MAY 17 -- INTERNATIONAL DAY AGAINST HOMOPHOBIA, TRANSPHOBIA, BI-PHOBIA

In this time of the virus hindering get-togethers, Tupilak (Nordic rainbow culture workers) and the ILGCN (international rainbow culture network) Information Secretariat-Stockholm join the world-wide celebration digitally on facebooks, websites, etc. -- honoring IDAHO DAY on this anniversary of the World Health Organization's declaration that homosexuality is not an illness:


"Breaking the Silence! Smashing Invisibility!"

Rainbow art & photography, film, music and future events:

TOM OF FINLAND -- a special birthday salute to Touko Laaksonen, on the 100th anniversary of his birth in Finland on May 8th -- a tribute to the man who changed the way the world looked at the gay man.

Latest additions of more LGBT art and photography to the Tupilak/ILGCN International Art and Photography Exhibition -- now with works from over 70 nations. (available on request!)

Felix Garmendia (Puerto Rico), Sergei Dudik (Russia/Berlin), Tupilak award ceremony at Norwegian Embassy in Kiev, Alirezan Shojainan (Iran/Paris), Lynx Dean (Canada), Alaa Haziem (Syria/Sweden), Zelim Bakeav (Chechnya), Barbara Hammer (USA), Wenjie Ding (China).

Song: "Race Against Time" -- Peter Fröberg, former Swedish ILGCN cultural ambassador

Coming events:

August 9 -- International Day of Rainbow Culture (birthday of Finnish author Tove "Mumintroll" Jansson!).

September 15 - Stockholm, etc.:

"Queer History of the Holocaust," (often ignored by other researchers, exhibitions, media coverage) -- Dr. Anna Hajkova, Czech Republic/UK (winner of ILGCN's 2020 Orpheus Iris award for research in this field)

"1st LGBT Delegation to Auschwitz -- 20 year anniversary," An internatonal delegation led by Tupilak/ILGCN (outraging right-wing Polish parliamentarians and media and a homophobic pope demanding in vain the dismissal of the Auschwitz Museum chief). Bill Schiller - Tupilak/ILGCN

"LGBT Monuments around the world -- but none in the Nordic region. Why?"

Film: "LGBT Monuments around the World" -- Willi Reichhold, Tupilak, Sweden in this the 75th year of the liberation of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz.

October -- 6th NORDIC MONTH of RAINBOW HISTORY & CULTURE -- in Stockholm and other Nordic cities on both sides of the Baltic Sea. Including:

-- the 2nd NORDIC PRIDE -- focusing on Nordic rainbow culture, history and solidarity often lost in other national and international Prides.

ORPHEUS IRIS 2020 AWARD

ORPHEUS IRIS 2020 AWARD FOR HOLOCAUST RESEARCH GOES TO Dr. ANNA HÁJKOVÁ 

Stockholm -- The ILGCN (international rainbow culture network) 2020 ORPHEUS IRIS award diploma goes to Dr. Anna Hájková, the Czech/UK researcher looking at the victims of the Holocaust and especially the ILGCN victims of oppression and extermination.

The award diploma notes that many other film, exhibitions and other presentations of the Holocaust deliberately ignore the LGBT element . This included many media presentations even of this the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz," says Bill Schiller of the ILGCN.

"We hope to hand over the award diploma at a Stockholm seminar this September," says Schiller.

The award has gone earlier to German and Austrian historians and researchers discussing LGBT presence in the Nazi concentration camps and neo-Nazi persecution afterwards -- and the Auschwitz Museum -- receiving the first ever LGBT delegation to the outrage of right-wing Polish parliamentarians and press and even the homophobic pope demanding in vain the dismissal of the museum boss.
The award is named after "Iris" -- the rainbow -- and Orpheus, the ancient Greek hero of astounding music soothing even the demons of the underworld -- proud of his love for both women and men -- something condemned by the younger, homophobic religions both east and west.

Dr Anna Hájková is associate professor of History at the University of Warwick. She is a Holocaust historian who explores queer desire in the Holocaust. As a first one, she has suggested we explore same sex relationships between Jewish victims in the concentration camps and ghettos, and examine the wide-spread homophobia in the prisoner society.

She has introduced the topic to national newspapers and radio in Germany, US, Israel, and the Czech Republic, as well as academic articles.

Currently, she is writing a book on an enforced relationship between two women in a Hamburg concentration camp: a guard and a Jewish prisoner. Hájková also serves on board of the Czech Society for Queer Memory