Situation regarding LGBT+ community in Romania

LGBT rights in Romania

LGBT Personalities who suffered abuse in Romania

ECRI Report on Romania

Famous People in Romania

MINI-RESEACH COMING OUT DAY

In the beginning there was a march.

·         On October 11, 1987, half a million people participated in the march on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. It was the second such demonstration in the capital of the USA and resulted in the founding of a number of LGBTQ organizations, including the National Latino/a Gay & Lesbian Organization (LLEGÓ) and AT&T’s LGBTQ employee group, LEAGUE. 

·         The momentum continued four months after this march as more than 100 lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer activists from around the country gathered in Warrenton, Va., about 25 miles outside Washington, D.C.

·         Recognizing that the LGBTQ community often reacted defensively to anti-LGBTQ actions, they came up with the idea of a national day to celebrate coming out and chose the anniversary of that second march on Washington to mark it.

·         The originators of the idea were Rob Eichberg, a founder of the personal growth workshop, ‘The Experience’, and Jean O’Leary, then head of National Gay Rights Advocates. From this idea the National Coming Out Day was born.

·         Each year on October 11, National Coming Out Day continues to promote a safe world for LGBTQ individuals to live truthfully and openly.

 “We often run from our own fears. We run away, we ignore them, we hide them in the most impenetrable corners of the soul in the hope that they will disappear with time. We know very well that they do not disappear or evaporate. They gather one by one, all together until you feel that you can no longer, as if they were strangling you with their imprisonment. Then you feel the need to do something.”

“On October 11, the coming out day or leaving the closet is celebrated, as a symbol of the fact that the visibility of LGBT people is important for recognizing equality in rights and freedoms. Coming out is a difficult and emotionally charged step for LGBT youth. On October 11, people share the stories of people who have already taken this step and who, through their examples, show the world that family and friends are the ones who give you strength in the fight against prejudice.”

LOGO created by the Romania students for the contest

MINI-RESEARCH by Romanian Students

MERRY CHRISTMAS & A HAPPY NEW YEAR

from all of us here at “Aurel Lazăr” School!

Merry Christmas…and a Happy New Year! These are words that we will likely hear many times during the holiday season.

·         Historians and linguists can’t pinpoint for sure exactly why we tend to use Merry Christmas. The greeting dates back to at least 1534 in London, when it was written in a letter sent to Henry VIII’s chief minister Thomas Cromwell from bishop John Fisher.

·         Scholars also note the phrase was used in the 16th century English carol “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”.

·         Merry Christmas certainly picked up steam in 1843 with the publication of Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’. That same year the phrase also appeared on the first commercially-sold Christmas card.

·         Despite its prevalence in the United States and its historical underpinnings, Merry Christmas never gained universal support. For example, Clement C. Moore’s ‘The Night Before Christmas’ ends with the words, “A Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night”.

·         Each year, Queen Elizabeth also wishes British citizens a Happy Christmas in her annual broadcast.

·         Happy Christmas tends to be the preferred phrase for a significant minority of Great Britain. It could be the Queen’s influence. A rumour has circulated that Queen Elizabeth prefers happy to merry, because the word merry, to her, carries with it a sense of boisterousness and even intoxication. A linguistic comparison of happy and merry lends support to this theory.

·         Early church leaders in Great Britain may have encouraged Christian followers to be happy rather than engage in merrymaking! In this sense, Happy Christmas is a bit more conservative and reserved than Merry Christmas, which conveys a more emotional, unrestrained celebration.

·         No one knows for sure why Merry Christmas became the more popular greeting in the United States.

·         Some Christians believe it is a more fitting greeting, given the unrestrained and emotional response followers should have to a celebration of the birth of their Savior, Jesus Christ.
 
 
 
 
 

Summary of findings following the survey among ROMANIAN students (25)

Local Project Activity (2019) by the Romanian Team

Taking into account that the students do not know many things about the topic of LGTB, we organized a project activity.

 

The guests were:

•          the biology teacher
•          the doctor and the nurse of the school nursery.

The students got familiarized with some of the basic element related to the project.

The initialism

LGBT is intended to emphasize a diversity of sexuality and gender identity-based cultures. The initialism LGBT is intended to emphasize a diversity of sexuality and gender identity-based cultures. It may be used to refer to anyone who is non-heterosexual or non-cisgender, instead of exclusively to people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.

To recognize this inclusion, a popular variant adds the letter Q for those who identify as queer or are questioning their sexual identity; “LGBTQ” has been recorded since 1996. Those who add intersex people to LGBT groups or organizing use an extended initialism LGBTI. The two acronyms are sometimes combined to form the terms LGBTIQ or LGBT+ to encompass spectrums of sexuality and gender.

Many variants exist including variations that change the order of the letters; LGBT or GLBT are the most common terms. Although identical in meaning, LGBT may have a more feminist connotation than GLBT as it places the “L” (for “lesbian”) first. LGBT may also include additional Qs for “queer” or “questioning” (sometimes abbreviated with a question mark and sometimes used to mean anybody not literally L, G, B or T) producing the variants LGBTQ and LGBTQQ.

The term trans has been adopted by some groups as a more inclusive alternative to “transgender”, where trans has been used to describe trans men and trans women; the term transsexual commonly falls under the umbrella term transgender, but some transsexual people object to this.

The rainbow flag (also known as the gay pride flag or LGBT pride flag) is used as a symbol of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) pride and LGBTQ social movements. Other older uses of rainbow flags include a symbol of peace. The colours reflect the diversity of the LGBTQ community, as the flag is often used as a symbol of gay pride during LGBTQ rights marches.

Originally devised by artist Gilbert Baker, the design has undergone several revisions since its debut in 1978, first to remove colours then restore them based on availability of fabrics. The traditional and still most common variant consists of six stripes: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. The flag is typically flown horizontally, with the red stripe on top, as it would be in a natural rainbow. The flag originally comprised eight stripes; Baker assigned specific meaning to each of the colours:

Hot pink		Sex
Red		Life
Orange		Healing
Yellow		Sunlight
Green		Nature
Turquoise		Magic/Art
Indigo		Serenity
Violet		Spirit

LGBTQ individuals and allies currently use rainbow flags and many rainbow-themed items and colour schemes as an outward symbol of their identity or support. The rainbow flag is also commonly used as a general symbol of social equality and individuality.

                 Current version

 

The meeting was followed by a workshop. The task was the creation of a glossary of terms.

GLOSSARY

•         Bisexual: A man or woman who is romantically, sexually and/or emotionally attracted to people of either sex.
•          Coming Out: A term used to describe the process through which a person realises that they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender and may begin to disclose this aspect of their identity to others.
•          Gay: A man or woman who is romantically, sexually and/or emotionally attracted to people of the same sex. Many gay men prefer to be called ‘gay’ rather than homosexual. Many women who are gay prefer to be identified as ‘lesbian’.
•          Gender: A term that is often used to refer to ways that people act, interact or feel about themselves, which are associated with boys/ men and girls/women. The term ‘gender’ is distinct from ‘sex’.
•          Gender Dysphoria: Refers to strong persistent feelings of identification with the opposite gender and discomfort with one’s own assigned sex that results in significant distress.
•          Gender Expression: This refers to the way a person expresses gender to others through behaviour, clothing, hairstyles, mannerisms, voice, physical characteristics, social interactions, etc. 
•         Gender Fluid: This refers to a gender identity which varies over time. A gender fluid person may at any time identify as male, female, gender neutral, or any other non-binary identity, or some combination of identities. Some individuals refer to themselves as gender fluid, gender queer, or gender nonbinary.
•        Gender Identity: A person’s internal feeling of being male or female, regardless of the sex listed on their birth certificate (assigned birth sex). Some individuals may have a sense that they are some other gender, or a combination of genders.
•          Gender Non-binary: An umbrella term for gender identities that fall outside the gender binary of male or female. This includes individuals whose gender identity is neither exclusively male nor female, a combination of male and female or between genders.  Similar to the usage of transgender, people under the non-binary umbrella may describe themselves using one or more of a wide variety of terms.
•        Gender Recognition Certificate: This is provided for in the Gender Recognition Act (2015) and issued by the state to an individual who requests to have his/her preferred gender recognised.
•          Gender Transition: This term describes the experience by which a person goes from living in the gender assigned at birth to living and identifying in their preferred gender. For most young people this transition does not involve medical intervention but does involve a process of ‘social transition’ whereby the young person begins to live and identify as the gender consistent with their preferred gender identity. Transition might include social, physical or legal changes such as coming out to family, friends, co-workers and others; changing one’s appearance; changing one’s name, personal pronoun and sex designation on legal documents (e.g. birth certificate, driving licence or passport); and medical intervention (e.g. through hormones or surgery).
•        Heterosexual: A person who is romantically, sexually and/or emotionally attracted to people of the opposite sex, colloquially known as ‘straight’.
•          Homophobic Bullying: Refers to bullying of any form that has the added dimension of being based on actual or perceived sexual orientation.
•          Homosexual: The formal or clinical term that was coined in the field of psychology to describe a person who is romantically, sexually and/or emotionally attracted to people of the same sex.
•          Intersex: An umbrella term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that does not fit the typical definition of the female or male sex. Although intersex individuals do not always identify as transgender, or do not consider themselves to be covered by the transgender umbrella, many of the issues experienced by transgender people are common to intersex people and for this reason the guidance in this resource can be applicable to students who are intersex.
•          LGBT: An acronym for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender.
•         LGBTI: An acronym for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex.
•          Lesbian: A woman who is romantically, sexually and/or emotionally attracted to women.
•          Preferred Gender: Refers to an individual’s deeply held internal gender identity, as distinct from the sex assigned at birth.
•          Sex: Refers to the biological status accorded at birth as male or female. The designation of a person at birth as male or female is based on their anatomy (genitalia and/or reproductive organs) or biology (chromosomes and/or hormones).
•          Sexual Orientation:  Refers to an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions to men, women or both sexes. Three sexual orientations are commonly recognised – heterosexual (straight), homosexual (gay or lesbian) and bisexual. Some people do not experience attraction to either men or women and define themselves as asexual.
•          Transgender: An inclusive term describing people whose gender identity, or gender expression, is different from the sex listed on their birth certificate (i.e. their assigned birth sex). People under the transgender umbrella may describe themselves using one or more of a wide variety of terms – including transgender. It is always best to be led by the individual’s preferred adjective. The word ‘trans’ is commonly used by transgender people and it is acceptable to use this shortened term when referring to a person who identifies as transgender. Some transgender people who live in their preferred gender simply see themselves as a man or a woman, rather than a trans man or a trans woman. Some transgender people may be under the care of doctors in undergoing hormone treatment to change their bodies, some undergo surgery as well.  But not all transgender people can or will take those steps, and a transgender identity is not dependent upon medical procedures.
•          Transphobic Bullying: Refers to bullying of any form that has the added dimesion of being based on actual or perceived gender identity.
•          Transsexual:  This is an older term that has its origins in the medical and psychological communities. It is still preferred by some people who have permanently changed, or seek to change, their bodies through medical interventions.
•          Trans man: A person who was identified as female at birth but who lives as a man or identifies as male.
•         Trans woman: A person who was identified as male at birth but who lives as a woman or identifies as female.