LGBTQ+ Rights

Ngāhuia te Awekotuku (Te Arawa, Tūhoe, Waikato, Ngapuhi iwi) was a leader of the women’s liberation movement in New Zealand in the 1970s. As a student, she was a member of the Ngā Tamatoa Māori activist group at the University of Auckland. As a Māori lesbian, Ngāhuia was at the forefront of a call to focus on reaching Māori and Pacific women, as well as lesbian rights. 

In 1972, she was famously denied a visa to visit the United States on the basis of her sexuality. She was the first Māori woman to gain a doctorate from an Aotearoa/NZ university.  

At the outset, women’s liberation groups adopted an all-inclusive ‘sisterhood is powerful’ approach. But it wasn’t long before differing perspectives on a range of issues led to disagreements. Many Māori women saw women’s liberation as a Pākehā concept with little relevance for them. They argued that Māori women’s rights were intertwined with the revival of Māori culture and the assertion of land rights. By 1973, separate Māori and lesbian groups had started to form and as the decade progressed ideological differences divided the movement further.  

Te Awekotuku has worked across the heritage, culture and academic sectors as a curator, lecturer, governor, researcher, and activist. Her areas of research interest include gender issues, culture and heritage, ritual and performance. She has been curator of ethnology at the Waikato Museum; senior lecturer in art history at Auckland University, and professor of Māori Studies at Victoria University of Wellington. She was Professor of Research and Development at Waikato University, and has researched and written extensively about the traditional and contemporary practices of tā moko (tattoo) in New Zealand, as well as Māori practices and traditions around death. She has served on many government boards in the arts and heritage sector. Ngāhuia is an Emeritus Professor of the University of Waikato, the first Māori female Emeritus in Aotearoa. She remains a leading feminist writer, lesbian rights activist, and advocate for Māori issues. She has published short fiction, poetry, and significant nonfiction. She continues to work and curate in the gallery sector. She is also an active practitioner of traditional chant and ceremony. In 2022, she presented the 3 episode video documentary Waharoa: Art of the Pacific that focuses on Māori and Pasifika art in New Zealand.   

In recognition of her services to Māori culture, Ngāhuia was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2010. In 2016 she was made the inaugural Mareikura or Matriarch of the Pae Akoranga Wahine/Women's Studies Association of Aotearoa/New Zealand. In 2017 she was made a Fellow of the Auckland War Memorial Museum, and she also received the Pou Aronui Supreme Award from the Royal Society of New Zealand for outstanding service to the arts and humanities. Currently, she is one of three inaugural Ruānuku, or Esteemed Scholarly Elders, of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, the National Centre for Māori Research Excellence. 

Keywords: academia and women's studies, indigenous issues, LGBTQ+ rights

Media: Transcript, YouTube Video

Giulia Blasi, born in Pordenone in 1972, is a writer and a feminist activist. She is the author of several novels and short stories, including Manuale per ragazze rivoluzionarie - Perché il femminismo ci rende felici (2018), Rivoluzione Z - Diventare adulti migliori con il femminismo (2020), and Brutta - Storia di un corpo come tanti, all published by Rizzoli. She is the creator of the #quellavoltache campaign, a hashtag used in Italy at the end of 2017 to open a conversation on sexual harassment and abuse. She lives in Rome. 

Keywords: media, community activism, intersectionality, LGBTQ+ rights, art/writing as activism

Media: Transcript (English), YouTube Video (English)

Carla Catena was born in Ancona in 1963. She graduated in literature from the University of Bologna and works  as a marketing project manager. She is active with the Lesbian Association Bologna. 

Keywords: community activism, LGBTQ+ rights, politics and the law

Media: Transcript (Italian, English), YouTube Video (Italian, English Subtitles)

Cathy Cohen, born in 1962, is the former co-chair and a founding board member of the Audrey Lorde Project in New York. She served on the board of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, and the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at CUNY. Cohen was a founding member of Black AIDS Mobilization (BAM) and a core organizer of the International Conference, Black Nations Queer Nations. Cohen has also served as an active member in many organizations, such as the Black Radical Congress, African-American Women in Defense of Ourselves, and the United Coalition Against Racism.
Keywords: LGBTQ rights, intersectionality
Media: Transcript (English), Video, Bibliography, YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Elisa Dal Molin was born in Feltre, in the province of Belluno, in 1975. She obtained a four-year degree in oriental languages and literature (Chinese). She has worked for many years as the regional representative  for Famiglie Arcobaleno. Since the fall of 2018, she has worked as the Secretary of the Famiglie Arcobaleno (national directive).

Keywords: politics and the law, LGBTQ+ rights, community activism, reform of domestic/family roles

Media: Transcript (Italian, English), YouTube Video (Italian, English Subtitles)

Barbara Hoyer, born 1955, MA in German Studies and Geography (Magistra thesis on lesbian literature in the 1970s). After her studies, she worked in the women's bookstore Labrys in Berlin (1982-1989). From 1990-1998 was she part of the organisational team of BEGiNE -Treffpunkt und Kultur für Frauen e.V., responsible for event organisation, fundraising, and accounting. Since 1975 she has been active in the women's and lesbian movement, first in various women's groups (including LAZ -Lesbian Action Centre Berlin -around 1980), then in the above-mentioned women's projects). Since 2004 she has been project manager of the BEGiNE.

Keywords: media, academia and women's studies, community activism, art/writing as activism, LGBTQ rights

Media: Transcript (English, German), Video, YouTube Video (German, English), Name Pronunciation Audio

Anita Lombardi was born in Vittorio Veneto in 1988. She graduated from college with a degree in Philosophy and works as a freelancer. She works as the Secretary of the Board  of the Lesbian Association in Bologna. 

Keywords: LGBTQ+ rights, intersectionality

Media: Transcript (Italian, English), YouTube Video (Italian, English Subtitles)

Born in 1949, Eva Maria grew up in Frankfurt on Main. After graduating from high school and apprenticing as a bank clerk, she left home in 1971. She was a university student in Marburg, until 1977 when she moved to Berlin. She was active in different gay and lesbian groups throughout this period, and collaboratively created the first Lesbian Week in Berlin in 1985. Eventually she was very much involved with BEGINE in Berlin.

Keywords: LGBTQ rights, art/writing as activism

Media: Transcript (English, German), Video, YouTube Video (German, English), Name Pronunciation Audio

Bianca Maria Pomeranzi was born in 1950 in Arezzo. She has been a part of the Roman Feminist Movement of Via Pompeo Magno since the mid-1970s. With the group Vivere Lesbica she organized the first Italian Lesbian Feminist Conference in 1981. As an expert on gender and development issues, she worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Development Cooperation. She served as an Expert on the Commission of the United Nations Convention for the Rights of Women, CEDAW. She is vice president of the Association for the Renewal of the Left and politically active in the Wednesday Feminist Group  and the Alma Sabatini Feminist Studies Center. 

Keywords: academia and women's studies, LGBTQ+ rights, politics and the law

Media: Transcript (Italian, English), YouTube Video (Italian, English Subtitles)

Valeria Roberti was born in 1984 and has been an activist for the rights of LGBTQI+ people for years. She is the facilitator of the Centro Risorse LGBTI, an organization that promotes the full equality of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual, and intersex people. She works  to promote Education about  Differences with adolescents and teachers through non-formal education techniques and has collaborated with various organizations already active in this field. In 2017 she completed the course for professional development on “Gender Perspectives in Teaching  Pedagogy” at the University of Bologna. She is the coauthor of the book “Una scuola arcobaleno. Dati e strumenti contro l’omotransfobia in classe” published by Settenove Edizioni in 2021. 

Keywords: LGBTQ+ rights, politics and the law, education

Media: Transcript (Italian, English), YouTube Video (Italian, English Subtitles)

Dagmar Schoenfisch was born in Berlin in 1940. She worked as a nurse in East Berlin, and in August 1961 escaped to West Berlin, where she got her diploma at the Free University. She has a daughter and a son. She participated in the German Senate for Economics in 1978 and worked in women’s shelter activism. She was the founder of the first lesbian bar in Berlin (“Die Zwei”) in 1980-81, which she continued to operate until 2002.

Keywords: LGBTQ rights, academia and women's studies, art/writing as activism

Media: Transcript (English, German), Video, YouTube Video (German, English), Name Pronunciation Audio

Gahela Tseneg Cari Contreras, born in the early 1990s, is a transgender woman who began participating in politics in 2015 in the National Youth Congress held in Huaraz. Gahela grew up in a rural area of ​​the Ica region. Her early life reflects much of the upheaval of Peru's recent history. Her mother was a peasant leader, native of Ayacucho, who was saved from forced sterilization ordered by the government of Alberto Fujimori. Her father was forced to flee Peru because of threats from terrorists, who besieged the work of union leaders. Both became immigrants, as did another 7 million Peruvians who mobilized internally for political or economic reasons. At age 27 she ran to become the first transgender woman in Peru’s Congress in the January 2020 elections, campaigning with what has been described as one of the most courageous and intersectional programs of the emerging and diverse Peruvian left. Although she did not win a seat, she has continued her political activism to transform issues of equity and discrimination among LGBTI individuals.

Keywords: community activism, LGBTQ+ rights, politics and the law

Media: Transcript (Spanish, English), Video, YouTube Video (Spanish, English Subtitles), Name Pronunciation Audio

Ruth Vanita, born in 1955, is an author and professor at the University of Montana, where she teaches courses in the Humanities, Literature, and Women's Studies. She was formerly a reader in English at Miranda House and the English department, Delhi University. She is one of the founding co-editors of Manushi, India's first feminist journal.
Keywords: education, gender-based violence, LGBTQ rights, community activism, academia and women's studies
Media: Transcript (English), Video, Bibliography, YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio