“Growing up Queer” by Helsinki Committee’s
Youth Group in Belgrade

The project “Growing up Queer” by Helsinki Committee’s Youth Group in Belgrade, which aimed to educate young people about gender, sexuality and discrimination against members of LGBTIQ community, was successfully implemented in September 2013.

The project consisted of seminar and exhibition. The exhibition was opened on the 24th of September in Cultural Institution Parobrod, in Belgrade and was very well attended with more than one hundred visitors at the opening ceremony. Using photography and film as key media, the exhibition presented resistance to the socially expected gender roles and to obligation of heteronormativity during childhood period.

The second part of the project included a two-day lasting seminar for secondary school students. Thirteen participants, mostly from Belgrade but also from Novi Sad and Inđija, were present during both days. The first lecture was held by members of the Helsinki Committee’s Youth Group Petar Korac, Dunja Nesović i Asja Lazarevic. This introductory lecture had the purpose of explaining the distinction sex/gender and introducing the LGBTIQ acronym. Dušan Maljkovic from the Center for Queer Studies held the second lecture on (non)heteronormativity of the society. After both lectures, a short movie about victims of verbal and physical violence and bullying was screened and a discussion followed.

During the second day of the seminar, Miroslav Caksiran, deputy of editor-in-chief of the portal mingl.rs, hold a lecture on gender representation in media. Participants interacted actively, analyzing different commercials and media blogs. After that, Vladislava Vojnovic held a workshop concerning gender roles in fairytales. Participants had the assignment of modifying existing fairytales by changing some stereotypes, reversing sex, gender, playing with sexuality, religion or nationality of the main characters.

After this workshop the final discussion and seminar evaluation took place, where the participants brought up positive thoughts about the seminar and stated the wish for further involvement in similar projects.

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