13/04/2015 | Writer: Kaos GL

Kaos GL Association will organize its 10th International Anti-Homophobia Meeting on May 16-17 in Ankara. This year’s meeting will focus on queer pedagogy and discrimination in sports.

Kaos GL Association will organize its 10th International Anti-Homophobia Meeting on May 16-17 in Ankara. The meeting which brings people against homophobia and transphobia together will end with “the March against Homophobia and Transphobia” on May 17.
 
Last year’s March against Homophobia and Transphobia was dedicated to the mining tragedy in Soma and victims of labor accidents
 
The International Anti-Homophobia Meeting is an annual event coordinated by Kaos GL since 2006, during the week of May 17, the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia. Kaos GL aims at bringing public authorities, students, academics, politicians, artists, health workers, families and LGBTs together to discuss the importance of diversity and how to combat homophobia and transphobia in society within the scope of this event.
 
Kaos GL Association made a call for the upcoming meeting:
 
Queer pedagogy and activism
 
International participants of the 10th International Anti-Homophobia Meeting will discuss the reflections of queer theory and activism across the world in general, the ways to push not only the education system, but also the system as a whole to think critically about gender, sexual orientation and gender identity in particular.
 
In other words, queer pedagogy opens learning, reading and desiring experiences excluded by heteronormativity to discussion. In so doing, it aims at bringing different forms of being that are banned by the “normal” to the forefront. In this respect, while our international guests are queering information, they will read pedagogy through the lens of the ways for the transformation of information, the self and, finally, the system creating and promoting heteronormativity.       
 
Homophobia, sexism and ethnic discrimination in sports
 
The 10th International Anti-Homophobia Meeting will discuss a number of challenges related to homophobia, sexism and ethnic discrimination in sports. Discrimination occurring in different sports and levels of practice causes unfair dismissal and misrecognition of LGBT athletes through homophobic and transphobic attitudes and behaviors. People who want to continue their sports career and not to be exposed to discrimination are pushed to declare that they either are heterosexual or keep their identities under wraps. In this session, we will be hosting alternative leagues, sports fan groups and academics.
 
Award ceremony for the Women to Women Story Contest
 
Finally, the 10th International Anti-Homophobia Meeting will host an award ceremony for the 10th Women to Women Story Contest. Short-story authors against heterosexism and patriarchy will gather in conjunction with the Women to Women Story Contest which is the only lesbian short-story contest in Turkey. On the one hand, the authors will share their experiences in dissemination of women short-story authors’ works and writing process in literary journals. On the other hand, literature publishing as well as reading group experiences will be discussed. In so doing, the ways to transform the existing system by reproducing the authors’ experiences will be discussed. 
 
What is the International Anti-Homophobia Meeting?
 
Kaos GL Association is involved in various activities in social, cultural and academic fields for the enhancement of human rights of LGBT people in the face of discrimination. With this event, Kaos GL aims to establish a basis to discuss and increase the visibility of discrimination against LGBT people.
 
17th of May, the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia, is the day of acting and standing up against all acts of physical, moral or symbolic violence in relation to gender identities and sexual orientations.
 
The International Anti-Homophobia Meeting is open to the participation of anyone who wishes to discuss the problems of LGBT people and homophobia and transphobia in general, and to liberate LGBTs and heterosexuals together. As a result of the webs woven in the fight against discrimination, this event has now gone beyond the borders of Ankara and reached cities all around Turkey.
 
Diary of the 9th International Anti-Homophobia Meeting
 
The main program of Kaos GL’s 9th International Anti-Homophobia Meeting took place on May 17 and 18 but there were many other events in Ankara before that. Here is the diary of the 9th meeting which kicked off on May 5:
 

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