|
|
Exclusive Interview with
Karen Pinholt, President of Norway’s Gay and Lesbian Organisation LLH Part II OSLO,
13/08/2010 (Texto, fotos y video © LIOWLB / AVS / Enkidu Magazine): Ayer, día
del cumpleaños de Agustín, en punto de las 10 de la madrugada acudimos a una
de las organizaciones de la diversidad-sexo-genérica más importantes de
Noruega: LLH – Landsforeningen for
lesbisk og homofil frigjøring (Norwegian lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender organization), cuya Presidenta, Karen Pinholt, conversó en
exclusiva para tí, amig@ de Enkidu Magazine. Aquí, para ti, la Segunda Parte de la charla: Karen Pinholt,
Presidenta LLH: … The
part of the law that has had the biggest impact on lives and families is the
lesbian access to fertility treatment, that is allowed now. Before
the law it was becoming quite common for lesbians in Norway to travel to
Denmark, where it was allowed, having the fertility treatment there and have
the babies here. Both my children are done that way. Agustin
Villalpando, Enkidu Magazine: And legally? I mean, you were already pregnant. Karen
Pinholt, Presidenta LLH: Exactly. I mean, the Norwegian government would
never say otherwise than I was pregnant and it was my child. Our trouble was
that we wanted our children to have two legal parents. We manage to make the
government see up until the law was in place, that our children needed two
parents, so we were able to adopt our own children, so I adopted the child
that my wife gave birth to and the other way around. But now, when you can
get fertility treatment in Norway that process is close to automatic, the
moment you get, if you are a married couple, your children will almost
automatically have two parents, legally. Agustin
Villalpando, Enkidu Magazine: In Mexico there is a controversy about this issue
as some activists say we are focusing too much into marriage and not in all
the other reasons to fight. Marriage is not the end of activism, is it? What
is your perspective? Karen
Pinholt, Presidenta LLH: My perspective is the other way around that having
all the legal rights in place is just the first step. And for us the legal
right to marry has been the last fight on the legal issues, on having the
same rights as everybody else. The same rights to health services, the same
rights to be protected by the police, the same rights to speak our mind and
it has been a progressive process. We
started out with having to decriminalize homosexuality and that didn’t
happened until the middle of the 1970’s, so we had a wide based movement all
along. And I think that the marriage law was the final legal battle; there
are still some legal issues but they are minor issues. But that
is only the basis, now is time for the real tough work, and that is stopping
the bullying in schools and making sure that homosexuality is not presented
as deviance but as part of the general variations of being a human being; now
we have to make sure that when you go to the doctor, the doctor does not
automatically assume you are heterosexual and treats you as if and maybe give
you a full wrong diagnosis based on assumptions about you. Now you have to
make sure that when gay-bashing happens, because it does, the police actually
can handle it and enter into this in the proper way and all of these issues
are things we are working full speed. We have
to make sure that everywhere in this very long and thin country, that
everywhere, if you are gay you have to be able to have a place where you can
meet others and know you are safe that you can be yourself. We have
our work towards the labor market. You should not have to hide part of who
you are in the lunch discussions at work. You should be able to talk about
your holidays with your partner, your birthday your everything, pretty much,
without the risk of not being promoted or having your colleges to talk about
you behind your back. This is
the really hard part and really a part of a work that I believe is difficult
as long as you have a law that states that ‘here is a group of people with
these rights but this group of people can only have these rights’. If our
group of people can only have these rights legally, and the State puts its
stamp saying these is the way things are, then fighting all of those other
issues that really are important to the daily life of anyone is difficult,
because the bullying at work and the bullying at school will say ‘even the
law states that you are not as good as me’ So, to
me, the legal issues, the rights to chose, is just the beginning, is just the
basis, to get into the issues that really matter to people on a daily basis. Agustin
Villalpando, Enkidu Magazine: It may be a naïve question but I have to do it.
Are we good, better parents than straight couples? Karen
Pinholt, Presidenta LLH: I believe no. I believe we are just as good or bad
parents as straight people. I do not think sexual orientation makes any
difference at all. I have seen research done in the States, in Denmark and
here finding hardly any difference between children growing up in straight
homes and children growing up in homes with gays or lesbians. One of the few
differences they do find is that children in gay homes are usually a tiny bit
more tolerant with the differences among people. Other than that I have not
seen any reliable research finding any differences, really. There is even a
research done in Denmark finding that children of lesbians visit the
psychiatric health system less than other children, throughout their lives.
So the media presented that as lesbians being better parents than
heterosexuals, I think that was taken a little bit out of proportion. I
really do believe that it does not make any difference. If we are better
parents in this sort of study it might be because the only lesbians that had
the resources both mentally and economically to go through and break the
barriers that are to lesbians having children are the most resourceful and
they are also the ones that have more resources to give their children a
stable environment to grow up in. Whereas heterosexuals do not have those
barriers to have children; they are expected to have children even if they
might have some hesitation. So, we are experiencing two very different sets
of pressures: We have pressure not to have children and heterosexuals have
pressure to have children so, of course, our choices are based in that… To be continued…
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
