Call for personal and coming out stories of bisexual and lesbian women in B&H

Sarajevo Open Centre in cooperation with Kvinna till Kvinna invites all bisexual and lesbian women in B&H to send their stories!

Call for personal and coming out stories of bisexual and lesbian women in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Context

Sarajevo Open Centre is an independent, non-political and non-profit organization promoting active citizenship through political education and advocating for human rights of women and LGBT persons through equality policies. As a major part of our activities, we intensely work on promotion and advocating for the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons.
Lesbian and bisexual women in B&H, as a part of the wider LGBT community, are being discriminated on two grounds: first, as women in patriarchal society and second, on the account of their sexual orientation in a heteronormative society. Furthermore, bisexual women are also facing discrimination and prejudice that comes from within the LGBT community: bisexuality is considered to be just a “phase” and bisexual women are often being blamed for perpetuating societal oppression through negating their homosexual identity. Beside the violent physical attacks on bisexual and lesbian women, another kind of discrimination is evident: ignoring the lifestyle of bisexual and lesbian women and their invisibility in the B&H society.
Sarajevo Open Centre wants to empower bisexual and lesbian women in B&H society and offer them the space to tell their stories about their identities, stories on being “the others”, stories of acceptance and their inner world: fears, shame, discretion, but also stories of courage, freedom and, finally, coming out. These stories will be published by the end of 2012. Beside the personal and coming out stories, this publication will contain interviews with bisexual and lesbian women. This publication will be our contribution to raising the availability of authentic literature that deals with life and problems of non-heterosexual women.

Who can participate?

The call is open for all bisexual and lesbian women from Bosnia and Herzegovina, regardless of their age, origin, social status, education, political views…
We especially encourage bisexual and lesbian women from smaller towns in B&H to submit their stories.

How can I participate?

Simply send your story! The formal criteria are: minimum 8000 characters, without automatic formatting, 12pt Times New Roman, 1.5 lines spacing, no indents and no margins. Besides the stories, you can send your photographs, drawings and everything else you think can become part of the publication that is telling a story about the life of bisexual and lesbian women in B&H.
There is no fee for the published articles.

How can I submit my story?

Send your stories and questions to e-mail [email protected] until October 10, 2012. Our goal is to publish minimum 15 stories, but, depending on the results of the call, it is possible that we will publish more stories than planned.
Results of the call will be known on October 12, 2012.