, for the 100th episode they brought back all the originals and even gave Brittana a huge storyline and more importantly, a kiss (a hot one), on screen. And they talked about possibly getting back together. And there is no word on whether Heather Morris is ever getting back regularly or even as a guest star so the chances of all of this ending up well are very small.

I know this in my head, my over excited, love-story-loving, happily-ever-after believing heart is another matter. So when they released the video for Valerie I got excited. It even affected my sleep! I couldn't fall asleep last night, was up way past 1am (episode aired at 2am my time) and woke up over an hour before my alarm went off. And the fangirling that's happening on Tumblr? How am I supposed to resist and be a sane adult person?

Why couldn't they give us this when they were both on the show? Why do everything we ever wanted just for it to go away or happen off screen? Why are you doing this to me? WHY?

Wanna know what I'm doing tonight after work? Watching this frigging episode!

Transportation to Forssa Pride from Tampere (and Hämeenlinna)

Signal boost! Pirkanmaan Seta is trying to organize a bus transportation to Forssa Pride if there are enough people interested. So if you are from Tampere or Hämeenlinna, contact taloudenhoitaja at pirkanmaanseta.fi to get the details. Cost of trip is still up in the air, depends on how many is coming. Pirkanmaan Seta might sponsor some of it.

Seriously, as much as I'd like for you to stay around and read my blog, please go write that e-mail and I'll see you next Friday, here at Forssa!

Time for the crazies to come out

Or as we like to call them, 1/5 of the Finnish parliament. The citizen's initiative on marriage equality in Finland was debated for the first time in the Finnish parliament last Thursday, before it was sent to the law committee. As you can imagine, there was a lively debate on the merits of the initiative and how it is going to ruin the society as we know it. Basic Finns were at their best coming up with the usual polygamy claims, as well as "that's how its always been". One of the most bizarre arguments was a guy saying that next in the name of equality, the changing rooms at swimming halls will be unisex, because that's equality. How sam sex love results in lesbians wanting to change in front of straight men is beyond me, but that's what's coming if I can get married.

Speaking of marriage and love and all that good stuff, I finally, after lots of coercion from my cheerleaders, changed my profile on Qruiser. Before I was just looking for friends, now I'm open for more. My cheerleaders have both found their significant others through Qruiser, and if 2 people whose opinion I appreciate tells me it might be worth it, I should listen to them, right? I was against it because you really don't know where you'll end up if you meet someone through the internet, and what would my profile say? Lazy lez cat lady looking for love? Also, I would prefer to meet someone organically via mutual friends or through all this SETA stuff I'm doing, but I guess beggars can't be choosers and it's not like Forssa region is a big juicy open hunting ground where lesbians frolic just waiting to meet me. So here's roughly what it says there (in Finnish of course):

Looking for: a long term companion to drink coffee with

You: Have a sarcastic sense of humor, like cats and are not allergic to them. No requirements as far as appearances go because sense of humor cannot be seen from outside. Also would prefer if you were in southern Finland.

Me: An introvert, quiet and have a sarcastic sense of humor. A cat lover, fan fiction reader and a fanatic )advocate of lgbti rights. Lazy gym goer, sports fanatic, SETA advocate. Organizer of gay pride parties and leader of an lgbti support group. Addicted to social media. I like to belt out my favorite songs off key in my car. Set in my ways old maid. I'd like to do all sorts of things, but it's not always fun alone.

Favorite show: criminal minds. I love to hate on Glee. Fanatical and critical of the lez/bi couples and characters on TV.

Now if that doesn't bring all the ladies in my yard, then I don't know what will! Now seriously though, doesn't that just scream perfect wife and partner material?

One of these days I'll post pictures from Lahti Pride, but today is not that day. I'll see you next time!

Forssa Pride Party 4

The new poster is finished! Forssa Pride party vol.4 will be on March 14th at Bar 54! See you there

Pride and proud

Well, 2014 started off with a bang! Last Friday's Gay Gala will be followed with this weekend's Lahti Pride. And today I found out that one of those great things I expected to happen this year, happened. I got an e-mail from the secretary general of Seta today telling me I was one of the chosen ones for Seta's international Affairs committee. We have our first meeting of the year next Wednesday in Helsinki. So yay! Thanks for trusting me.

To go back to my last post, I realize that it might have sounded a little like I expected to be nominated and to win, which was not what I meant at all. It was more in regards to the TV and movie categories and the fact that Finnish TV doesn't have other shows or characters than the gay couple on Salatut Elämät, and that from the 4 nominated in the movie category, 2 of them were by LGBT people and about LGBT issues. I hadn't seen any of them, but I don't think the 2 Peter Franzen led movies were LGBT? I might be wrong though, I rarely watch Finnish TV or movies so I don't really know much about them.

There are plenty of LGBT people working in TV and movies and other arts related industries in Finland, and I felt like they should be celebrated instead of nominating all those straight made shows/movies. But, if we don't know about them, or their projects, it's difficult to nominate them. And there are plenty of locally important projects and people working in LGBT advocacy, but they are not as seen or heard as much as for example Tahdon 2013 campaign, which has succeeded really well in getting into people's hearts and heads and homes. Last year was clearly Tahdon 2013 campaigns, there's no doubt about it.

As an introvert I'm really out of my comfort zone in going to events by myself. I need someone to go with me and if these events weren't important places to be seen and to network in the LGBT community, and if I didn't know that there are going to be friendly faces there, I probably would have stayed at home last Friday and I wouldn't be going to Lahti Pride by myself! And the city of Lahti is totally foreign to me so this is doubly scary! I was gonna drive, but if the snow storm is gonna be bad on Saturday, I might just take the bus, even if it's super expensive. But this is FIRST. EVER. Lahti Pride and it's organized by a friend of mine, so it's important to participate. Hopefully I'll see you there!

Qx Gay Gaala 2014: Otherness and us vs. them

For the first time ever, a gay gala was held in Finland to celebrate last year's top queer happenings, people and allies in Finland. I'm not going to lie, in the back of my mind I was hoping to get a nomination for the things I'm doing in Forssa. Had I been nominated, I would have gone, no doubt. Since I wasn't, I didn't make any plans, until 2 weeks ago when I got a personal invitation for me +one to attend. I was shocked. I was ecstatic. And I was proud. A lot of the celebrity lgbt-people I know from Finland weren't, so this was an honor.

I spent the night with Seta folks and we had fun. I spoke with some of them about the gala, the nominees, the winners and overall experience. I spoke with Seta chairperson, J-P and watched him talk with a lot of different people during the night. He's well-spoken, knowledgable, very gracious, poltically correct and really good with people (and his good looks don't hurt). Truly a wonderful spokesperson for Seta and the LGBT community in Finland. I aspire to be more like him with my pc'ness.

Now don't get me wrong, I really like Krista Kosonen. I think she's funny and she's obviously gorgeous, but I wish they had had somebody from the community to host the gala. Overall, there was too much straightness being celebrated. Since there really isn't a queer TV or movie industry in Finland, I don't think those categories need to be present at this time, or they should only include tv shows and movies with an LGBT representation or which are made by LGBT people. I think Krista Siegfried was nominated in almost every category except gay of the year, or so it seemed. And she has done a lot for the gay visibility in Finland and in the world as a straight ally kissing girls on stage, but still, there are more deserving gay people out there doing things that aren't necessarily as visible, but make a difference nonetheless.

As a night celebrating the gay community, there was way too much otherness and words such as "weird" and "different" and "normal" being thrown around. Can't we all just be people, unique in our own way, without bringing the straight vs. gay, us vs. them into the conversation? The one night where we can just be us, be fabulous and celebrate it, had to turn political as well. We have pride parades for political statements, we have Seta advocating for our rights, we have  Tahdon 2013 citizen's initiative for marriage equality, do we need to bring pope and religion and Päivi Räsänen and laws into the discussion? There was no need for comparisons, and no need for the straight folks to emphasize their straightness. We should have enough celesbians and gays and bi's and trans* people in Finland to occupy this event. Even the most aware and open straight allies cannot really grasp the concept of being lgbt and that was painfully obvious with some of them yesterday.


I think Krista K. over-empasized her straightness and saying that she tried being bi was in a way an insult to the bisexuals. They get a lot of hate and questions about their sexuality and hear how they are just confused and media does a lot of bi-erasure as well, so having someone basically confirm that you can choose your sexuality can do a lot of harm. Acceptance of bisexuality as a valid sexual orientation has a long way to go still and this was not helping the cause.

And then there were the few occasions where the drag queens gave speeches that was subpar. Cristal Snow singled out a drag queen who had told her back in the day that she'd never make it in the business and look at her now…No need to be mean, just thank everyone, celebrate your win and move on, or if you have to say something, do it privately.

It's ok to be you and I like you, but I'm not like you. That was the feeling I left with and that's why I don't think the evening was 100% a success.