I'm going to try to translate an article that was published in the 24/02/94 -- 02/03/94 edition of the "VISAO" magazine, here in Portugal. The article talks about the gay scene in Portugal about 1 year ago (curiosity: It was +- at the same time i met my 1st gay friend). I'll make my own comments to the article ( if you don't mind...:) ). The comments will be put between ## (like #blah blah blah#). I'm translating and sending this, without the permission of the author or the magazine (but i think they mind anyway...). I'm sorry for all the spelling and grammar mistakes that I do. :))) Pedro A.K.A. Fahnuir P.S.-> Ah! Tststs... I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Pedro, i live in Amadora (one of Lisbon's suburbs...), I'm 20 years old and I study (at least I try to...) Physics. [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]][][][][][][][][][][][][][] The Hidden Cat #In case you don't know, this is a Portuguese expression to tell about something that is hidden, but everyone knows about it...# #The article was published +- at the same time that "Philadelfia" arrived to Portugal# At the same time that Hollywood surrenders to the subject of homosexuality, and the European Community advises less discrimination in the laws of its members, in Portugal, the gay community still lives hidden. A study reveals that 80% of the homos are after all bi... The difference may beguin in the language used: when the subject is treated with seriety, the word used is "homosexual; when someone wants to be sofisticated and cosmopolitan, the key word is the english "gay"; when the conversation is a "bash the faggot" one, the vocabulary is endless. The story is an old one... men who like men, womem who like women, descrimination... ---- snip snip snip --- cut cut cut --- snip snip snip --- cut cut --- #I'm sorry to cut a bit of the original article, but it was nothing really important. Just some babbling about how "Philadelfia" brought the gay subject to the covers of the magazines all over the world...# Private Portugal The studys, theories and human cases multiply. Portugal has escaped to the "gay wave", and the press is rare to explore the subject. Why ? Just because it's dificult to talk about a subject in a country where the gay comunity insists in complaining about discrimination, but where the same comunity rejects the idea of "giving the face to the public" and assuming the difference. They fear the social, professional and private life consequences, but they recreate the story of the egg and the chicken: while they are not accepted, they won't give their faces; if they don't give their faces they'll never be accepted. Everybody hurts from this... This rule has 2 or 3 exceptions, and the few times that the press or the TV decided to talk about it, Guilherme de Melo, a journalist from the newspaper "Diario de Noticias" #He wrote a book about his life... it's a great book. It made me think about my life, and helped me decide to come out.#, is always the face and the voice of the "hidden world". But, the truth has other faces, and lots of other faces from the national public life, are taken as gay - people from the TV, radio, press, politicians - without assumin their difference. It's the population, in it's never ending curiosity, that uncovers the truth, makes gossip, put the doubts. In the USA and the rest of Europe, the homosexuality of the public figures is like a trademark #Is it??# showed with pride. In the national stupidity, it's the most intimate secret. Without beeing on purpose, the group of "those who are", gains the shape of a lobby (and some people say that the gay lobby of the diverse lobbies, is stronger than the the political, religious and economical lobbies that exist with abundance in Portugal). Speculations. More accurate is the study of the antropologist, Vitoria Mourao, from the "Associacao HIV SIDA" #HIV AIDS assosiation#: 80% of the portuguese gays also have heterosexual relations. "For various reasons, specialy moral ones, lots of people resist to their homosexual tendencies. They end living hetero lifes, that are not real happy lifes", says the sexologist Julio Machado Vaz. At night, behind all the appearences, appear all the marginal ways of aproximation. The most recent are the erotic gay phone lines, where people change messages and knowledge. The alternative can also be the night life of the big cities. The magazine "Lisboa Concept", a guide of restaurants, bares and "in places", includes in it's last number #It was the 93/94 guide), a seccion dedicated to gays. Under the title gays, it presents a selection of 9 places "tipicaly" gay: from the traditional "Finalmente" to the "Gay-House", the "Memorial" (the "Lesbos Island" of the Lisbon night), the "Satiro's" (the actual "in place" for the gay tribe) #NOTE: "Satiro's was NEVER an "in place". Unless you think that a constant and annoying pervailing odor of recently "used" ass mixed with the unmixable smell of lube might be considered "in".), passing by the only only bar that the international guides consider as "leather": The "Tatoo" #Leather and clones#. It's in this places that the homosexuality is lived without any problems, because it's exlusive, marginal, restricted. Those who go there, are the same persons that complain about living "at the edge" of society. Jose Soares, an out of the closet 30 years old gay, owns the gay bar "106" #"106" is permanently packed with travestits and/or wanna-be transvestits#, condemns those who hide their true sexuality. "If they are not carefull, they jeopardize others" he says. But, he admits that the portuguese gays create their own world: "Some people accept us, but we still have to create our own world". "We are condemned to live within 4 walls", says Carlos Tavares, 30 years old, one of the founders of the "Grupo de Trabalho Homosexual" #Group of Homosexual Work# ----- snip snip ------- cut cut ----- snip snip ---- cut cut ---- snip --- #Some stuff on the "Grupo de Trabalho...", saying that it started on a political party. "Society prefers us to continue living in a ghetto, making love in strange places without higiene (?), without having the right to a normal life", comments the director of the "Grupo de Trabalho Homosexual". Carlos Tavares discovered in his youth, that he was gay. He looked por help in his curch (Adventistas do 7o Dia), but he was expeled, because "he didn't lived in the ways of God". He was also expeled from home, and, when he looked for a doctor, he was adviced to "go running to a stadium, so he could develop his masculinity". "Today I'm in good relations with my parents, but it took me years of fighting.", he says. #Nowadays, doctors are a bit more polite. For exemple, my doctor didn't asked me to visit a prostitute. She asked my father to take me to one...*sarcasm* But my psichiatrist and my psicologist were polite, as was my andrologist (?)# The voice of the instinct "We still go to bed hidding it from other people. The psicologial cost is too big.". Manuel Guerra says that finding out about his sexuality was very traumatic. He was from Alentejo #Alentejo is to Portugal, maybe like Texas to the U.S.A.. We can't say that people there LOOOOVE gays.#. He started reading books, getting information, then he moved to Lisbon, and today he understands that his situation is normal, but he uses a "nick name", becuase he fears any kind of reaction from people at work - a company of transports. "At work and in the street, I behave as people expect me to behave. At home or in places I know I can, I just let my true self come out. If we don't come out in public, is because we fear retaliation." Male or female couples, when they assume themselves, loose their rights: couples can't buy or rent a house in the name of both, partners don't have the right to heritage (unless they make a will before they die), they are not considered family to visit in the Hospital and they can't adopt children. ---snip snip ---- snip snip ---- cut cut ---- cut cut ----snip snip---- cut-- #Stuff about a certain Claudia Roth beeinga ble to approve a resolution in the European Community, that demands that gays have the same rights as straights. It says in the article that she defined discrimination as "any legal action against homosexual life, that are considered scandal or not decent". The same document also has/had a point taht obligates countries to give protection to homosexuals from non EC countries, whose legislation is against them (like Iran for exemple.............). Here in Portugal, this resolution from the European Parliment has no consequences, because Portuguese legislation has nothing on it about gays, neither to help or any other thing).# Courage Considered perverts by some, neurotics by others, or even sick, they (the "he"s and the "she"s) consider themselves normal, and want their space in society, and they also don't like those stereotyped gays/lesbians. Their stories are the same: Soon they found out that were attracted by persons of the same sex, they couldn't understand it, they got sad, they looked for help, but the instinct always spoke louder. -----snip snip ---- snip snip ----cut cut--- cut cut ----snip snip ---cut--- #Details about an american journalist (Tony Smith), that while Mr. Clinton was thinking if he should allow homos in the army, was involved in situations in the Bosnia-Herzgovina, that would make many straight man "piss in their pants". Tony said:" I don't like beeing labeled with this or that. A person can be defined in lots of ways:tall, fat, journalist, academic, with glasses... all his/her caracteristics make him/her what he/she is."# #Some stuff about how were things in ther rest of Europe, but I think you all know this a lot better than the journalist who wrote this.# In the homosexual universe, in Portugal, lesbians suffer a double discrimination: because they are lesbians and becuase they are women. Their world is even more closed."We are really the minority of the minorities", says Maria Terese, once again, protected by a nick name. Divorced, born in Lisbon, she is the director of "Lilas" (Publicacoes Lesbicas, apartado 6204, 2700 Amadora) #This is the address to where people write to get the "magazine"#. Lilas appeared to establish ideas, to inform, to ask for facts and opinions. The fist number, appeared signed with the name of only 6 women, as well as all the articles of the +- 60 pages. The magazine, in photocopies, is the product of reunions that were organized in the beguining to change ideas and news, and to give suport to eachother. "In the 1st encounter, 50 persons appeared, in the 2nd more 50, and they were not always the same persons. We started receiving lots of letters, and we discovered that there are many lesbians, but that they feel isolated. Lot's of those letters came from the interior of the country #real underdeveloped#. In small villages and farms, there are a lot of homosexual women. For them, it's even more dificult to survive, because the society there is more closed and without information.". More than sex Julio Machado Vaz #the sexologist#, says that one can't limitate homosexuality to the sexual act. "It's a way of beeing in life". The curch in Portugal, that had inside of her, the case of father Frederico #a gay priest (I don't have the foggiest about if he is or not, but he's going to a TV show this or next week, to be connected to "Let's see if you're telling the truth" device. He accepted, so....), that was acused of murdering a teenager after having sex with him#, defends that one should feel pitty for the homosexuals, in the way of understanding them, BUT accepts nothing than straight relations #Can you understand this???# ----snip snip snip --- cut cut cut ---- snip snip snip --- cut cut cut---- #case of a gay man with AIDS that was "asked" to quit his job, otherwise they would put a process in court against him, saying that he had stolen goods from the company# Final comment: Portugal is not exactly the land of "honey, bright skies and music in the air" for homosexuals, BUT I don't think it's as bad as this article puts it. Of course, this is my personal idea of things. I am really lucky person: I came out last year to everybody at the same time (friends, family, society, people at school... ok ok...I don't go arround telling people I don't know from nowhere "HEY! I'm gay you know?"). It was a shock for my parents, since I'm their older son, and they had been making plans for me for 20 years, but all my straight friends (When I say all I mean all...30 ? 40 ? 50 ? more ? ALL!) accepted me and my boyfriend (ok... maybe they're still a bit embarassed when we kiss in front of them, but even that is disapearing). With my other gay friends... we just do what we want where we want (hello-kissing another man in downtown Lisbon, the way we walk/talk, is not the most straight thing to do, but we've never disturbed by anyone when we do it. Maybe we're just lucky. Well... I think this is enough for now... I hope I was not too boring... Once again, I'm sorry for all the spelling/grammar mistakes I made... :)))) Enjoy my silence now... Pedro