What did Bilitis accomplish in 2005?

In 2005, Bilitis Lesbian and Bi-women Resource Center applied a new approach: organizing of just a few events, which are, however, strategically connected with each other, and help to develop a lesbian community and lesbian culture in Bulgaria. The concept “culture” is understood in its broadest sense, as a system of values, viewpoints and relations, which reflect the lesbian way of thinking and perceiving the world.

The main objectives of our work in 2005 were the following:
- improve knowledge of women from the community and beyond about lesbian history, lesbian identities and cultures in the western world;
- improve lesbian visibility in Bulgaria.

To achieve these goals, we organized and implemented two main events in 2005 with the financial support of the Global Fund for Women and a lot of voluntary labor.

The first event was the Bilitis Leadership Camp that took place in Varna at the time of the gay fest, organized by gay club “Alexander”. The choice of place and time was not accidental. We decided to support the gay fest by increasing the women’s presence at it, and also to ensure diverse entertainment for the participants in the camp.

No matter that the leadership camp was widely advertised in the informal network, it was not very well attended. The reasons were complex – many of the women who were interested to attend were engaged in seasonal work and could not take days off. Others were simply afraid that there might be some hidden agenda behind the invitation, that their personal information will be made available to the mass media, or to some people who should not have access to it. In short, women were not sure that their sexual identity will be kept confidential, if they take part in the camp. The lack of participation signals that lesbians in Bulgaria still do not communicate freely in public or semi-public settings. Questions related to preserving the confidentiality of their sexual identity are of primary importance. The pictures attached to this report are only of those participants in the camp who said that they did not mind their pictures to be published.

Although we were not a very large group, we had a nice time of learning, sharing and building a strong bond among ourselves at the camp, and decided to continue organizing similar community-building activities in 2006. Weekend seminars and trips were among the activities suggested by the camp participants.

The second major event organized by us coincided with the gay&lesbian fest organized by the Red House Center for Culture and Debate in collaboration with many organizations from Bulgaria and abroad. These were two exhibitions sponsored by Bilitis. The first exhibition presented the paintings of the transgender artists George Alexandrov who had not exhibited publicly until now. The second exhibition presented photography developed at the leadership camp in Varna. Some of the women who attended the camp did not hesitate to come out with their names and share personal details in public. Both exhibitions provided an opportunity for expressing non-mainstream identities and viewpoints: transgender and lesbian. The exhibitions as well as the festival in general were attended by over 100 people at the opening, and over 100 people in each of the 4 days in which they were held.

We believe that art is one of many possible instruments for changing social reality, and will continue to work in this sphere in 2006. There are many ways to produce change in society and induce tolerance of the differences. Out choice is to do art projects and to work at the level of informal groups. The activity of Bilitis in 2006 will continue in these two areas.

Pics look HERE