With the worrying outlook for LGBTQIA+ people in Ukraine, Europe’s LGBTQIA+ media publications are joining forces to work together to amplify the stories of our community and to tackle homophobia in all its forms.
LGBTQIA+ people across Europe continue to encounter day-to-day discrimination and abuse:
- 61% of LGBTI people avoid holding hands in public.
- 37% of LGBTI people feel that they are being discriminated against.
- 11% of LGBTI people have been assaulted physically or sexually in the last 5 years. This rises for Trans people and Intersex people. Only 1 in 5 of these incidents has been officially reported.
- These results show that there has been only limited progress on these issues since 2012.
Source: EU LGBTI 2 Survey, FRA (2019)
Ten of Europe’s leading LGBTQIA+ media publications have joined forces to amplify the concerns and visibility of our community and to tackle the underlying issues. ELMA is the European LGBTIA+ Media Association.
“We are all living in uncertain times, but it’s clear that Europe’s LGBTQIA+ community is particularly vulnerable to health inequality, economic hardship, and the worrying rise in homophobia, biphobia and transphobia…” explained Giannis Papagiannopoulos. “ELMA gives us a clear statement of intent that Europe’s LGBTQIA+ community demands to be heard and is united against homophobia, transphobia and biphobia in all its forms.”
Papagiannopoulos is the co-founder of Antivirus – the only LGBTQIA+ publication in Greece. He’s also the president of the newly formed European LGBTQIA+ Media Association – ELMA. He’s committed to strengthening the diversity of ELMA’s membership to fully reflect Europe’s LGBTQIA+ community.
The founding members of ELMA are already collaborating on a range of journalistic projects – amplifying the stories of Europe’s LGBTQIA people and sharing those stories with media outlets around the world.
“One of our first actions is to demonstrate the economic and political power of our European LGBTQIA+ community…” added Papagiannopoulos. “We’re leveraging the audience reach of the publications within ELMA to undertake a major survey of LGBTQIA+ people. This is an ongoing process – giving everyone a voice and enabling us to focus on and elevate the things that really matter to LGBTQIA+ people in Europe.”
ELMA’s survey of LGBTQIA+ people is being conducted in partnership with Visit.Brussels and VO Citizen. The support of Visit.Brussels has enabled ELMA to create a media hub in Brussels to facilitate close cooperation with the various bodies within the European Commission.