It would probably be very embarrassing to explain what a mother experiences at such a time. But it turned out that my grief didn’t fit public expectations, and during such a difficult time, dirt was rubbed on me again. Every person endures and expresses pain differently. I couldn’t play the role of a bedridden mother, who they desperately expected to see. They couldn’t forgive me for standing on my feet, for walking and driving the car again. Society needs to see a weak and fallen mother and only in that case will they pity you. On one hand, people will tell you to be strong, encourage you to live, but once they see you strengthened and encouraged, they will immediately say that what happened was your fault, that you deserved what happened, and that you aren’t mother enough. As if they loved your child more than you do.

The post Lana Berdzenishvili, 51 years old, Tbilisi appeared first on WomenOfGeorgia.

I was 13-14 years old when I first had a relationship with a woman. It was my first experience, but it was so weird and unacceptable that I ignored it in my mind, as if it never happened. Many people say they were homophobes in the past. I’ve never been a homophobe in my life, it wasn’t really on my mind. In the 12th grade, I was studying in the U.S in a school exchange program. There I had my first transgender friend, my classmate. Years later, when I was about 20, I began to think about it again, I acknowledged it, discovered it, and accepted myself as I am.

At first, it was very difficult for me. First of all, it was a big problem to find someone like me. This was before I started working for an LGBT organization and being active in the community. No one talked about these topics around me, I had very few lesbian and bisexual friends. Because we live in a heteronormative environment, I have always been accustomed to men flirting with me; as if it was a simple and natural fact and therefore I had a lot of barriers and complexes when I tried a relationship with a woman. It was difficult for me to make the first step or any action at all.

The breaking out moment in my life was May 17th, 2013. Then I was working for one of the non-governmental organizations and I was in charge of monitoring the May 17th rally. I have seen violence of incredible scale on that day. I saw thousands of people who wanted to see blood. I saw how they were throwing stones at us and tried to attack the bus full of lesbian women and community supporters. Then, this yellow minibus became a tragic symbol of May 17th. At one point, I fell into such a quagmire that I fell to the ground. On this day, I saw how people in this country hate lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer people. They hate them so much, that they are ready to kill them. Seeing this injustice and oppression awakened an activist in me. I started researching LGBTQ issues, participating in various events. May 17th gave me the strength to talk openly with my friends, co-workers, and people around me about my sexual orientation.

In 2015, I got myself involved in LGBT activism. I found out what LGBT organizations existed in Georgia at that time. There was “Identity” and “LGBT Georgia” – a small organization and I wrote to the director at that time, David Mikheil Shubladze, that I was interested, even if as a volunteer. A few months later, David wrote to me that they had an opening for a project manager; it was a small project for preventing HIV / AIDS, and so I started working. At that time, three people were working in this organization, then the name was changed and it became “Equality Movement”. We grew from year to year when I left, we already had 40 employees and we had 5 regional offices.

I started coming out slowly at first, with my friends. Fortunately, I was lucky not to have many homophobes as friends. Everything happened by itself, I didn’t need to personally explain to everyone that I liked women. Then I came out to a few of my relatives, cousins, and it went well. Not long ago, in 2019, I told my brother. He also knew my girlfriend and I’m happy took everything well.

I never explicitly said anything to my parents about my orientation, I’m very worried that I never mustered enough strength o do so. But the reality is that I’m frequently on TV, I always talk in the first person and position myself as a queer woman, as a member of the community and I never talked about myself in the third person, as a rights advocate or an activist. My parents are supposed to know all this, but they seem to block this information and even today they think I only work on these things and I’m not an LGBT community member myself. They don’t want to acknowledge that. There were some painful experiences in my life, including violence. I talk about them in different spaces, but sadly I haven’t talked about such important moments with my parents. Sometimes I think they don’t really know me. They don’t know many things about me and it sinks my heart. I’m probably afraid of their reaction and I don’t want to fully come out of my comfort zone. I don’t know why, but it seems that in this country most parents and children have similarly distant relationships. It’s very painful for me. Seeing me on TV is usually big stress for them, they always cry and beg me to leave “this business”, leave those LGBT and NGO organizations. Even though we all live in Tbilisi, I’m not able to see them frequently, most likely deliberately. I try to see them every week, but even it’s too much because it always becomes a discussion of my life and work – it’s very hard for us to agree on things. Aside from LGBT issues, this also applies to political affairs and the whole act of communicating is so daunting that I try to avoid this situation. I would probably be twice as happy and strong if I had my parents’ support. I don’t know; maybe it will happen someday.

It’s very hard for me to be an activist. It’s very hard to be visible to the public, especially when it’s about such a sensitive issue. I don’t strive to do it, it’s just my teammates tell me I have to do things because there’s no one else. It’s rare to see an LGBT activist that will talk about themselves in the first person and agree to appear on TV. I always feel the pressure that I have to be the one to do all this until new people appear, until our numbers grow. On top of all this, there’s also pressure from my family and relatives, questioning my sanity and the reasons why I do this…

Recently I had a very bad experience with a neighbor. On May 18th, the second day after May 17th, for no apparent reason, my neighbor from the floor below came to me screaming, appearing willing to physically hurt me. Formally he provided a reason that I had loud music playing the other day, but finally, we found out that he had a problem with my line of work – my landlord also told me also he called her about it. I had to call the police and they issued a restraining order. A month passed by and we haven’t run into each other; hopefully, it will continue this way. For three weeks already there are daily protests at the “Tbilisi Pride” office. People stand there with some banners containing messages of hateful speech and protest our work and existence. It’s very depressing to go in and out of this office every day, walking through a corridor of shame and hearing all those insults. It’s also depressing when people ask me about my work in everyday life. I’m afraid to answer honestly because I do not know what kind of attitude they’ll have hearing it – it may arouse aggression. I’m a cis-gendered woman and my self-realization isn’t causing hate-motivated crimes; in this aspect, I’m very privileged. I haven’t had problems with my appearance, my gender identity, or behavior; but when it comes to being an activist and the public seeing you from that angle, there are barriers for me. Despite everything, I’m doing the work that’s very important to me and where I’m most motivated; I can’t even imagine doing something different. This isn’t just work, it’s like I’m fighting for all of my friends and people that are discriminated about this.

I’m very proud that a lot of people from the community contact me and say thank you for what I’m doing. They write to me that they watch all my public appearances and take my cause to heart. This visibility gives me a chance to tell about me people who need my help. I’m a privileged person and the means and resources I have are not available to many community members, so I always try to help them.

Despite being very hard living this routine, I try to also grow professionally. Right now I have good news – I’m going to study at Sussex University in Briton, Great Britain, fully subsidized. I was very happy because there was a lot of competition. Also, I feel that I need a break, because – and it’s very hard to explain what we went through organizing Tbilisi Pride 2019, – but it was a very hard feat and this process practically devoured my mental health. That one year I had such a stressful period that I went to a psychiatrist for several months and took medicine to at least be able to think.

We decided to organize “Tbilisi Pride”, started working on it, announced it, and since then, fought on all possible fronts. We’re used to aggression from conservative or ultra-right groups, but on the other hand, the government treated us so dismissively that I felt like I was nothing. We begged them on meetings to acknowledge our right to come out in the street, that we had a constitutional right to do so, and that we shouldn’t be scapegoated from public space like this. The government didn’t agree to us on this, was indirectly denying us these rights, and actively pressured us to cancel the Walk of Pride. Simultaneously, there was also a difference of opinion between activists and community members and that’s always harder on me than hearing some fascist’s swear words and comments. I think these people are fighting with me and I respect their opinion, so having a conflict with them is most stressful for me, and affects me the most. We, the Pride’s organizers, received death threats. They wrote to me that they’d kill me if I didn’t stop. This hasn’t been investigated even after a year… In the first week of the Pride, on the most active and stressful day, we received these threats and pastors and far-right groups surrounded our office, we had to evacuate and temporarily move to another organization’s office. At this time, there were some alternative groups forming in the streets, people were walking around with bats and threatening our members. You feel responsible because you started all this, and all this was very hard and stressful for me, my mental health, and the people around me. This experience changed me and I’ll never be the same Mariam as before. I always say that before 2015, when I became involved in activism, I was a free, easy-going girl, never knowing depression or feeling down. After that, everything changed and I always have to think about injustice around. You have to explain simple truths to people, explain that two adults can love each other, not meaning harm to anyone and having real feelings. Despite explanations, we encounter cardinal opposition. Also, it’s a problem not seeing progress immediately, activism takes years, but I really can’t deny that we’re seeing progress. I believe we’re going the right way and activism, talking about this is a solution; but our lives also fly by and we want to see results – we only live once and knowing that achieving something will take 50 years seems a bit far. There are also disappointments in this fight, problems, and it takes a toll on me. Hopefully, our movement will become stronger. I see it – more people are active in this space, more are coming out, talking about this, I just want all this to happen faster.

I’m going to rest for some time now, I’ll see everything from the outside, reevaluate everything, return much stronger and will fight homophobia like never before.

Author: Nino Gamisonia
Photo: Geda Darchia
Translation: Mariam Kajrishvili

The post Mariam Kvaratskhelia, 27 years old, Tbilisi appeared first on WomenOfGeorgia.

I grew up in a big family. My grandmother was a teacher, my grandfather a soldier, veteran of the war. They raised three daughters and gave them a good education. My mother is a lawyer, my aunt a musicologist, and the other one is a German language specialist. They have always been studying and were career-oriented and have never had the desire to get married. At some point, my mother realized, that she didn’t want to be alone and decided to adopt a child. It wasn’t an easy step. Especially when she was working on a high position back them and had a lot of acquaintances. In this period of time, relatives, neighbors, and friends were even more judgmental, than today. I was 7 days old when she adopted me from the hospital. As far as I know, my mother worked very hard for it, everything was agreed beforehand. I didn’t ask for details since it was hard for her to remember it. Even then it was not easy to adopt a child and today it’s even more difficult. I remember my mother telling me often that when she looked me in the eye first time, she fell in love with me immediately with my huge eyes. I only realized what love at first was when I myself had a baby. In pregnancy, mothers have first emotions, but falling in love, at first sight, was when she realized the very first time in life.

I was not an ordinary child, I had everything I needed. Despite the so-called ” dark” ’90s, where no one had diapers, they would bring them for me from turkey. If my friend wore oversized clothes, I would wear leather boots and a double-breasted jacket. Sometimes, I was even embarrassed, or rather, ashamed of it. They gave me anything, warm relationships, material needs, they did their best to give me a new life.

I was 11-12 years old when my mother told me everything. I was very strange because even though nobody ever told me that, I knew it, I was feeling it all the time. Preparation has started at a very young age, when I was about 3-4 years old, probably they had decided from the start that they’d eventually tell me the truth. They let me watch movies in which child adoption was portrayed. They told me, look, that child was adopted and that’s very good behavior. There was an orphanage in Tskneti and I remember, my mother took me there and we gave my clothes to other children there. Such episodes have always accompanied my life and of course, my attitude to it was positive. My family helped me acquire this attitude. They are very open and positive people. It’s because of them that I can talk about it openly in public.

When my puberty started, my mother realized that my character changed a bit and I’m sure it was very tough for her to start talking about it, but one evening she sat down with me and told me everything. She was crying and became very emotional. I remember that I got angry about tears because there was nothing to cry; in the opposite, I thought she was a strong woman by taking that step. I was irritated by her emotions, not by the fact that I was adopted. I remember telling her, that I didn’t want any other family. I didn’t look for my biological family, not even for a day. Even though I know that I have a biological family, even siblings. I haven’t contacted them and don’t know who they are. I think I don’t need anyone who rejected me. Maybe it’s a kind of anger, but I don’t want to get to know them. I love my life the way it is.

I never had the situation, when someone called me an adopted child, so attitude from society wasn’t an issue for me. Due to my mother’s profession, she had a serious look and probably nobody dared to disrespect her.

I think that we talk about anything openly now. On actual problems, like women’s rights, children with disabilities, even about rights of the LGBT community. But this topic – adoption is still a taboo. And I don’t understand why. It’s not a shame, right? In opposite, it’s a huge step forward and still taboo. I always had not enough to talk about it, that someone talks about it but couldn’t find anyone. I can talk to everyone about it completely free, and I think the more I talk, the more people I could help. There are so many stereotypes about this topic, people in their 40s and 50s find out they’re adopted. I think everyone has a right to know who they are and where they come from. I was allowed to have this right from my family and I was lucky.

I also thought about adopting a child. Maybe I will take this step at the age of 35-40, but I can’t trust myself, it’s a huge responsibility. You may not be able to give your biological child everything he or she needs, and especially he or she is adopted, you have more responsibilities.

I asked my mother to write one emotion how she felt about me. She wrote on a piece of paper: ‘’Happiness’’. I stole this manuscript and transferred it to my body as a tattoo in exactly the same way. I still live with her. Even though I’m an adult, have my own child, and have enough income to afford to move separately, I will never leave my mother. My mother is my best friend. She still always supports me and my child in everything. If I didn’t have my family, I wouldn’t be anyone today.’’

Author: Nino Gamisonia
Photo: Geda Darchia
Translation: Mariam Kajrishvili

The post Nini Narimanidze, 29 years old, Tbilisi appeared first on WomenOfGeorgia.

I got married early, but somehow, I was able to study, graduate from two universities, and even get a Ph.D. while having children at home. I can’t say that I did it alone – a lot of people have helped me: the nanny, my mother, my father, my husband, with whom I shared all of this and still I had to double my efforts as a working mother for being fully involved with my children and to work at the same time. Now I realize that I wouldn’t be able to do anything in this kind of situation.

Children cannot leave the house, so they are not busy with their usual activities. My eldest daughter is 14 years old and she is fully responsible for her activities, but the younger one, Ketevan is 8 years old and now I have to help her with everything that her teacher used to help her, at exactly the time that I have to work. Therefore, I’m forced to make a choice – to be involved in the house, help my child, or take care of my job. When children are little, you have no other choice anyway, you have to be at home and at work at the same time – there’s complete chaos. The youngest daughter is 2 years old; she’s completely oblivious to the fact that I have a job. The smaller the child, the more attention she needs from the mother. Getting a nanny to help is also out of the question since public transport has been shut down and the nanny is no longer able to commute. I often have to consult parents and I tell them that in order for a child to become a healthy person, the most important thing is having unconditional acceptance from you, the parent. In this situation, when the child sees you all the time and you tell her you don’t have time for her, the child gets a bigger psychological injury than if you were out of the house – when she can’t see you, she knows you’re out and not available. When I realized it, I was anxious – what should, or can, I do? In the first stage, I realized that all this was a lot for my psyche. We’re all in a very big deficit, there is no alternative outside the home and it’s very boring to have the same routine all the time.

I try to be more cheerful in this routine, to be different every day – making dishes together with my kids or playing some fun game. But to be honest, it’s not possible to do it every single day. You’re a human being, you’re not a robot and you’re not always in the mood. I think that the most important thing is, to be honest with your children. Children can feel when you’re pretending to be in the mood. One of the things that motivated me and got me excited to work from home were a few video blogs on how to inform kids about the current situation. A lot of parents are worried about this issue and unfortunately, it will cause a lot of problems in the future. Children are provided with incorrect or incomplete information – this transmits a lot of parents’ unconscious anxiety to their children. Isolation and quarantine have been called ‘’forced depression’’, meaning that it was prescribed to us without solicitation.

My husband and I made a schedule, that I could go to the office twice a week for a couple of hours and work from there using Skype, but even that’s very limited – no more than 2-3 hours. I work on projects when children are asleep. At that point, I’m always very tired and exhausted, but this is a very important part of my life and no matter how tired I am, I can’t say no. That’s the only time when I feel self-realization and when I’m not stagnating. Everything has stopped, the world has stopped, but I don’t want to stop, I’m not used to be procrastinating. In general, I’m very energetic and dive headfirst into work. But I’ve made a choice to be completely immersed when I’m home and only work in the free time that I’m left with. But I don’t feel happy, because I know that I have resources to potentially help more people in this situation than I could in an 8-hour work shift.
My husband and I can’t be at home equally since he has to go to work often than I do. Unfortunately, we have to consider the financial side as well – there is a choice between who has more income in the family, whose job is more of a priority and whose job should be affected the least. This action is understood and agreed on both sides, which unfortunately doesn’t happen in every family. Most women are under big pressure. Some women who were doing something before this and had achieved something, suddenly found themselves locked inside their homes, in the kitchen and their lives turned upside down.

I’m a big fan of your projects and I think that it’s important for a lot of women to read your stories. Often, when I complain about myself, I always remember that there are women in situations much worse than mine and that thought stops me to complain further about myself. Due to the stereotypes, there is a lot of pressure on women in Georgia – any problem strikes us ten times harder than men. I want the woman who was employed, finding their emancipation, to get back to their jobs because self-realization is the most important thing.

Author: Nino Gamisonia
Photo: Elene Japaridze / Geda Darchia
Translation: Mariam Kajrishvili

The post Elene Japaridze, 35 years old, psychologist/psychotherapist appeared first on WomenOfGeorgia.

When I got out of prison I had nothing. They took everything I had and I started my life over. Nowadays I live in Urekhi’s temporary shelter.  The building is in the City Hall’s subordination and is divided into two parts – one part for the beneficiaries who only come to sleep and the other is where we live with four other families. We came here five years ago when I was without a roof with my little baby. I have three children and the youngest was 8 months old. We lived in a rented house in extreme poverty. I didn’t have any income but somehow, we weren’t able to receive social vulnerability status. I was breastfeeding the baby, but since I didn’t have any food I couldn’t feed the child. I went to the City Hall with my baby and explained my situation, that I didn’t have anything to even eat and that I had actually written the statement to receive the social status many times, and they refused. There was a program for socially vulnerable children up to one year to receive food and that was the main reason I wanted to receive the status to get food for my child. They told me it was out of their competence and rejected it again. Then one of the social agents helped me and even though I didn’t receive the status, they saw my poverty and brought food and medicine for the baby. I couldn’t pay the rent and we were evicted, so we had to move from one rented house to another. I went to City Hall one more time and asked them to let us live in the shelter. I knew about the building and that there were free rooms. They refused again. I called TV reporters to come and talk about it. We had a serious fight. One of the City Hall employees told me that reporters couldn’t do anything. Then they offered me money for 2-3 months to rent a flat and until that I could make another request for the social status and they would help me. That was more than enough for me. I was there with my baby, telling them he was dying from hunger and asked for help and they answered that it was out of their competence. I told them, that now I didn’t want their money or help. I wanted to get a room which I requested. After all of this fight and discussions, we have been moved here. 

Seven of us have been moved on the third floor in nine square meters: my husband, three children, my brother-in-law, and my mother-in-law. They restrict you in every possible way to avoid you staying there. But if you have to choose between living on the street or here, you’d agree to live in a four-square-meter room. There were two beds, one for my mother-in-law and my eldest daughter and another for me and the baby. The rest of us were sleeping on the floor on mattresses. If I had to get up at night, I had to be very careful not to wake up someone. But at the same time, it was a paradise for me. We had a roof over our heads. They saw that I was still not leaving, and eventually, they understood that I really didn’t have anywhere to go, so they gave a separate room to my mother-in-law. 

There is also another room, it was a library before. It’s absolutely free. I have been struggling for a very long time to get this room so that kids have their own space to study and sleep. My daughter will be 16 soon and my son is 12 years old. Moreover, they are not planning to give that room to anybody else. I told them if it happens and you will need that room for somebody, there’s no need to even tell me, I’ll vacate the room immediately and let them live there. I know exactly how it is to be living on the streets and I will never choose my comfort over someone being outside. They tell me that I’m trying to expand. It’s an empty room, why is it locked? I understand why they are doing that, they want me to leave. I would never stay here if I had the possibility to pay for rent. If I left, I’d be in the same state as I was before. 

Our problem is that after summer my husband and I were left without our jobs. On the season, I work as a waitress, or if someone needs a cleaner. Two years ago, I worked as a manager in a bar. I don’t choose jobs, I do anything I can as soon as something appears. Last year I opened a cafe in front of our house and after the New Years, I had to close it. There are a lot of hungry people and it became more charity than business. When you know, people are hungry and when you see them walking on the street and staring at food, it’s impossible not to feed them.

After I left jail, the first to support and help me was the ”Institute of Democracy”. I got all kinds of encouragement from them. I learned to handcraft in prison. After some time, my work got better and better. Some of the Ideas I took from the internet and some of them I did with my own imagination and I started to work on handmade things. They financed me and I had some kind of income from it. We got an exhibition too. Although they have finished working with me and I’m no longer their beneficiary, they still help me. 

I worked in the charity center ”Ialkani”. It’s a center where there’s homeless and socially vulnerable children coming every day, children whose parents are working and they are left without any supervision all day long. My children were also beneficiaries of this center and I found out that there are some volunteer teachers who teach children English language, music, dancing, etc. I talked to the director of the center and asked for permission to teach children handcrafting. They agreed and I was there 3 times a week. Unfortunately, I’m out of materials and can’t do that anymore. This material was bought by the ”Institute of Democracy” and by the Center of Crime Prevention. We were working with beads, making some necklaces, flowers, trees. I worked more than a year as a volunteer, we had exhibitions in Boulevard and invitations on the events. Then the crisis has started and our sales decreased. 

I hate the unfairness of injustice. Poverty is a very sensitive topic for me and I always have to fight and argue about it. I’m disappointed by people’s attitude. I didn’t have a happy life either, but I didn’t become mean. You always see injustice, poor people who are hungry and they are taking the last bite of them. Here in the shelter, beneficiaries didn’t get what they were entitled to, food provided to them was always less than it should have been. 

People brought many things here as a charity, but poor people didn’t even receive a quarter of it. I was always having fights about it. I’ve been told it was none of my business. Of course, it was my business. When you see that kind of poverty every day, if you have something inside your heart, you can’t turn a blind eye to it. Beneficiaries didn’t raise their voices and you can’t judge them. They don’t have any other choice. If they complained, they’ll be thrown out. In fear of returning to the streets, they don’t say anything. Finally, we got a new director, who has an amazing personality; he’s doing everything he can and the situation is much better now.”

Author: Nino Gamisonia

Photo: Nino Baidauri

The post Miranda Mazmanova, 38 years old, Batumi appeared first on WomenOfGeorgia.