This is just a diary of what I did and thought about during (and after) EuroPride '98 in Stockholm. Not your typical Europride experience - I'm not a typical Europride visitor! You don't believe me? Well, read on and see for yourself...
[Stockholm Europride '98 became Stockholm Pride in late 1998. Their web pages are at http://www.stockholmpride.org/.]
"Keep smiling, keep making eye-contact, and keep saying YES!"
Helena and Spencer, 25 July 1998
| 1999-12-19 |
| A year and a half has gone since EuroPride '98. Since then, a lot has happened. Stockholm Pride continued in the same vein as EuroPride at the end of July 1999, and, well, I was pretty heavily involved in it, too. Elisabeth Ohlson's Ecce Homo became much more controversial than anyone ever expected (see also www.eccehomo.nu). Eva X. Moberg, who wrote the Aftonbladet piece I linked to (Report 15), died in 1999. A lot of people I met have become friends - some of the people who I ran into at the intergender café, for example. Dykeye was even more successful in 1999. I still have a thing about butchness, and I'm still not sure why. The guy I had a crush on during EuroPride still seems to be together with the same boyfriend. Of the two guys I kissed, one I've never seen again, and the other one I kissed again at Stockholm Pride 1999. And the guy who was in the back of my head during EuroPride turned out to be the best of the lot, but that's a whole nother webpage. Guest #1 is back in NZ now, and he and his man still look cute. At EuroPride we thought the media coverage was huge - at Stockholm Pride 1999 it seemed even bigger. Which is fun in a way, but it means that (as usual) the world gets its picture of us via the straight media, not from us. Oh and the 'Transgender debate' (TM) ended up on national radio in 1999. Weird. London Europride '99 never happened, but World Pride 2000 in Rome is definitely on, with Ecce Homo among its attractions. Stockholm Pride '99 turned out to be even more lesbian-friendly than EuroPride '98 was, partly in the wake of the film 'Show me love' ('Fucking Åmål'). The gay male backlash has, I think, already begun, and things will seem much less unified by next summer. Stockholm's Anarchofeminists have already launched Lesbisk Kamp. 'Queer' has become a well-known concept (if not a terribly well-understood one), particularly with the launch of Zon magazine summer 1999, but biologism and essentialism still define how most people interpret homo- and bisexuality. After EuroPride, though, it's been harder for the media (and everyone else) to ignore transgendered people, which I think is definitely a good thing. For 2000, it's time to think even more about gender identity, sexual preference, and what's considered normal. Accepting that people are different is really hard. It's also about the most fun thing in the world. |
No, nothing's started yet. I got back from Häcktet not long ago. Stockholm was sunny and warm today, one of those perfect summer days we thought would be just perfect for the start of Europride, back at the beginning of 1996 when the whole thing started.
I left work early to do some chair-shifting at the Europride conference centre (aka Södermalm School). Eyes fixed on a copy of Svenska Dagbladet - the 'other' daily paper, here with the most fantastic two-page spread on Europride. A journalist who knows their stuff! Wow! Stockholm is getting the rainbow flag's colours taught to them. People will begin to understand.
Later, Ann and I take a bus through the town and see the big, joyful, rainbow flags flying on Skeppsbron, in sight of the Royal Palace. And more in front of the Central Station. With 'EuroPride 98' in large friendly letters on them. So no mistaking - Stockholm is coming out to itself.
The TV news has coverage from Pride Park, under construction right now, and lots about Elisabeth Ohlson's big photo exhibition Ecce Homo that's been sooo controversial, at least for some of the more extreme rural Christian churches. They say they're praying for us. Ecce Homo pictures scenes from Christ's life, but with all the roles, people and situations, taken from our world. AIDS, Pride festivals, drag queens, the lot. Elisabeth is lesbian and a brilliant spokesperson for all of us. Here, on TV, in little old Sweden.
I better stop gushing before going much further.
Anyway, the chair-shifting gang met for a beer at Häcktet, now busy with people we don't recognise, folk from out of town, and some foreign visitors. We exchange stories, I hold forth on exactly why I don't want any straight people in Pride Park, and I almost forget to worry that I'm once again amongst a bunch of lesbians when I should be out there checking out the men. Well except the straight but entirely cool volunteer who got the worst of my diatribe...
The oddest thing is that we know this week will change Stockholm entirely, maybe even Sweden, and certainly it's going to be quite an experience for me. But how? What's going to happen? Will it stop raining after tomorrow afternoon? The thing is, we have no idea. It's really exciting.
But I'm tired, I have to go to bed you know...
Got woken up by International Guest #1, who's in Finland. And on his way here, after doing the big European tour. Guest #2 is supposed to be coming on Tuesday, so this must mean going out and buying at least one mattress. Not to mention cleaning up the joint.
I wonder about getting a rainbow flag to hang out the balcony: somehow this is still not the sort of suburb I'd walk about in my Nobody Knows I'm Gay t-shirt in. But then if I don't do it, who else will?
Some day!
Almost all of it spent at PridePark, 3000 square metres of gravel in the middle of Tanto Park, ten minutes' walk from the centre of Södermalm, which is kind of more 'our' island than any of the other ones are.
Sun! Shorts weather! Warmth! Rain by early evening!
Five thousand people! Already on the first day. I kept bumping into friends, everybody happy and impressed by it all. Jeppe had cycled all the way from Finland. Spent many a happy hour just wandering round, drinking coffee, checking out the stalls, realising that my wallet is going to take a battering this week, and subsequently supporting the pink krona by buying a t-shirt and one of those neat Diesel tank tops with the EuroPride logo on, and a big rainbow flag.
Having a rainbow flag in your hands changes your whole attitude to life, you become loved by the populace, you go around with an inane grin on your face and spread joy. Try it yourself. Better than sex.
Ulrich Bermsjö, club entreprenör and part-time diva, compèred the opening ceremony with some style and a sweet line in unscripted personal observations. Stockholm's mayor did the official opening speech and welcome to the city - and was quite, quite brilliant. This must have been ghost-written by one of us, I thought, but so what if it was: Stockholm City has put its heart into welcoming us and valuing us for who we are - lesbian, gay, bi and trans. Here's hoping the population can do the same.
RFSL, the Swedish Federation for Gay and Lesbian Rights, awarded the annual Homophobia Prize to immigration minister Pierre Schori for his astonishing naiveté (it's either that or lying) on the situation for homosexual people in Iran, when the question came up in connection with a refugee who in the end didn't get sent back after all. The Gold Lambda went to the founder of Umeå University's new Gay and Lesbian studies course. The recipient of Rosa Rummet's Culture Prize was queer theory expert and populariser Don Kulick. A man who's changed the way me and plenty of others in Sweden think about sexuality and heterosexism. But he set the cat among the pigeons by using his acceptance speech for some damning criticism of women's organisations who are excluding transexual women from their EuroPride events. It was good to strike a blow for transgender rights, but did he really realise he was yet another (white, blond) man standing on a stage attacking women? The debate's going to continue, that's for sure.
I missed Ann entirely, Jonny turned up despite being ill, Lena from Spisa hos Helena looked tired but very happy after the first of 8 days serving food to the masses, Shona reckoned we should gather the rest of the EuroPride Scots for a photoopportunity next to the Scottish flag, and I finally got to talk to a very sweet guy I've had my eye on for, ooh, a year or so...
And nobody saw me tampering with the advertising poster outside
PridePark, did they? Good. :-)
So, rainbow flag out on the balcony! Almost certainly the only one in this suburb, so I better watch out. At least Phillip and Jari (who arrived this morning from Finland) have kept their hopelessly cute behaviour for the inside of the flat. I don't want to frighten the neighbours. Well not yet anyway.
Looks like I'll manage to track down Ann later today at Dykeye, the
mostly-lesbian film and video festival (I like lesbian film,
and Dykeye looks like one of the most innovative things going on a
Europride. Plus Cecilia and Katarina are two of my favourite dykes),
whic, according to the plan, I'll check out after the opening of
Ecce Homo. Robert as pretend lesbian, as usual. :-)
We talked about Don Kulick's comments yesterday, and I kind of came round to the idea that Kvinnohuset and LN maybe really do need to pull theirs socks up about letting trans women go to at least their seminars and picnics. Maybe I'm just picking the wrong women to speak to, but all the lesbians I've met have agreed more than disagreed with Don Kulick...
Did I say how neat it is to have a shiny EuroPride dogtag round one's neck? It really puts Copenhagen 96's dogtag to shame, but then it was kind of their idea in the first place, I suppose. OK, lunchtime, and we're missing Stockholm Gay Radio's report from PridePark even as I write.
It stayed sunny pretty much all day again. Lunchtime in PridePark (ok, we'd already pastaed at home) was gloriously hot, so I got to give my new tanktop/vest its premiere. Oh and the men were all after me, natch. Actually they were probably looking at Phillip and Jari being grossly cute with each other. Like a Peter Knutson picture, if you know what I mean. Jari's on the way back to Helsinki now, and Phillip's mournfully listening to Jimmy Somerville on the stereo.
My image for the day was 'classic gay clone', well, as far in that direction as I can go, rainbow triangle cap, blue jeans, rainbow flag draped around me. So clad we walked across Söder, queued for a while outside the Ecce Homo opening, but decided that seeing the 100 metre-long line was enough of an experience. Catch the pictures later.
I did my lone male-person bit at the Dykeye film festival, as promised. Ingela stole my flag to brighten up her catering service, so I didn't feel quite as uncomfortable about being (well almost) sole representative of my sex. Why the hell does it bother me so much? I really wish there were easy ways of dealing with being on the wrong side of all these oppressor/oppressed relationships. Then maybe we could help straight people to deal with us easier.
Anyway, Sadie Benning's collected videos were cool. Talk about low-budget! A real lesson there for idiots like me who never do anything artistic because of course it would have to be so bloody perfect first. Ideas are more important. Then 'Changing worlds' was a documentary about seventies American feminist artists, Judy Chicago and her mates. Good to have seen; odd, though, that the L-word was conspicuous by its absence.
Dykeye is a nice little queer oasis up amongst the dancing pensioners of Mosebacke. Nice view, sunny terrace, excellent food and the best of queer feminist company. And the odd newly-out rock star, too...
Back in Pride Park the evening was cool and relaxed, EuroPride officials tense but always ready to share a joke or a clandestine half-glass of beer. Spisa hos Helena has become the centre of Pride Park. Shame that they're not open all night (but then we'd need a few more degrees C, thank you!
I decided that Efva Attling's CD was good morning music, so we're listening to that before breakfast. I realise now that writing long reports just before going to bed is a bad idea, my head just spins with EuroPride thoughts and ideas and schemes and hopes and concerns and I can't get to sleep.
I phoned Chris and he seems to have real problems with coming. All his shoes have given out, he has no good trousers left, and his pay doesn't come till Thursday. I'm sure we can solve this (I mean I can sub him, but not till he gets here) but I don't know how just yet. We'll have to see.
I really do need some breakfast. Once again it's sunny, windy this time too, outside. I hope it's shorts weather.
Sunburn! Sunshine! In PridePark! More of these silly sentences with exclamation marks! Sorry!
Lunch at PridePark with Phillip and Agop and his mate. Another relaxed PridePark afternoon, Mrs Green doing her stuff outside Chokladkoppen and, well, All's Right With the World, doncha know. Excellent idea to have drag queens doing live commentary at a cafe.
Set off for Ecce Homo, visiting Södra Teatern on the way and a long conversation about masses of things with Katarina J. Catering by King Catering, as yesterday.
So, there we were, in the bedrock under Sofia Church, and there were all of our Elisabeth's pictures. Straight and non-straight visitors, moving silently and talking quietly.
It's hard to describe the impact of the pictures. Scenes from Christ's life, populated with us, with my family, the Stockholm (for want of a better word) queer community in all its variety, all its tenderness, all its pain. Other people have tried to express who we are and how we love and how we suffer, but has anyone done it like Elisabeth, our Elisabeth? That she's done it in the context of Christianity, of my home religion and the one that told me time after time after time not to be who I am, is nothing short of astonishing. Go and see Ecce Homo. Demand that it be shown where you live.
And so, after still more hanging out in PridePark, back to Dykeye. This time to the documentary programme 'Gender Benders'. We were a group of seven, what's more - interest for trans things is higher among my friends than I'd ever thought. Cool. Anyway, what an excellent bunch of stuff! Leslie Feinberg, finally making me understand what the word 'transgender' means. The glorious 'Scent uVa Butch', a smörgåsbord of interviews with dykes who identify as butch, the whole spectrum from women with actually kinda long hair to dildo-wearing trouser-packers. Funny and moving and joyful, and so many moments when I wanted to applaud and yell 'Yes! Yes! Yes!'. Robert the male lesbian again, or something else going on? Del LaGrace's astonishing 'Pansexual public porn' showed a bunch of English female-to-male guys cruising gay men. And having sex. Boy, was this hot stuff. Not so much fuck as mindfuck, of the confusing-liberating variety, and, well, umm, with a certain effect on my all-too-male equipment... To finish off, two Drag King shorts - immensely funny and empowering.
Did I say 'empowering'? *gulp*
More on this later, I'm gonna collapse if I don't go and have breakfast.
OK, I'm back. Coffee. Good. Where was I?
After 'Gender Benders', the Dykeye closing party. The atmosphere before, during and after the film show was relaxed and fun - quite the most enjoyable company I've had at a film showing for some time.
I got a beer and chatted to Camilla Haglund and Cecilia Neant-Falk about the current Transgender Debate (TM). Cecilia agreed with my original feeling about Don Kulick's condemnation of the TS-excluding women's groups on Saturday. Just another guy telling the women what to do, basically. Of course, the situation is complicated, but at least there's some sort of open debate among the women's groups. What policy do SLM have for female-to-male transgender people? Can you get into an SLM event without a dick? The tranny guys in 'Pansexual Public Porn' got what they wanted out in the bushes - can Sweden's F2Ms get what they want?
Then me and Camilla talked about how different things are in Finland, where the trans community is well integrated into SETA, the national organisation for GLBT rights, and gradually got on to comparing notes about what was cute about butch dykes, and guys, and what a gay man thinks when he guesses wrong about a butch woman's gender, and it was all fun and liberating and Cafeteatern is such a brilliant place for a party like that.
I have given up feeling guilty about liking lesbian films. Something
in me recognises something in the butch dyke/trans guy/drag king
experience. I don't know what it is, but it's unusual and it's good.
Any other gay guys out there feel the same? Sometimes I think I'm
having fun with masculinity in just the same way as the drag
kings are. And it's serious in a way, too. The apotheosis of Robert
the male lesbian. :-)
Ann came out of the last film looking stunning in a dark pinstriped jacket. We chewed the fat as the party gradually picked up steam - DJs Agnieszka and Josefin playing the most fantastic slow industrial synth ethno techno mix of stuff. Get these women into the mainstream gay clubs NOW!
And yes, the few men who turn up at a dyke festival really
are cuter than the average. You know who you are. ;-)
Off to PridePark with the dungarees on! Today I'm gonna be BUTCH.
This report is going to be short, cos I have to get the next train into town and get to the Ecce Homo exhibition in time to volunteer for a couple of hours...
Yesterday then. Well the reason I got up so late (FSVO) was the QX Party Factory's Rai and Latino night, which was kinda quiet but fun. DJ Christer Broman didn't play anything like long enough before Vera from Oslo got goin on her wonderful latin stuff. He reckons Stockholm is still not ready for rai dance music (I mean, like just how long has Cheb Khaled been around?). Mind you, a year ago the whole idea would have been pretty much unthinkable. This is something I'm liking about EuroPride, the way minority tastes in all sorts of thing can have a moment of glory.
Sunny PridePark. Again. This time with even more people, many newly-arrived to check out the schlager evening. Which was fun - Håkan and I played with the rainbow flag (it's hard to raise it at just the right point in the chorus, we discovered). Nanne Grönvall was just excellent. Who needs drag queens, one wonders for about half an hour?
Less exciting were the Amnesty demo at Sergels Torg (the poor woman from TV3 news had clearly been expecting a showdown with the neonazis or something, rather than 20 people with placards and speeches) and the Elbowroom art exhibition. But maybe I was just in the wrong frame of mind for it.
Oh, and a chat with the nice people at the National Federation for Transexuals reveals that the SLM leather club does not let in female-to-male transgendered folks. Time for some discussion guys?
Recovery night. That's the plan anyway. Today was kind of relaxed too, at least after wolfing down my breakfast in doublequick time while logged on and typing, all for you, dear reader.
I had the honour of volunteering at Ecce Homo from 12 till half past two. Got to meet the exhibition's producer, Karin Tingstedt, who's just as delightful and cool as its photographer. A steady stream of people passed through the exhibition, some of whom had arrived even before the doors were open. All sorts of people. Plenty of EuroPriders with dogtags, families with small children (many of them with parents of different sexes), pensioners, straight couples, a pack of Viking Bears. A few, a very few, reminded me of some spectators I've seen from Pride Parades - people who are so afraid of us that they miss all of the joy and sadness and humanity in the way we express ourselves. But we had many people thanking us, mere volunteers, for the exhibition. It really was an honour.
Then I just sat in PridePark and did nothing all afternoon. OK, I had lunch with Hartmut from Berlin and talked about Swedish and German gay politics. I told him the astonsihing tale of "Softcore" at the Historical Museum in Stockholm. He observed that the latest paedophile scandals in Holland had actually been discovered in May, but oddly turned up in the media just in time for the run-up to the Gay Games. Nice, really - they can always drum up a bit of homophobic hysteria whenevr they want. Children's interests at heart? I don't think so.
The Dykes on Bikes arrived in mid-afternoon, followed later by their male counterparts from the ECMC Bike Run. Leather-clad and cheery and, well, if I die of lead poisoning from the exhaust fumes, I won't be suing. The afternoon turned out to be a miraculously sunny one again, by the way, but I didn't take my tie off. Är man en uppmärksamhetsdrottning så är man det, as we say round here.
Headed off with Erik and Ingemar to the Tiki Room Hawaiian bar round the corner, to be impressed by the atmosphere, the music and the cocktails (that's kuksvansar in Swedish), but not by the almost entirely straight public. Katarina assured us they'd go away, but even the sight of one of Sweden's most eminent Queer Historians in a hula skirt and garland wasn't enough to frighten them off. Most disappointing!
Email just now reveals that Chris is coming over from Finland. Which makes me very happy. Phillip is planning to go back to that very same country , though, which doesn't. Friends! Unreliable bunch. But fun. More tomorrow.
When it rains all through the Gay Games, I'm going to get masses of hate email from Holland for telling you (again) just how marvellously sunny it is today. Actually, yesterday's Expressen forecasted rain for Saturday, but we'll put that down to mild homophobia and plan for sun.
Today's look is Robert as beach twink (well, about as close to beach twink as I'll ever get), probably in another desperate attempt to get the attention of the guy I mentioned earlier in the week. Anyone who's met me at PridePark knows who I mean. Whether he does is another matter entirely...
Today I'd like to go to the Intergender Café at the EuroPride Conference Centre, and indeed I'm going to be there anyway for some of this afternoon. So maybe the beach twink get-up wasn't such a good idea, but hell, some people have been getting the mistaken idea that I know something about trans issues, so the less credible I look, the better. Actually I just want to see Charlotte Eliasson as Dick Drake. Or so I tell myself.
Today is also the unfortunately-named 'Ethnic' day at PridePark, which means Miss Latin Gay, courtesy of GLIS (Castellano phrasebook packed and ready), and at least one of the Finnish lesbian bands. Though not the famous Iisi 17, I'm informed. Then I have to get back here and to bed early, so I won't be challenging the gender controls at the Girls' Party tonight.
Oh, and I think my camera is finally disintegrating after almost fifty years in service. Which is the most gay-friendly camera shop in town? At this most photographic of Pride events, that shouldn't be too hard a question to answer.
Robert does EuroPride Thursday: a personal reflection in two parts. Or something.
I spent the afternoon at the Intergender Cafe, a sort of seminar/discussion/social event at the EuroPride Conference Centre. What was I doing there? Good question, answer later. We must have been about fifty people, using up all the chairs in Södermalm School's dining hall. A nice cross-section of different gender identities and sexualities, inasmuch as one can judge such things. Bee Sundin, clearly the doyenne of the Swedish trans movement, filled us in on transgender history from both a world and Swedish perspective. She's a thoughtful, entertaining and informative speaker. It became quite clear that the legal and political situation for trans folk in Sweden is pretty miserable, and the national organisation RFTS is very short of resources, specially compared to RFSL. Among the cafe guests was RFSL chair Christine Gilljam, who reiterated the federation's commitment to look into trans people's situation, both within RFSL and in general. RFSL kind of have a reputation for not being particularly trans-friendly - in fact each RFSL branch has its own constitution, and some do have a commitment to work for trans rights as well as for traditionally-gendered GLB folks.
After a break, we had what you might call a plenary discussion. Starting from the words some of the participants use to identify their own particular gender identity. The huge variety in experience became obvious pretty soon, as did the terrible difficulties we humans have with definitions of words. Sure, we all had that humanity in common, but how much else? Cross-dressers, pre- and post-op transexuals, transgendered people, homosexual folks who don't seem to have quite the usual set of inclinations (Petra, for example, and maybe me), and one self-confessed nelly queen. It's hard to sum up the exchange of views, which was lively and fascinating. I felt that not everyone had realised just how much the way we think about gender and sexuality is shaped by the grossly normal heterosexual, two-gendered society we live in. And that behind a lot of what we think of as quite harmless statements about equality lie sexism and homophobia. It's far easier to be, or appear to be a man than a woman, it's easier to appear to be straight than gay, and it's easier to appear to be definitely either a man or a woman. If there's anything we share, it's that we're all both the oppressed and the oppressors, in different situations. But we are asking a lot of the right questions, and listening to each other, maybe for the first time, and that's great. It was fun to meet people, and not for the last time, I hope.
Being me, I expressed my own idiosyncratic preferences buy rushing back to PridePark to catch Poikatyttöt (The Girlboys) playing live. And they were just as good as I'd hoped they'd be. A tough rock band, playing what I think they call emocore, and singing about lesbian sex in Finnish. Easily the most interesting and best music at PridePark so far. Like I said, I like butch lesbian things and I don't care what people think about it. As if to confirm all my darkest suspicions, I complimented Helena Westin on her rather wonderful denim hat, and was informed that I was the first gay bloke to appreciate it. And that all the dykes thought it was great. :-o
Then followed another warm, cheery social evening in PridePark under a darkening but always blue sky. Two unexpected kisses to round it off. Thank you!
Hm, not such a nice-looking day really. I assume we're getting the rain over with before tomorrow and the parade. I'm off down to the Conference Centre to volunteer for a few hours - do come and say hi. I'll be miserable and annoyed cos I'm missing the 'Multisexual Society' session at Södra Teatern. Äsch, not really, I'll be okay, promise.
Chris is coming this evening, rather than this morning, which meant I got my lie in after all. Big relief. Will drag him to PridePark and then Queerpunk at Studion.
Okay, see you later...
Chris is here, reading the program now. We came back early (FSVO) from a city taken over by Europride - at least Söder seemed to be cram-full of gay folks, and dogtags glint at you wherever you are. Even on the train home - we met three visitors from Linköping who are actually staying on the same street I live in. To be added to the other two locals I met on the train earlier in the day. My housing estate has a gay community! None of us, I think, had thought this possible.
It rained today, so it wasn't such a bad move to be volunteering at the conference center. Jill was fun to work with, and there were lots of people around, lots of people to sell daypasses and dogtags to, and, well, lots of people to just joke with and get to know. There to do yoga and learn about Selma Lagerlöf and Swedish gay history and watch lesbian porn. Almost everyone enjoyed what they'd been at.
At PridePark the weather improved during the day, and it became clear that Swedish is no longer the default Europride '98 language. Now there are lots of Norwegians and Danes and Finns, and I got to meet some nice exmaples of each. The numbers of Americans and Germans and Brits seem to be increasing too. And well, there are just lots of people. The crowd for the (very competent) Abba cover band in the evening was huge and enthusiastic. Sonia, lesbian singer/guitarist from the US, had the unenviable task of following them, and did quite well. Considering.
Ann has had her hair cut and must have cut quite a dash at the Girls' Party last night. Patrik turned up in the most glorious cowboy hat, and immediately took over the lead from Helena Westin in the Best Hat In Pride Park That Doesn't Belong To Mrs Green stakes.
It was too wonderfully busy and cheery and clear-skied at PridePark to leave early, so by the time the bus made it to Queerpunk at Studion, the place was full and they weren't letting anyone in. So there were masses of people out on the street being sociable. I think the Queerpunk folks may have overdone their publicity and let in a lot of straight people, but what the hell. It was clearly a fantastic success and for once I was quite happy not to have been able to get in. Me and Chris are a bit old anyway...
Both Häcktet and SideTrack were also impossible considerations, and goodness knows what happened to Sjögräs's reopened 'Bar Timmy'. But Half Way Inn had been amost entirely taken over by gay men, and was an absolutely ideal pub to spend the last hour or so of the evening. Tomorrow, we take the rest of the city! Stockholm will not know what's hit it.
Today's the big day. We're practising over breakfast by listening to 'Diva' - Chris claims he's never heard it before. I am actually pretty nervous, not so much that my wig will fall of or something (after all, I'm not planning to be wearing a wig), but that it's the culmination of EuroPride '98, this thing that I started working for two and a half years ago and which has turned out to be far, far closer to what I'd hoped it would be than I'd ever dared hope. If you see what I mean.
It's overcast outside, but it looks like if it's going to rain it's at least not going to rain much. So I think we'll be okay. We'll get the next train into town and go and start our job as parade stewards. Hope Spencer won't be too miffed that we didn't turn up at 09.00 like he said yesterday.
Ann sent me a URL which I can pass on to the Swedish-speakers among you: http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/9807/24/x.html - cool that some straight people have been having an odd and wonderful week as well.
What on earth can I say about a day like this? If you were in Stockholm, you'll know what I mean. The rain stopped, and Stockholm really did do exactly the summer weather it's been doing all week, except this time all over our wonderful Parade and our amazing closing party at Skansen.
Chris and I were stewards in the parade. I got the honour (and I really mean that) of walking in front of the second section of the parade, in front of Miss EuroPride's red corvette. OK, so I got in the way of the press photographers, but what a feeling to be out there leading so many people! I really don't know how many cameras I saw, almost as many as the smiling faces, gay, lesbian, straight and all points in between that lines the route. I had a security vest on, a walkie talkie in my hand, plus of course the multicoloured sarong and Doc Martens. I think I must be out now.
We had out problems along the way, of course, but it was on the level of gaps between groups, overenthusiastic Dykes on Bikes, and J-O's car running out of petrol on Strandvägen. Chris reports that the one guy on Söder who was shouting unpleasant things quickly realised that he was in a minority of one.
That and me not seeing the rest of the parade, of course! But that was a small price to pay for the privilege of showing Stockholm how to celebrate. You know, you might have thought that we were showing strai(gh)t(laced) Stockholm what we were worth - striking a blow against homophobia and all. In fact, and in complete contrast to all other Pride things I've been on, the spectators were overwhelmingly on our side, and in fact many, many of them were actually family - GLB folks supporting their own. Marco, who was stewarding right at the back of the parade, confirmed this impression, so it wasn't just that people were watching then joining in. The Parade was for us, and by us, and with us, and there are masses of us out there.
After a mildly chaotic hour of checking dogtags outside Skansen (and meeting a lot of more or less pleasantly confused straight people who had no idea what was going on), the Rainbow Music Extravaganza got going. And no, I am not going to stop being lyrical. OK, some veggi jamabalaya would have been nice but in general - what a place! what a view! what a show! what weather! Doubtless our international guests got mildly confused when we went entirely gaga over After Dark, Jonas Gardell, Jan Hammarlund, Efva Attling, Rikard Wolff, Eva Dahlgren, and when even her the blonde one from Roxette sang in Swedish. But in a Swedish and Nordic context, these people are incredibly important for us in a way that few other places will understand. Queer Sweden is not good at everything, but it's good at gay and bi celebrities, and well, we just kinda love them to bits.
Actually we could have stopped quite nicely after Eva Dahlgren, but, well, Dana International had come all the way from Israel and she sure does know how to get a whole fieldfull of rainbow flag-toting guys and girls and guys-to-girls and girls-to-guys to jump up and down at the same time.
Finally the entire cast appeared on stage to the strains of 'This is it', threw their flowers to the audience, and, well, no one wanted to leave.
Kisses and hugs and rainbowflag blessings and smiles and a minute of silence for the people Aids kept away from us today, Margareta Winberg waxing poetical like no politician should, Imma Battaglia showing the Pope who he has to deal with come World Pride 2000 in Rome, Ann and Christina and Marco and Håkan and Elisabeth and Ingemar and the unknown lesbian who gave me such a marvellous unmotivated hug, the rainbow flags and the Swedish flags against a clear blue sky, and Kim from Denmark in SideTrack at half past twelve telling us how much he'd enjoyed the day. These things, and many, many more, I'll want to keep with me.
It was great, wasn't it? :-)
Just when you thought it was all over - EuroPride Day 9! If there's one thing this week's been good at, it was offering that little bit more when you thought things couldn't get any better. It rained in the morning, but of course it was sunny and hot when me and Ann took Chris through the dogtagger-happy streets of Söder. A family with children and a pushchair spotted our dogtags and asked us the way. I gave in to my heart (my head says I'm finished with Christianity in all its forms) and bought the Ecce Homo book.
Over to the Conference Centre to help shift chairs and generally get the place looking like a school again. We were a tired but happy gang of about ten, sharing space with artists Leif and Håkan taking down their sculptures and pictures. Everything went smoothly, even the big screens didn't seem heavy with six people carrying them, and having a few tables over in the ground floor classrooms didn't seem to matter.
Then PridePark, for the very last time. Masses of people there, dodgy
pop groups on stage again, and, well, a few surprises. Kim the Dane
had thought EuroPride '98 was maybe a bit too organised, and
sure, spontaneity is not really a Swedish speciality. But straight
out of nowhere appeared the Mr Europride competition
on stage - 20-odd 'guys' to suit all tastes, selected from the day's
PrideParkers. All kind of amazed to be strutting their stuff in front
of such an adoring (and big!) public. In the end, despite my cheering
for J-O (I'm in the queue after Erik if that's OK :-) and brilliant
dancing by Stefan the Security Guard, the public's cheers for Bitch
Girl Club's Mille were far, far louder than for any
of the ordinary-male entrants. A lesbian Mr EuroPride '98. What
could be more appropriate, or more queer?
Dancing in front of the stage, more beer, more gratuitous hugs and kisses, more photographs, more joyful organiser-types, more meetings and smiles and more of our music on the Chokladkoppen stereo, a late evening blue summer Swedish sky, Mrs Green's microphone open for all sorts of folks, and finally dancing on the tables in an expression of joy and pride that all of us who were there will remember for, oh, I just don't know how long. It's like Stockholm has finally discovered, after all these years, how fucking marvellous it is at being queer, showing it for the world, and having a really, really, good time.
That's it for this diary.
I mean that.
But in the spirit of EuroPride '98, there will be more! Hell, I might even translate bits into Swedish. But I do have to work tomorrow. Thanks for being with me this far!
I went back to work, and Chris headed home to Finland, clad in his Parade steward t-shirt and dogtag so as to be recognisable for other Europriders on the ferry. I found I couldn't take my dogtag off till the commuter train had finally left Söder and Tantolunden had disappeared out of sight. Spare minutes at work went to checking for EuroPride stuff on the web - seems like this is the only up-to-date site that's not a newspaper! Think, the responsibility of it all. My coworkers all knew about EuroPride, and were pretty cool about the whole thing. On the way home I dropped in my camera films for development - does anyone have a scanner? Söder was quiet and sunny, with the odd rainbow flag to put me in the notion of going up for a coffee or a cup of herbal tea like Mark Levengood suggested. Better put mine out here.
Did I say how nice it was to run into neighbours with dogtags on? I thought I was practically alone in this housing estate, but thanks to EuroPride and good old Efva A, I now know a whole bunch of new people who live within five minutes of me, and even someone on the same street! If this is happening all over Stockholm, maybe one Pride event next year won't be enough...
Picked up my newly-developed photographs yesterday and discovered to my chagrin that I am not going to be the next Elisabeth Ohlson. In fact, many wonderful pictures didn't come out at all, because I forgot to ask Håkan how to change the settings on Ann's camera from 100 to 200 ASA. Others were spoiled by camera shake. The good ones are good, though, so if I can get my hands on a scanner I'll check with my, ahem, models and post some here.
I also managed to check out my last EuroPride exhibition, Charlotte Eliasson's 'Butch/Femme' att Vägg Sex/7 on Götgatan. Also much better portraits than mine - bi and lesbian women from real life in Sweden, honest pictures, serious and thoughtful.
Stockholm returns gently to its new normality, and so do I. Kind of. EuroPride is still a big topic of conversation among the people I meet - last night's little gathering at Spisa hos Helena had us comparing notes from different points in the parade, and exchanging views about transexuality, in way way we wouldn't have done three weeks ago. In a place most of us wouldn't have even been in three weeks ago. I keep running into people I got to know during EuroPride, people I got to know better during EuroPride, and people who've changed from just friends to really good friends as a result of EuroPride. And again, this must be happening all over Stockholm. If not elsewhere - but then the Gay Games have started in Amsterdam (kudos to Swedish radio P3 for an excellent item in 'Radio Europa' today), so that'll set another wave of good things in motion.
Looking back I regret terribly not going to the seminar 'The Multisexual Society'. I really hope somebody's written a good account of it somewhere, so the rest of us can be in on what happened when Stephen Whittle and Petra Östergren and Don Kulick and Carol Queen and Alexander Bard were all there in the same room. I also never made it to the Quilt in Hagaparken, or the Tom of Finland exhibition, or Kalle Hamm's 'Party Size', and I am still an SLM virgin. Mind you, I've got a lovely pile of lesbian books to read now (loaned from Ann, natch) and intend to look more into things butch (and femme, for the sake of balance). And heavens, I had one gay male friend come out to me as a another butch wannabe this week. Should we start a support group? A branch of LASH? Or a rock band?
There's a lot of talk about next year, too. Contrary to two pernicious rumours, London EuroPride '99 is on, and RFSL Stockholm does intend to be involved in organising next year's pride festival in Stockholm. Which clearly can't be called 'Homofestivalen' any longer: our bi and trans brothers and sisters are here to stay. It's going to be an exciting autumn, anyway, even before we stop partying like it's 1999 and start partying because it's 1999. Ugh, cheap joke. Put it down to post-EuroPride something-or-another...