Meem received a scholarship from the ILGA World Conference to attend and give a panel on feminism. Our panel consisted of a 7-point presentation on how to incorporate feminism into the LGBTI movement. Meem also participated in the women’s pre-conference, networked with different LGBTI organizations from around the world, and joined ILGA Asia taking on the responsibility to empower LGBT groups in West Asia.

Meem welcomes her new (and first ever) intern aboard the team! Marta Bogdanska from Poland has joined us in Beirut to support our various projects. Marta will also be conducting her own research on LGBT in Lebanon.

A Meem member traveled to Marseille in July and participated in the UEEH conference that takes place every year with LGBT participants from Europe and the Mediterranean. The Meem member gave a presentation on feminist and lesbian organizing in the Arab world and networked with various organizations at the conference. We’d like to thank Helem Paris for their amazing and warm hospitality!

Meem was delighted this month to host Sinan Goknur, a transgender activist from Lambda Istanbul and WWHR-New Ways in Turkey, who spoke about his experience as a feminist trans-guy. Sinan presented a paper about transphobia, gender identity, and the role of transgenders in the LGBT struggle. He also met several times with small groups of Meem members to talk more about transgender and queer theory. You can read his full paper entitled “What Happened to the T in LGBT?” here.