International Resource Network’s One-Day Symposium

By Selly Thiam

The International Resource Network (IRN) turned eight this year. The project was
conceptualized as a network of academic and community-based researchers, artists,
and activists from across the globe in areas related to diverse sexualities and
genders. It strives to be an internet portal (www.irnweb.org) for people interested
in sexual rights and human rights from the perspective of lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, or queer studies. Currently, several boards represent geographic
regions of interest: Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, North
America and Europe.

To celebrate this exciting and dynamic work, the IRN hosted a one-day symposium
on April 30, 2010 at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center
in Manhattan. Scholars, academics, artists and community organizers representing
LGBT communities from around the world came together to discuss the issues of
their regions and the information technology responses to and challenges of
organizing and researching the experiences of LGBT people.

The day began with a panel of IRN coordinators from Africa (Sybille Nyeck), the
Middle East (Rustem Ertug Altinay), North America (Mark Blassius), Latin America
(Jasmin Blessing) and Caribbean (Vidyaratha Kisson) regions. The coordinators
discussed the history of the IRN and the work accomplished in their regions.
Presentations highlighted the IRN e-journals Outliers published by the African
region and Sexualidades published by the Latin America region which are available
on the IRN website. The Caribbean coordinator discussed the Caribbean Sexuality
Gathering that took place in Jamaica in May of 2009, which brought together LGBT
people to discuss issues relevant to the community there. The North America
coordinator talked about the upcoming meeting in Toronto that will mark the
beginning of the IRN’s work in the US and Canada. The Middle East coordinator
outlined the plans for the Middle East regional launch, which took place in Turkey in
the summer of 2010.

The second panel of the day focused on the use of the Internet to organize LGBT
communities in Turkey, South Korea and Guyana and featured the research of Song
Pae Cho, Vidyaratha Kisson and Serkan Gorkemli. Serkan Gorkemli’s presentation
entitled, “Coming Out, Gay Activism, and the Internet in Turkey” focused on
collegiate gay activism and the use of the Internet in Turkey since the 1990’s. The
presentation discussed how the Internet not only created space for students to
reveal their sexual orientation but also to become collegiate activists. Song Pae
Cho’s presentation gave an overview of how the Internet has been used within the
past decade of South Korean gay and lesbian organizing to both radically expand the
Korean gay and lesbian community and to engage in new forms of sexual rights
activism. Vidyartha Kisson discussed the potential of technology to facilitate on line
and real world progress for sexual minorities in Guyana and other parts of the
Caribbean. His presentation highlighted how Caribbean LGBT organizations have
used websites, blogs, yahoo groups and social networking sites to support
community building and vital research within the LGBT community. His
presentation asked important questions about access to bandwidth and if that
access reinforces other divides in the Caribbean LGBT community.

The third panel featured an Artist Talk Back by Parvez Sharma, director of the
powerful film A Jihad for Love, which chronicles the experiences of LGBT people in
the Muslim world. Sharma described the making of the film as well as the complex
issues that are faced by LGBT people in Muslim societies as they grapple with the
relationship between religion and sexuality.

The IRN symposium ended with a panel of funders who support LGBT projects that
use technology and the Internet as fundamental parts of their work. Dulce Reyes
from the Astraea Foundation and Sarah Gunther from the American Jewish World
Service described their foundations’ funding priorities and the role of foundations in
supporting international and regional LGBT organizing.

The symposium event also marked the launch of the new IRN website
www.irnweb.org. The new website allows users to create their own blogs, groups,
and e-journals as well as share events, videos and other information with the global
LGBT community.

With eight years under its belt, the International Resource Network continues to
expand and add valuable information to communities across the globe working in
the areas of gender and sexuality.