Creating Space
Common issues, lessons learnt and ways forward for people involved in the development of LGBTI organisations
Creating Space
Common issues, lessons learnt and ways forward for people involved in the development of LGBTI organisations
English editing: Tom Johnston Spanish translation: Darinka Mangino and Anabel Gómez Portuguese translation: Claudio Tavares Layout: Luiz DeBarros Cartoons: Auke Herrema
To be cited as: Creating Space: Common issues, lessons learnt and ways forward for people involved in the development of LGBTI organisations. Langen, B (ed.), W. Banks, J. Bruinsma, J. Cruz Diez Beltrán, G. Dütting, K. Kraan, W. Muguongo and H.M. Kinyili. Amsterdam/Pretoria 2012.
This publication is published under Creative Commons 3.0.
You are free to share, copy, distribute, transmit and remix (adapt the work) the work under the following conditions: • Attribution You must attribute the work in the manner specified above (but not in any way that suggests that the authors endorse you or your use of the work). • Non-commercial You may not use this work for commercial purposes. • Share Alike If you alter, transform or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same licence or a similar licence to this one. with the understanding that: • Waiver Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the editor. • Public Domain To the extent that the work or any of its elements are in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the licence. • Other Rights In no way are any of the following rights affected by the licence: Your fair dealing or fair use rights, or other applicable copyright exceptions and limitations; the author’s moral rights; rights other people may have, either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights.
We would appreciate receiving a copy or notification of any reprint of or reference you make to this publication. Your feedback and comments can help us to improve it, as we intend to evaluate its usefulness in the future. Please send any feedback to [email protected]. Contents Introduction 2
Acknowledgements 8
About the writers 12
Creating an overview of current issues: Results of the web survey (Bram Langen) 16
Making a difference: Developing and resourcing our organisational strategies (Warren Banks) 28
LGBTI leadership (Karen Kraan) 46
LGBTI identity and group mechanisms (Jan Bruinsma) 56
Dynamics of LGBTI organising (Wanja Muguongo and Happy Mwende Kinyili) 64
Alliances and their dynamics: LGBTI organisations working together for tangible changes (Gisela Dütting) 74
LGBTI people and organisations in a hostile environment (Juan Cruz Diez Beltrán) 88
Appendix: Cartoons 102
1 Introduction
2 All over the world, a variety of LGBTI1 groups, movements and organisations2 are working to improve the lives of sexual minorities. Currently there are greater opportunities than ever before for LGBTI organisations to make a difference in the world: through empowerment, through advocacy for human rights, by implementing HIV prevention, treatment and care interventions, by integrating LGBTI needs into mainstream healthcare systems, etc. All of this, however, requires proactive, resilient and sustainable LGBTI organising entities.
The injustice, the stigma and the needs out there are so enormous that organisations tend to focus on the development and implementation of programmes and interventions. It can be hard to find the time and energy to stop and reflect. And if the staff of LGBTI organisations do manage to stop and reflect on their practice and try to determine their successes and lessons learnt, they will look at their programmes and activities in the field, but rarely focus on organising processes.
Aim of this publication
Over the years, the many people involved in this sector have gathered an enormous wealth of implicit knowledge on how these organisations work, how they relate to each other and how they develop themselves. This publication captures some of their practices and will make their organisational lessons learnt more explicit. Making these lessons more accessible will support practitioners who are involved in one way or another in the development of LGBTI organisations, whether they be activists, funders, capacity enhancers, networkers, programmers, lobbyists or whichever other role or combinations of roles. After reading (parts of) this publication, the reader will hopefully feel inspired, enlightened, challenged, disturbed or motivated. Any of these feelings, in combination with the lessons learnt and the tips and tricks in this publication, will hopefully trigger further positive change in the LGBTI entity, organisation or movement in or with which they are involved.
LGBTI organisations and groups are no different from other organising entities. The mechanisms that are at play within and between LGBTI organisations are the same as elsewhere. LGBTI organisations emerge, develop and die like any other organisations. They create successes, they fight, they suffer, they laugh, they link up, they share and they learn like any other organisations. This publication will focus on the positive aspects, on strengths and opportunities. It celebrates the successes, the drive and the energy of people who are involved in the LGBTI movement. That doesn’t mean it avoids looking at those things that aren’t working so well or at the threats many of those people face in organising themselves. This publication looks at those challenges too, but from a constructive and appreciative perspective.
We realise that the contexts and the ways in which LGBTI organise themselves differ significantly between different regions and countries. The people involved make different choices, both conscious and less conscious, in terms of
1. For the sake of readability, this publication uses the term LGBTI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex people) consistently. That in no way means that we want to ignore other orientations or identities people prefer to use for themselves, including trans, transvestite, transsexual, queer or any other. 2. In this publication, these include organisations or organising entities that do not self-identify as LGBTI organisations, but that do work directly for the needs of (parts of) the LGBTI community.
3 things like objectives, beneficiary groups, focus themes, levels of desired structure and formalisation, organisational culture and organising principles. In developing this publication, the authors have tried to pay tribute to these differences while at the same time looking for the commonalities and the lessons that readers might find useful once they have adapted those to their own specific context.
Process
In developing the articles found here, the authors followed a four-step process to ensure that they would gain as broad as possible an understanding of the issues at hand and a deep enough insight into the causes, aspects, challenges and ways forward regarding those issues.
1. Based on its own international practice, the Schorer Foundation compiled a draft list of all questions, issues and insights that it had gathered over the last few years in terms of being and supporting LGBTI organisations. The act of collecting ideas was useful in terms of giving more depth to the questions. As Schorer realised that its understanding and practice forms only a fraction of reality, it invited others involved in LGBTI organisations to share what they considered to be the crucial themes in terms of developing the sector.
2. To start with, an online survey was initiated in which almost 200 people participated, sharing their experiences, priorities and ideas (an overview of some of the results of this survey is given in the first article). The online survey was of great value in exploring and enhancing the participants’ joint understanding and was used as a starting point for a more in-depth conversation face to face.
3. On 10 October 2011, a workshop with 30 participants from both the Global North and the Global South was hosted in Amsterdam. All participants had already had hands-on experience in working in, supporting and following LGBTI organisations and groups as they developed. The objective of the workshop was to identify, discuss and analyse some of the common issues, lessons learnt and ways forward concerning the development of LGBTI organisations. Over the course of the workshop, various issues, themes and questions were raised, organised, adjusted, re-organised, clustered and re-clustered into a number of central themes. These were further deepened to better understand the causes, develop possible solutions and share good practices.
4. A day after the workshop a team of writers took part in a writing workshop to work on the central themes and to jointly develop the skeleton of the articles. The writers were selected on the basis of a number of criteria, such as their experience with the LGBTI sector and organisational-development practice, their capacity to listen to others, their capacity to analyse and synthesise and their availability to participate in the workshop and to write an article in the months following this workshop. All of the writers were part of Schorer’s international network and were selected on their proven writing skills and their assumed capacity to work in a team of writers.
4 The ‘write-shop’ also provided an opportunity for the participants to clearly define the aim of the publication, to target the specific type of readers, and to agree on the common tone of voice and the terminology to be used. Afterwards, the writers developed the first draft of their respective articles and circulated those within the writers’ team to ensure that the articles would form a consistent overview and to prevent any obvious gaps, overlap or repetition from occurring.
The first draft of each article was shared with at least three peer reviewers, most of whom had participated in the workshop on 10 October. The peer reviewers were asked to give constructive critical feedback in terms of clarity, usefulness and relevance for the targeted readers, as well as logic and completeness. Based on these peer reviews, the writers then revised their respective articles, producing the final versions as found in this publication.
Limitations
The process that was chosen – and the publication resulting from that process – involved a number of limitations. The authors are very much aware of those limitations and would like to make them explicit here. It was practically impossible to get input from all practitioners involved with the LGBTI movement. The available resources only allowed for a limited number of people to take part in the workshop in Amsterdam. The choice of participants was biased towards those in the network of the organisers, which probably means that those who ultimately took part in the workshop had relatively more experience with formal than with informal groupings, that there was relatively little attention for LGBTI people living with HIV, and that more experiences were shared about working in/with organisations in the Global South than about those in the Global North.
While full representation – whatever that might entail – was not achievable, a diverse group of people was invited to participate in the workshop. There were people from both the Global North and Global South and there were participants who worked with LGBTI groupings and participants who worked in LGBTI groups and organisations. This publication doesn’t pretend to be more than it is: the insights and thoughts of eight writers, based on the opinions, thoughts, remarks and insights of nearly 200 people who participated in a web survey and about 30 participants in a one-day workshop. This publication is not based on extensive field or literature research.
Keeping all these limitations in mind, this publication in no way pretends to give a conclusive, objective representation of developments in the LGBTI sector. It does not intend to speak for the movement, but rather was developed through the eyes, ears and mouths of people in the movement. The LGBTI sector is undergoing constant change and our perspective is by definition limited. This publication is based on the ideas and experiences of the survey participants, the workshop participants and the writers.
5 Overview of the articles
‘Creating space’ turned out to be a central theme in this process, not only in the sense of creating space for people to meet and engage with the issues at hand or creating space and time for reflection, but also in terms of the articles that were written. They deal with creating the space these organisations need to exist within their respective contexts and their linkages with the outside world, but also creating space for working together within the movement/sector.
In the first article you will find some background information on the results of the web survey that was launched at the start of this process. In the second article Warren Banks focuses on different forms of organising, change, phases and the resourcing of LGBTI organisations. Karen Kraan discusses the central theme of LGBTI leadership within organisations in the third article, while in the fourth Jan Bruinsma explores the meaning of identity and in-group and out-group dynamics. Wanja Muguongo and Happy Mwende Kinyili deal with cooperation and competition within the movement in the fifth article, while Gisela Dütting discusses the position of LGBTI organising entities in a broader movement for social change in the sixth. In the final article, Juan Cruz Diez Beltrán deals with hostility and the external environment.
The appendix presents the cartoons that Auke Herrema created during the workshop in Amsterdam. While listening in on the conversations held during the day, Auke drew these cartoons to summarise the discussions, to trigger further conversations and to provide input for further reflection on what people had said.
6 7 Acknowledgements
8 This publication was developed with the input of numerous practitioners in the field of organisational development and in the LGBTI movement. We would like to thank all the participants in the workshop held in Amsterdam in October 2011:
Amira Herdoíza Corporación Kimirina, Ecuador Andy Seale Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Switzerland Cheick Traoré UNDP, USA Bouko Bakker Schorer Foundation, the Netherlands Colin Dixon Dance4Life, the Netherlands Cristina Câmera Independent consultant, Brazil Dawie Nel OUT - Well being, South Africa Gisela Dütting Independent consultant, the Netherlands Ian McKnight CVC, Jamaica Jan Bruinsma Independent consultant, the Netherlands José Pauw Schorer Foundation, the Netherlands Juan Cruz Diez Beltrán Independent consultant, Argentina Karen Kraan Independent consultant, the Netherlands Kent Klindera AmFAR, USA Midnight Poonkasetwatana Purple Sky Network, Thailand Nur Rokhmah Hidayati Results in Health, the Netherlands Pato Herbert Global Forum on MSM and HIV, USA Samuel Matsikure GALZ, Zimbabwe Sara Brewer Results in Health, the Netherlands Tanne de Goei Independent consultant, the Netherlands Theo Santfort Columbia University, USA Toni Reis AGLBT, Brazil Wanja Muguongo UHAI- the East African Sexual Health and Rights Initiative, Kenya Warren Banks Independent consultant, South Africa
We would also like to thank all 191 people who completed the online questionnaire that had been circulated in preparation for that workshop.
I would personally like to convey my sincere gratitude to each of the writers for their commitment and hard work in the development of this publication: Warren Banks, Jan Bruinsma, Juan Cruz Diez Beltrán, Gisela Dütting, Karen Kraan, Happy Mwende Kinyili and Wanja Muguongo. Thanks for your inspiration, spirit and humour. These kinds of processes, in which people really engage and truly listen to each other, are energising; they are the moments
9 when real learning and the building of knowledge takes place. Thank you for your openness and trust and for your willingness to give feedback to other writers and to integrate the valuable feedback you received on your articles from the peer reviewers.
We are grateful to the peer reviewers who provided the writers with critical and constructive feedback. Thanks for your time and energy in this process. The articles have gained relevance, accessibility and focus through your feedback. The peer reviewers were Bouko Bakker (Schorer Foundation), Cristina Câmera (independent), Colin Dixon (Dance4Life), Amira Herdoíza (Corporación Kimirina), Nur Hidayati (Results in Health), Kent Klendera (AmfAR), Dawie Nel (OUT Well-being), Toni Reis (AGLBT) and Cheikh Traoré (UNDP).
Thanks also to Auke Herrema for the cartoons produced on the spot, which brought humour and further discussion to the workshop in Amsterdam. Thanks to Tom Johnston for editing the English draft of this publication.
This publication and the process leading up to it were made possible through financial support from PSO Capacity Building in Developing Countries and from the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Amsterdam/Pretoria, June 2012
Bram Langen
10 11 About the writers
12 Warren Banks has worked as an independent organisation development (OD) practitioner and facilitator since 2003. Before that, he worked as an OD practitioner and trainer for Olive (Organisation Development and Training). He is currently an associate of footsteps, an association of development practitioners based in Durban, South Africa. (For more information about footsteps or to access its publications, including several referenced in this article, please go to www.footsteps.org.za). Warren has worked with a range of LGBTI organisations in Southern Africa as well as having supported a wide variety of civil society organisations, donors, projects and multi-stakeholder initiatives in other sectors in Southern, East and West Africa and Europe. Aside from general OD consulting, his particular areas of interest include whole-systems change, strategy development, relational work and writing. He lives with his partner, theatre actor and director, Peter Court, and their small menagerie in Durban, South Africa. To contact Warren with feedback on his article or to book his services, email him at [email protected] or [email protected].
Jan Bruinsma is a senior consultant, advisor and trainer. He has over 20 years of experience – with national and international exposure – in human, organisational and institutional capacity development. He has been responsible for the monitoring and evaluation of the performance and impact of development projects and programmes. Over the course of his assignments he has developed capacity within government institutions and non- governmental organisations, streamlined internal systems and procedures and guided staff and management to effect changes. He enhances democratic management in a multicultural setting. He uses creativity in searching for new ideas and solutions, and he has the ability to combine the practical level with the policy level and to contribute at both levels. Optimally combining social, conceptual and methodological competence with a professional, critical and self-reflective attitude, he has contributed to development programmes in Asia and Africa as well as in the former Yugoslavia and in countries of the former Soviet Union. To contact Jan with feedback on his article or to book his services, email him at [email protected].
13 Juan Cruz Diez Beltrán was born in Argentina in 1973. Shortly after graduating from medical school at the University of Buenos Aires, he left his native country to go work in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He finally settled in Mozambique, where he worked in the field of HIV until 2010. After obtaining a Master’s degree in Public Health at VU/Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam, he decided to settle down in the Netherlands to work for Schorer. He runs his own consultancy firm, carrying out different health and HIV-related projects and collaborating with the Willen & Doen Foundation as an advisor for its HIV and AIDS programmes. His other interests include art films, photography and pop music from the ’80s. To contact Juan, email him at [email protected].
Gisela Dütting is an independent researcher and activist, based in the Netherlands. An anthropologist by training, she is specialised in social movements, gender and economic justice. She has worked with trade unions, on international campaigns, with advocacy networks and with women’s groups worldwide. Currently, she is a member of the board of directors of the Transnational Institute, a board member of LOVA, the Netherlands Association for Gender Studies and Feminist Anthropology, and an affiliated researcher at Aletta Institute for Women’s History in Amsterdam. To contact Gisela with feedback on her article or to book her services, email her at [email protected].
Happy Mwende Kinyili’s struggle is to identify, name and confront the evil that permeates our realities. Thus, her daily toil is to build a world where the oppression of different evils is overcome and an alternative community based on revolutionary love, effervescent hope and emancipatory truth is realised.
14 Karen Kraan is a senior facilitator and trainer, interim manager, fundraiser and project manager, mostly in the non-profit sector. She has contributed to projects and programmes in Europe, Eastern Europe/Central Asia, Southern and Eastern Africa, and Southeast Asia. Karen specialises in key populations and vulnerable groups and she has been active in and for the international LGBT sector for over a decade. Since 2010, Karen has worked as an independent professional through Flowz (www.flowz.eu). The name ‘Flowz’ stands for ‘Finding Long-term Original Workable Solutions’ and thus essentially sums up the intention of all the assignments she does, whether for NGOs, CBOs, donors, (local) governments or social enterprises. Karen is keen to contribute to improving the strategy and management of NGOs. Recently, she co-developed and served as the start-up manager for Bridging the Gaps: Health and Rights for Key Populations, which is the largest programme on key populations in the world and is funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Health. Karen lives with her partner in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. To contact Karen with feedback on her article or to book her services, email her at [email protected].
Bram Langen used to work with Schorer Foundation’s international projects as a senior programme officer since 2008, collaborating with partner organisations in Latin America, Southern Africa and East Africa. He gained experience as an organisational-development practitioner with Olive (Organisation Development and Training) and as a learning facilitator within the association PSO Capacity Building in Developing Countries. Bram lives with his partner in Pretoria, South Africa and currently works with COC Netherlands as an international project officer. To contact Bram, email him at [email protected].
Wanja Muguongo is a queer Kenyan feminist and a firm believer in human rights and social justice. Her passion and activism lie in the struggle for equality, non-discrimination and the amplification of the voice of marginalised populations, specifically the African LGBTI and sex-worker communities. Wanja’s position as the founding executive director of Africa’s first indigenous, activist-managed sexual minority fund has enabled her to play a key role in strengthening and supporting the growth of the LGBTI and sex-worker movements in her region of East Africa. To contact Wanja, email her at [email protected] or [email protected].
15 Creating an overview of current issues: Results of the web survey
By Bram Langen
16 To get a better understanding of the issues that people who are involved in LGBTI3 organisations consider to be the key strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in relation to the LGBTI sector, a web survey was initiated in September 2011. The ideas and insights gathered in that survey served as a starting point for a workshop in Amsterdam, where they were presented and where people could engage with them as a starting point for conversations. The central question of the web survey was: What are the key issues in the organisational development of LGBTI organisations?
To get participants for the web survey, numerous contacts of the Schorer Foundation were approached directly, and various colleague organisations of Schorer were requested to pass it on to their other colleague organisations involved with LGBTI work. The survey was also posted on diverse LGBTI news groups. Before the web survey was sent out it had been pre-tested with a small group.
All participants in the survey will receive a copy of the final publication on the development of LGBTI organisations. Although complete anonymity was guaranteed, 40 people (20%) nevertheless chose not to give their name and email address. For that reason, this publication will be shared through a number of LGBTI-focused dissemination channels and news groups, in the hope that all participants will manage to get their hands on the publication in that way.
The web survey, which was available in French, Spanish, Portuguese and English, took the participants about ten minutes to fill in. As a total of 191 people completed the survey, it is hardly representative for the whole LGBTI movement. Moreover, it was disseminated through a limited number of specific channels, was only available online, and only in the four languages mentioned. The survey was also only open for a limited time, namely from 1 September through 1 November 2011. Nevertheless, the responses received provided a wealth of information on what people involved in LGBTI organisations consider key.
Respondents
A relatively large number of respondents came from Brazil (26), Kenya (13), India (7), Colombia (12) and South Africa (9). The survey was also competed by respondents from the USA, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Uganda, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand. Relatively few people from Russia, Central Asia, China and the Middle East participated. The relatively small share of respondents from the latter group of countries could be due in part to the fact that the web survey had not been translated into Russian, Chinese or Arabic. There were also fewer participants from French-speaking West Africa than anticipated, even though the survey had been translated into French. This could be linked to the fact that Schorer had relatively few contacts with French-speaking networks. 3. Although the term LGBT was used in the web survey, LGBTI is used in this publication for consistency’s sake.
17 Most typical, urgent, bothersome or current issues
In one of the first questions in the web survey, participants were asked to name what they considered to be the most typical, most urgent, most bothersome or most current issue in the development of LGBTI organisations. This question was included in order to gauge the general sentiment of respondents and to check to make sure no central themes had been overlooked in preparing the 29 statements presented later in the survey. Rather than presenting an interpretation of their responses here, a number of the issues they raised are mentioned verbatim below.
• The lack of acceptance of the very existence (or the right to exist) [of LGBTI] in many countries, both in legislation and in the popular cultural mindset. • Stigma and discrimination. • A lack of resources (including financial resources) especially for LB and TI organisations and the mechanisms that marginalise LB and TI groups within the broader ‘LGBTI movement’ in terms of leadership and agendas. • Core funding and funding beyond the HIV sector. • The mixing of the personal with the professional, due to the fact that LGBTI organisations are often comprised of people who are friends, the level of professionalism is unfortunately often compromised. • Organisations develop in isolation; organisations find it difficult to build trusting relationships and work together; organisations do not learn from the successes and failures of others within and outside of the LGBTI sector. • HIV/AIDS. • The sustainability and mobilisation of resources for the current work and new projects. • Awareness about LGBTI within the mainstream. • The capacity of plan-based and evidence-informed methodologies. • The power issues within and between LGBTI organisations. • There are many LGBTI organisations that cannot find each other for collaboration, either because they represent different constituencies, or because they don’t recognise each other’s work, strategies and missions. The LGBT organisations that I know have a loose network, are rather small in size and lack capacity for advocacy and project management. • Proper governance and leadership structures. • Mutual understanding and respect: for example, gay doesn’t go well with bi. • The impact of HIV on the community. • Long-term strategic planning linked to government planning. • Strengthening relationships between LGBTI organisations and their government counterparts. • The issue of personality clashes and dysfunctions. • The scramble for recognition, and the ‘competition’ between LGBTI organisations. • Most LGBTI organisations face the perpetual challenge of finding financial resources to fund their initiatives.
18 • In countries with criminal laws against same-sex relationships or sexual activity, LGBTI organisations are often not able to register and to exist openly. It is urgent to bolster campaigns for decriminalisation of homosexuality. • The coordination between different networks. • The representiveness of organisations: For whom do they speak? • Religious fundamentalism and the effects this has on the functioning of LGBTI organisations. • One can’t generalise in talking about LGBTI organisations without distinguishing between sexual orientation (LGB) and identity or expressions of gender. • The lack of movement for leadership. Many organisations have the same leaders they had 15 years ago. • The lack of empowerment and development of LGBTI activists. • The technical capacities, the lack of knowledge about monitoring and evaluation.
It was concluded that all of the issues raised in this open question were in one way or another included in the list of 29 pre-defined central organisational development issues, which respondents were requested to score later on in the questionnaire.
Most important strengths of LGBTI organisations
In preparing for this process, the organisers were well aware that both the survey and the workshop could trigger a lot of negative ideas, frustrations and problems. They nevertheless felt strongly that the LGBTI sector/movement has many wonderful experiences and practices and they worked from an appreciation of the current practice, which
19 they believe holds the potential to show the way forward. And indeed, when asked about the strength of LGBTI organisations, almost all participants had a lot to share. Here, too, rather than presenting an interpretation of their responses, a number of the issues they raised are mentioned here verbatim.
• The community commitment to the rights and goodness of the LGBTI populations. • The willingness to persist in the face of persecution. This definitely earns them the respect as committed activists who are not just ‘in it for the money’. • The visibility. • The togetherness. • The ability to connect their struggle to other struggles against oppressive norms around gender and sexuality and to build alliances with other social-justice movements. • The dedication, commitment and belief. • The long experience of activity, extensive contacts with the community, the involvement of community members in planning, implementation and evaluation of activities. • The unity. • That the source of our energy lies in our own experiences. • The lack of fear. • The pride. • Strong community ties often ensure that, for example, public-health programmes are better implemented within sub-groups that were previously ‘inaccessible’ to mainstream programmes. • The creativity. • The strong-willed personalities working in tandem. • The very existence of the now-thriving gay and lesbian community. Unbelievable changes that have been achieved through education of larger populace in terms of gay issues, challenges and demystifying gay diseases. • A sense of bravery. • The ability to organise themselves within organisations and networking. • The ability to stand by each other and a strong will to learn and stand up for their rights. • The organisation is not only driven by the need for the work; the passion that drives the people is also very important. It also means that advocacy is passionately driven by all these activists. This needs to be cultivated. The spirit of activism needs to be cultivated. People should not be knee deep in implementation but be able to balance that with their advocacy. • The strength of the community; the sheer willpower. • The courage and willingness to exist and be visible. • Enthusiasm and desire to advocate their health and human rights despite the personal losses they may face. • The team work. • Being able to reach the most marginalised people or the most at-risk population.
20 • The solidarity. • The empowerment of members. The knowledge of the history of the struggle against stigma and iscrimination. • The credibility that several organisations have built up over the years. • Our understanding of the problems. • We are more united and visible than we were five years ago. • The international solidarity. • The fact that national and international networks are working together. • The human talent. • The enthusiasm in developing different activities. • The amount of experience accumulated over the years. • The well-networked organisations. • The use of international experiences. • The ability to create a lot with little available funding. • The clear objectives. • The linkages with members of parliament and gay-friendly businesses who sympathise with the aims of the LGBTI movement.
21 Importance of 29 issues in LGBTI organisation development
The organisers selected 29 issues on the basis of their own experience and asked a number of experts to review those. The feedback from the reviewers led to a reformulation of the issues in some cases. The respondents to the survey were then asked to rate the 29 issues as to how important they considered those to be for the development of LGBTI organisations. They were asked to think broadly about the various organisations they knew of or the sector as they knew it, rather than just about their own organisation.
The overall results show that the most important issues were related to fundraising, leadership, monitoring and evaluation (M&E), finance-and-administration, and planning systems and organisational strategy. Of the 29 issues that were presented for scoring, those considered to be the least important were the lack of self-confidence, the competition between LGBTI organisations, the tensions resulting from diversity within an organisation (e.g. gender, race, age, sero-status), the sensitisation regarding HIV within the organisation and the lack of career mobility (i.e. once one has worked for an LGBTI organisation, it is hard to find work elsewhere).
During the workshop, several of these issues were reduced to the underlying issues. For example, fundraising also refers to the capacity to work together with others and to create alliances. Although an issue such as fundraising was not treated separately by one of the articles in this publication, nearly all of the articles discuss it to some extent.
22 Table 1: Overview of the importance of issues in terms of the development of LGBTI organisations (the lower the score an issue was given, the more important it was considered to be)
ISSUE IMPORTANCE SCORE very important > > > not important 1 or 2 3 or 4 5, 6 or 7 The fundraising and proposal-development capacities 84% 14% 2% The lack of leadership development and succession planning 83% 13% 4% The problems with monitoring-and-evaluation systems and structures 77% 20% 3% The problems with finance-and-administration systems and structures 74% 22% 4% The lack of a shared organisational strategy 74% 20% 5% The problems with planning systems and structures 72% 24% 4% The limited capacity for working together with other NGOs and government actors 69% 23% 8% The lack of a shared organisational culture 66% 27% 7% The workplace policy on health and well-being (including HIV/AIDS) 66% 23% 11% The lack of a clear division of responsibilities between boards, management and staff 67% 24% 9% The need to deal with safety issues regarding staff members 64% 26% 10% The difficulty with becoming legally registered as an NGO 68% 19% 13% The policy on volunteers 66% 23% 11% The limited capacity to reflect and learn 64% 25% 11% The tendency of organisations to be clique-ish (working mainly with friends of friends) 61% 32% 7% The fragmentation of LGBTI organisations (resulting in organisations splitting up) 61% 28% 11% The repressive settings in which LGBTI organisations have to work 64% 26% 11% The burnout of staff members 62% 26% 12% The ideological differences and disagreement between LGBTI organisations 62% 25% 13% The lack of understanding of the organisational history, the struggles, the culture 60% 28% 12% The difficulties in attracting qualified professionals to work in the LGBTI organisations 62% 23% 15% The ideological differences and disagreements within LGBTI organisations 60% 29% 11% The underinvolvement of the board 58% 30% 11% The stress and trauma in the organisation because of violence and threats 62% 23% 15% The lack of self-confidence 59% 23% 18% The competition between LGBTI organisations 51% 33% 16% Tensions resulting from diversity within the organisation (e.g. gender, race, age, sero-status) 51% 33% 17% The sensitisation regarding HIV within the organisation 51% 28% 21% The lack of career mobility (once one has worked for an LGBTI organisation, it is hard 52% 26% 22% to find work elsewhere)
23 Table 2: Regional differences in terms of the importance of issues for the development of LGBTI organisations
24 This table shows how much the score that each langugage group gave to an issue deviates from the average score for that issue. If the bar is to the left of the central vertical line, it means that the language group concerned considered that particular issue to be less important than average. If the bar is to the right, the language group concerned considered the issue to be more important than average.
25 Further analysis of the data revealed quite some regional differences. For example, English-speaking respondents perceived the competition between LGBTI organisations to be a much more important issue than Spanish-speaking respondents. The tensions stemming from diversity within the organisation was deemed to be a more important issue by Brazilian respondents than by others. Table 2 gives an impression of the differences between different sub-groups that completed the online survey (English-, Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking4)5. The order of the issues here is the same as in Table 1, running from very important to not (so) important. One has to be careful with these numbers of course. English- speaking respondents, for example, included participants from Africa, Europe and Asia.
Other issues...
The web survey also asked if there were other important issues to take into consideration in the discussions on the development of LGBTI organisations. Those issues played a role in the preparation for the workshop and ‘write-shop’ and were considered again during the writing process. Rather than presenting an interpretation of their responses, the list below contains a number of the issues the respondents raised, verbatim. • Addressing the emerging and unmet health needs of transgender populations with UN Agencies, particularly WHO and UNDP. • There is no one-size-fits-all. • Thinking beyond ‘organisational development’ and addressing movement building and development. • All organisations have a life cycle, regardless of the sector. Professionalisation leads to overdevelopment, to fragmentation and, eventually, to the rise of new, small innovative organisations. The trick would be to learn from this continuous process; no organisation or individual is unique; it is vital to work together and learn from each other. • Funders create competition and tension within the community. • Discussions on T and I issues should be split from those about LGB. • Continuous engagement with the relevant stakeholders, be they government and/or other related sectors and/ or structures; especially the importance of tackling the human-rights issues through networking and partnership for continuous and effective advocacy, lobbying and support for the marginalised and/or stigmatised LGBTI communities. This means that we need to work together and learn from each other in the process to achieve our goals and/or objectives. • Making connections with non-LGBTI organisations, e.g. feminists, health workers, immigrants. • The unity within the LGBTI organisation is the most vital. • There is a need to invest more in the capacity building of the LGBTI community, not just through workshops and meetings, but also by investing in formal education so that they will be able to develop and sustain the skills they need. Capacity building on the basis of one or two weeks of training isn’t enough. • Funders need to come down to see the groups they are funding. • It is very difficult to work with activists who do not have some insight into their own projected anger and
4. All Portuguese-speaking respondents came from Brazil. 5. As there were only three French-speaking participants, their bar is not included in this table.
26 resentment. I honestly don’t know if there will be any change in the constant clash of egos if the change does not come from within. • It is important that LGBTI organisations are aware of national policies and work of other non-LGBTI organisations. • Most LGBTI organisations find it difficult to partner with organisations that advocate and champion their rights. • The denial of one’s own sexual orientation and low self-esteem. • Developing regional and global networks that will be useful for advocating in countries where simply being LGBTI is criminalised. • The mental wellness and well-being of LGBTI human-rights defenders. • Bisexuals are subjected to same or worse treatment by the gay community as by society at large. • Growing stigma among LGBTI groups, especially the T. It seems like there is also lack of understanding for our differences within the LGBTI group, hence the tendency to mock and stigmatise one another. • The founder’s syndrome, where founders want to control an organisation as if it were their business. • Gay organisations have their funds mainly for HIV services. • I think the most important issues are organisational ones: the kind that can be solved through good organisational strategies, policies, processes, management and leadership. This includes problems related to organisational culture(s). • LGBTI organisations don’t exist in the same way around the world. • The infighting within the LGBTI sector is so destructive.... • Organisations work well as CBOs, but problems arise as soon as thousands of dollars are given to them and they are expected to function as NGOs. It’s like they are given all the materials to build a house, without being trained in how to do it. Transitioning into an NGO takes time, energy and ability, and most organisations learn by trial and error, which isn’t the most efficient way. In addition, very little technical and emotional support is given to these people. If there isn’t anyone in the country to help them, the donor is often so removed or busy with other aspects of their portfolio that they, too, cannot provide the support that is needed. I think that donor organisations need capacity building as well as sensitisation about to how these CBOs operate, and then they need to come up with a general strategy for further funding. • Recognition of the work. • The issues around succession and the theories around volunteerism. • The regional differences in the accessibility of funding for LGBTI organisations; it is relatively easy for LGBTI organisations to survive in capital cities. • The importance of paying attention to and working with youths in LGBTI organisations. • The limitations of volunteerism: at some point, people also need to be able to earn a living in/in addition to their involvement in LGBTI organisations; many volunteers are young and have little or no work experience. Volunteers need to be well inducted into the organisation and the context before they start. • The lack of structures in the world and in certain regions for addressing the issues of LGBTI people living with HIV. • The self-discrimination, internalised homophobia in LGBTI organisations. • The violence against groups, and violence in society in general.
27 Making a difference. Developing and resourcing our organisational strategies
By Warren Banks
28 Introduction
This article looks at two critical elements: • the strategies we adopt to bring about change and to work towards our goals • how we go about resourcing those strategies and the organisational vehicles that carry them. These elements are considered in the context of the LGBTI sector and the organisations working in that sector.
I begin with a caveat. All organisations, irrespective of their sector, are more or less likely to face certain common challenges because: a) they are organisations, and b) they work in a broad environment which has certain characteristics that affect everyone (e.g. economic crises and social trends). LGBTI organisations are a lot like all other organisations, though of course, they may experience some additional, specific challenges – e.g. around identity, public hostility, etc. – and some advantages – e.g. a growing sense of international solidarity.
From my practice as an organisation development (OD) consultant, I have noticed that leaders and managers in the LGBTI sector are often very passionate and committed, but not always highly experienced at working with organisational dynamics and issues. Further, there are always new leaders, pioneers and activists entering the sector. Therefore, this article attempts to provide a framework as well as some useful information and practical advice drawn from my own (and others’) experience. It is not an exhaustive exploration of the theoretical and political issues in the field, nor is it a deconstruction of the weaknesses of various theories and models. Quite pragmatically, I have chosen to share some frameworks and ideas that seem useful for understanding and working with organisational strategy, resourcing and development6.
Organising in the LGBTI sector
The concept of organising is broad and embraces a wide range of activities and forms. Organising can mean having or putting together: • A list of people to call when preparing for a rally or protest march • A group or network using social media platforms e.g. FaceBook, Twitter, etc. • An informal Sunday-afternoon support-group meeting in the local park • A small community-based organisation (CBO) delivering services locally • Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) advocating the access to rights or changes in policies and practices at the national level • International organisations managing funding flows • Loose, Internet-based social and professional networks of activists, consultants or academics operating in multiple countries.
6. Other articles in this publication delve in more depth into some of the subtleties of working and organising in the sector (e.g. Dütting on alliances, Bruinsma on identity, Kraan on leadership, and so on). See the Table of Contents.
29 These are all examples of possible results of organising people and resources. And there are many other forms, ways and means of getting things done. Some organisation types naturally give rise to formal organisations (i.e. the kind with administrative systems, executive boards, written plans and policies, etc.), while others do not. Whether or not a formal organisation is needed depends a great deal on the strategy choosen and what one wants to achieve. (This article focuses strongly on formal organisations, but much of its content is of relevance to informal organising.)
The bottom line is that although some social changes do occur spontaneously over time, much of our work in the LGBTI sector is about consciously influencing change and, ultimately, improving the lives and circumstances of LGBTI people. Indeed, this is our overarching goal. And so we organise in order to make our voices heard by strengthening our own capacity and position. And to do this effectively, we need some kind of working strategy.
Strategy matters!
Strategy is basically an organisations’ answer to the question: Given our current environmental (where we are and what’s going on) and organisational reality (who we are, what we can do and what we want to do), how best can we achieve our goals?
If we break this question down, it becomes clear that there are some fundamental sub-questions that we need to answer in order to decide intelligently on our strategy (what we will do and how we’ll do it). These are:
• Who are we? (identity, values, style, passion, spirit) And therefore: What do we want to do?
• What is going on in the environment? What is the environment asking of us or calling us to do?
• What difference do we want to make? (stating clear goals)
• What capacity do we have, i.e. what can we do well? And what resources do we have (or need) to do it?
One very useful framework for situating and exploring some of these questions is a ‘systems picture’ (see Figure 1).
All organisations take inputs from the environment (people, money, equipment, ideas, information, raw materials, etc.) and transform these into outputs (services, programmes, products, deliverables). These outputs are then delivered to particular people. In the case of a business, those ‘particular people’ are clients and customers. In the case of development organisations, advocacy organisations and even welfare organisations (and most LGBTI organisations and groups fall into one of more of these categories), the ‘particular people’ are often referred to as
30 Figure 1: A systems picture7
ENVIRONMENT
IDENTITY Outputs Mission STRATEGY products & services CAPACITY STRUCTURES TARGET Resources Skills SUPPORT SYSTEMS GROUP/S
POLICIES
take IMPACT... action CHANGE (achieving our goal/s)
Figure 1 shows one view of an organisation as a system, including the main elements that make it up and its main points of connection with its environment.
7. Adapted from: Thaw, D. (1997) Ideas for a Change 3: Approaching Change. Durban: Olive Publications.
31 target-group members. Whether or not our own target-group members pay us for our services, they have some interest in our aims and our work, and we want them to do something new or different: to change their thinking in some way, change a policy they are in control of, change risk-taking sexual behaviour, or take some new action. In some cases our target group is different from us; for example if we are trying to change the national policy on gay marriage, our target groups might include parliament, the media, political parties, and so on. In other cases, we ourselves might be our principle target group; for example if we are working on improving LGBTI sexual health, we need to work with and in our own community. Choosing the right target group is critical: they are the people with the power to contribute to bringing about the change we seek.
All organisations have an identity, whether it be clear or unclear, conscious or unconscious. An organisation’s identity is expressed in its mission, vision and values. It is also expressed in the organisation’s culture: in how things are done, in what it feels like when you walk into the office or meet people who belong to the organisation or attend their events.
And all organisations have some kind of strategy – which, again, may or may not be conscious, well thought through, etc. They also have capacity (i.e. skills and resources, even if these are quite limited) and some kind of formal or informal structures, systems and policies (e.g. who is allowed to join, how often will they meet, who will do what, etc.).
So, an organisation’s outputs are a consequence of its identity, strategy and capacity and of its analysis of its environment, but also, of the inputs it is able to source (skilled or unskilled people, a large budget or none, and so on). If those outputs are appropriate and delivered to the right people, they should contribute to the kind of impact the organisation wants to see in its environment.
And, the more an organisation makes an impact, the greater its chances are of getting the inputs it needs. Community members, professionals, donors and others are more likely to want to support an organisation that can show itself to be ‘well organised and successful’ – i.e. effective at meeting its goals and making a difference.
A simple example: A small, local and informal LGBTI organisation was made up of several community activists. They felt strongly that, in order for LGBTI people in the local community to claim their rights and be accepted and valued in the broader community (which was quite conservative and traditional), a stronger culture of activism needed to be developed. They felt that many local LGBTI people had become apathetic or were fearful of standing up and being counted because of the prevailing heterosexist attitudes in the local community. So, two of this organisation’s key goals were that: • Local LGBTI people would claim their rights. • LGBTI people would be accepted and valued in community X.
32 This suggests two main target groups (which could then be further disaggregated): • Local LGBTI people • The local community.
In relation to the first target group, two of their key objectives were that: • Local LGBTI people would identify the challenges and opportunities facing them. • Local LGBTI people would begin to take collective action to address these.
Their strategy in relation to these objectives – which they implemented with minimal financing and no external financial support – involved holding social events to get local LGBTI people more connected to each other (a local hotelier sponsored the space and some refreshments), facilitating discussion groups and debates on topical issues one evening a week, and holding problem-solving sessions at which LGBTI people were encouraged to support each other and to start acting jointly rather than simply accepting the problems they faced. These problems included poor treatment by local police and health facilities, discrimination at schools, a lack of appropriate sexual-health information and substance abuse.
Along the way, opportunities arose to begin an LGBTI drama group. Support groups around HIV/AIDS and other issues also began to form and to be resourced by local professionals and volunteers – not all of whom were themselves LGBTI people. The support groups also began to form resourceful relationships with other agencies and were thus able to refer people to counselling and other services and to act as a mediator with local government. All of this contributed towards a more vibrant and secure local LGBTI community – and one in which rights and services were somewhat easier to access. It was no dramatic transformation, but rather incremental changes that made a difference over time and built a sense of solidarity and community as well as stronger links with the broader community.
These were not complex or dramatic strategies, but in this small community, they proved effective and very low-cost. And as a result of this work, several donors became interested in supporting the expansion of part of their strategy.
This is a very simple, local-level example. However, whether one is working locally in a community, nationally on policy issues, or internationally, the trick in most cases involves becoming sufficiently clear about who we are and what we want to do, and then figuring out how best to make that happen. In a nutshell, this is called strategic thinking. It is discussed further in the next subsection of this article.
33 Strategic thinking: What it is not, and some ideas about how to do it…
Firstly, strategic thinking is not necessarily the same as strategic planning. The problem with strategic planning is that it often takes the form of an event (or sometimes several events/workshops over a period of time). And the output of this event is a strategic plan for the next 3–5 years. There is nothing wrong with holding an event to do some joint strategic thinking – indeed, this can be a very effective, efficient and democratic way of bringing together many ideas, insights and sources of information and knowledge. And there is nothing wrong with making longer-term plans – indeed, without them, it is very difficult to tell whether one is on track and almost impossible to raise money or interest supporters in our work.
But a workshop and a written plan are not enough… Strategic thinking is a process and, in some ways, a ‘way of being’ as an organisation. The keyword here is ‘thinking’. We don’t start thinking on day 1 of a three-day workshop, stop thinking at the end of day 3, and then go out and thoughtlessly implement. Rather, the goal is to integrate strategic thinking – and ongoing planning, and the adaptation of plans – into our day-to-day work, certainly at the level of leaders and managers, and preferably for all members of our organisation.
This is not primarily a matter of finding the right tool or framework for analysis and planning. Most people with some organisational experience will have encountered tools such as: • SWOT (strengths, weakness, opportunities, threats) – a tool for organisational and environmental assessment • PESTEL (political, economic, social, technological, environmental, legal) – a tool for contextual analysis • The ‘Seven S’s’ framework – a tool for organisational assessment • The Logical Framework Approach (LFA) – an approach and a tool for contextual analysis, project design and project planning.
There are a lot of frameworks, and whole books have been written about the subject. Tools such as these are helpful as a way to begin asking questions and to organise the ‘answers’ we collect8.
The limitation of all such tools is twofold: • Each tool arises from a particular perspective on the world (a paradigm) that we may or may not agree with, identify with or even fully understand. A tool is not the ‘truth’, but simply a lens to look at things through. Each lens brings certain things into focus and leaves others out of focus. The more rigorous the tool is – and tools/ approaches like LFA and its derivatives are particularly rigorous – the more likely it is to have a large quantity of assumptions embedded in it, and these, in turn, affect the nature of the analyses and the plans that may be generated using that tool.
8. For more information on these and other tools, a quick search of the Internet using the keywords “organisational assessment” (also: “organizational assessment”) or “environmental scan” should produce several thousand results.
34 • The quality of the analysis we come up with depends entirely on the quality of the information and the thinking – intelligence – that went into applying any given tool. If we just slap a few random or superficial facts and assumptions into a SWOT analysis (for example), our analysis will not be particularly helpful in framing an effective and unique response or strategy. Indeed, we are likely to end up with a strategy that tries to address all the needs and issues facing our community generically, but one that is unable to address any of them effectively.
So, what is critical for quality strategic thinking, and for that matter, for strategic planning? Below are eight organisational and personal practices that seem particularly important:
1. Make strategic thinking, questioning and conversation a part of our day-to-day work and lives. There are countless ways to gain intelligence: having conversations in the office over lunch, having meetings with donors, attending forums or conferences, reading newspapers, surfing the Internet, perusing published studies in our field and those of related fields, asking questions. An attitude of interest, openness and curiosity is essential here. We need to get into the practice of asking ourselves the question: How does this relate to me? To my organisation? To our work? To LGBTI people in general? To our specific target groups? And it is often valuable to ask for outside, fresh perspectives when developing an analysis of the environment or even when assessing one’s own organisation – this is especially true if you are feeling stuck or in a rut in your thinking.
2. Make time and space for reflection with colleagues in and beyond our organisation. It is important to make space and time for reflection and conversations (either face-to-face, by telephone or online) about our work, our experiences, our ideas and our environment. Over time, we need to develop an understanding of our own organisation and of the larger system into which we are attempting to intervene (e.g. the policy system, the social system, the community system). Such an understanding is built up over time and with experience; it is never an absolutely definitive understanding, but rather a working one. We need to adapt this understanding as we learn more. It is here that some of the environmental scanning and assessment tools mentioned above come into play. A few key questions (and there are many others!) in this connection are:
• About our organisation and our work: • What is working well? Why? • What is working less well? Why? (A tip: Keep asking ‘why’ until you get as close the root explanation as you can.)
• About the environment in which we are attempting to intervene: • What is the change that we are trying to (help) bring about? (This needs to be kept in mind at all times when engaging in strategic thinking – this is the goal that most of our energy as an organisation is channelled towards achieving.)
35 • Are we making inroads? What signs can be seen in the environment that tell us that our work is (or is not) effective? (If the organisation has developed a monitoring-and-evaluation [M&E] system, that will provide some answers to this question.) • What seems stuck or is not changing? Why? • What trends or changes are happening in the environment and/or in relation to our target groups that present us with challenges or opportunities?
3. Set goals and objectives that we really want to achieve, know why we want to achieve them, and define these objectives as clearly and specifically as possible. If our objectives are vague, unclear or poorly formulated, it will be difficult to develop an effective strategy and almost impossible to determine if we are achieving those objectives. Some questions that may be useful for formulating clear objectives include: • What is the specific change that we want to bring about? • Why is this an important change? How will it contribute towards bringing about other desirable changes? What difference will it make in the lives of LGBTI people? • Who is involved or affected by this change? Who wants it to happen? Who would prefer it not to happen? • Who needs to take what action in order to bring about the change? How might we influence these people? (This question begins to take us beyond objective setting and into strategy development, i.e. the practical ‘how to’.) • How long do we think it will take for this change to unfold? • What needs to be put in place for the change to happen and to be sustained?
There is a great deal of material available both in the planning literature and online that explains how to formulate an objective. That material is valuable once some of the questions above have been lived with and grappled with for a while. An objective is essentially our contract with the community we serve and with ourselves: it is what we commit to working towards, so it deserves some careful thought.
4. Know who we are and play to our strengths. Gandhi is quoted as having said, “Be the change you seek.” One might also say, “Embody the strategy you seek”!
Developing strategy is not a completely rational, analytical matter. In fact, a strategy we really care about and will follow through on (with or without external support) usually arises from who we are and what matters most to us. This raises some quite deep and challenging identity questions, all of which deserve careful reflection: • What do we really care about? What matters most to us as an organisation? • What are we really good at? And what do we love to do? • What capacity – resources (assets like money, equipment, people, contacts/relationships, energy and passion) and capabilities (skills, competencies) – do we have?
36 • What are the values and principles that inform how we currently work? And what are the values and principles that inform how we would like to work?
5. Define our approach and overall strategy. Given our objectives and our identity, how are we going to work in order to contribute towards achieving our goals and objectives?
This question can give rise to a great deal of creative thinking: What are all the ways in which we might possibly achieve our objectives (including the seemingly ridiculous or unlikely ones)? Why limit ourselves to the known? Encourage people to generate as many ideas as possible. Once this has been done, we can apply the lens of our values, principles and strengths and begin to decide on practical strategies.
6. Clarify our boundaries: Know what is and is not our core work. The importance of keeping focused on what matters most while remaining aware of changes and opportunities in the environment has already been touched on above – and many of the questions listed there speak to this important point. Our core work is that which contributes directly to the achievement of our main goals and objectives. Anything else, is not core – and therefore, not sacred (i.e. potentially expendable). As donor trends change, it is easy for organisations to be pulled off course and even end up dropping parts of their core work and implementing a non- core strategy, simply because financing is available for that. If we know what matters to us most – and have really thought through why that is the case – such a shift is a lot less likely to occur. And we are much more likely to be able to argue our case effectively to donors and other supporters. Clarity on what is core (and what is not) also protects our organisation from disintegrating into a collection of unlinked activities… That is a real danger for many community- based organisations that often feel they should meet each and every need that confronts them…but in this way lies madness (as many stressed-out directors can attest)!
A related matter is the scope of your work: part of being clear about your boundaries means deciding on whether your primary interests are at the local, national or international level… It is healthy to maintain contact and solidarity with other organisations at regional and global levels, but where does our focus lie? If we are working primarily at local level, should we really attend all five international conferences to which we have been invited? This decision must be taken in light of the changes that we are trying to bring about.
7. Involve people in the strategic-thinking process and get their buy-in. For some organisations, strategy comes from the top and is simply implemented down the line. This works in some hierarchical settings where structures and policies rule. It is not the best option for organisations in our sector or for organisations doing any kind of developmental work. Although the ‘buck’ has to stop somewhere, and formal hierarchy is sometimes necessary (e.g. in relation to financial management and control systems), it is often the case
37 that the more widely involved people are in leading their own organisations, the more effective their participation will be. It is important to enable people (whether staff, volunteers or board members) to really understand what the goals, objectives, core work and strategy are, and why. This understanding will enable them to be more than doers: they will become co-owners and co-creators of the organisation and its work. And in the process, leadership and the capacity for strategic thinking, conscious decision making and rapid responses to challenges and difficulties will develop.
8. Accept that there are often no easy answers to our questions. Will it work? Will what we think will happen in five years actually happen? Will we be able to get funding for this? Is this the best possible strategy? There are no easy answers to any of these questions. We simply have to act with as much integrity and intelligence as possible and then stay alert as to what happens next! Working strategically is about learning as we go.
Of course, we should endeavour to manage risks (e.g. try a small pilot project rather than transforming the whole organisation to implement a strategy that might not work…). But managing risk is one thing; playing it safe, avoiding innovation and getting stuck is quite another. Doing only what seems safe and certain is often a recipe for stagnation. So taking well thought-out risks and living and working with questions and uncertainty is a part of strategic thinking and very much a part of the terrain of the LGBTI sector.
Leaders – formal and informal – have a key role to play in ensuring that these eight practices or ‘ways of being’ are integrated into their own organisations. If they are integrated, the organisation is more likely to develop the capacity to think strategically, creatively and intelligently about its present, and so become more able to shape its future. Models, tools, frameworks and external facilitators or consultants can add value to some of our strategic conversations, but what matters most is that there is an ongoing conversation that keeps organisation members connected to the meaning of the work, to who they are and to who they are becoming in the context of a changing environment.
Although I mentioned earlier that strategic thinking is not the same as holding/attending an event, it is true that one practical way of beginning to inculcate strategic thinking into an organisation is to facilitate discussions or workshops that open up and work with some of the key questions listed above. The diagram in Figure 1 can also be used as a way of organising some of those questions by exploring each of the key words in bold text in turn and building up an overall picture of the organisation and its current and future strategy.
What is Organisation Development (OD) – and how do we go about it?
Having explored strategy and strategic thinking, we will now briefly consider the organisational vehicle that carries our strategy. This is not the space for an in-depth discussion of OD practice and theory. Rather, I offer one definition of
38 OD here, briefly unpack the process and differentiate it from capacity development. Being aware of the possibility of consciously engaging in the process of developing one’s organisation is perhaps more important than having a great deal of technical knowledge. Again, remaining aware of what is unfolding – and engaging with colleagues and others around this – is key.
“Organisation development (OD) is a process consciously chosen by the organisation itself, to take its next development step.” 9
The basic stages of the process are as follows: • Agreeing on the outcome we want (this is the contracting step if an external consultant or support person is involved) • Making a diagnosis after reflection: What is going on here? Why is this happening? • Identifying the next development step • Preparing for change • Implementing change • Monitoring along the way and evaluating the effectiveness at the end of the process • Reflecting regularly on how we are doing, which is likely to lead back to step 1 or 2 (but then hopefully focused on a new set of issues).
OD is not an end in itself. Ultimately, taking the next development step should result in enhanced organisational effectiveness and a greater impact.
Organisation leaders have a key role in this process: holding the whole together, seeing strategy and the vehicle that carries strategy, providing direction at times, facilitating ownership at other times, etc.
Do we need a consultant to ‘do’ OD? Not necessarily. In any event, consultants can only work with what is there. An ideal may be to lead our own development – and to seek outside support as and when you need it. Often the main value an external person brings is the ability to see the whole organisation clearly; this is very difficult to do when we are deeply committed and wrapped up in the day-to-day life of the organisation. Certainly, if we encounter a place of ‘stuckness’ or need an external perspective or an outside facilitator, an OD professional can add real value. However, it is generally unwise to give leadership or control of decision making to a consultant! Ideally, a consultant comes in as a partner to the organisation for a period of time, supports a process and then moves on. He or she does not bring development, but supports – and perhaps speeds up – the organisation’s existing development process. The members of an organisation need to make the decisions about next steps and changes. If the consultant is allowed to do so on their behalf, the chances of real buy-in and effectiveness are often very limited.
9. Thaw, D. (2002) Unpublished training notes.
39 One challenge often encountered by activist organisations is called ‘bias for action’. This refers to a tendency to keep on acting and reacting, without stopping to reflect and check that we are actually being effective and taking reasonable care of the organisation that enables us to do our work. Taking the time to stop occasionally, sit together and review what is happening in the organisation and its environment is a must if we want our work to be effective and sustainable. This has been discussed at greater length in the section on strategy and strategic thinking. Finding a simple and manageable way of documenting those reviews is also critical. Without that, it is all too easy to lose our organisational memory and repeat the mistakes of the past. 10
The role of capacity development
Capacity development and OD are not the same thing. OD is about the development of the whole organisational system. At its core, OD is about consciously choosing and implementing organisational change. Capacity refers to resources and capabilities. In order for an organisation to take its next develop step, it may need more money, more equipment, more skills, etc. Once we are clear on the direction we wish to take and how we want to develop, capacity development has a role to play. It is much more than simply training, although that may form part of the capacity- development efforts. Among a wide range of other means, capacity development could also include: introducing new systems, procedures and policies; inviting in or hiring new people with needed skills and perspectives (human resources); sourcing additional financing (fundraising); learning from reflection on our own practice and on that of others (by reading, networking, etc.).
Resourcing and financing our strategies and organisations
So far we have raised and addressed some questions about strategy and introduced the concept of organisational development. This final section briefly explores the complex and challenging area of resourcing. In particular, it deals with finding financing for our strategies and organisations.
More formal LGBTI organisations often depend to some extent on financing from donors and international NGOs. In many countries this is becoming a challenge for a variety of reasons, including macro-economic factors (increased per capita income), withdrawal of donors, global and regional economic crises, and so on. Some current dynamics affecting the availability of funding to the LGBTI sector include:
• A tendency to subjugate our own purpose and strategy and to go instead for the ‘low-hanging fruit’ – in other words: to follow donor trends, even if another approach might be more appropriate. • The inclination to use a tactical approach to fundraising rather than a strategic one. This could also be called a survivalist or ‘get-the-money-at-any-cost’ approach. The absence of a well-articulated strategy can be a
10. For further discussion of organisational formalisation, organisational dynamics and related matters, see also the Bruinsma, Muguongo & Kinyili and Kraan articles elsewhere in this publication.
40 contributing factor here. If we can name our goals clearly, it becomes easier to attract the right sort of financing, instead of just any financing. It is helpful to see financing as a means of achieving our goals and not merely as a means of keeping our organisation alive. After all, we form organisations to be able to do work, not for the sake of having an organisation.
• The difficulty of balancing donor demands for greater accountability and formalisation and the need to maintain strong connections with our communities and the larger LGBTI movement.
The following emerging dynamics in the donor sector also need to be taken into account: • A shift seems to be taking place from vertical financing to systems-oriented financing – in other words, an increased desire for collaboration and working within coalitions where larger amounts of money are involved. This has serious OD and systems implications and adds the whole area of managing partnership and multi- organisation teams to the competencies required of LGBTI workers and leaders.
• While there is currently still a large amount of HIV-targeted financing, some suggest that this will be reduced in the coming years.
• Rolling economic crises across different regions of the world may further reduce the amount of money that donors will have to spend; this could also affect the size and targeting of grants.
• An emphasis on value for money and targeting for impact is becoming a universal donor demand. Donors want to see their financing leveraged so that it will make the greatest possible impact. This means that LGBTI organisations need to be able to measure their impact and produce evidence to prove that they are being effective. In many cases this pressure is useful, as it should increase effectiveness. In some cases, however, it means that work is skewed towards what is easy to measure rather than towards the areas of greatest need (e.g. it is easier to measure active discrimination than stigma or prejudice, but stigma and prejudice may be much more common and more fundamental issues in some country contexts).
• There seems to be more of an emphasis on rights-based approaches.
• Donors are sometimes reluctant to finance LGBTI work for fear of being labelled ‘cultural imperialists’ when they fund in country contexts where homosexuality is construed as being foreign or alien, as is still the case in many African countries.
• At the same time, in recent years, there has been an upsurge in interest in financing the sector, and currently, financing for HIV-related work with MSM is clearly on the upswing. This presents both opportunities and
41 challenges since the sector is much more than just MSM. How can we continue to address all elements of our constituency when financing for working with some of those elements is so much more easily accessible?
Anthony Adero (Ishtar MSM – Nairobi, Kenya) comments: Donors are willing to fund the following areas: • Policy and legal advocacy – challenging discriminatory law and policies and responding to human-rights violations through grants for documentation, strategic litigation, research and alliance building in the human- rights, HIV/AIDS and faith sectors • Rights-based service delivery – developing inclusive health and legal services for sexual minorities through grants for HIV/AIDS and sexual-health services and education, legal aid • Strengthening institutions – building organisational skills and systems and sustaining activism-exchange visits and internships; human-rights defenders’ initiatives; core funding and seeding networks and coalitions • Protecting human-rights defenders through safe houses and security-enhancing capacity • Media and culture – transforming public opinion and social attitudes through grants for media training, engaging religious institutions, film festivals • Sustaining activism such as wellness and care of activists including therapy, group counselling, safe houses, etc.
They seem unwilling to fund: • events, tables, exhibitions, performances or sports tournaments and one-time volunteer events not connected to a programme curriculum • capital campaigns (including the use of grant funds for the exclusive purchase of technology and materials) • trips and travel • contests, festivals or parades • sponsorship of fundraising or other events • advertising • tickets to events and parties • supply drives • emergency funding for asylum and evacuation • core funds to run offices and pay salaries.
Donors are willing to invest in organisations that can demonstrate sustainability, transparency, accountability and result-oriented projects for their investment of resources and time.
Jayne Arnott (director of the Triangle Project in Cape Town, South Africa) adds: “It is clear that donors are unwilling to fund core costs and the percentages are low related to salary and operating costs in relation to the reality of supporting the related programmes/projects.”
42 The most interest seems spread around direct service work around sexual health, HIV and AIDS, and more focused advocacy initiatives. We are also getting interest and support for our work with lesbians as well as for our work outside of Cape Town [less urban work].
I think donors need to have results-driven work and it is often the smaller grants that demand the most administration and accounting processes. Salaries and operating costs are perceived as ‘non-measurables’. I think donors also expect organisations to have the capacity and make efforts to generate their own income through attracting donations, doing events, charging fees for services and/or other ‘own fundraising’ initiatives.”
In light of the above, I can offer a few ideas for the future:
• As already noted, developing a clear, effective and workable strategy is vitally important. Our organisations need strategies that reflect their unique responses to their respective environments: strategies that are well thought through and for which we can make evidence-based arguments as well as be passionate about; strategies that are supported by well-designed monitoring-and-evaluation systems that track our progress over time and enable us to learn from our work.
• It is worth exploring the possibility of working with other organisations and institutions. Forming consortia, coalitions, alliances and partnerships is one way to do this and, potentially, to attract substantial financing. However, we need to be aware of the risks and challenges involved. Setting up an effective partnership takes substantial inputs of time and energy to begin with, and the partnership will continue to need conscious management throughout its lifespan. Moreover, entering into a partnership if we are not sure what we want and what we stand for, is a very bad idea indeed… Clarity about our identity, about what we are bringing to the relationship, and about what we want from that relationship is essential. 11
• When approaching various donors for support, it is important to make conscious choices about how we do so. This does not mean changing our strategy to fit each donor’s specific agenda. Rather, it involves framing and talking about our work in ways and in language that each donor is likely to understand. Find the links between our goals and theirs and frame the communication accordingly. Remember that one of the main reasons donors exist is to finance organisations and their work: they need us in order to do their work. Indeed, most worthwhile donors appreciate partners who will argue for and explain their positions, rather than merely acquiescing to each and every request and suggestion in the hope that compliance will ensure continued funding. A healthy relationship involves both parties negotiating boundaries, seeking common ground and communicating clearly when their ‘No’ has been reached. When the need for financing forces an organisation to consider entering into work that it does not believe in, or work that is not really needed, that is when it is time to stop and consider whether accepting a donation might do more harm than good to our organisations. 11. See also Dütting’s article in this publication for some valuable insights into alliances and strategy in the sector.
43 • In the absence of a formal organisation, accessing resources can be quite challenging. Here, too, partnerships with existing organisations can be enormously beneficial if carefully negotiated. It is also worth thinking more broadly about diversifying resourcing strategies and fundraising. We need to think beyond the ‘obvious’ donors and explore the options in our local communities and contexts. For example, in some country contexts, ‘pink money’ 12 might be a viable source of individual donations. What is required is a strategy to access it. What incentive is there for LGBTI people to contribute to their own organisations? And why is this not happening to a significant extent already?
• We might consider corporate social investment (CSI) schemes as a possible source of financing. Many LGBTI people are professionals working in the private sector for corporations or small businesses or are self-employed. They may have access to funds from their organisations or their clients’ organisations and might be encouraged to lobby for more funding to be channelled into the LGBTI sector.
• We need to continue to think creatively about financing. For example, try to focus on income-generating programming and social enterprise that might build the entrepreneurial skills of both beneficiaries and especially volunteers, while also offering income-generating opportunities for our organisations.
In conclusion
Effective and strategic organising, i.e. organising that contributes to the change we seek and that is adequately resourced, is already happening in many parts of the LGBTI sector. This article merely highlights some key points to consider in relation to strategy development, OD and financing as you steer your organisation into the future.
External threats such as donor withdrawal or discrimination and hostility in many country contexts and communities can force individuals and organisations to assume a defensive and survival-oriented stance. And internal crises and conflicts within organisations and the movement can have the same effect. But to work from a survivalist mindset is to work from a place of weakness and limitation rather than from a place of strength and possibilities.
The challenge for leaders in the LGBTI movement and LGBTI organisations is to maintain a strategic perspective and to do the thinking that allows them to chart a viable path towards their goals. In the current global environment, and even in the most challenging of local environments, there are many possibilities yet to be explored and developed. The willingness to explore them – and the vision to see them in the first place – is what is required.
12. This is a colloquial term referring to financing from LGBTI people themselves
44 45 LGBTI leadership
By Karen Kraan
46 Introduction
Where people organise themselves, leadership will develop. Whether it is a formal organisation or a more loosely organised entity, leadership is crucial to any form of organising. Leadership can strengthen an organisation and its effectiveness and impact, while insufficient leadership can weaken an organisation significantly. LGBTI leadership is crucial to the growth and impact of the sector and comes with general and more specific challenges. While LGBTI leadership is a topic of numerous informal discussions, it is interestingly not often formally debated or written about. This article explores what (LGBTI) leadership is, presents a model of LGBTI leadership-development and related issues, and offers perspectives on improving and sustaining leadership within the LGBTI sector.
First, let’s consider whether or not there are grounds for being critical about LGBTI leadership. The answer is twofold.
No, we should applaud the sector, because it has a remarkably strong leadership base and should be taken as an example in the discourse about leadership. Often dealing with harsh environments and facing a lot of resilience, LGBTI leaders nevertheless appear everywhere. In Uganda, where homosexual acts are severely punishable, there are strong LGBTI leaders who are internationally renowned and acknowledged. In South Africa, LGBTI leaders have ensured the protection of LGBTI people in the national constitution. In Brazil, LGBTI leaders have turned the country’s Gay Pride celebration into an event that is attended by millions of people and strongly supported by government. In harsh circumstances, the need to organise and have voices heard is incredibly strong, and in all these contexts, LGBTI people have stood up and become LGBTI leaders.
Yes, we should be critical, because there is indeed a lack of succession in the LGBTI sector and quite a lot of leadership remains isolated, not developing into institutional, shared leadership. While some LGBTI leaders may receive recognition, often even on the international stage, continued leadership is lacking.
Secondly, let’s look at who decides who leads. Is it the community that appoints the leaders? Do donors define leadership? Or is it the leaders themselves who decide who will lead and in which direction?
Ultimately, one could argue that LGBTI communities should elect their own leaders and hold them accountable. But the reality is that donor requirements and policy developments (also) often define the direction in which LGBTI organisations move, and this has an effect on who is the most appropriate leader or which type of leadership structure is required. LGBTI leaders need to balance their accountability to and connection with their communities on the one hand, and the donor and policy requirements in an often fast-changing and harsh environment on the other. That is no easy task.
47 Defining leadership
The first point to be made in defining leadership is that leadership is not about just one person. Leadership is required at different levels of an organisation or informal entity and it requires several people. Defining leadership as a one-person show carries the risk of creating a situation in which the leader behaves as a ‘messiah’ or ‘guru’ with followers who lack any kind of criticism. Defining a leader as a single, charismatic person goes against the fundamental core value of leadership, namely that the leader must be held accountable and must lead with democracy. It also prevents followers from taking responsibility. This means that leadership refers in the first place to an organisational status, not a person. Leadership is a structure that is needed to lead an organisation or an entity.
The second point to be made is that being a good leader can be confused with being a good manager, but in fact the two should be distinguished. A good leader must be trustworthy and be able to communicate a vision of where the organisation needs to go. A good leader will play a crucial role in developing that vision, but then as part of a democratic process. A manager, on the other hand, is an individual who is in charge of a certain group of tasks. A manager often has a staff of people who report to him or her.
Numerous definitions of leadership and management have been developed over the last decades. A training manual developed by the Asian Management Institute defines the difference between leadership and management as follows:
“Leadership is a process to accomplish an objective and directs an organisation in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent. Leaders carry out this process by applying leadership attributes such as beliefs, values, ethics, character, knowledge, and skills. When you are also a manager, this will give you authority to make decisions and to accomplish objectives. However, this power does not make you a leader, it makes you the boss. Leadership differs in that it makes the followers want to achieve higher goals, rather than simply bossing people around.”
So, leadership is not about being the (only) one who knows what is going on. Such a self-serving attitude creates people who obey rather than follow in their own interest. Leadership is about guiding people and processes to reach higher objectives, within a system in which people have helped to set those objectives and are motivated by the leader to achieve more. This way of thinking also inspires the development of new leaders, which brings us back to the previous point about the importance of institutional leadership: a crucial aspect of sustainable leadership is the ability to share leadership positions and to grow new leaders within the sector.
48 There are three basic ways people become leaders: 1. Some personality traits may guide people naturally into leadership positions. 2. A crisis or important event may cause some people to rise to the occasion and can bring out extraordinary leadership qualities in ordinary people. 3. People may choose to become leaders or may be identified as potential leaders by others, and can learn leadership skills.
The latter possibility is an important one to take into account with regard to LGBTI leadership. Many people developed successfully into leaders. We often see charismatic leadership in LGBTI organisations and movements, and many people think these leaders have a natural talent and that others could not lead as well. While that may be the case, leadership skills can also be learnt.
To summarise the aspects of good leadership as described in the literature and found in practice, leadership can be defined in the following ways: • Leadership is about giving direction and providing a strategy to be shared by all. • Leadership about encouraging people to participate in creating the path that they are to follow, not to obey. • Leadership is about being visionary, not only being charismatic. It’s about accepting that you will sometimes need to be in the spotlight, not about hogging it. • Leadership is about being credible and trustworthy. • Leadership is about being able to listen and communicate. • Leadership requires democratic processes in which leaders can be held accountable. • Leadership is not about one person, but requires different leaders at different stages. • Leadership requires self-reflection, and taking responsibility for your strengths and weaknesses. • Leadership is about recognising that one cannot lead alone and being able to ask for help and guidance.
49 A model of LGBTI leadership development
Any model is a simplified reflection of reality, which means that not all LGBTI organising will fit into this model. Indeed, the aim of this article is not to present a one-size-fits-all model, but merely to present a few common developments in terms of LGBTI leadership development as observed in various different parts of the world. LGBTI organising often starts off with a charismatic leader, someone who is often a founding member of the organising body, i.e. the founding father or mother. In many countries, a founding mother/father will start to lead against all odds, having to deal with harsh, discriminating and often even criminalising environments.
The initial decision to stand up and act leads to the informal leadership of a loosely organised, unregistered entity with activities that are often aimed at raising visibility and leading a struggle. After this informal initial stage, three different directions are possible: 1. The entity remains informal. 2. The entity disappears. 3. The informal leadership turns into formal leadership when an organisation registers and becomes a formal LGBTI organisation with a structure, often as a result of funding being made available.
Sometimes formal structures will go back to being informal for a variety of reasons, such as a realisation that an informal movement works better for that particular situation. Alternatively, they may disappear altogether due to variety of reasons, such as loss of funding or a lack of leadership.
With regard to the founding father/mother there are two most probable scenarios. The first is that the founder develops with the organisation and is still there if and when the formal stage is reached. The second scenario is that the founder disappears from the scene when the organisation becomes more structured, often without (formally) leaving behind his or her knowledge, skills and networks. Some founding fathers/mothers move on to start new informal structures that may even be in competition with the ones they leave behind.
The reality is that many founding fathers/mothers have the charisma and are best positioned to launch a new structure, but some are not willing to share the leadership position, lack management skills or do not have an interest in formal structures, being driven by the thrill of the start-up phase. Some choose to learn the skills they need to lead a formal organisation; some stay and lead badly; others move on to a new challenge. LGBTI organising often develops organically, based on opportunities that one simply has to grab, especially in areas where not many opportunities arise due to the hidden, criminalised or stigmatised position of LGBTI people. Very seldom is there a plan for organisational or personal growth, or is any attention given to mentoring leaders in their development and in the development of organisations in the start-up phase and even later.
50 Specific LGBTI leadership issues
Are there specific aspects to LGBTI leadership? One could argue that all leadership issues apply to the LGBTI sector, and indeed, they do. There are also numerous non-LGBTI NGOs that are likewise struggling with the issues of succession and sustainability. And there are other sectors that have to deal with a stigmatising environment. True, but there are also aspects that are LGBTI-specific. Below we will introduce five issues often observed in the LGBTI sector.
Action orientation As discussed earlier, a lot of LGBTI leadership is related to organising struggle and raising visibility. These are crucial traits in a highly stigmatised environment. Certainly, there is a lot to fight for, but ultimately planning, succession and sustainability need to be added to the mix in order to create long-lasting leadership.
The development from an informal organisation to a formal one catches many by surprise. Even founding fathers/ mothers are sometimes surprised at the success of ‘their’ efforts. Their success most often leads to growth, to more formality, to a greater need for structure and shared leadership, and ultimately to an organisation that may no longer have the same appeal for the founder. Because of the organic development in most LGBTI organising processes, many LGBTI organisations lack a culture of strategy development and planning and monitoring and evaluation.
The sustainability of LGBTI organisations is related to good governance, which in turn is related to having a good planning-and-evaluation cycle and being accountable. When the nature of LGBTI leadership – and thus of its leaders – is related to struggle and visibility, which are action oriented, one of the challenges will be to add these planning and structured qualities.
Focus on founding fathers/mothers In many different LGBTI contexts, I have come across a phenomenon that I would like to introduce as the founding father/mother focus. Founding leaders, who are so crucial for the sector, may have difficulties sharing the spotlight with others or stepping back into the shadows. This can sometimes be reinforced from the outside, for example by donors, who will often invite the same people to conferences and events and speak primarily with the leader about the workings of the organisation. A potential explanation for this phenomenon is that charismatic leaders have a positive effect on donors: the same charisma that affects LGBTI communities and makes change possible is also appealing to donors. This makes sense, but leadership requires different people at different stages of LGBTI organisational development. The founding father/mother focus hinders this process.
The focus on the founding father/mother may also lead to a situation in which a leader starts to disassociate from his or her organisation and national context. National leaders become international leaders. They become spokespersons on the global stage, travelling the world and spending less and less time within their own context
51 and organisation. This can compromise the development of good leadership, including encouraging people in creating the path that they are to follow, giving direction and providing strategy as well as transparency. Juggling the demanding roles of being both an international and a national leader hinders the development of institutional leadership, where leadership is shared and new leaders can surface.
Succession Any form of leadership, but specifically formal leadership, has to lead to succession plans, but such plans are often lacking. The leader’s knowledge and skills – and perhaps more importantly also his or her networks – remain with too few people in the organisation, making the sustainability of leadership vulnerable. Quite literally, new leaders are not being groomed because opportunities are not being shared. Providing (networking) opportunities to more junior staff does hold certain risks, and donors may insist on having the ‘expert’ attend their event, but a good leader will negotiate through this and provide opportunities to others. A lack of succession planning also engenders the idea that the leader cannot be missed – both for the leader him or herself and for those around him or her. The leader’s disconnection from his or her own organisation, coupled with the fact that he or she is holding most of the cards, reinforces this sense of his or her being unmissable.
Succession is further hindered by the fact that few LGBTI people dare to be visible and are unafraid to step up and become leaders. This reluctance is understandable, given the very real risks involved, it puts an extra burden on the leader who cannot move on, because there is literally no one else he or she can mentor into the leadership position.
Connection with the personal LGBTI people, and thus also LGBTI leaders, are vulnerable as people. Leadership in the LGBTI sector is therefore very much related to trusting individuals. If you are one of the few people brave enough to stand up and lead, it is hard to reach out and look for help, and thus to trust others. In an environment that tells you that you are a criminal, sick or a sinner, and that you have no civil rights, it is difficult for LGBTI individuals to trust others, even people they are close to. Most LGBTI people experience forms of betrayal by others in their lives. So who can be trusted to take over your leadership? Often, the answer seems to be no one.
The lack of trust leads to a lack of sharing (of ideas, of lessons learnt, of opportunities) among and by LGBTI leaders, and possibly also to a feeling of being alone or even lonely. As stated earlier, asking for help and guidance is a necessary trait for leadership growth. Yet many LGBTI leaders see asking for help as creating a sense of vulnerability in an environment where one cannot afford to be (perceived as) weak. The question is then: Is there a need to share? The answer is yes! Inspirational leadership is something you cannot do alone because inspiration is about inspiring others, not just yourself.
52 Governance Formal LGBTI organisations have a (supervisory) board. One of the main tasks of a board is to ensure governance in the organisation. Boards can also be well equipped to offer reflection options for leaders and to guide succession planning and improve shared leadership. In an LGBTI context, boards also often develop organically and have strong ties to the founding father/mother. That means that instead of encouraging vital (leadership) development, they can actually even form an obstacle for that. Nevertheless, there is scope for improvement and boards can play a vital role in leadership development.
Improving and sustaining LGBTI leadership
Inspire leadership debates Considering all the issues described so far, is there room for improvement? Yes, definitely. Let’s return to the fact that – especially in the LGBTI movement – there is such a powerful and continuous initiating leadership base and such resilient people who come forward, against the odds. The fact that change is slow moving and sometimes circular or even regressive with regard to the acceptance of LGBTI people in society means that young LGBTI people in every new generation feel the personal need to take charge and make a difference in their own lives and in those of others. This is an important and valuable characteristic of the sector.
The strong and ongoing leadership base is something that should be acknowledged, built upon and used for leadership development in the LGBTI sector and elsewhere. It may not be a unique trait, but it is more strongly developed in the LGBTI sector than in some others. Parallel to the situation in the HIV movement, the best placed people to become leaders within the LGBTI sector are LGBTI people themselves.
LGBTI people who have been visible as leaders may nevertheless be disadvantaged in terms of general leadership- development processes, such as those at school or in clubs or other activities. Their careers as leaders may become more difficult precisely because they have been LGBTI leaders. Instead, LGBTI leadership should in fact inspire other sectors and could contribute greatly to critical thinking about leadership development. This will require more formal debates as well as more publications on LGBTI leadership. The first steps towards engaging more formally in the debate around leadership have to come from within the movement itself.
Create opportunities for growth This article has argued that being the best placed individuals for the initial, informal phase of organising does not automatically make all LGBTI leaders the best suited for later phases of leadership development as well. Leadership is an organisational state, not a personal trait. Leadership skills can be developed, and the culture of LGBTI leadership as it currently stands does not sufficiently allow for the growth of LGBTI leadership as an organisational state, including the fostering and mentoring of new leaders. There are currently also too few leadership-development opportunities for LGBTI leaders.
53 As a first step, improving LGBTI leadership will require an acknowledgement, both within the sector and beyond (e.g. among donors), that the usual model of LGBTI leadership development and the founding father/mother focus create challenges with regard to the succession and the sustainability of LGBTI leadership. These are challenges that can and should be addressed.
Practical solutions can be found in several directions: • Build social capital by sharing knowledge, skills, and networks. This will lead to institutional, shared leadership. • Specify the leadership skills that are needed at each different stage first, and then use those specifications to identify the right person(s). • Leadership must be reviewed critically in order for it to grow; that is hard when a charismatic leader has earned a lot of credit and respect because of his or her past actions. • (Supervisory) boards should take leadership development on board as a formal task and should create reflection- and-mentoring options for LGBTI leaders. Boards should take a critical but supportive stand in these processes. • Conferences and other (national and international) get-togethers can organise formal sessions and informal opportunities to raise leadership-development issues. • Donor organisations that fund LGBTI organisations could play a crucial role by putting leadership on the agenda in the relationship with their grantees. They could also be more conscious of the trend of always inviting the same people to attend their functions, and actively ask for participants other than the ‘usual suspects’.
LGBTI leaders themselves should organise opportunities for growth. Self-reflection is key, as is the ability of leaders to share and reflect on a peer-to-peer level. While this mechanism is currently lacking, it could be put into place. Currently, if leadership is addressed at all, it is either in a highly theoretical way or as a means to resolve conflicts on an individual level (board – director, staff member – director). LGBTI leaders should allow themselves space for reflection, using peer-to-peer mechanisms, with leaders asking questions, discussing, reflecting and being critical towards themselves and their peers.
Peer-to-peer reflection does not have to be limited to contacts with other LGBTI organisations, although if such contacts are possible they can be very helpful. The reality is that there are few LGBTI organisations, which means an LGBTI peer may be more difficult to find. The competitive nature of LGBTI organisations may also make it more difficult to reflect honestly. In the end, leaders of other organisations who are allies to your cause may well be best placed for peer-to-peer sharing.
54 Closing remarks
A crucial part of self-reflection is realising when new leadership is required to take the organisation to the next level. How long does a leader need to be in place in order to provide stability without leading to stagnation? The answer depends both on which phase the organisation is in and on the ability and willingness of the individual to adapt and grow with the organisation.
A good leader knows when to leave; a great leader ensures that leadership will be in place when he or she leaves.
55 LGBTI identity and group mechanisms
By Jan Bruinsma
56 To be successful, LGBTI organisations need to combine using mechanisms to change the world with creating a safe space for diverse identities and behaviours, while acknowledging and embracing sexual difference. This article explores a number of ideas regarding LGBTI identities and in-group and out-group mechanisms and argues in favour of an organisational environment where the search for one’s own identity goes hand in hand with the struggle for the right to live a respectful and dignified life in society.
Organising and LGBTI identities
Discussions about LGBTI identities often run into difficulties. The abbreviation LGBTI, which we use in this book, has changed over time. Various forms, ranging from LGB to LGBT and LGBTI and even longer ones, such as LGBTQIA (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual), have been used to conceptualise non- heteronormative diversity.
“Development agencies rarely focus on non-reproductive sex and sexuality. This is a real problem that damages real people,” according to Deborah Eade13. Linking the LGBTI movement to the Gender and Development (GAD) discourse and appropriating the right to sexuality and sexual health provides a wide range of possibilities. Many involved in the GAD discourse call for an understanding of gender relativity, which Eade refers to as “a continuum from female to male, with various permutations along the way. This means acknowledging that human sexuality is far more varied and more fluid than the GAD discourse thus far admits.”14 The LGBTI movement and LGBTI organisations have the potential to be at the forefront of this relatively new way of thinking in the mainstream development discourse – one that will, hopefully, change the way development projects are conceptualised. “For the development project to assume that all human beings are unambiguously either male or female, and that non-heterosexual behavior is essentially deviant, therefore results in its collusion in exclusionary practices in relation to gender identities and sexual behaviors.”15
To be and to define oneself as being outside of the heterosexual norm entails a long and tedious struggle for most LGBTI people. The understanding that one’s gender identity and sexual orientation are socially constructed – and that we therefore belong to imagined communities16 – is not common within LGBTI communities and is a factor that puts a strain on the organisation of LGBTI groups. An imagined community is different from an actual community in that it is not (and cannot be) based on everyday face-to-face interactions between its members. Instead, members of an imagined community hold in their minds a mental image of their affinity but will probably never know one another face to face. And yet they may have similar interests or identify themselves as belonging to the LGBTI ‘community’. The media also creates imagined communities, generalising LGBTI persons as forming a specific category of people.
13. Eade, Deborah (2011) ‘Body Politics: The Gender-Development Gap,’ in The Broker, no. 25 (June/July), pp. 19–21 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. Anderson, Benedict (1983) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.
57 Managing diversity and respecting individual choices, while at the same time addressing LGBTI demands in society, requires that people act consciously and appropriate what is rightfully theirs. There is a subtle difference between ‘coming out’ and ‘appropriating what is rightfully yours’. The former is a courageous act (i.e. letting the outside world know about your sexual orientation and gender identity), while the latter is an active movement that includes changing the outside world. In organising themselves, LGBTI people take ownership of a space in society that is rightfully theirs. Coming-out is a first possible step that LGBTI people can take to ‘own’ that space.
LGBTI organising is about appropriating the rightful place for LGBTI in society. It can influence mainstream development discourses and gain greater recognition and visibility in the process. Various different international agencies including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights are questioning the way they have been working thus far and are looking for allies to examine the existing paradigms. LGBTI organisations are at the forefront when it comes to including sexual reproductive health and rights in designing inclusive development approaches.
With increased recognition and visibility comes greater responsibility. While the LGBTI movement is organising itself, LGBTI organisations need more structured ways of working. Having started off as informal and movement-linked activist groups, some LGBTI organisations have since become established institutions with a long track record. LGBTI activist groups have a choice to continue as voluntary and informally organised mechanisms with a link to the movement, or to become well-structured and ‘professional’ LGBTI organisations (with a board and a combination of paid and voluntary staff). Being part of a movement while being also part of an institution poses additional challenges.
While ‘appropriating’ and ‘acting-out’ are individual rights in the LGBTI movement, in an LGBTI organisation these need to be combined with a certain degree of professionalism, certainly once an organisation grows and employs more and more personnel. It is the process of transition from being a small, informal activist group to being an established (funded) NGO that causes concern. This process often takes place without anyone having given it much thought. Once an organisation receives funding, the donor will demand that certain systems are in place, such as accountability structures, a planned-based and evidence-informed method of working, monitoring- and-evaluation mechanisms for the follow-up of the programmes and the systematic formulation of results. LGBTI organisations recognise that being better organised and having access to resources makes them more effective in advancing their objectives.
Organisations that make that transition consciously and in a planned manner will be better prepared to handle the choices involved. International organisations and donors play a key role in this regard. Donors need recipient organisations and therefore stimulate the formalisation of organisations in order to increase their number of recipients. This can have a positive impact on the organisation (in terms of its access to funding, recognition and visibility), but it can also pose a challenge, since it means having to change the way things have been done so far.
58 If these structural changes and the changes in working methods take place without an internal process that allows everyone in the organisation to understand why the changes are necessary for the well-being and sustainability of the organisation, they are most often doomed to fail. A visionary leader with an enormous drive can be transformed into the manager of an NGO; volunteers from the LGBTI community may find themselves working with professionally recruited, paid staff. This often makes an organisation grow in terms of outreach and approach, but may lead to tensions and discomfort within the organisation between the original activists and the newly recruited ‘professionals’.
Within organisations, differences between employees who have experience in the field (but no formal training) and employees who have academic or professional qualifications can create hierarchies that, in turn, can result in internal conflicts and tensions in the workplace. Simply being gay is no longer enough (although very much okay, of course). Some activist leaders find it easier to deal with these changes in their position than others. Added to this is the phenomenon known as ‘newly found fame’. Being invited to international events as the spokesperson for the LGBTI movement can be overwhelming in the absence of local accountability mechanisms. It can put a strain on the individual who returns home to an environment that is very different from what he or she experienced during the event abroad. At the same time, it can place a strain on the organisation by creating unrealistic expectations among external actors in terms of its work capacity, and it can lead to resentment internally. Receiving both funding and recognition is indispensable for a well-working organisation. This can be seen as both an opportunity and a threat affecting the individual and the organisation.
What does all of this mean for the internal organisation of the LGBTI movement? It means taking four things into consideration: Positioning, Designing, Operating and Learning.
Positioning Taking the above into account, an LGTBI organisation will have to make choices about its size and the scope of its involvement, about its activities (direct service delivery and/or lobbying and advocacy) and its position within the LGBTI movement, and about formal and/or informal ways of working. It is only after having made these choices that the organisation will approach other development agencies, donors and governments or international organisations as the case may be. This needs to be a conscious choice, because it will have implications for the design, operations and learning of the organisation. Positioning an organisation is linked with developing its vision and formulating its mission. Strategies designed to achieve the organisation’s mission will formulate the choices it makes to maximise its results (by using its strengths and grabbing opportunities and confronting threats and addressing its weaknesses whenever necessary).
59 Designing Designing an organisation entails the creating its structure (e.g. the board, advisory groups, the director, the staff team) and deciding who will be responsible for what, it entails creating its systems and procedures and deciding about how the organisation wants to work (ranging from very formal to highly informal), and it entails creating the organisational culture it wants for itself. Designing the organisation appropriately creates clarity and focus. Staff members and volunteers will know exactly what is expected of them, their roles (job descriptions) will be clearly defined and they will know how they are expected to work together. Many LGBTI people come into the movement through their own personal struggle to affirm their identity and do not necessarily have experience or knowledge of social-justice issues. Giving them that knowledge is very important, especially when it comes to building alliances.
Operating Operating an LGBTI organisation entails having recruitment procedures and operational mechanisms in place and demands an understanding of what is required in terms of skills training and professional know-how. It is also linked with the management, or leadership, of the organisation. How does one stimulate a working environment that will sustain the goals of the organisation? How does one maintain the commitment of the activists in a more structured environment? What are helpful attitudes for moving the LGBTI movement forward?
Learning Learning and sharing within and between LGBTI organisations entails creating the space to reflect on behaviour and attitudes. This needs to be organised. The right to be (an LGBTI person) and to claim one’s rightful space needs to be combined with an understanding of the organisational environment where results need to be achieved. Learning is about reflecting on how this process is shaping up.
In conclusion: The sexual orientation and gender-identity struggle of LGBTI individual, most specifically those working within an LGBTI organisation, need to be combined with more traditional and mainstream management principles. There needs to be a balance between providing a space for individuals to discover, reflect on and act-out their own identity, and obtaining results that are both organisationally planned and evidence based, in order to keep on learning and sharing. For example: the creation of a safe space where LGBTI can meet and interact freely can be combined with activities that promote rights. Individual reflection within the organisation needs to be combined with the ‘work’ that needs to be done to advance the position of LGBTI in society.
60 Who drives the agenda
‘Fag hags’, ‘fag stags’ and ‘fruit flies’ are slang terms that are used within the LGBTI movement to refer to heterosexuals who associate with, or have exclusively as their close friends non-heterosexuals. Historically these terms were felt to be insults by straight people who felt at home in an LGBTI environment they considered to be ‘safe’. It has always been complicated to see the relationship between different sexual identities as something fluid (rather than simply as heterosexual vs non-heterosexual). On one hand, the LGBTI movement wants to build gay-straight alliances, while on the other hand, it does not wish to be part of a system that perpetuates non-inclusive politics and policies. LGBTI people do not wish to be ‘tolerated’ or ‘cared for’ by heterosexuals. They actually challenge the heterosexual norm and advocate gender relativity, which is something the ‘straight’ world will also need to learn to do.
In gay-straight alliances, LGBTI people will need to insist on being equally involved in setting the agenda and determining the priorities. There is much to be gained by obtaining – and maintaining – the support of straight people and ‘mainstream’ organisations in moving the LGBTI agenda forward, as long as LGBTI people are actively involved in setting and driving that agenda. While the focus may have been too much on ‘gaining access’ and ‘acceptance’ thus far, LGBTI organisations are (and should be) at the forefront in terms of redesigning concepts that show an understanding of sexual orientation, gender identity and diversity.
61 Balancing between inner and outer realities
The mechanisms that have created exclusive policies (and development projects and programmes) in mainstream society are not limited to the heterosexual world. Even within LGBTI organisations ‘sexual orientation identity diversity’ is not always celebrated. Sometimes gay or lesbian organisations have a need to organise separately on specific themes. The same is true for organisations of bisexual, transgender, intersex and asexual people. Until their own (fluid, multilayered and changing) sexual identity has been accepted, it is difficult to embrace the concept of gender relativity and work together with other sexual minorities. It is also difficult to deal with the diversity within an LGBTI organisation in terms of class, race, ethnicity, religion and other factors; this includes dealing with both hostility from the ‘outside’ world and hostility within the LGBTI movement itself. LGBTI organisations should dedicate time and effort to look into the differences and diversity in their own organisations and to question underlying power relations.
The process of addressing diversity within the LGBTI organisation will change over time and will need to be organised in phases. This leads to complex in-group and out-group mechanisms. In-groups and out-groups are social groups17 that individuals will either consider themselves to be members of, or feel contempt for, opposition towards or a desire to compete against (in the case of out-groups). A delicate balance may be struck between the (temporary) need to belong to an in-group and thus in a way to polarise (us vs them) while at the same time developing a more nuanced understanding and appreciation of one’s own identity. While it is perfectly legitimate and appropriate to be in ‘opposition’, being unaware of this makes it too easy to equate it with prejudice. While this is understandable, it is not effective in terms of motivating people to change. Within an LGBTI organisation, the focus may change over time from the discovery of individuals’ own identities towards a general understanding of gender as a relative concept and of sexual identity as being much more fluid than what was initially acted-out and appropriated, celebrating sexuality in all its diversity within LGTBI organisations.
17. Turner, John and Oakes, Penny (1986) ‘The significance of the social identity concept for social psychology with reference to individualism, interactionism and social influence,’ in British Journal of Social Psychology.
62 Reflection and introspection
The last part of this article refers to conscious handling of the different phases through which individuals in the LGBTI organisation move, and suggests how the organisation will develop accordingly. These processes will take shape differently in different organisations in different countries and cultures, with different focuses. Because of the importance of combining personal development with successful implementation of programmes, LGBTI organisations need to develop creative and personal spaces within the organisation in order to obtain the desired results.
LGBTI organisations are often (but not exclusively) staffed by LGBTI people, whether as paid employees or volunteers. An LGBTI person has, by definition, gone through a process of accepting his or her own sexuality and gender identity, coming-out, acting-out and appropriating. Part of this process may take place while he or she is working for the LGBTI organisation. As is the case in all other activist organisations, the work in an LGBTI organisation is therefore more than a nine-to-five job; it entails a personal journey into the unknown. Peer support and guidance within the organisation can be provided through counselling and supervision. Maturity and accomplishment is achieved through a process that takes time and energy and for which the organisation needs to provide ‘creative’ space. This is key not only in terms of individual performance, but also as a way of preventing high burn-out rates and malfunction.
Conclusion
LGBTI organisations are in a unique position to capitalise on the present thinking in mainstream development discourses on gender relativity. The internal organisation needs to combine the individual’s need for growth with the goal of advancing the rights of LGBTI people in society. For the LGBTI organisation this means working towards building an effective institution: one that is professional and accountable and contains ‘creative’ space for individuals to come-out, act-out and ‘own’ their sexual identity.
63 Dynamics of LGBTI organising
By Wanja Muguongo and Happy Mwende Kinyili
64 Introduction
This article will look at the dynamics, linkages and challenges of working together in the LGBTI movement. In particular, it will pay attention to two main questions: • What are the different types of structures, formal and informal, that organisations within the LGBTI movement adopt to carry out their work, and how do these structures impact the work of movement building? • How power and privilege influences the work of different organisations working in the global LGBTI movement?
The exploration of these questions is done in the hope that a better understanding of how we work collectively will aid us in building better partnerships and collaborations in working towards realising social change.
LGBT and I
Throughout this article, we consistently and deliberately speak of LGBTI as opposed to LGBT, which is used more commonly in the global movement. In our specific social context – living and working in East Africa – the struggle for social change with regard to sexual orientation and gender identity places intersexuality18 firmly within the paradigm of our work, something that is less often the case in struggles outside Africa.
In her article, Representing African Sexualities, Desiree Lewis explores the myths surrounding African bodies and African sexualities that were produced in the 19th century. Lewis posits that the construction of the African body and African sexuality influenced by racist and colonial theories resulted in male and female African bodies being seen as lascivious, excessive and laden with extraordinary sexual potency19. And as Busangokwakhe Dlamini puts it, since the racialised African body was further understood as being “close to nature, ruled by instincts and culturally unsophisticated, he had to be heterosexual; his sexual energies and outlets devoted exclusively to their ‘natural’ purpose – biological reproduction.” 20
The construction of this myth was further strengthened in the process of nationalisation that happened in the post- colonial period. As several African nations were birthed, part of the narrative adopted in the nation-building process advocated the notion that the family unit – where the understanding of family is constructed by patriarchy and heteronormativity – is the building block of the nation. Thus efforts to control both the male and female bodies are done with an eye to preserving the family unit and, concomitantly, the nation21.
Hence, in this particular construction of bodies and sexualities, any manifestation, inhabitation or understanding that falls outside this particular purview is condemned and ostracised by societal rules and regulations. Thus in our African context,
18. Intersexuality refers to a condition in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male or in which a person is born with genitals that seem to be in between male and female. 19. Lewis, Desiree (2011) ‘Representing African Sexualities’ in Tamale, S. (ed) African Sexualities: A Reader. Cape Town: Pambazuka Press, pp. 199–216. 20. Dlamini, Busangokwakhe, cited in ibid. p. 207. 21. Ibid., p. 211.
65 the inclusion of intersexuality in the struggle for social change with regard to sexual orientation and gender identity is necessary, as the intersexual bodies are understood as falling outside the male-female duality, their role in biological and social reproduction is questioned and consequently their bodies devalued and ostracised by the societal rules.
Nonetheless, while most of the African activists in the struggle for social change with regard to sexual orientation and gender identity tend to subscribe to the LGBTI acronym, there remain vast challenges with regard to the genuine inclusion of trans and intersex struggles in the broader struggle for social change. Audrey Mbugua, a trans activist, argues that the lumping together of LGB and T issues often results in trans issues being ignored or falling through the cracks. Hence, to avoid this, Mbugua suggests: “it’s high time we realised that the LGBT model failed and transgender persons have to move on with their lives.” 22 Mbugua’s assertion highlights both the tensions that exist within the LGBTI movement with regard to power, politics and access and the need for a deliberate and nuanced analysis of all our interactions within the LGBTI movement.
Formal and informal structures in organisations
To better understand the structure of organisations in the LGBTI movement, an analysis of formal and informal structures will help in understanding their role in the LGBTI movement and hopefully begin to generate ideas on how these structures can be more effective in their work. Feminist scholar Srilatha Batliwala has offered valuable insights on the formal and informal structures of organisations. Batliwala posits that organisations are: • social structures created to accomplish particular ends • sites from which movements are built, supported, serviced and governed • spaces in which movement leaders and activists are located, trained, capacitated, protected and energised to perform the transformational work of movements. 23
Batliwala then proceeds to delineate between formal and informal organisations. Formal organisations are understood as being: • legal entities regulated by laws and financial accountability • external to movements, or created by them, and may focus on: 24 i. movement-building or member-serving organisations, i.e. those set up by movement constituents/members to structure and govern themselves more democratically and effectively, to gain greater visibility and voice, to make coherent and strategic decisions, and/or to coordinate their collective power and action ii. movement-serving organisations, i.e. those that provide services to movement constituents. 25
22. Mbugua, A. (2011) ‘Unpackaging the LGBTI Communities’, in Pambazuka News (no. 538), http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/74658, accessed 28 December 2011. 23. Batliwala, S. (2010) ‘Movements & Organizations: Unraveling the relationship.’ Presentation at the CREA – AmwA Feminist Leadership & Movement Building Institute, Kampala, April 2010. 24. Ibid. 25. Batliwala, S. (2008) Changing Their World: Concepts and Practices of Women’s Movements. Toronto: Association for Women’s Rights in Development.
66 Informal organisations, on the other hand, are understood as being: • networks, groups, collectives, etc. • not legally constituted • usually an organising structure within movements • entities that potentially exist alongside formal structures such as federations, unions, etc. 26
Organisations, both formal and informal, continue to play specific roles in the LGBTI movement. Some of those involve: • providing services to members of the movement such as education, healthcare, etc. • offering strategic support to the movement by offering ideas, political and policy analysis, strategic advice, convening spaces, etc. • supporting capacity-building efforts through leadership development, need-based training, organisational development, advocacy skills, etc. • performing advocacy. 27
Given the different types of organisations working in the LGBTI movement and their diverse roles, it is important to keep in mind that the roles played by these different organisations are not hierarchical in value. For instance, organisations that work on providing legal aid to LGBTI people are no more important than those that offer psychosocial support to their constituents. National-level organisations that advocate the inclusion of LGBTI people in health policies are no more important than grassroots MSM groups that deliver safe-sex messaging, condoms and lubricants to their members. Each of these organisations offers support to the movement that is crucial to the social change desired and cannot be divorced from each other in the movement.
26. Batliwala, S. (2010) ‘Movements & Organizations: Unraveling the Relationship.’ Presentation at the CREA – AmwA Feminist Leadership & Movement Building Institute, Kampala, April 2010. 27. Ibid.
67 The schematic diagram below borrows from Batliwala’s own diagram 28 for understanding the complementary roles that different types of organisations play in the struggle for social change.
As shown in Figure 1, the different types of organisations working in the LGBTI movement offer different skills to and meet different needs of the constituents of the movement and are therefore equally valuable to and equally necessary for the struggle for social change with regard to sexual orientation and gender identity.
Figure 1
Regional LGBTI Membership Support NGO Coalition organisations (service provision)
Grassroots LGBTI movements
Support NGO National LGBTI International (capacity building) Coalition LGBTI Coalition
Working together: Tensions within and between organisations
Organisations, both formal and informal, are built by individuals who are deeply steeped in social contexts laden with injustice and social inequity. Hence, the systems and structures that social movements struggle against are part and parcel of that which informs the creation of our organisations.
The oppressive systems that we fight against – e.g. heteronormativity, transphobia, patriarchy, racism, white supremacy, economic injustice, ethnic chauvinism and fundamentalisms – and the logics which sustain them are often bred into the organisations we build. Our organisations mirror the social realities in which they are built.
For example, female-identified individuals and organisations in the movement often accuse male-identified individuals and organisations of adopting patriarchal stances. A continual struggle within the LGBTI movement is the accusation that representation of the LBTI women by gay men is done in their name, yet the women do not make decisions or affect the implementation of work by the organisation that claims to be LGBTI. Given this, working collectively towards a common agenda is laden with tensions and competition. 28. Batliwala, S. (2008) Changing Their World: Concepts and Practices of Women’s Movements. Toronto: Association for Women’s Rights in Development, p. 21.
68 Differences between formal and informal organisations, for example, are often the source of tension in the LGBTI movement. To use the region of East Africa as an example, several nascent LGBTI organisations find themselves rushing to become legally registered and to formalise their structures as dictated by the laws of their nation. This urgency is underpinned by the rationale that registered entities would gain more legitimacy with regard to resource allocation such as access to funds from donor organisations. The haste to register the informal organisation often overlooks the cost to the functions and role of the organisation in the movement.
The belief that registered entities have more legitimacy is based on a flawed theory of organising that implies a trajectory in which informality is simply a stage on the path to formality, rather than one of two different and equally important characteristics of organising. The perceived lack of independence of informal organisations means that they are seen to occupy a lower position on the value hierarchy than formal organisations. Furthermore, formal organisations often tend to have access to other resources than informal organisations, such as opportunities to speak, to participate and to share their ideas. This creates tension between formal and informal organisations.
Thus an organisation that chooses to remain informal is questioned as to its vision and its desire for internal strengthening. The perceived greater autonomy and independence garnered from formalisation, as well as the perceived greater internal accountability, is assumed to be a necessary step in the development of an organisation.
These understandings leave informal organisations at a distinct disadvantage, as few informal entities then remain to play their role. The unenviable reality of the ‘NGO-ification’ of different social movements has deeply impacted the LGBTI movement. The search for resources and a desire for sustainability have pushed several activists to create formal organisations and ignore the creation and sustenance of informal organisations and spaces that are central, if not crucial, to social change.
The continued globalisation of the LGBTI struggle has provided significant gains as the different actors in their local contexts work together with and learn from their allies in different local contexts. The exploitation of different resources available to different activists and organisations around the world has been useful for the strengthening of the movement. While this alliance building and these linkages are valuable for the growth of the movement, the complexity of the struggle and our social realities present some unique challenges.
A significant challenge created by globalisation is that of geo-political privilege in the Global South vs Global North conversation. Organisations in the Global South often accuse organisations in the Global North of co-opting their agenda, speaking on their behalf and thus essentially silencing activists in the Global South. The Ugandan LGBTI movement offers a valuable example of this challenge.
Following the tabling in 2009 of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill (commonly known in the Global North circles as the ‘Kill the Gays Bill’), LGBTI activists and allies in the Global North have often taken a leading role that is not always
69 cognisant of the realities of the Ugandan activists. For example, after the break-in at one of the leading lesbian organisations in Kampala in 2011, an LGBTI activist with a Western-based organisation was quick to post the news of the break-in on the organisation’s website, calling on readers to contact the Ugandan police commissioner to investigate the break-in and other similar break-ins that affected Ugandan LGBTI organisations. It is most probable that the Western-based activist’s intention was to offer support to the Ugandan activists as well as take action in their local context. However, this action did not take into account the local situation in Uganda and the unnecessary and potentially harmful repercussions it might have for the local activists in Kampala. A more useful strategy of solidarity would have been to follow the lead and guidance offered by activists on the ground.
The challenge of geo-political advantage in the Global-North-vs-the-Global-South paradigm is not purely about organisations. Bolstered by UK activists, the British Prime Minister made remarks in October 2011 threatening to cut aid to African countries that persecute LGBTI people 29. There was an immediate societal and government backlash against LGBTI populations in several African countries including Tanzania, Malawi and Nigeria 30. In addition, the Prime Minister’s remarks further galvanised the often made charge that homosexuality is a Western import. Several African social-justice activists then issued a statement 31 calling on the British government to review its decision on tying aid conditionalities to the LGBTI struggle in Africa, as this was detrimental to their work.
While governmental entities that are sympathetic to and supportive of the LGBTI struggle can be valuable allies, the choice by the entity with geo-political and economic privilege to make unilateral decisions and not take into account the voices of the community members most afflicted continues to place the disadvantaged organisations and activists in real danger of repercussions from their society and offers significant challenges to their work.
Dynamics of funding and capacity support
A significant number of organisations working in the LGBTI movement, both formal and informal, rely on funding from external partners to carry out their work. This reliance on donor funding has had a significant impact on the LGBTI movement. It has shifted the power balance such that donor organisations find themselves with a lot of power vis- à-vis the other types of LGBTI organisations. This has often translated into a privileging of the agenda set by donor organisations in the wider LGBTI movement. Some organisations then find their agenda and their mission being either created or adjusted to align with what donor organisations are willing to fund.
An interesting phenomenon that is illustrative of this reality is the growth of MSM organisations in Kenya. The change of presidency in the United States, and the concomitant shift in that nation’s policy towards funding MSM initiatives
29. “Cameron warns of African aid cuts to anti-gay countries,” bbc.co.uk. Last updated 10 October 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15243409. 30. “Anti-gay Backlash in Tanzania as State reacts to Proposed UK Aid Cuts for Homophobia,” www.mask.org.za. Last updated 9 November 2011. http://www.mask.org.za/anti-gay-backlash-in-tanzania-as- state-reacts-to-proposed-uk-aid-cuts-for-homophobia/#more-7715. 31.Sokari, “Statement of African social justice activists on the decision of the British government to ‘cut aid’ to African countries that violate the rights of LGBTI people in Africa,” in Black Looks (blog) 28 October 2011. http://www.blacklooks.org/2011/10/statement-of-african-social-justice-activists-on-the-decision-of-the-british-government-to-%E2%80%9Ccut-aid%E2%80%9D-to-african-countries-that- violate-the-rights-of-lgbti-people-in-africa/.
70 translated into an increase in funding for HIV/AIDS work targeting MSM communities in Kenya. Thus, in the past couple of years, MSM organisations have been mushrooming all over the country, as there has been an increase to funding for such entities.
Another challenge to LGBTI organisations presented by donor funding is the nature of the funding that is most often supported. The nature of monitoring and evaluation that is tied to donor funding translates most often into support of projects and interventions that are able to illustrate more ‘measurable’ and ‘tangible’ results 32. Examples of this may include the number of policies that are more inclusive of LGBTI realities, changes in legislation, the number of MSM receiving HIV prevention and treatment, etc. Hence, support for necessary long-term and less ‘tangible’ work that is crucial for social change – including things like the expansion of social spaces for LGBTI people, core support to LGBTI organisations and capacity building for activists and organisations – is rare and fleeting. This funding dynamic then influences the focus of many LGBTI organisations, shifting it towards carrying out and implementing projects that are easier to fund.
A good example of how funding priorities influence the activities of organisations can be found in East Africa. Currently, many funders emphasise support for activities focusing on advocacy and documentation, while those may not be organisational priorities for many grassroots organisations, or the local organisations may understand those concepts quite differently from the funders. Likewise, several partners want to offer capacity support, yet that may not be an organisational priority for the local organisation or be understood in the same way.
Capacity support, as largely offered by partner organisations, also presents challenges to LGBTI organisations. Activists often bemoan the nature of capacity support offered to their organisations, saying that the support does not always respond to their organisation’s specific needs, but rather reflects a one-size-fits-all attitude. In addition, the capacity support offered often replicates existing formal organisational structures and further perpetuates the current NGO-ification of the movement.
Some of the challenges identified by funding organisations and capacity-support organisations include: • an urgent need for standardised indicators and evaluation of capacity building • a lack of understanding regarding the definition and scope of capacity building as a field and as an approach • the lack of local ownership • the limited uptake of tools, which affects the implementation of capacity-building programmes 33.
32. Batliwala, S. (2008) Changing Their World: Concepts and Practices of Women’s Movements. Toronto: Association for Women’s Rights in Development. 33. Ford, S. et al. (2010) ‘Challenges Encountered in Capacity Building: Review of Literature and Selected Tools,’ in Management Sciences for Health (no. 10), accessed 28 December 2011, http://www.msh. org/resource-center/publications/challenges-encountered-in-capacity-building.cfm.
71 In light of these identified challenges, capacity support should bear in mind the following proposed approaches to ensure greater efficiency for any work done. Capacity support should: • be subject to rigorous monitoring, evaluation and reporting • be participatory, based on the needs of organisations and focused on sustainability • make tools and approaches available and adaptable • be recognised as fundamental to all development interventions 34 • be willing to have the tools and the context of capacity development fundamentally challenged and questioned for relevance.
Conclusion
LGBTI organisations are crucial in the struggle to bring about social change with regard to sexual orientation and gender identity. Given the complexity of the socio-cultural and political situations in which these organisations exist, it remains important to keep in mind how the diversities present in our organisations impact the work we undertake. The benefits afforded formal organisations vis-à-vis informal organisations remain an area for continued reflection, elucidation and reorientation to ensure greater support for the entirety of those in the LGBTI struggle without losing the nuances and diversity brought on by informal organising.
When power and privilege is unchecked and translates into oppression, it affects our work and keeps tensions rife within and between organisations, distracting us from the goal we are struggling to achieve. Different types of organisations bring invaluable skills and respond to different needs present in the LGBTI movement. Hence, as organisations, activists and individuals in the LGBTI movement, we need to continue to analyse the impact of power and privilege in our interactions within and between organisations to bring us closer to realising the social change for which we strive.
34. Ibid.
72 73 Alliances and their dynamics: LGBTI organisations working together for tangible changes
By Gisela Dütting
74 Introduction
Internationally, LGBTI visibility has grown, although there are still immense differences between countries, contexts and organisations. For the first time, LGBTI issues have been addressed in a UN Human Rights Council Resolution. The resolution adopted in June 2011 expressed grave concern about acts of violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva was tasked with reporting on the conditions of LGBTI people worldwide, and its report was published in December 2011 35. These accomplishments at the UN level were achieved by continuous lobbying carried out by a multitude of organisations and groups, most of them LGBTI organisations. They worked tirelessly in a variety of alliances to achieve this very public result. The United Nations arena is but one of the forums where LGBTI organisations have been working together for results, in the firm belief that more can be accomplished if forces are combined. The results may be seen at different levels:
“For trans people, empowerment is just starting and it is important to build alliances. We start with our closest allies and for us that is the LGBTI movement. Recently, they talked about LBT women at the United Nations, in the context of CEDAW, and they dedicated a general recommendation to it 36. I feel so empowered by that.” (Vreer, Transgender Network Netherlands, the Netherlands) 37
Internationally, LGBTI activism is growing. There has been an increase in the number (and sometimes in the size) of LGBTI organisations, but it is not always a linear growth38. The aim of this article is to look more closely at the alliances. Why are some groups actually joining with others, and under which conditions do they do that? How are alliances built and sustained? What are some of the implications for the organisational development of LGBTI organisations if they join alliances and coalitions? The literature on the subject and discussions among LGBTI activists in 2011 form the background for this article.
The first part of this article sketches current strategies and issues, particularly those concerning relations between organisations and the context of international organising 39. The next part addresses the various alliances that LGBTI organisations are currently becoming involved in, their complexity and success factors. The last part focuses on the practice inside LGTBI organisations as that relates to alliance building. These are more pragmatic pointers for groups.
35. See: www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40743. 36. CEDAW is the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, a bill of rights adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1979. By mid 2011, 187 States had ratified or acceded to the Convention, and an expert committee meets twice a year to oversee compliance with the Convention. 37. This and all other quotes without a literature reference in this article were recorded in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on 10 October 2011. 38. See for example the “Lost decade in Latin America, following the economic crisis there after 1982” in Drucker, Peter, ed. (2000) Different Rainbows. London: Gay Men’s Press, p. 17. 39. This text uses both ‘organisation’ and ‘group’ as terms to acknowledge that LGBTI groups are sometimes formal and sometimes informal entities.
75 Changing contexts, strategies and relations between organisations
Most LGBTI organisations are well aware of the possibilities for linking up with others. Thanks to the Internet, it is easier to find possibilities and links – at least to those that have a public profile. LGBTI organisations can link up with like-minded organisations, as well as with non-LGBTI organisations such as women’s organisations, political parties, human-rights organisations, health organisations, diversity organisations and trade unions. Organisations, whether formal or informal, tend to have an idea about others that may be sympathetic to their agenda, be that on the nation or international level. Most groups tend to have at least a loose network of other individuals or Internet addresses of similar initiatives that might express solidarity. Systematic thinking about alliances – about the why and the how and what is most effective – is something else: something that requires serious consideration and strategies and the capacity to position your own group within a wider alliance to achieve real changes.
Why work with others? The general idea is that linking up with others provides numerous benefits that a single organisation may not be able to achieve on its own, or only at a much slower pace. Whether an LGBTI organisation engages in (one-off or continuous) alliance building with others depends on its context, objectives, size, focus, capacity, need, experience and resources. Reasons to link up with others usually include: • the ability to influence key debates and discussions: alliances and coalitions can shape important debates both inside and outside coalitions; working together may result in tangible advocacy results • protection: there is strength in numbers and being part of an alliance can both shield an organisation against attacks and gain support for it • higher political standing: enhanced status and visibility can be positive outcomes of being in an alliance with others • improved access and leverage: interaction with others can help organisations reach the media, those with political influence and a wide range of other organisations and institutions • the uptake of new themes and inclusion: groups can expand their range of themes or include more people in their own sphere by interacting with other groups. 40
Perception: Who are we? The perception that others have of an organisation and that the organisation has of itself is a key factor in alliance building, but an especially relevant one for LGBTI groups. Even though some organisations might not self-identify as LGBTI, people outside the organisation might identify it as such and may therefore have very different ideas about the need to build alliances and with whom. Furthermore, there may be strategic reasons for knowing exactly who you are, even if you wear a different public label. This immediately raises the issue of identities and labels – a contentious issue within the broader LGBTI movement. Your own perception of yourself and that of others may also determine who you consider to be your closest allies. For lesbian women, for example, that could be other LGBTI organisations or women’s organisations. 40. Dütting, Gisela and Sogge, David (2010) ‘Building Safety Nets in the Global Politic: NGO collaboration for solidarity and sustainability,’ in Development (vol. 53, no 3, September), pp. 350–355.
76 Alliances within LGBTI is a category that may include groups that identify broadly as lesbians, gay, bisexuals, transsexuals, transgenders, intersexuals and queers. In addition to these modern identities, every country and region has its own specific words, categories and historical practices.
Even with a fluid idea of identity and belonging, power differences remain that may cause friction between organisations and people. Traditionally, gay men have dominated in the LGBTI groups and in alliances. As LGBTI alliances consist of an amalgam of groups and identities, there is an ongoing process of groups and individuals claiming their space. This means the daily practices and the culture within LGBTI organisations and alliances are constantly being challenged. Lesbians have often questioned male dominance in LGBTI groups, and younger people have likewise sometimes had to fight to make their voices heard. Transgenders, making a relatively late appearance in LGBTI alliances, are also asking new questions and inspiring new culture:
“If we do a round [of introductions], I propose that we say our names, the name of our organisation and the countries we feel we belong to, and that we indicate by which gender pronoun we wish to be addressed.” (Vreer, Transgender Network Netherlands, the Netherlands)
With regard to the situation in the Philippines, a group of researchers recorded the following observations:
“The bisexual activist identified a number of issues with the LGBT movement, namely the invisibility of bisexuals, the non-recognition of the existence of bisexuals and bisexuality, the lack of representation of bisexuals, and the lack of attention to bisexual issues. In her words: ‘B is just a letter in LGBT’. The transgender activists likewise noted a number of issues with the LGBT movement, such as the misrepresentation of the transgender identity (e.g. the use of bakla to refer to gay men instead of transgendered women), the insensitivity to transgender people (e.g. comparing transgendered women in terms of ‘who can best pass as a woman’), condescending attitudes toward transgender people by some lesbian and gay activists, and the marginalisation of transgender issues. In the words of a transgender activist, their issues are seen as ‘shallow’.” 41
Many within LGBTI groups have questioned the dominance of gay men, in line with questioning power relations in the wider society. As enhanced funding became available for men who have sex with men (MSM) as part of HIV/AIDS programmes, the power relations and labelling became even more worrisome:
“An MSM project is not presented as an LGBTI project. Maybe it is about labels, but it says a lot about what is happening currently. A health project for men carries a different status and may have more success getting funds. It is all about claiming words and movements.” (Wanja Muguongo, executive director of UHAI the East African Sexual Health and Rights Initiative, Kenya) 41. De Vela, Tera and Ofreneo, Mira and Cabrera, Mario (Isis International) (2011) ‘Surfacing Lesbian, Bisexual Women and Transgendered People’s Issues in the Philippines: Towards Affinity Politics in Feminist Movements,’ in Wieringa, Saskia (ed.) Women-Loving-Women in Africa and Asia: Trans/Sign Report of Research Findings, p. 398. http://www.isiswomen.org/phocadownload/print/isispub/ Women-Loving-Women.pdf#page=6.
77 This development has also led to greater stigmatisation of MSM and less visibility for women who have sex with women (WSW). It has also meant a continued association in the public perception between MSM (often generalised to include the whole LGBTI community) and HIV and AIDS. 42
Although the ideal of a harmonious ‘rainbow’ movement is very appealing and widely accepted, most LGBTI organisations recognise and acknowledge the existence of tensions within and between organisations.
“Collaborative work can be difficult but it is by far the best way to effectively achieve one’s aims. The idea is not to get stuck in differences but to focus on the work ‘out there’ that needs to be done. Sometimes, this is not possible.” (Dawie Nel, OUT Well-being, South Africa)
Western-dominated organisational models The dominant paradigm of alliance building and movement building is heavily influenced by Western (theoretical) models, and this strengthens the influence of Western LGBTI organisations and their experiences. Those models favour an emphasis on formalising organisations, on strong advocacy, on a rights-based approach and on legal equality within a liberal, free-market, strong-state and globalised environment. Nevertheless, this dominant discourse on movement building is not the starting point for all LGBTI organisations. Indeed, many non-Western LGBTI organisations contest this discourse. 43
Even in countries where the Western model of organising has been applied and where the work for LGBTI rights is considered to have accomplished quite a lot, critical questions remain:
“What is the importance of public debate? Can change be achieved without continuous public debate? How valuable are legal improvements if very little changes in the public perception of LGBTI people? What about the difference between legal vs social equality?” (Jan Bruinsma, the Netherlands)
The dominant model of alliance building emphasises experiences as documented in the political and social sciences, including in development. Therefore, it may not sufficiently include the variety that exists in alliance building. One very successful model, for example, is the initiative of school children and students to form gay-straight alliances in schools. Since the late ’80s, more than 3000 gay-straight alliances have been set up in schools and universities in the United States, with students following this model in Mexico, the UK, Canada, New Zealand and other countries. Some students have faced opposition from school boards, parents and teachers and local communities, and several court cases have resulted from that. However, this model has proven to achieve a safer and more welcoming school environment for LGBTI people and has been an important tool in raising awareness and bringing about significant changes in school curricula, teachers’ attitudes, etc. 44 42. I wish to thank Colin Dixon, Director of Programmes, Dance4Life, the Netherlands, for this observation. 43. See the various case studies in Drucker, Peter, ed. (2000) Different Rainbows. London: Gay Men’s Press. 44. See: www.glsen.org.
78 International LGBTI organising Box 1: Some theory on understanding social movements, LGBTI organisations are currently applying the tried- resources and organising and-tested success model used by other international There is not one theory or one ‘law of motion’ driving every advocacy campaigns and networks. Acknowledging social movement along a standard marching line. how interlinked the world is, many LGBTI organisations Since the 1970s, academic work has tended to pivot around three have built alliances internationally, whether among main theories. New Social Movement Theory concentrates on themselves, across borders, or with others across conditions that give rise to social movements, explaining the ‘why’ that drives them. Resource Mobilisation Theory focuses on movements. They do this not only to achieve results at strategies, explaining the ‘how’ behind social movements and an international level, such as a resolution at the United their relationships with the state and politics. Constructivist Theory draws attention to how people jointly construct their social life, Nations, but also with the explicit expectation of seeing thus answering the question, ‘According to whom?’ Studying real changes in local communities as well, as a result of a variety of social movements, researchers tend to include four kinds of factors as essential for the emergence, growth and international organising. direction of all social movements: political opportunities and threats, mobilising structures, framing processes, and contentious interaction. Scholars differ about the mix and sequences of such But what should one think of current international LGBTI factors. organising? Is there an existing international movement, Political opportunity structures normally consist of four key dimensions: as many claim? Can we think of movements as systems • space and access: the relative openness or closure of the of alliances? The definition of various initiatives as social institutionalised political system movements is a current topic of academic debate, and • elite bargains: stability or instability, conflict or peace • the availability and ideological position of allies, particularly elite there is a broad variety of theories and models allies (see Box 1). • the state’s capacity for repression. Three important resources for social movements are suggested: Defining the exact success factors and categories is (a) campaigns, (b) repertoires of contention, including such things as special-purpose associations and coalitions, public meetings, another ongoing exercise in research. One of the more solemn processions, petition drives, statements to and in public influential endeavours in that regard has been the work media, and (c) WUNC displays: concerted public representation of 45 their Worthiness, Unity, Numbers, and Commitments. of Keck and Sikkink , two social scientists who have Organisations in social movements may rise or fall according to looked in detail at international networks, networking their strategies or ‘repertoires of collective action’. Three common strategies are: and success. They compared successes in human • service provision to a constituency, without pressing for change rights, environmental regulations and women’s rights in policy and studied how the international alliances worked • protest – challenging elites through non-routine means • advocacy – challenging elites through routine means. 46 in these fields. They coined the terms ‘transnational issue networks’ and ‘transnational advocacy network’, Theories on social movements and organising for change are constantly updated, researched in more depth and challenged. terms which best describe the practice of international MacDonald, for example, points to the need to add more feminist 45. Keck, Margaret and Sikkink, Kathryn (1998) Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in understanding of the public and the private to the current mix, International Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. plus a better analysis of the ways in which (gender) differences 46. Dütting, Gisela and Sogge, David (2010) ‘Building Safety Nets in the Global Politic: NGO collaboration for solidarity and sustainability,’ in Development (vol. 53, no 3, September), pp. structure political action. Liberal individualist assumptions may “fail 350–355. to analyze some of the social hierarchies based in gender, race, 47. Macdonald, Laura (2005) ‘Gendering Transnational Social Movement Analysis: Women’s and class that help create these political opportunity structures Groups Contest Free Trade in the Americas,’ in Joe Bandy and Jackie Smith (eds.), Coalitions 47 Across Borders: Transnational Protest and the Neoliberal Order. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield and framing processes.” Publishers (pp. 21–42, see page 23).
79 organising. Transnational issue networks can be composed of a relatively small number of individuals and groups organised around a specific issue and with shared values and ideas. These networks have the ability of non-traditional international actors 48 to mobilise information strategically, so as to gain leverage over much more powerful organisations and governments. They also attempt to influence broader social movements.
With this emphasis on information, Keck and Sikkink focused on processes of strategic framing. In the end, it is all about information and how the information is packaged, presented, perceived and used. The international women’s movement, for example, managed to package access to safe and legal abortion together with reproductive rights and women’s rights, all of which were reframed as human rights 49. With this strategy it accomplished considerable successes, both at international and local levels. According to Keck and Sikkink, transnational issue networks work best on issues with a strong emotional appeal – and LGBTI issues certainly fit that bill.
Challenges related to international organising LGBTI organising is growing, whichever way one chooses to define it. Whether it is seen as a growing movement or as a transnational issue network, there is space for expanded local, national and international organising. The current dynamics include the practice of local activists who are visible and display a number of skills (e.g. language, presentation) being quickly snapped up to do international work. As international work comes with opportunities such as exposure, new contacts, travelling and new jobs, it is highly prized by most. The downside of good international opportunities is that local activism is left with a high turnover of starting, less-experienced leaders in organisations. This preference gives less value to local experiences, and local voices or opinions are consequently more difficult to hear. This has a bearing on alliance building as strong national organisations are often able to snap up international opportunities, and grassroots organisations can easily become junior partners in alliances. In addition, international activists tend to become more distant from the communities and issues they are representing. A key challenge is to find ways to ensure that the voices of those local activists who don’t necessarily want to sit round the table at a high- level meeting but would prefer to organise a rally or action, will still be heard. How do we ensure that the local voices are truly represented by the few international activists in a meaningful way? There are also instances in which there is considerable individual disappointment as soon as the limitations of international work become clear:
“I have seen tears. A local person speaks out, fights with family and community, and then gets an invitation to come and celebrate at the Gay Canal Pride in Amsterdam. After the celebrations are over, the person returns home and finds nothing.” (Juan Cruz Diez Beltrán, Argentina)
Apart from personal feelings of abandonment and other fall-out, this issue raises questions about the influence of donor organisations in particular. The power of donors to decide on money matters determines who is visible as a ‘leader’, 48. Such as trade unions or international political parties, which have been researched at length. 49. “Women’s rights are human rights” became a very powerful slogan in the early 1990s, eventually changing the language of human rights, the practice in many countries, and the opportunities for individual women. See Charlotte Bunch’s summary on http://www.cwgl.rutgers.edu/globalcenter/whr.html.
80 which in turn strongly influences the power dynamics Box 2: Broad alliances protesting Anti-Homosexuality Bill in inside movements. LGBTI organisations realise that this is Uganda nothing new, as the same issue is at play in the indigenous A broad national alliance formed in Uganda to protest the proposed movement, the women’s movement, etc. Anti-Homosexuality Bill in 2009 and submitted a statement to the Legal Committee of Parliament. The coalition consisted of 31 organisations, including women’s-rights organisations, human-rights As more money seems to be available for LGBTI issues organisations, health and HIV/AIDS organisations, indigenous 50 and organisations, a relatively new phenomenon is organisations, law and development organisations . Member of Parliament David Bahati submitted the Anti-Homosexuality emerging. In order to qualify for donor contracts, Bill on 14 October 2009. Several news agencies reported that a wider variety of organisations is entering this market. the proposed legislation in Uganda was inspired by American evangelical Christians. A special motion to introduce the legislation Larger organisations are able to claim all types of was passed a month after a two-day conference was held, at which expertise and hand in a tender or proposal for donor three American Christians had asserted that homosexuality formed a direct threat to the cohesion of African families. funds, by simply buying that expertise. Larger LGBTI organisations as well as some development and The bill itself, the government of Uganda, and the evangelicals involved all received significant international media attention as well consultancy organisations have been observed to as criticism and condemnation from many Western governments and quickly start a new department or unit by simply staffing from the governments of other countries, some of which threatened to cut off financial aid to Uganda. In response to the attention, a them with the needed expertise and picking up the revision was introduced to reduce the strongest penalties for the contracts. This further complicates alliance building, greatest offences to life imprisonment. as the volatility of involvement increases. In May 2011, parliament adjourned without having voted on the bill; debate was re-opened in October 2011. In addition, it makes it far more difficult to question the political environment in which NGOs have to operate.
Alliances for change: Arenas, actors, possibilities and successes
LGBTI organisations that build alliances or become part of alliances immediately enter a complex arena. Depending on the context, organisations may enter a situation that is not of their making, they may act in alliance with others that they are not close to, the agenda of the day may not be the LGBTI organisation’s choice, they will usually depend on external processes to set the timing and they will have to balance the needs of the alliance vs the needs of their own organisation. It is in these circumstances that LGBTI organisations link up and wish to make a difference; these are the realities of political lobbying and advocacy.
Which alliance and why? The value of any alliance must be tracked and judged in order to determine whether an alliance is a success and worth being sustained. Yet very few organisations track and monitor their alliances systematically. The potential of alliances is nevertheless appealing, as they may enable LGBTI organisations to influence key debates, improve their political standing, get protection, improve access and leverage, and take up new themes and include others. 50. See for the full statement of the alliance: http://ugandans4rights.org/downloads/press/11_05_09_Final_Coalition_submission_to_Legal_committee_of_parliament.pdf.
81 This makes it relevant to determine more explicitly what Box 3: LGBTI alliance against the UK government the purpose of an alliance is, and if you belong to it, which initiatives to take and what to keep track of. In 2011, 52 African organisations and many more individuals signed a statement to the British government protesting its plans to cut foreign aid to countries that persecute 51 How difficult alliances can be is shown by a case in homosexuals. Uganda. Following the proposed introduction of a new From the statement: “It was widely reported, earlier this month, that the British law, the ‘Anti-Homosexuality Bill’, a broad coalition Government has threatened to cut aid to governments of ‘countries formed in Uganda to protest and take action. This that persecute homosexuals’ unless they stop punishing people in alliance attracted considerable support from like- same-sex relationships. These threats follow similar decisions that have been taken by a number of other donor countries against minded organisations abroad as well (see Box 2). countries such as Uganda and Malawi. While the intention may When the UK government took action and announced well be to protect the rights of LGBTI people on the continent, the decision to cut aid disregards the role of the LGBTI and broader that it planned to cut foreign aid to governments that social justice movement on the continent and creates the real risk of persecuted homosexuals, another alliance was formed. a serious backlash against LGBTI people.” Surprisingly, this alliance consisted of 52 African LGBTI Instead, the LGBTI alliance asked for the following: organisations that came together to protest the UK plan “To adequately address the human rights of LGBTI people in Africa, the undersigned social justice activists call on the British government to: (see Box 3). • Review its decision to cut aid to countries that do not protect LGBTI rights • Expand its aid to community based and lead LGBTI programmes Alliances with different actors aimed at fostering dialogue and tolerance LGBTI organisations have reported on a range of • Support national and regional human rights mechanisms to experiences in alliances with a variety of actors, ensure the inclusiveness of LGBTI issues in their protective and promotional mandates including: • Support the entrenchment of LGBTI issues into broader social • researchers: many groups notice the continuing justice issues through the financing of community lead and nationally owned projects.” power differences, especially when dealing with research groups or universities. Some LGBTI groups are experimenting with linking-up researchers and their results in ways that empower local communities. Some countries report positive and sometimes lucrative experiences for individuals who are part of research teams or who teach students 52 • other movements/organisations (including health, women’s groups, human-rights organisations) • local and national governments: anecdotal evidence shows both positive examples of working closely with local governments, for example in Brazil, as well as negative examples of disconnect, where many years of successful HIV/AIDS projects have still not resulted in closer contact with government health institutions • donors: there have been very positive experiences due to access to funds and contacts, as well as mixed experiences due to power relations.
51. Statement on line: http://awid.org/News-Analysis/Women-s-Rights-in-the-News2/Statement-of-African-Social-Justice-Activists-on-the-Threats-of-the-British-Government-to-Cut-Aid-to-African- Countries-that-Violate-the-Rights-of-LGBTI-People-in-Africa. 52. De Vela, Tera and Ofreneo, Mira and Cabrera, Mario (Isis International) (2011) ‘Surfacing Lesbian, Bisexual Women and Transgendered People’s Issues in the Philippines: Towards Affinity Politics in Feminist Movements,’ in Wieringa, Saskia (ed.) Women-Loving-Women in Africa and Asia: Trans/Sign Report of Research Findings, p. 391. http://www.isiswomen.org/phocadownload/print/isispub/ Women-Loving-Women.pdf#page=6.
82 Despite the increasing power of anti-LGBTI organised religious groups (especially evangelicals), some organisations report positive experiences with local religious groups:
“We have had positive experiences with a religious leader in Kenya. He allowed us to speak to his constituency and we achieved some real changes of heart on the ground.” (Anthony Adero, Ishtar MSM, Kenya)
Fighting for ‘our community’? One challenge in alliance building is the distinction that exists between intermediary organisations and community advocates. Intermediary organisations are seen as an important part of LGBTI movements, and they advocate on behalf of LGBTI issues, often on health matters. Community advocates tend to be valued as advocates belonging to an LGBTI community, and there is often an assumption that community advocates do grassroots work. Matters are further complicated when people link community-based organisations to membership organisations 53 and/or to a locally based community (e.g. a village or neighbourhood). However, not all community-based organisations are membership organisations. 54
This complexity shows the struggle around the desire for democratic accountability and constituency representation. The underlying questions are valid (On whose behalf you are speaking? Why? Which mandate do you have?), and they are part of the wider power dynamics between organisations and the phases that organisations go through over time. All LGBTI organisations need to ask themselves questions like: Who are we leading and who are we connecting? Building and organising takes place in a particular context that must also be taken into account.
“Community building is expensive, and donors need numbers. In South Africa, big donors are now moving away from NGOs and going to the government, to scale up efforts. Small community-based LGBTI organisations lose out and usually have very little say with new partners and donors. Some funded organisations have no developmental agenda, so it is more difficult for community-based groups to work in alliances with them. Some organisations bypass the local LGBTI group that has been there for 10 years already, and just do a kind of quick peer education.” (Dawie Nel, OUT Well-being, South Africa)
The use of the word ‘community’ obscures the social reality of each society. The very definition of a community, of who belongs to it and who does not, is contested and can be fluid. In the LGBTI movement it is even more difficult to grasp, as non-fixed, fluid, multi-layered and contradicting identities and oppressive contexts affect the feelings and experiences of belonging. Beyond the very narrow emphasis on official membership organisations only, scholars are currently more inclined to describe communities in terms of the practice of doing, rather than in terms of articulating identities and defining a collective ‘we’.
53. A membership organisation is an organisation that has clearly defined members, such as paying members, and that represents the interests of its members. The assumption (which is not always the practice) is that the members will also determine the direction and advocacy positions of the membership organisation. 54. For more details on the different organisations and their position inside social movements, see Batliwala, S. (2008) Changing Their World: Concepts and Practices of Women’s Movements. Association for Women’s Rights in Development. See http://www.awid.org/eng/About-AWID/AWID-News/Changing-Their-World.
83 Emphasising the idea of doing opens different ways of Box 4: What advances collaboration and what sets it back? thinking about alliances. Alliance building can be done Research points to several factors sustaining interaction among NGOs: by articulating/defining the injustice or the adversary at hand and then constructing a contextualised and • Personal trust, particularly at a leadership level: without this social ‘glue’ at the top, NGOs cannot easily keep their inter- 55 political ‘we’. Accepting this type of ‘we’ also means organisational links alive. Some NGOs reported that connections that the ‘we’ is continuously shifting, depending on first developed among junior staff or common members, as in the case with trade unions. the context and the different political struggles. A • Specific socio-political settings and events: local or national ‘political we’ calls for political positioning. For the LGBTI political crises often drive interaction. • Forging common ways of talking about and projecting issues and movement this is all the more relevant, as it is not just values: diversity on this front can spell trouble. striving to change policies but aims to transform society • Pragmatism: a clear division and complementarity of tasks, and the sexual relations/politics that society upholds transparency and a readiness to publicly acknowledge everyone’s contributions to an effort. as the dominant norm. A ‘political we’ also gives • Incentives to collaborate: these may be conscious but have less LGBTI groups the freedom and possibility to align with to do with short-term gains (e.g. campaign victories) than with long-term benefits for each organisation (e.g. information and the other, broader struggles including national liberation, protection that large numbers can provide). democracy, women’s rights, health for all and trade- • Informal structures: past associative ties, schooling and other allegiances creating social ‘blood bonds’ tend to combine and union campaigning. As always, the challenge remains re-combine NGO staff together over and over again. to find the optimal balance between a focus on LGBTI The research also suggests a number of factors that may put issues and agendas, and a broader agenda. collaboration at risk or block it altogether. The most frequently cited of those included: • irreconcilable differences in organisations’ ideologies and Factors that contribute to success objectives. Like all organisations, LGBTI organisations are limited in • irreconcilable differences in leadership styles, leading to problems of transparency and insufficient mutual respect and trust. time, energy and money and therefore need to invest • competition among NGOs for donor funds; withdrawal of donor in successful alliances. As there are many possibilities, funding for collaborative activities. some pointers to help decide which alliance would be • fears of being submerged by others, with a resulting loss of visibility and of the means to claim accomplishments as their own56 most successful are useful. Despite the many different definitions of success, it is still possible to pinpoint certain factors that organisations themselves have noted as being crucial. Some factors tend to advance collaboration between organisations and groups, while other factors seem to discourage that (see Box 4).
Alliances in the practice of organisations
What does alliance building mean in the daily work of LGBTI organisations? If an organisation wishes to join alliances or use alliance building more strategically, what are some of the elements it should consider?
55. Mouffe, C. (2005) The Return of the Political: Radical Thinkers. London: Verso. 56. Dütting, Gisela and Sogge, David (2010) ‘The art of framing: Pushing NGO interaction’, in The Broker (July issue). See: http://www.thebrokeronline.eu/Articles/The-art-of-framing. For the more elaborate research reports, see: http://www.hivos.net/Hivos-Knowledge-Programme/Themes/Civil-Society-Building/Publications/Synthesis-studies/Social-movements-and-NGO- interaction.
84 • LGBTI organisations change and therefore their motivation, willingness, positioning or interest in alliance building also changes. Successful organisations know where they are in their own organisational phase and if/where alliance building fits. They can think creatively about the advantages and disadvantages of each organisation/ political opportunity to engage with, and they can define goals, strategic objectives, a time path, the necessary resources and the monitoring-and-evaluation criteria for each alliance.
• Successful LGBTI organisations are savvy political operators and have a good reputation as a trustworthy organisation. In order to be a successful partner in any alliance, they keep track of their reputation and are willing to take action to maintain a good reputation. • LGBTI organisations understand the possibilities of local, national and international alliance building and advocacy and realise what those require. In practice, any organisation must choose and balance its involvement in alliances against its own immediate aims and obligations as an organisation. Organisations that aspire to work internationally are usually formal organisations, playing a significant national role; they invest in international coalitions and networks, which implies that they dedicate (monitored) staff and time to the activity.
• LGBTI organisations are strategically positioned to think very broadly about potential and strategic allies and they have the potential to think of various groups.
“I voice the views of IDUs and prisoners. I hear similar issues.” (Anke van Dam, director of operations and programmes, AIDS Foundation East-West)
“I work for a coalition of socially excluded groups, inclusive of substance users, migrants, GLBT, sex workers, orphans and other children made vulnerable by HIV, and youth in especially difficult circumstances. They all face the same issues, some of which are vulnerability, social exclusion, awful treatment from others and useless, horrible and outdated laws. This therefore gives us a common agenda on which to move forward together, to advocate together. This is not always harmonious, but at the very least, there is strength in numbers and strength in brokering together.” (Ian McKnight, executive director of the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition, Jamaica)
• Successful LGBTI organisations dedicate time to articulate the broader principles of alliance building, which may include no discrimination, community links, interest of communities at heart, respect, not self-enriching, accountability, etc. • LGBTI organisations need to keep track of alliances and document their own history, even if this does not seem like an immediate priority in the daily work of activism.
85 Conclusion
LGBTI organisations are building alliances, between themselves, across borders and across movements. Alliance building depends on a variety of factors and on the context. LGBTI organisations share one conclusion on alliance building: there is not one single alliance-building model that will fit all.
86 87 LGBTI people and organisations in a hostile environment
By Juan Cruz Diez Beltrán
88 In his film It Is Not the Homosexual Who is Perverse, but the Society in Which He Lives 57, German filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim portrays the impact that an environment can have on the lives of individuals. The changing moods of Daniel, the main character, are a reflection of the situations and Iifestyles he engages in. Even in the title the author establishes a relationship between the environment and individuals and shows how powerful the influence of one can be over the other.
This article seeks to explore the relationship between hostile environments and the development of both LGBTI people – especially as activists and workers in LGTBI organisations – and the LGBTI organisations they work for. While not intending to emphasise the negative impact of hostile environments but rather to recommend ways of coping with hostility, the discussion can only begin by diving deep into some general information. Forms of hostility, spheres of hostility and the consequences that hostility can have on both individuals and organisations are described briefly, before a more positive vision of the reality faced by LGBTI organisations is presented, including ways to overcome adversity and share success stories worth taking as role models to follow and get inspiration from.
Some introductory words
Hostility towards LGBTI people and organisations targets lifestyle choices related both to sexual orientation and gender identity and to the right to feel and act differently from what is considered normative. Just like any other form of harassment, hostility may have consequences for the well-being of individuals, affecting not only their performance at work but also their passion for the cause and their commitment to the organisation and its programmes. Psychiatrist Jeroen van der Linden discusses chronic feelings of anxiety due to repression and the threat of violence that can ultimately lead to depression. Depression is usually characterised by sleep disturbances, a lack of energy and a lack of focused attention that may lead to a loss of interest in activities as well as social and occupational dysfunction. Now who can work under such stress? Research conducted among young adolescents has established a relationship between the hostility of a particular environment and behavioural, learning and development problems. Van der Linden adds that the interpersonal relationships of someone who lives under the stress of threats and the rejection of his core being will suffer greatly. Feelings of guilt and worthlessness can largely prevent that person from engaging in interaction with other people.
The impact of hostility on an individual’s health can manifest itself in syndromes such as heart disease and hypertension. Indeed, the relationship between hostility and health has been well documented by researchers such as Yoichi Chida and Andrew Steptoe.58 Their literature review demonstrated how the experience of feelings like cynicism, anger, distrust and aggression can adversely affect an individual’s health.
57. Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die Situation, in der er lebt in the German original. 58. Chida, Yoichi and Steptoe, Andrew (2009) ‘The Association of Anger and Hostility with Future Coronary Heart Disease: A Meta-Analytic Review of Prospective Evidence,’ in Journal of American College of Cardiology, (vol. 53, no. 11), pp. 936–946.
89 Organisations and hostility
LGBTI organisations have all of the risks that other organisations have of not functioning optimally, but on top of that LGBTI organisations are burdened with the extra stress of having to deal with a hostile environment. Considering the phases of growth and development in both individuals and organisations, the natural evolution of an organisation – and therefore its performance – could be affected in ways that are similar to how individuals are affected by hostility. If we fail to neutralise the hostility of these environments, we will face the possibility of LGBTI organisations becoming ill with organisational health problems. This would manifest itself in difficulties in the organisation’s behaviour (i.e. its performance) and in its learning and development.
When it comes to the implementation of prevention strategies through health-promotion campaigns, organisations usually compare their goals and results with those of peer organisations. The situation can be different when it comes to LGBTI organisations, however. 59 What could work for a non-LGBTI organisation, might not necessarily work for an LGBTI one due to the resistance that programmes targeting LGBTI people may experience from the community, the government or others at various stages. The results obtained by an LGBTI organisation operating in a homophobic setting may not as positive as those obtained by an organisation that operates in a tolerant and progressive environment. This wide range of results is mainly related to the particular context in which each organisation operates, leading some successful evidence-based strategies to fail to create a positive impact, or worse, to fail to even be considered, let alone implemented.
But what exactly is meant by hostility? What might be the implications of the various forms of hostility to the development of LGBTI organisations? What can LGBTI organisations do to turn a hostile environment into a continuous trigger of inspiration, commitment and development?
Hostility as we know it, and more
When thinking of hostility, one tends to relate it exclusively to physical violence or other clearly visible negative manifestations of hostility, such as aggression and assault. But hostility against LGBTI people and organisations can manifest itself in a wide range of forms, from words or looks of distrust to the blackmailing of a member of LGBTI community.
There is also a myriad of attitudes and behaviours that are – sometimes – executed in a subtle and non-violent manner and that may still represent an obstacle to the development of organisations. The criminalisation of homosexual conduct, the prosecution of activists and the ban on implementing programmes that would benefit LGBTI people are strong foundations on which a hostile environment might be based. The refusal of governments
59. http://www.hrc.org/resources/category/workplace.
90 even to legalise LGBTI organisations, taking away the right to act within an appropriate legal framework, is another common form of hostility against organisations.
Spheres of hostility
At the society or community level, hostility tends to adopt visible forms. This is characteristic of intolerant societies, which often perceive anything different as being a threat to their group identity and cultural heritage. In its 2004 report Hated to Death: Homophobia, Violence and Jamaica’s HIV/AIDS Epidemic 60, Human Rights Watch (HRW) describes the various forms in which homophobia manifests itself in that Caribbean country. Discrimination, stigmatisation, hurtful comments towards those perceived as being different, threats, insults, the beatings and murders of LGBTI people or people involved in LGBTI organisations are common in that and other homophobic societies. In many cases, victims of homophobic attacks are forced to leave their homes, neighbourhoods and communities, thus being exposed to a situation of vulnerability.
This same scenario is found in Ecuador. From an ideological perspective, according to Amira Herdoíza, executive director of Corporación Kimirina, Ecuadorian society is very conservative and LGBTI people still perceive hostility in everyday life, often associated with ignorance, discrimination and stigma. However, LGBTI social movements in the country have managed to position themselves favourably and it is possible to see major progress, at least in the political arena and in terms of the involvement of leaders.
At the level of service providers, the 2004 HRW report highlights two specific groups as key determinants for an adverse environment: the police force and the healthcare providers. According to the document, “[...] police not only harass and persecute people suspected of homosexual conduct, sex workers, and people living with HIV and AIDS, they also interfere with HIV/AIDS outreach to them [...].” The same report describes incidents in which police officers would themselves trigger an attack on presumed homosexual people from a community. Other forms of negligence by this group are their inefficacy to prevent LGBTI people from suffering attacks by mobs or to protect them during or after such attacks.
LGBTI people – as well as those who are presumed to be homosexual on the basis of their delicate manners or because they are in company of a person known to be homosexual – are often victims of discrimination and stigmatising acts by the same healthcare personnel who should ensure their welfare and healthcare. Actions such as the denial of medical care, the breaching of medical confidentiality in relation to a diagnosis or the making public of statements about a patient’s sexual orientation to promote rejection by others are behaviours that LGBTI people have to deal with on a regular basis.
60. http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/jamaica1104.pdf.
91 These acts against LGBTI people have several consequences. On one hand, they impact negatively on the well- being of individuals, pushing them further into invisibility where they cannot be reached by the interventions of organisations that fight for their rights and their health. If these individuals are part of an organisation, they might even reconsider their involvement within such a movement for the sake of their lives and well-being. On the other hand, the difficulty that LGBTI organisations face in accessing their target audience, and thus in meeting the expectations of their donors, results in the failure of their programmes when it comes to getting their funding renewed. This vicious circle endangers the continuity and development of many organisations.
At the government level, a number of policies might create an environment that is unsuitable for the development of LGBTI people and organisations. Ranging from the criminalisation of same-sex sexual activity between consenting adults resulting in imprisonment with hard labour to more subtle and less violent manifestations such as denying or delaying the legal registration of LGBTI organisations, there are plenty of examples of such policies from all over the world. All these are forms of the same perverse system that undermines the institutionalisation of initiatives promoting the inclusion of LGBTI people and the organisations representing them.
A clear example of the latter is the case of LAMBDA, the Mozambican organisation that works to reduce prejudice and discrimination against LGBTI citizens, lobbies for the recognition of LGBTI rights in law and provides space to LGBTI people to interact and build self-esteem. Although the penal code criminalises same-sex sexual activity in this sub-Saharan country, the imprisonment of LGBTI people in Mozambique is rare. Mozambican society is gradually becoming more open-minded, such that, for example, two openly disclosed members of the LGBTI community recently managed to reach celebrity status after reaching the finals during a televised dance contest. Moreover, sexual orientation and LGBTI rights have been discussed with some frequency in talk shows dealing with sexuality, increasing understanding and gradually diminishing the taboo around the whole subject. In 2008, however, the Parliament refused to legalise LAMBDA’S status as a non-governmental organisation. Nevertheless, LAMBDA Mozambique has still managed to organise workshops and seminars at universities, talk to parents and young people at schools, and give newspaper, radio and TV interviews.
Another example of hostility from the government is the situation that Ukraine’s citizens face in terms of gaining access to information. Although homosexuality has not been a crime in Ukraine since 1991, in October 2011, the Ukrainian parliament discussed a ban on the dissemination of information related to homosexuality. The ban would target any information that might be considered to promote same-sex practices, i.e. positive messages for LGBTI people and open and frank discussions of LGBTI issues in media 61. The main objective of such a measure is purportedly to strengthen the institution of the family and to protect children and youths from being contaminated by information that could lead to an unhealthy lifestyle. However, by forbidding only the so-called promotional messages but not the detrimental ones, there is a hugely increased risk of creating an even more negative image of homosexuality. Spokespersons from LGBTI organisations and other key actors would be unable to defend themselves 61. For further reading, see: http://www.ilga-europe.org/home/guide/country_by_country/ukraine/Ukraininan-MPs-want-to-ban-propaganda-of-homosexuality.
92 and the movement they support from homophobic attacks. This law would not just affect adult LGBTI people but also young people who need clear, accurate and accessible information as they develop their own sexual and gender identity. At the same time, this policy would jeopardise the health of a vast group of people who would lack information relating to prevention and therefore be vulnerable to HIV.
Even within the LGBTI community itself, it is also possible to find certain forms of hostility. Blackmail is endemic in places where gays and lesbians risk losing so much if outed. In Zimbabwe, where LGBTI people can be imprisoned on the basis of sodomy laws, blackmail happens often, mostly between partners of different financial status. Victims of blackmail often see no other option than to pay money to those who threaten them with the disclosure of their sexual orientation. The LGBTI organisation Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) developed an information brochure 62 that creates awareness among the community. The organisation also provides legal advice and support to victims of blackmail.
Power struggles, competition for scarce resources, and the different interests of the various subgroups also represent forms of hostility within the LGBTI community and can lead to fragmentation of the organisation, ultimately resulting in a loss of strength and diminished leadership power.
The role of religious and other conservative groups
We’ve all heard or read Desmond Tutu’s statement on Ending Violence and Criminal Laws against LGBTI People63 during a high-level panel event at the United Nations in Geneva on September 2010. And we were all probably touched by words like “[...] sexual orientation, like skin colour, is a feature of our diversity [...]” and “[...] you must stand up for the principles of universal humanity and fellowship. Exclusion is never the way forward on our shared paths to freedom and justice.” However – and unfortunately – not all religious leaders share the Archbishop’s principles.
There are many examples that demonstrate the influence of certain religious and conservative groups when it comes to creating a hostile environment for LGBTI people and organisations.
• In June 2011, religious fundamentalists in several cities in Pakistan rallied against an LGBTI Pride event hosted by the US Embassy in Islamabad, which was perceived by protesters as cultural terrorism and an assault on Pakistan’s Islamic culture.64 While the US Ambassador’s message to the LGBTI community clearly showed support (“[we] stand by your side every step of the way”), Pakistan’s largest Islamic party issued a statement on behalf of various conservative religious groups stating that “…[homosexuals] are the curse of society and social garbage”.
62. http://www.galz.co.zw/?page_id=308. 63. Full text available on http://www.africanactivist.org/2010/10/message-from-archbishop-desmond-tutu-to.html. 64. http://www.albawaba.com/us-commits-cultural-terrorism-sponsoring-gay-pride-event-pakistan-381751.
93 • The 4th ILGA Asia Conference, which was to be held in Surabaya, Indonesia in March 2010, was cancelled after a crowd of Muslim fundamentalists entered the hotel lobby where representatives from 16 countries had gathered for the meeting, chasing them away.65 The film Bye Bye Surabaya 66 documents the events that took place after negotiations between parties lead to the cancellation of the event and the subsequent relocation of more than 150 attendees to safe places.
• Laws in several countries, e.g. Uganda, are becoming even more oppressive for LGBTI people due to pressure from fundamentalist groups for strengthening anti-gay laws. In May 2011, an Anti-Homosexuality Bill calling for life imprisonment for LGBTI people was discussed in Parliament. The bill further considered the death penalty 67 for offenders, the lengthening of existing prison sentences and imprisonment for anyone who fails to report cases of homosexuality to the authorities.
Addressing hostility towards LGBTI people and organisations
By addressing the levels of hostility that LGBTI people and organisation are exposed to from their environment and the rebound of hostility and negative feelings that results from this, morale can be improved. This might lead to an enrichment of relationships between employees and a renewal of the strength, passion and commitment to the movement. But how to assess the impact that hostility has on LGBTI people and the organisations representing them? How to pinpoint the source of hostility that most affects the various entities at both the individual level (board members, volunteers) and the organisational level? And how to address these things?
It is necessary to implement strategies that encourage the free expression of emotions related to negative circumstances being experienced by the individual and/or the organisation. Fears related to physical integrity and mental health, job security, career continuity employment (i.e. the fear of not being able to grow as a professional once the individual profile has become associated with the LGBTI movement) and other, related topics need to be discussed within the organisation. Working together, leaders, managers and employees can positively reinforce their ties towards the organisation and facilitate the transition to a new level of commitment.
One of the strategies is for the LGBTI organisation to hold a workshop coordinated by an experienced consultant on organisational development who can promote an externalisation of concerns from the members of the organisation. Another option calls for the development of a similar training but without the external support. Managers and leaders within the organisation should always be available to listen to colleagues, for instance by scheduling group-discussion sessions. Although the managers’ (potential) lack of experience in this area may lead to less obvious results, this method has the benefit of creating a sense of ownership and power over one’s own choices and decisions (see Box 1).
65. http://ilga.org/ilga/en/article/mlPTdpy1WQ. 66. Full video available on http://www.queercomrades.com/videos/byebyesurabaya/. 67. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16963339.
94 Acknowledging the hostility is essential, but it is merely Box 1. Addressing hostility a first step in the process of solving a problem, or at A basic approach to managing hostility should include least lessening its negative impact. How should the discussions on the following topics: process continue then? If it is not possible to reverse • the definition of the word ‘hostility’ from a technical perspective, the situation – it will always be a long process – then as well as from the perspective of those who are victims of hostility we should at least try to cope with it and not let it affect • seeing hostility as a weapon that can seriously affect our performance and well-being our development and that of the organisation to which • the need to overcome adversity in order to reach our goals and we belong. And to be even a bit bold, perhaps we can those of the organisation to which we are committed, without putting our physical and mental health at risk transform the hostility into an inspirational force that • the impact that hostility has on us – our fears and concerns about works for us. As Jeroen van der Linden puts it: “[...] health, family, future – and what it generates in the organisation usually LGBTI people have to find their own way. The that welcomes us • the sharing of examples of hostility and its impact on our lives struggle that LGBTI people go through is believed not as workers and between colleagues, as well as solutions for to be only negative. Individuals can come out stronger, overcoming adverse situations • the sharing of experiences and solutions from other organisations maybe even more creative and determined to live their that operate in hostile environments, as well as from those that life to the fullest [...].” have managed to successfully reverse negative situations • notions on negotiating in adverse situations, including lessons on how to use words – and body language – properly to reduce their Dealing with a hostile environment negative impact on the other without betraying our own identity.
At least three different sources of inspiration can be considered useful when it comes to learning from the coping strategies that are implemented by others: • LGBTI organisations can learn from success stories from LGBTI organisations in other countries that operate in a similar context and face comparable challenges. • LGBTI organisations can learn from effective strategies implemented by organisations that represent other minorities (not necessarily LGBTI) that are equally oppressed (e.g. women or racial or religious minorities). • LGBTI organisations can learn from how other organisations managed to cope with hostility in earlier periods where the context was nevertheless similar to the current context problem (e.g. how did Dutch organisations operate in the period from the 1950s until now).
Document it all
The organisational-development process requires taking into account the particular circumstances of the specific environment in which each organisation operates. This means considering not only the political and policy environment, but also other forms of hostility that may affect the welfare of individuals and organisations. In order to achieve this, organisations should keep track of all changes that take place at the policy level and try to visualise the impact that those changes will make on them as organisations in the medium and long term, in addition to keeping track of those specific events that affect them immediately. Are all stakeholders fully aware of what is happening in the country? Are all incidents being documented in order to show the whole picture when asking donors for support,
95 funding and patience? Are organisations themselves to blame for a lack of accurate and updated information? The answer to all these questions is probably the same: ‘perhaps not’. While Ian McKnight, executive director of the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition (CVC) in Jamaica, refers to the lack of documentation as a big issue in his and other countries, he also considers it to be a minor problem when organisations are sometimes focused on flying victims of abuse and prosecution out of the country when their lives are seriously threatened. Carrying out proper documentation of all forms of hostility is hard work; it can be very expensive and time consuming. And the lack of support from police officers and other personnel can make it even more difficult.
Tell it like it is, but differently
Sometimes certain words seem to cause even more discomfort in the others than the concepts they refer to. For some people, just hearing the words gay, lesbian or transgender is enough to block their senses to all that might be discussed or presented later. Using language with more tact might mean that all of our words – and more specifically: our message – will be heard. The approach adopted for specific issues should be tactful as well. HIV prevention, the prevention of HIV transmission from mother to child, sexual health – all these variables not only bring stakeholders together and open possibilities for discussion, but they also help install our interests subtly, since LGBTI issues will inevitably be linked to these public-health concerns.
One of the strategies for coping with hostile environments is for LGBTI organisations to be creative in the way they present themselves. In environments where the LGBTI movement is strongly rejected and where there are high levels of homophobia and persecution of LGBTI people, it can be useful to protect the organisation by using a less specific definition. Call it a social club, a soccer club – there are options galore. Doing so would avoid the inevitable confrontation that results from the use of more sensitive terms. A good example of this is the name of the Dutch organisation COC Netherlands. During the 1940s and ’50s, the organisation presented itself as the Centre for Culture & Leisure (COC). It took several years to change people’s mindset before they could accept the current official title for that organisation: the Dutch Association for the Integration of Homosexuality.
Dealing with the media
The media include some of the most influential powers in society, to the point that they can sometimes change public opinion and bend the will of governments. The media can distort information and turn an irrelevant issue into the topic of the day. The media can also ignore an event and cause something as important as the violation of human rights to be completely overlooked by those not directly affected by it. In some specific settings, where the use of the Internet is not yet widespread and educational curricula are controlled in the interest of conservative groups, the media are the most important source of information. The media are definitely players that LGBTI organisations would want to be friends with. But what needs to be kept in mind in order to benefit from the media to the fullest? What needs to be considered when an LGBTI organisation is confronted or ignored by the media? (see Box 2)
96 To be or not to be (out) Box 2. Dealing with the media
Some recommendations: While it is true that being out may simply call attention • Face the media with sufficient spokesperson skills and knowledge to oneself, which can have negative consequences such of the topic to be discussed. as a resurgence of violent behaviour, there are also • Have a strong background on LGBTI rights and the law. potentially positive sides to being out as well. Agencies • Have on hand examples of other countries that have successfully managed to resolve their issues. and embassies that can influence governments and the • Turn every interview or article in the media into a means for media like to support causes with visible charismatic disseminating examples of successes. • Master the techniques of giving good interviews and be able leaders. Someone who is out could generate more to listen to the interviewer, reflecting quickly but deeply, before support and commitment from them. This could also giving an answer. • Never allow yourself to lose control in front of the interviewer, trigger a virtuous cycle, resulting in a protective effect especially someone whose intention is to demonstrate that LGBTI over individuals and their families, although there are wrong. • Be consistent in the messages you give, refer to your goals and is no exact equation for this. Organisations should objectives as often as necessary, but also try to bring in new never force their members to disclose their orientation information and points of view so as not to bore the listener with repetitive messages. publicly since it is up to every individual and member • Introduce new educational concepts. of the LGBTI organisation to decide exclusively for him • Remember that you might not get to the end of an interview if from the start you insist on using words that run counter to the or herself whether or not to be out, and to make that morals of your audience. decision only after carefully assessing his or her personal • Keep in mind that you will be able to deliver your entire message and family situation, and the environment in which he or if you choose to use words that are less direct but will nevertheless support the cause at the end of the day. she lives and works. • Try to have other actors with influence over the media and the government speak on behalf of the LGBTI community when the media choose to ignore a particular topic such as an assault on a Funders and donors member of that community. • Know the schedules of diplomats and other donors and keep them informed of what is happening or what has happened, so It is very important to establish relationships with those that they can slip in a comment about the neglected incident the who are willing to lend a hand, but also with actors next time they are interviewed, forcing the media to react, at risk of being exposed as biased or negligent if they don’t. who are already involved in national politics and on • Make it clear that other stakeholders are also informed and that whose many strategies the government relies. Several they are looking forward to seeing the coverage that the media will give to the issue. countries with a history of respect for human rights • Send any emails in CC to the communication department of and a progressive attitude toward sexual minorities embassies or agencies involved in human-rights campaigns. have embassies in regions where LGBTI movements still suffer from intolerance and persecution. Many of these support local government with development projects or give funds directly to the national budget. Lobbying strategies aimed at bringing the issue of hostility towards the LGBTI movement into political discussions may present benefits for all parties. As the voice of those players who carry weight on government decisions – and in their budgets – will have a different impact from that of an emerging organisation fighting for the rights of a minority, it is always a good idea to knock the door of an influential embassy.
97 It is not always that easy, however, as Frans Bijvoet, the Dutch ambassador in Mozambique from 2006 to 2010, explains: “I discussed [LAMBDA Mozambique] with two consecutive Ministers of Justice, who of course both understood that the government should not discriminate when it comes to registering an NGO or association. Still, they always referred to their country as being rather traditional and conservative and to the position of the churches and of the party, etc.” In order to provide institutional and financial support, donors need full reports and assessments of the current situation. Even in countries that neglect all kind of hostility towards LGBTI, this can be done if several organisations are willing to support those in need of attention, because their lives are at risk of disease, catastrophe or violations of human rights. Call in the experts from agencies such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International and let them do what they know how to do best: reporting! Let them know in detail what is going on.
Overcoming hostility
What other strategies can be implemented in order to overcome adversity and become stronger as an LGBTI individual or an LGBTI organisation? Perhaps the first thing an LGBTI organisation should do is to provide a safe environment for its team – both physical and psychological: • Have a special person/department within the organisation attend to this aspect (coping with hostility at the organisational level). • Invest in training the staff, as that will provide employees with more tools for dealing with hostility, as well as dispel doubts about their future careers. • Invest in strengthening safety at the organisation by hiring security guards and barring doors and windows. • Increase the security within your systems, save your data under several passwords, renew those passwords regularly, back up your documents in a safe place and create a virtual environment for saving your documentation.
98 All evil creates an even more harmful impact when done in isolation. That is why opening up to other people and other initiatives is so important: • Show support for – and seek alliances with – those who also suffer from hostility, although not necessarily anti- LGBTI hostility, as this helps create awareness about the need to fight together against adversity in whatever form it may present itself. • Support other causes, even those not directly related to the LGBTI movement, as this creates bonding between organisations. • Contact other LGBTI organisations in your region to learn by sharing experiences and projects, as joining forces is always positive.
When looking for allies, always act tactfully and respectfully, and try not to hurt the feelings of those whose opinion you are trying to influence. Be aware that the risk of a rebound effect is even greater than the negative aspect we want to combat: • Establish communication with other actors such as healthcare workers and learn how to work and talk to them. The LGBTI movement needs to involve as many people as possible. • Remember that LGBTI people are themselves also members of trade unions, church groups, parents associations, sports clubs, etc. and that there may be strategic opportunities to bring about change via those avenues. • Generate personal contact with decision makers to try to clarify the situation faced by employees of the organisation or the organisation itself. Everyone can reflect more calmly without the pressure of one’s peers. • Remember that the mission is to try to get the hostile environment – and those people and other factors that create that environment – to want to improve for the good of the LGBTI movement. Always revise the approaches to make sure they do not entail blaming and threatening others.
Make your problems visible to others: • Document in detail the circumstances of which both LGBTI individuals and LGBTI organisations are the victims. • Get in contact with national and international organisations that operate as observers and watchdogs and have initiatives to support human rights in general and/or the rights of LGBTI people in particular, as well as with the embassies and consulates of countries with a progressive stance towards the LGBTI movement. • Ask for help to find data or to document your own findings. • Share your findings in order to create concern and promote and encourage involvement. • Use all available means to bring the hostility that you or your organisation are victims of to the centre of attention, such as chains of mails, FaceBook or Twitter, and disseminate among followers the importance of supporting and giving a voice to sexual minorities. • Find role models – like actors and singers – and a progressive political group that supports your goals.
99 Final words
When Rosa von Praunheim reflects through his characters Clemens and Daniel, “for us there was nothing more but sharing our love. Everything that happened around us had no meaning anymore,” one cannot help but agree with him. However, some things that happen around us do have an important meaning, and when these events affect individuals and the organisations representing them, urgent action is needed.
In this article we have analysed different forms of hostility towards LGBTI people and LGBTI organisations as well as the various areas in which one can perceive hostility and the impact that its manifestations can have on people and the organisations they work for. This article has also explored different ways to fight hostility or at least lessen its negative impact on the performance of individuals. While there are no magic recipes for neutralising this negative sentiment that come from the outside and attack our core being and that of our organisations, the fight against this scourge is best undertaken with the positive attitude of a large number of individuals, the collective beneficial power of which may even outweigh that of the sum of the individual parts. In coping with – and eventually overcoming – hostility, the keys to success are conciliatory gestures, negotiation skills, and a strongly determined personality in both the individual’s and the organisation’s profile, together with a clearly focused strategic plan with attention to short, medium and long-term objectives and goals.
100 101 Appendix
During the workshop on 10 October 2011 in Amsterdam, Auke Herrema produced a series of cartoons to characterise some of the conversations held in smaller groups during the day. These cartoons served to provoke ideas and stimulate conversations during subsequent sessions.
Cartoons by Auke Herrema
102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 Creating Space
In any meeting with five other people at an LGBTI organisation: • one is your new best friend • one is your former best friend • one is your last lover • one is your current lover • one is your future lover.
This is just an old joke, of course, and there are many other stereotypes like this one of how our movement and our organisations work, live, fight, build, suffer, develop, grow, close, lobby and celebrate. But how do our organisations develop in actual practice? What kind of environment are we working in? What are the common issues and what are our lessons learnt? How can we move forward? This publication was created with input from practitioners in the LGBTI movement and in organisational development. It aims to provide answers and insights that will be useful and relevant to anyone involved in LGBTI organisations.
Creating Space focuses on six areas of organising identified as key to the development of LGBTI organisations: • Making a difference: Developing and resourcing our organisational strategies • LGBTI leadership • LGBTI identity and group mechanisms • Dynamics of LGBTI organising • Alliances and their dynamics: LGBTI organisations working together for tangible changes • LGBTI people and organisations in a hostile environment
This publication and the process leading up to this publication were made possible through financial support from PSO – Capacity Building in Developing Countries, and the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
This entire publication, including the various articles and all the cartoons, can be downloaded from http://creatingspacelgbti.wikispaces.com
This publication is available in English, Spanish and Portuguese.