The Frontline The Frontline

In the almost 14 years since Evelyne Paradis became the Executive Director of ILGA-Europe it has grown to become the largest umbrella organisation for LGBTI activism in Europe and Central Asia, playing a key and essential role in resourcing and fostering the LGBTI movement, and influencing political systems towards ever greater consideration of LGBTI people’s equality, freedom and safety in decision making and legislation. The past two years in particular have been a time of unprecedented expansion for ILGA-Europe, both in terms of staff and funding, and in our capacity to support, represent and help build a strong and strategic LGBTI movement in the region. 

  

In this episode of The Frontline, as Evelyne Paradis hands over the reins of leadership to our new Executive Director, Chaber, we sit down with them both to talk about how ILGA-Europe has evolved as an organisation alongside the LGBTI movement over the past decades, and what’s just around the corner, both for the organisation and for the queer activist movement.   


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For the past 18 years with ILGA-Europe, 15 of which she spent as the organisation’s Executive Director, Evelyne Paradis has worked closely alongside hundreds of LGBTI activists and organisations across Europe and Central Asia. As she gets ready to hand over the reins to our new Executive Director, in this episode of The Frontline, Evelyne talks about how the LGBTI movement in Europe and Central Asia has evolved over her time leading ILGA-Europe, and how ILGA-Europe’s work to build and enhance the movement has evolved and grown too. 



What have been the rising priorities in queer activism, and how has ILGA-Europe been both supporting and helping lead the charge? What have been the pitfalls along the way and what are the challenges ahead? And as LGBTI communities and activists face growing opposition from powerful right wing forces across the region, how can the movement further harness is own power to push forward?  


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This is the first of three interviews with ILGA-Europe’s Executive Director, Evelyne Paradis as she departs the organisation, after 18 years, nearly 14 of which she spent as its leader.



With a decade and half of experience leading Europe’s largest LGBTI umbrella organisation, which is a driving force for political, legal and social change in Europe and Central Asia, Evelyne has had a helicopter view of the growing place of LGBTI rights on political agendas and how all of this has filtered down in the everyday lives of LGBTI people across the regions.

 

In this episode, Evelyne talks about how politics have evolved over her time leading ILGA-Europe, which included the dawn and global spreading of social media, and how Europe’s political institutions have progressed to include LGBTI people across a broad range of portfolios and initiatives. Is the current EU political system working well to shore up and promote LGBTI equality, or are rainbow rights a victim to an advancing populism across the political spectrum? And what does it take to be a great politician at this time in the world? All these questions and more are answered in this, the first of the Evelyne Paradis exit interviews for The Frontline.  


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Every year since 2009, ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow Map has been ranking the 49 countries that make up Europe based on the legal and policy situations of LGBTI people.  While during this time there has been much movement at the top of the map, with Spain, Finland, Greece and Moldova making big jumps this year, the countries at the bottom have largely been the same since the very first map, namely Russia, Armenia, Turkey, and at the very bottom Azerbaijan.



In this episode of The Frontline, we ask the question, if a country stays at the bottom of the Rainbow Map ranking, does it mean there's no queer activism happening there? In countries where advocacy is not possible, and where daily life for LGBTI people is often extremely challenging, what's happening in the work towards LGBTI rights and equality? And is this mostly invisible activism bringing about change for LGBTI people in the countries where it seems life is getting worse rather than better? 


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Released every May since 2009, the ILGA-Europe Rainbow Map ranks the legal and policy situation for LGBTI people in all 49 European countries, on a scale between 0% (gross violations of human rights, discrimination) and 100% (respect of human rights, full equality).  



This year there was much movement on the map, with Malta holding the top spot and several countries entering the top ten. All of this has been reported across the world, but what truths lie behind the Rainbow Map rankings? Malta has been number one for eight years now, but is it a utopia for LGBTI people, or are there issues in the country that might be pinkwashed by its Rainbow ranking? Are small movements up the chart really representative of what’s happening on the ground for LGBTI people? And what’s happening in the countries that used to be at the top but are now lagging very much behind? 



In this episode of The Frontline, exploring the complexities behind the rankings in the annual Rainbow Map, we are joined by guests Robert Attard from the Malta Gay Rights Movement, Simona Mursec from Ljubljana Pride Association in Slovenia and Sophie Schers from Transgender Network in The Netherlands. We’re also joined by Mehmet Akin from the ILGA Europe team, who oversees the collection of data and rankings on the Rainbow Map and Index, and our Advocacy Director, Katrin Hugendubel, to talk about what we see happening now and in the future.  


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All too often we hearabout exclusionary forces, or the voices of forces who seek to exclude trans women from the women’s movement, but does this adequately represent the truth?


This episode focuses on the ways in which actors in the women’s movement are actively inclusive of trans women, questions the exclusionary narrative that dominates much of the media, and how this dominant narrative is both being driven by and playing into the hands of anti-democratic forces.   



We ask what it means for feminism to be inclusive in practical terms and how does inclusiveness impact the work? We explore how inclusionary women’s rights organisations and
trans activists are responding to the efforts of exclusionary actors to narrow the frame for feminism, and the lessons learned so far. 



With us to investigate the exclusionary narrative and look at it from the more prevalent inclusionary perspective, are Caroline Hickson, Regional Director of International Planned Parenthood Federation European Network; Tanya von Knorring, Executive Director of  Transfeminiinit, Finland and Federal Vice Chair of National LGBTI Finland; and Marion Böker from the German NGO, Deutsche Frauenring, who is also on the board of the International Alliance of Women and the European Women’s Lobby.
 


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