On April 25, 1977, the trans community of Athens, with the support of the Gay Liberation Movement of Greece (AKOE), organized an event emblematic of our history at the Lusitania theater, as a reaction to an aggressive draft law submitted by the Government to Parliament. The main speech of the event was delivered by Betty Vakalidou. It was the first public event of this kind, where LGBTI+ people spoke out about the policies of oppression.
In 1977, the government of New Democracy submitted to the Parliament the draft law on “Protection of venereal diseases and regulation of related issues”. The draft law never reached the plenary session of the Parliament, as it was fought by AKOE, which appealed to the European Commission of Human Rights at the Council of Europe and organized protests in several Greek embassies in European countries. The country was then negotiating its entry into the E.O.K. and probably the need to have a good international image, three years after the fall of the Junta of the Colonels, contributed to the abandonment of the bill.
The event at the Lusitania theater was the first public event of the LGBTQI+ movement, which gathered a lot of interest and attendance, proving on the one hand that the conditions were indeed ripe for the debate to start vigorously. On the other hand, it laid the foundations for the struggles that continue to this day. We must remember that the people who organized and participated in this event knew they would be socially stigmatized and we owe them a huge thank you for the rights we take for granted today.
To date, New Democracy has not apologized for the bill it proposed back then, in 1977.
Learning our history, always and with a critical eye, helps to recognize that nothing was given to us but instead was hard won and we must continue it for the next generations.
We remember our history!
From the Instagram of prismalgbt_gr.
