Culture Is a Place to Be Seen: On IDAHOBIT and the Everyday
17 May 2025
On IDAHOBIT — the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia — we’re reminded that solidarity isn’t symbolic. It’s physical. It lives in space: the kind you step into, or find safety in, or recognise yourself in for the first time.
At the European Cultural Foundation, we support people across Europe who use culture to build that kind of space, especially where dignity is denied or visibility is punished. They do this in libraries, street corners, independent collectives, and community kitchens. Not always visibly, not always safely, but always intentionally.
In our work, we see what it takes to hold space for LGBTQIA+ people when institutions fail or look away. We see libraries used to foster understanding around gender and sexual diversity, not just through collections, but through dialogue and education. We see artists and communities reclaiming public space by telling the untold stories of queer migration — countering stereotypes through oral history, visual narration, and collective authorship. We see local projects connecting queer youth through books, food, and shared space in politically hostile contexts. We see everyday community events become soft shields against exclusion, like manga-themed library days that welcome queer teenagers through culture, not labels.
The people behind these initiatives aren’t waiting for permission. They’re organising where they are, with what they have. Sometimes, it’s a book club, sometimes a quiet exhibition, sometimes a one-off gathering that turns into a movement. What they have in common is this: they create conditions where LGBTQIA+ people can breathe, speak, and stay.
The European Cultural Foundation supports this kind of work because it makes visible what solidarity actually demands—attention, infrastructure, risk, and time.
We know there can be no cultural democracy without queer visibility, and there can be no European future worth building if it doesn’t protect the people already living in it.
On IDAHOBIT and every day, we stand with those who make space and keep finding ways to make more.
Photo: ‘Anamesa/Ndërmjet’ – In Between, Feminist Autonomous Centre’s Feminist Library
