The Salzburg Global LGBT*Forum was formed in 2013 to establish a truly global space to reflect upon and advance LGBT and human rights discussions, as well as to form a network of international leaders from diverse fields – including human rights, legal, artistic, and religious backgrounds. Founded and chaired by Dr. Klaus Mueller, the Forum currently includes representatives from more than 76 countries on six continents.
This 200-page publication,Building a Global Community, chronicles the first five years of the Global LGBT Forum: the Fellows’ stories that they’ve shared, the wide-ranging issues we’ve addressed, and the impact the Forum has had on individuals, institutions and ideas advancing LGBT human rights around the world.
A journey into uncharted territory
Founder & Chair of the Salzburg Global LGBT Forum, Klaus Mueller reflects on the Forum’s origins, its progress – and that of its Fellows’ – and where it is today.
I would like to profoundly thank Salzburg Global Seminar for embracing LGBT human rights as a topic of global concern and for wholeheartedly supporting the Salzburg Global LGBT Forum ahead of and since its launch five years ago. This has been for all of us a journey into uncharted territory, and without Salzburg Global’s expertise in convening global gatherings the Forum would not have grown to what it has become today – a network of Fellows from more than 70 countries.
Our Origins
The idea seemed right and worthy from the beginning: to help in the advancement of LGBT human rights worldwide through a global Forum of LGBT human rights defenders from many different disciplines. But the question remained: was there a need? Seeking answers, it took two years to develop the Forum before its first inaugural meeting in 2013.
I personally first learned about the power of a truly global gathering in 2000 when I participated in a visionary Salzburg Global session on museums in the 21st century, chaired by Marc Pachter of the Smithsonian Institution, which opened my horizons and fueled my writing on museums. Ten years later, in 2010, Salzburg Global invited me to take on an expanded role and serve as Chair for their long-term Initiative on Holocaust Education and Genocide Prevention to be developed in cooperation with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, for which I serve as the Museum’s European Representative. This new role inspired and encouraged me to approach Salzburg Global independently in 2011 with the concept proposal to create a Global LGBT Forum to be jointly developed and hosted at Schloss Leopoldskron.
Working in LGBT human rights in the Western world over the past 30 years, having started as an activist, looking at LGBT history in my doctoral thesis, and later curating exhibitions, writing and engaging in film productions, I recognized that in the rapidly globalizing world of the 21st century, LGBT human rights no longer seemed to be defined only by regional histories and cultures (if they ever were in the first place), but that they were increasingly shaped through global conversations, whether progressive or hostile. Together with Salzburg Global Seminar, I conceived the Forum as a safe space to curate a truly global conversation on LGBT equality among diverse leaders from human rights, legal, artistic, and religious backgrounds. Free expressions of sexuality and gender define the societies in which we want to live in the 21st century, and our strength is rooted in our diversity.
In launching the Forum, we were entering new ground – from building new donor partnerships (thank you for your trust!) to curating a genuinely inclusive gathering where all would feel welcome and valued. We invited participants as the individuals they are, not as the representative of the institutions, NGOs or governments with which they are affiliated. In addition to being experts in their respective fields, they also brought their life experiences to our meetings.
Finally in 2013, it was their voice that answered our original question: Yes, there is a strong need and desire to develop a global, yet personal network – a network of trust that enables us to listen to each other and to join forces. While communication across borders becomes ever more accessible through the internet, trust needs time. The Forum is not a conference. It has become a safe space, our retreat, where we come together in person to comprehend the global interconnectedness of LGBT human rights as well as progress and challenges. While we come from different places, cultures, histories, and generations, we share commonalities in our views and experiences. But the Forum also provides a setting to acknowledge and explore our distinct personal, cultural, economic and religious differences. We come to listen, to learn, and to build connections. As with all Salzburg Global Seminar programs, our Forum strives to be a space where participants are “tough on the issues but kind to each other.”
Our Progress
Over the past five years, we have formed a growing network of expertise. In 2013, we started with participants from 34 countries and set our course with the Salzburg Statement of the Global LGBT Forum: Advancing human rights for LGBT people and communities. This framework of principles and priorities continues to guide our intersectional approach and lead themes (SEE PAGE XX). In 2014, the German Foreign Office invited us to Berlin to advise them on strengthening relations between embassies and LGBT human rights groups. In 2015, we returned to Salzburg and started our “Family Is…” project collecting testimonies for our global portrait of families today – ultimately producing nearly 50 video interviews and a film we released this year. In 2016, our first meeting in Asia took us to the small city of Chiang Rai, Thailand, close to the border with Myanmar and Laos, to listen to and learn from a new generation of Asian leaders. This year we gathered again at Schloss Leopoldskron with the focus on “Home” and refugees, collecting testimonies and strengthening our sense of a global community that has grown with each session.
As a network we have developed the global perspectives that guide us year-round. It has been a steep learning curve, reacting to both crisis and progress, and little did we know how we would be challenged and changed in the process. The Forum’s meetings are not easy: there is both risk and comfort in bringing people from very different contexts together and striving to deepen understanding and trust. We increasingly recognize that LGBT* as a concept expresses the aspiration and hope of a common cause even as our struggles are distinct. Sharing personal stories helps us to understand each other’s needs and worlds more fully. Many Forum members are exceptionally strong leaders, bold activists, and visionary artists and thinkers. Yet for some, it was the first time in their lives that they found a community where they felt they could share their personal story with others.
So many shared stories come to mind. We have been deeply moved by the strength of our two Ethiopian friends who joined the Forum anonymously in 2015, and returned in 2017 as asylum seekers in Austria to build a new life. We were proud when Kasha Nabagesera from Uganda, who has come to all Forum gatherings since 2013, appeared on the cover of TIME magazine. We were inspired by the amazing photographers, film directors, and writers who introduced us to the realities of LGBT lives around the globe: of indigenous trans communities in the Venezuelan jungle, of a Filipino mother/filmmaker and her daughter, of LGBT families in Cambodia, and of transgender communities in Mongolia. They showed us that one fiercely independent voice can make these lives – our lives – visible. Increasingly we help each other with our projects and ways to share them with larger audiences.
Fundamental human rights concern us all. The Salzburg Global LGBT Forum brings together queer and straight, representing gender in many expressions, in short: people with overlapping, changing identities. Whether homo-, bi- or heterosexual, cis-, inter- or transgender, our diverse backgrounds and lives are connected by our shared interest to advance LGBT human rights globally.
Since the Forum was launched in 2013, the world has witnessed the journey of communities and nations towards recognition of LGBT human rights and celebrated significant progress. Yet in many countries, we have been confronted with backlashes and many governments still legitimize and sponsor violence against LGBT citizens through legal discrimination, condoned police violence and hate speech. Our Forum has therefore expanded to build larger networks of support with government partners, international bodies, and human rights and cultural organizations. Increasingly we are approached as a trusted and neutral facilitator for global conversations.
Today
Being part of an emerging global community has changed us. Salzburg Global Seminar has become our home and itself has been changed in the process. Celebrating our fifth anniversary in the same year that Salzburg Global marks its 70th anniversary, the Forum is fully integrated within the major global dialogues in which Salzburg Global is engaged. All Salzburg Global’s staff have gone the proverbial extra mile, again and again, to help us reach our goals; enabled and guided by vice presidents Clare Shine and Benjamin Glahn, and with support from Salzburg Global president Stephen Salyer and former chief program officer Edward Mortimer.
With 2017 being a year of retrospection for Salzburg Global Seminar, we too looked back and unearthed untold stories that were shared at our fifth gathering this summer. This was archaeology of a different kind – a “Queering of the Schloss”, an acknowledgment that LGBT people have contributed to the history of Salzburg Global and to the earlier history of Schloss Leopoldskron in the time of Max Reinhardt, its pre-war owner and co-founder of the Salzburg Festival. We learned about early beginnings, important voices, surprising guests. One discovery was made by anthropologist Saskia Wieringa in 2013, who realized that the statues in Schloss Leopoldskron’s Chinese Room were of the East Asian transgender deity Guanyin – a feature overlooked for almost a century. Her presence gave us an early sense of belonging as a protective deity for our endeavor.
Historically, we know that LGBT-related stories were often suppressed or omitted. Our desire for a more inclusive and humane future also fuels our desire to reintegrate LGBT lives into a fuller understanding of our history.
Both our history and our future have to be written by ourselves. The Salzburg Global LGBT Forum is a fluid network that fully trusts its Fellows’ imagination and leadership to advance LGBT equality globally. As with other histories of prejudice, we know that homo- and transphobia will not disappear, but we hope they will in many places have less tragic consequences.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCE ARTICLE
Klaus Mueller: A journey into uncharted territory. In: Five year report Salzburg Global LGBT* Forum, Salzburg 2017 (p. 8-10)