SUCCESSFUL SWEDISH SALUTE to IDAHO DAY
Stockholm -- Tupilak (Nordic rainbow culture workers) and ILGCN (international rainbow culture network) Information Secretariat-Stockholm carried out a positive salute to the May 17 IDAHO Day -- international day against homophobia, transphobia and bi-sexual phobia -- at an event in the Swedish capital.
The event was made possible by Tupilak's chair person, Sarah Guarino Werner, of
Joining the event via Zoom was Louis-Georges Tin, Paris-based French professor, author LGBT anti-racist activist and originator of the concept of IDAHO Day. He received the Golden Tupilak 2005 award diploma for creating IDAHO Day initiative.
"I am so proud of this award -- my first international recognition," said Louis-Georges. "And so pleased that the IDAHO DAY idea went from local initiatives, national recognition in France and elsewhere and finally as United Nations pro-claimed day. And that a number of organizations around the workd -- Nepal and Cuba and elsewhere have used this concept succuessfully in their struggle to combat homophobic laws. We have succeed in a number of countries -- but still have a difficult and dangerou battle ahead in other countries!" he added.
Louis-Georges reminded the aucience that the choice of May 17 was based on the United Nations´ World Health Organization decision declaring that homosexuality was not a sickness -- combating many national laws East and West putting LGBT people in prison, mental institutes and even execution.
A Swedish-Speaking Finnish Island in History
Another digital video phone participant in the event was Swedish singer, performer, ex-parliamentarian member for the Left Party, and co-ordinator of the WestPride annual event in the Swedish west coast city of Gothenburg, and new head of the Nordic Cultural Institute in Mariahamn of the Finnish, Swedish-speaking Åland islands --Tasso Staffilidis -- an earlier winner of a Tupilak award diploma.
"We want very much to work together -- with the Nordic Institute (NIPÅ), Ålands's LGBT pride organization, Regnbågsfyren (rainbow light house), and Tupilak/ILGCN in future Nordic LGBT events," said Tasso. "And we fully support Tupilak's founding concept that the Nordic region shall also include our Baltic neighbors -- once part of the Swedish 17th and 18th empire, later part of the Soviet-occupied Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as part of the Nordic family!"
(Åland lies in the Baltic Sea, closer to Sweden, and once was the historic
center of frustrated, emperial Russian advance towards attacking Sweden. And later the conflict of almost leading to warfare between Sweden and Finland over who should claim the Swedish-speaking islands.)
French Poetry, United Nations Films
Also part of the event was a poem in French dedicated to Louis-Georges from Tupilak poet, Tomas Åberg of Sweden. Also, IDAHO Day greetings from Canada, the UK and Norway -- also from Norwegian humanist LGBT activist Rolf Solheim -- often a participant in Tupilak seminars in the Nordic region and in Eastern Europe.
Also, the screening of United Nations LGBT films from the "Free and Equal" series -- the song-filled documentary "Why We Fight" covering the global scene and the humorous and song-filled "The Welcome" of India -- showing how the hesitant, elderly generation can warmly receive LGBT youngsters into the family.
FUTURE TUPILAK & LGBC EVENTS
Possible future Tupilak and ILGCN seminars, music events, art exhibits and film screenings are coming up on July 30th in the "Pride in the Streets" events of the Stockholm Pride week supported by Baltzar (meeting place for the eldery and all others) with participants coming in person for via Zoom from the United States, Canda and Russia, and the annual Tupilak/ILGCN seminars at Stockhold Pride, a seminar at the Reclaim Pride alternative program in July, a joint Nordic rainbow program with the Nordic Institute on the Åland Islands, and the 10th Nordic Rainbow History & Culture Month --October, 2025 together with Estonia, Sweden, Finland and Denmark -- including participating visitors in place and Zoom participation from Hungary, Germany, Romania, Austria, Norway, the U.K., USA, Spain, Latin America and others.
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More information: Tupilak, ILGCN, Bill Schiller Facebooks and bill@tupilak.org
