Martina Navrátilová

Today is the second significant day of the year.  It is the Day of Czechs Abroad and it is meant to honour Czechs who emigrated.  The USA is the country with the largest number of Czechs living abroad and one of the most famous emigres is Martina Navrátilová.   

Martina Navratilova is considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time.  She dominated women's tennis in the 1970s and 1980s and with 59 major titles.  She won her first major title in 1974 and won her last major title in 2006, just before her 50th birthday.  She'd been winning major tennis titles for 32 years.  Wow!  Here's the official trailer from YouTube for Martina Navratilova: Unrivalled.

©US Open Tennis Championships

She was born in Prague in 1956.  She started playing tennis at a young ago and she won the national tennis championship in Czechoslovakia when she was just 15.  In 1975 she turned professional.  While on tour in the USA in 1975, when she was 18 years old, she asked for political asylum and was given a green card.  When she defected, the communists stripped her of her Czechoslovak citizenship.  In 1981 she became an American citizen.  After the Velvet Revolution and Velvet Divorce, she was able to gain Czech citizenship in 2008 and is now a dual citizen of the USA and Czechland.  

Once she was an American citizen she came out of the closet and has been an active spokesperson and role model for the LGBT community.  It's sad that she could not come out earlier but if she did then it could have disqualified her from gaining U.S. citizenship.

Here's a short video I found on YouTube that talks about her life and career.

©Juana Chaves

Here's a short video about the first time she returned to Czechoslovakia in 1986.  This was the first time that she was able to see her parents since she defected.  

©Tennisfamer

I'll be honest.  When I was moving to Czechland, if someone asked me to name a famous Czech I would have only been able to name Václav Havel, Věra Čáslavská, and Martina Navrátilová.  Thanks to living here, now I know way more but I'd have to say that Martina is still the best well known.

World AIDS Day 2022

Today is World AIDS Day.  Since 1988, the day has been dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV.

The United Nations is working towards its goal of ending AIDS as a global health threat by 2030.  There's a long way to go to meet this goal in the next eight years.  

Álisson Becker, a footballer who plays for Liverpool and the Brazilian national team is a World Health Organisation Goodwill Ambassador and here's his public service announcement.  

©World Health Organisation (WHO)

Czech State Health Institute

The National Reference Laboratory for HIV/AIDS of the State Health Institute has released the current statistics about HIV/AIDS here in Czechland.

Czech Republic has a relatively low level of HIV/AIDS infection in Europe.  This year the number of cases have been significantly affected by migration due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

For the first ten months of the year, there were 249 new cases registered in the country.

• 201 were men and 48 were women
• 110 were Czech citizens and 139 were foreigners residing here
• Of the foreigners, 89 come from Ukraine, 8 from Slovakia, 8 from Russia, 4 from Moldova, 4 from Poland and 22 from other countries
• Most new cases are reported in Prague (32,9%), South Moravia (10,8%) and Central Bohemia (8.8%)

From the start of the Russian invasion to the end of October 2022, the Czech Ministry of the Interior took in 422.125 refugees from Ukraine of which 537 HIV-positive Ukrainian refugees were registered.

Differences in HIV Incidence between Czechia and Ukraine

In 2021, Czechland had 2,2 cases per 100.000 people and Ukraine had 37,1 cases per 100.000 people.

More New Quid

Due to Covid-19, the last time I was in the UK was in 2019 for a weekend in Glasgow.  I'd come across the new fiver and the tenner but I haven't come across the new polymer £20 or £50 polymer banknotes.

The new £20 went in to circulation on 20 February 2020.

 

©Bank of England

The new £50 went in to circulation on 23 June 2021.

The back of the £50 banknote features Alan Turing, the "father of modern computing" whose code breaking is believed to have shortened the war in Europe by at least two years.  In 1952 he was prosecuted for being gay and in 2021 he's featured on the back of the new £50.

Like in Czechland, the British are also retiring their old banknotes.  Here's a short video about it that I found on YouTube.

©Bloomberg Quicktake

Commonwealth of Nations

Today is the 5th of November which is Guy Fawkes night.  So Happy Bonfire night to all of my Commonwealth peeps.  

Here's a bit about the Commonwealth of Nations.

The Commonwealth of Nations is a political association of 56 countries, most of which, 52 of them, were once part of the British Empire either as colonies or dependencies.

With the passing of Queen Elizabeth II's passing, Charles III immediately succeeded his mother as monarch of the Commonwealth realm even though he has not yet be crowned king.

Once Charles III will be king, he will be both monarch and head of state, of the 15 countries of the Commonwealth realm.

These 15 countries are the United Kingdom, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, the Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu.

There are five countries that have other monarchs but are still a part of the Commonwealth.  These five are Brunei, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malaysia, and Tonga.

The remaining 36 members of the Commonwealth are all republics.  They include Bangladesh, Barbados,  Botswana, Cameroon, Cyprus, Dominica, Fiji, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guyana, India, Kenya, Kiribati, Malawi, Maldives, Malta, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, Nigeria, Pakistan, Rwanda, Samoa, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, Vanuatu, and Zambia.

The Commonwealth consists of 31,5 million km² (12.2 million square miles) which is about 21% of the world's total land area.  The Commonwealth countries are home to 2,4 billion people which is about ⅓ of the world's population with 94% living in Asia and Africa.

There's no requirement that a member has to have been a British colony.  Mozambique, Rwanda, and Gabon never were.  The Commonwealth Charter states that members have shared values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

The human rights thing is a bit funny to me.  The UK left a legacy of anti-homosexuality laws, particularly during the 19th century, at the height of the British Empire.  Being gay is still a criminal offence in more than 30 Commonwealth countries.  There's a direct link between anti-gay law and increased rates of HIV.  While the Commonwealth accounts for about a ⅓ of the world's population it has more than 60% of the world's HIV cases.    

Membership in the Commonwealth isn't forever.  Ireland was the first country to leave.  It left when the country became a republic.  Prior to India becoming a republic the rules were changed so that India could remain a member.  Zimbabwe left in 2003 but it is now trying to rejoin.  Other potential members currently include Somaliland, South Sudan, Suriname, and Burundi.

The three Crown dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man aren't happy with only being represented by the UK.  All three want to have direct representation with the Commonwealth.

The Commonwealth Games are held every four years.  They began in 1930 as the Empire Games.  They contain the usual Summer Olympic events plus "British" sports like bowls, netball and rugby sevens.  The next games take place in 2026 in Victoria, Australia.

Update August 2023:  Looks like it's getting too expensive for cities to host the Commonwealth Games.  Two cities have withdrawn their bids for upcoming games.  Here's a BBC report about it.

©BBC News

Two Slovaks Murdered

Juraj Vankulič and Matúš Horváth

A couple of weeks ago, two Slovaks, Juraj Vankulič, age 26, and Matúš Horváth, age 23, were shot at the entrance of Tepláreň, a gay bar in downtown Bratislava on 12 October.  A third person, a woman was injured but she survived.

The shooting took place just after 19:00 and the local police initiated a manhunt.  The perpetrator was later identified as Juraj Krajčík, the 19 year old son of a far-right politician.  Prior to the shooting he posted anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-Semitic posts on Twitter.  He was found dead at around 7 am the next day.  He apparently committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

The police began investigating the murder as a hate crime but deemed it an act of terror after it appeared that the killer was planning to target other people including the prime minister.

Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová and Prime Minister Eduard Heger posted messages of support on Twitter in both Slovak and English.

Rallies were held in Bratislava and also in Prague.

Slovakia offers less protection for gays and lesbians than Czechland does.  While sexual orientation and gender identity are covered with comprehensive anti-discrimination laws, it doesn't permit same-sex marriage or even civil partnerships.  Since 2014, Slovak law defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.  However, due to the EU, the country does have to recognise same-sex marriages established abroad.

Here's a one-minute video I found on YouTube of the Slovak President addressing a memorial rally in Bratislava.

©news.com.au

Here's a 3,5 minute video about following the aftermath.  The video is only in Slovak but you get the idea.

©Refresher SK

Aside from the sheer horror of people being murdered for being gay, the other thing that stands out is that it involved a gun.  Over here a gun murder is big news because it just doesn't happen.  In the USA, this would be just another shooting.

The gun homicide rate in the the USA is way, way higher than in other high-income countries.  What I still don't understand is that if guns made people safer, then America should be the safest place in the world.

Out With the Boys

Last night was a long overdue night out with the boys.  I met up with Vašek, Aleš, and Filip at But Bar for drinks last night.  

But is a small gay cocktail bar, with Spanish wines and tapas, located in the city centre.  It's fun but I still don't understand the reason behind the name.  Anyway, it was fun.  

After a while Kája joined and the boys got to know him a little better.  We decided against making it an all nighter because we've got a full weekend planned.  This afternoon is Ale's 40th birthday party and the boys are coming over to my place on Sunday for brunch.

Munchkin Visit

Claudia and Tünde came for a visit so I got to spend some godfather time with the munchkin.  

We had a few movie nights including a Harry Potter & sushi night.  

Another night we headed out to Ikea for a bit of shopping and some Swedish meatballs.  

It was fun getting to spend some time with the chicas.  On Thursday night, we headed over to the park at the observatory to see the planets.  The Moon is back on display with the Earth, Mars, and this time with Venus.

It's still new but I recently started seeing someone.  We're just starting to introduce each other to our friends.  Karel joined us for an hour at the park and Tünde was very excited that she, and Claudia, got to be the first people who've met him.  They seemed to approve so that's a plus.  Let's see how things go but on Friday we headed to Prague for the weekend and had a good time.

Pride Month and Ukraine

Happy Pride Month!  June is LGBT Pride Month in the USA and it honours the 1969 Stonewall riots which is considered the birth of the Gay Rights Movement.  This is when you see the majority of Gay Pride events worldwide.  Although pride events are held outside of June as well.  For example, it is way too hot in Atlanta in June so Atlanta Pride takes place in October, when it is cooler, on the weekend closest to 11 October which is National Coming Out Day.

Due to the war in Ukraine, Kyiv Pride won't take place this year in Kyiv.  Instead, Ukrainians will participate in Pride events in other cities like Riga and Warsaw.  

Here's the legal status for the LGBT community in Ukraine.  When it comes to LGBTQ equality, Ukraine ranks 39th in Europe.  Czechia comes in at 32.

The Criminal Code in the Soviet Union banned same-sex relations.  The law was changed in 1991 following Ukraine's independence.  So now's it not illegal to be gay but there's plenty of prejudice especially coming from the Orthodox Church and LGBTQ people lack many legal rights.

Article 51 of the Ukrainian Constitution defines marriage as voluntary union between a man and a woman so gays have no option for marriage or even any type of civil union.  President Volodymyr Zelensky is looking at civil partnerships but this would require a change to the constitution which can't be done while the country is under martial law.

Aside from not being able to marry, or adopt, gays and lesbians in Ukraine do not have a right to inheritance, hospital visitations or to make medical decisions for an ill partner.  

Discrimination in the workplace was banned in 2015.  

In 2016 the law was changed now allowing gay and bisexual men to donate blood.

Being trans is classified as a psychiatric disorder.  

Same-sex couples are not allowed to adopt because of Clause 211 of the Family Code.  This applies to foreign adoptions as well and only married heterosexual couples are allowed to adopt children from Ukraine.

In 2013, Russia passed its "gay propaganda" law and since then hate crimes against the LGBT community have soared.  Gay Ukrainians don't want similar legislation passed in Ukraine if Russia should win the war.

Under Ukrainian law, all able-bodied male citizens, ages 20-27, must server one year in the army or 18 months in the navy.  After serving on active duty, they become part of the inactive reserve and can be called up for mobilisation until they reach age 55 for enlisted or age 60 for officers.  Homosexuality is not a reason for exemption from military service.  So it is mandatory to defend the country but not for the country to provide equal rights to those defending it.

Since same-sex relationships are not legal this impacts the LGBT community that's fighting for Ukraine right now.  Their partners will not be notified if their loved ones are killed while fighting for the country and will not be eligible for any type of survivor benefits.

Some gay soldiers serving in the Ukrainian army display military chevron with a unicorn which has become a symbol for gays and lesbians serving in the military.

Here's a Voice of America video I found out on YouTube that talks about the brave gay men and women fighting in Ukraine.

©Voice of America

Я за Україну. Я за Україною. Слава Україні  Stojím za Ukrajinou!  I stand with Ukraine. 

Update December 2022:  Here's a short France24 video I found about this on YouTube.

©France24

A Night Out

Aleš has a karaoke party planned next week at the chata but we kind of had an early celebration last night.  A few of us got together last night at Tomáš and Betty's place for a few drinks and hors d'oeuvres before we all headed out to Lemon, which is the one gay nightclub here in Brno.

Jose brought a couple of friends from medical school to join in on the festivities.  It was fun to hang out with everyone and to do some dancing.  

I can't remember the last time that I went out dancing.  Unless you count me and Tünde jumping around like fools listening to German pop songs.  After Lemon, we tried to hit the local karaoke bar but it was packed so ended up calling it a night.

Mezipatra 2021

Mezipatra is an annual gay film festival that takes place every November in Prague and Brno.  There are usually additional events such as lectures, art exhibits, theatre performances and parties that take place in Prague and Brno, as well as in other cities like Ostrava and Olomouc.

The festival first started in Brno back in 2000 and in 2002 it started using the name "Mezipatra" and expanded to Prague.

Mezipatra is also part of the coalition of non-profit organisations that makes up Jsme fér, that campaigns same-sex marriage here in Czechland.

This year is the 22nd year and the theme is Oslava života (Celebrate Life).  Last night was the kick off of the week long festival and I went with Aleš and Vašek.  We followed that up with a bit of dancing at a club afterwards.  I can't remember the last time I went out dancing but it was a lot of fun hanging out with the lads.

German Spy Museum, Berlin

Today Claudia surprised me with a visit to the German Spy Museum which is just a short walk from Potsdamer Platz where the Berlin Wall once divided the city between West Berlin and East Berlin.  The museum actually sits in what used to be the "death strip" between the inner and outer perimeter of the Berlin Wall.

It is a private museum that opened in September 2015 as the Spy Museum Berlin and it was relaunched in July 2016 as the German Spy Museum.

The Deutsches Spionage Museum is actually one of the most visited museums in Berlin.  There are more than a 1.000 exhibits focusing on the history of spies and espionage.  While there are exhibits about how intelligence has been gathered throughout history, infamous spies such as Mata Hari, and even exhibits about James Bond, the primary focus is on espionage in Berlin from WW2 and during the Cold War.  Berlin is often referred to as the Capital of Spies because this is where Capitalism and Communism faced off during the Cold War.  A standoff between Nato and the Warsaw Pact.  

Here's a video about the museum that I found on YouTube.

©Deutsches Spionage Museum

It's a pretty cool museum with lots of interactive exhibits where you can play with Morse code, look for hidden listening devices in a room, and try to navigate a laser maze.

This replica is of a small film-carrying statue once used by Alfred Frenzel, a West German member of Parliament, who was unmasked in 1960 as an undercover StB agent working for Czechoslovakia.  The statue's pedestal was hollow and used to smuggle film.  It was rigged with a mercury switch to explode, destroying the film, if it was improperly opened.  

East Germany's secret police, the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, or Stasi, was one of the world's most ruthless intelligence services.  There's lots of what used to be high-tech recording equipment.  

The Stasi and the GRU (Soviet military intelligence) established a state-of-the-art listening post on the highest mountain in East Germany.  

In 1961, the Americans and British set up a listening post on Teufelsberg in West Berlin and eavesdropped on Eastern bloc radio traffic.  Here, military intelligence personal listened to all radio and telephone traffic within a 500 km (310 mile) radius while monitoring the Warsaw Pact command and control systems.  The NSA closed the listening post in the early 90s but you can still visit the abandoned site which we plan to do tomorrow.

The Glienicker Bridge between Potsdam and West Berlin was the spot for famous spy swaps between the west and the east.  In 1962, this is where the trade was made for American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers and KGB spy Rudolf Ivanovich Abel.  This was the plot of the 2015 movie Bridge of Spies.  Here's the movie trailer.

On display in the museum is one of the early models of the Enigma machine which was the most famous encryption machine of WW2.  It looks like a typewriter with rotors and wheels that can encode a message 150 different ways.  Germany used the machine to secure communications but the Allies had secretly cracked the code, in a huge part, thanks to Alan Turing.  He is regarded as the "father of modern computing" and is often credited by shortening the war in Europe by at least two years and saving more than 14 million lives.  In 1952, he was prosecuted for being gay and chemically castrated before he ultimately committed suicide.  In 2013, Queen Elizabeth II posthumously pardoned him.

This has nothing to do with the museum but the United Kingdom decriminalised same-sex relationships in 1967.  However, there was a ban on gay people serving in MI5, MI6 or GCHQ until 1991.  Just this February, the MI6 Chief publicly apologised for the "misguided, unjust and discriminatory" ban on gay spies.  The apology came 30 years after the ban was lifted.  A little late but at least it came.

In the USA, we had the "lavender scare" where Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-communist campaign targeted gays which painted homosexuals as subversives and Soviet sympathisers.  In 1953, President Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450 which ruled that gay people were security risks.  The logic being that if you were gay then you could be blackmailed into giving away state secrets.  I get that at the time people were more vulnerable because the law offered them no protection. 

I've never understood the logic that gay people were more of a threat to national security than straight people.  It's not like straight people have been immune to honeytraps and blackmail.  I had a security clearance when I was in the U.S. military and I would have lost it if I had come out while serving.  So I stayed in the closet until after my enlistment was over.  My argument was if everyone knows that someone is gay then how can they be blackmailed for being gay?  Anyways, back to the museum.

I had never heard of "Operation Infektion" before.  This was a disinformation campaign thought by the KGB and carried out by the Stasi.  In the 1980s, East German biologist and KGB agent, Dr. Jakob Segal, presented false "evidence" that the HIV virus was created at Fort Detrick, Maryland, as part of a biological weapons research project.  I'd heard the conspiracy story before but I never knew that the Stasi was behind it.  

Mikhail Gorbachev ordered the KGB to stop the disinformation campaign and the Stasi followed suit.  At the time the USA and the Soviet Union had a meeting on AIDS research collaboration and the U.S. Surgeon-General insisted on an end to all further disinformation as an absolute requirement for any further collaboration.

The museum is well worth the €17 price of admission and you'll need at least 3 hours to really check everything out.

Schöneberg, Berlin

Back in the 1920's Berlin was the Gay Capital of Europe.  The world's first gay magazine even began in Berlin back in 1896.  The Schöneberg district, near Nollendorfplatz, has long been the gay district of Berlin.  Long before the Castro in San Francisco or Dupont Circle in Washington, DC, Schöneberg was the first gay village.

Today it's mostly filled with bars, restaurants, cafe's, and shops but there are are few historical sights to be found.

The Eldorado was a popular drag bar back in the 1920s and Marlene Dietrich was a regular here.

The Mangus pharmacy is named after Magnus Hirschfeld, who's Institute for the Science of Sexuality, was the world's first gay-rights organisation that lobbied for legal representation. 

In 1982, a plaque was put up at the Nollendorfplatz underground station to commemorate the murder of gays and lesbians during the Third Reich.

In a nearby park I also came across an AIDS memorial.

There are also stolpersteine, stumbling stones, to remember people who were deported and murdered by the Nazis.

On the lighter side, at Nollendorfstaße 17, there's a memorial plaque on the house that Christopher Isherwood lived from 1929 to 1933.  His novel Goodbye to Berlin inspired the musical Cabaret. I  had to get a selfie of me in front of the building holding my copy of Christopher and His Kind.

In 2011, Christopher and His Kind was released as a film.  Great film and highly recommended.  You can actually find the entire film on YouTube but here's the movie trailer.

Nollendorfplatz is even home to Berlin's only gay Christmas market.

Here's a short video from DW's Meet the Germans series that talks about the status LGBT affairs in Germany.

©DW