Preges vårt syn på «de andres» kjønn og seksualitet av vestlig kulturimperialisme? Skeivt forum, Skeiv seminarrekke, Skeiv ungdom og LLH inviterer til konferanse om kjønn og seksualitet i et tverrkulturelt perspektiv. For å utfordre vedtatte kategorier og diskutere hvordan vi kan jobbe med kjønns- og seksualitetsspørsmål internasjonalt, har vi invitert en rekke fremstående internasjonale forskere og aktivister.

11:00 Åpning av konferansen ved Miljø- og utviklingsminister Erik Solheim og leder av LLH Karen Pinholt. 

11:00-15:00 Kjønn – seksualitet – kultur 
Organisasjoner som jobber med seksuell orientering og kjønnsidentitet internasjonalt støter raskt på utfordringer knyttet til spørsmål om identitet og selvforståelse. Formiddagen byr på kunnskap om kulturspesifikke kjønns- og seksualitetsforståelser gir bedre forutsetninger for å arbeide sammen på tvers av kulturgrenser. 

Signe Arnferd: Changing perceptions: Re-thinking gender, re-thinking queer in Africa. 

Ruth Vanita: Queering India: Same-Sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society 

Victor J. Mukasa, Peterson Toscano, Haneen Maikey and Glenn Retief: Perspectives on sex and gender from a transgender lesbian in Uganda, a gay man in the US, a Palestinian lesbian in Israel, and a gay man in South Africa. 

16:00-20:00 Solidaritet eller kulturimperialisme?
Likestilling mellom kjønnene og toleranse overfor homofile er brennhete spørsmål mange steder i verden. I europeiske land trekkes temaene inn i debatter om integrering av etniske minoriteter. Ettermiddagens fokus er å finne gode strategier i kampen for rettigheter, på tvers av nasjons- og kulturgrenser. 

Haneen Maikey: Israel, Palestine, and Queers: Developing a political discourse in Palestinian society that challenges “gay imperialism”. 

Glen Retief: A sexual orientation non-discrimination clause in the post-apartheid Bill of Rights: What the global civil rights victory in South Africa teaches us about advocating LGBT rights in a non-Western cultural context. 

Victor Mukasa: The U.S. Christian Right attack on lesbian, gays, bisexuals and trans persons in Africa: Introduction of the “Anti-homosexuality Bill” in Uganda. 

Jin Haritaworn: Gender and Sexuality Discourse in the War on Terror. 

Peterson Toscano: Extracts from his performance “Doin’ Time In The Homo No Mo’ Halfway House” about the “Ex-gay” movement in the US.

Påmelding: Innen 4. mars til marna@llh.no 
Arrangementet vil foregå på engelsk. Mellom for- og ettermiddagsbolken vil det bli enkel servering. Det er mulig å delta kun på en av bolkene.

Presentasjon av innlederne:
Haneen Maikey is a Palestinian citizen of Israel and the director of Al-Qaws ("the rainbow" in Arabic) for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society. She is a graduate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where she has an MA in NGOs Management & Community organizations.

Signe Arnfred is associate professor at the Institute for Society and Globalisation (ISG) and head of the Centre for Gender, Power and Diversity at Roskilde University. 2000-2006 she worked at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala as coordinator of the Sexuality, Gender and Society in Africa research programme. One book resulting from this work was published in 2004 (Signe Arnfred (ed): Re-thinking Sexualities in Africa, the Nordic Africa Institute). Another one will be out early 2010 (Akosua Adomako Ampofo and Signe Arnfred (eds): African Feminist Politics of Knowledge – Tensions, Challenges, Possibilities, the Nordic Africa Institute). In a long term research project Arnfred investigates Sexuality and Power in northern Mozambique. Other work focuses on African post-colonial feminist theory and on areas of convergence between social science, feminism and art. 

Jin Haritaworn has done writing and activism around anti/racism in queer and trans spaces in Britain and Germany. Newly based at Helsinki University, Jin is particularly interested in thinking about the travels of homonationalist activism in Europe, and how we may begin to forge an anti-violence movement that does not combat some forms of violence by bolstering others. 

Victor Mukasa is Program Associate for the Horn, East and Central Africa for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), and a prominent transgender lesbian activist from Uganda with substantial experience in LGBT advocacy work. Aside from being the co-founder and the president emeritus of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), Victor is a founding member of several Ugandan rights groups, including East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Network, EHAHRDN (2005), Freedom and Roam Uganda, FARUG (2002), and the Pan African group African Solidarity (2006). Victor has also served as a board member of many African and international LGBT groups, including Gender Dynamix (South Africa), Behind the Mask (South Africa), Coalition of African Lesbians (Pan African), and the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA).

Glen Retief is a South African writer currently based in the United States. His memoir, The Jack Bank, about growing up white and gay in apartheid South Africa is forthcoming from St. Martin’s Press. He holds a Ph.D. from Florida State University in Creative Writing. He was a member of a core group of a dozen or so activists responsible for lobbying the liberation movements to prohibit antigay discrimination in the post-apartheid Bill of Rights. His essay "Keeping Sodom Out of the Laager" (1992) is one of the most frequently-cited studies of sexual policing under apartheid. He teaches creative nonfiction at Susquehanna University.

Peterson Toscano is a theatrical performance activist using comedy and storytelling to address social justice concerns. He spent 17 years and over $30,000 on three continents attempting to change and suppress his same-sex orientation and gender differences. Since 2003 he has traveled in North America, Europe, and Africa performing at diverse venues and speaking in the media. Having spent a decade detoxing from years of repression and misinformation, he began to go beyond his own experience and write plays that explore sexism, racism, the environment, violence and gender. His newest play is about transgender Bible characters.

Ruth Vanita is an Indian academic, activist and author who specialize in lesbian and gay studies, gender studies, and British and South Asian literary history. She was a co-founder and editor for many years of Manushi, a pioneering journal that combined academic research and grassroots activism. She was a reader at Miranda House, University of Delhi and in the English Department at the University of Delhi and is now Professor at the University of Montana. She is the author of several books, among them Sappho and the Virgin Mary: Same-Sex Love and the English Literary Imagination (1996), Same-Sex Love in India: Readings in Literature and History (2000), Love’s Rite: Same-Sex Marriage in India and the West (2005) and Gandhi’s Tiger and Sita’s Smile: Essays on Gender, Culture and Sexuality (2006). She has received numerous fellowships, including the NEH-ACLS and the Fulbright, and is currently researching the poetics of gender in eighteenth-century Hindi and Urdu poetry.