The village of Eressos located on Lesbos Island, Greece just hosted the 10th International Women’s Festival. Despite taking place in a country with strong Greek Orthodox church influence, and where about half the population opposes same-sex marriage, the lesbian-run festival has continually grown each year, according to AFP.
Attendance for the two-week event started at just 30 women, but has grown to hundreds. Most of the women who attend are German, Britsh, Dutch and Scandinavian, as well as Greek and Italian.
There are women-only walks and sunset cruises, drumming workshops, breathing workshops, Greek dance classes and lesbian film screenings. The festival began September 4th, and ended September 14th.
The festival launched in 2000, and caused quite a stir in Eressos. Ads for one of the events angered the village mayor so much that he threatened to take the organizers to court and ban the event, promising to push lesbian tourism away from the village.
This year, the village is lending its town hall to the festival for one of its exhibits, and granted permission for the opening event to be held on the beach.
“It was economic gameplay and the lesbians took the ticket and said, 'yes, if you want cash, you've got it?," says Marianthi Lianou, a Greek sociologist in her 50s who moved to Eressos six years ago to study its small lesbian community.
Lesbians have taken vacations and come to Lesbos since the 1970’s because of the association with Sappho that the island has. Sappho was a Greek poet, born in Eressos, who wrote about her love for women.
Lesbians make up about 60% of the village’s visitors year-round, except during September when they are about 90% of the visitors when the festival is happening.
“My rooms are full for the next two weeks. We’d usually be dead in September, but now its booming,” says Andreas, the manager of the Sappho café bar and room rentals on the seafront in the village.
Greek vacationers spent less this summer, since the country’s economic crisis continues to be a burden, so Andreas welcomes the longer season that the influx of lesbian tourists provides. “People in the village have got used to it, especially the young people, but the old people still discuss it among themselves,” he says.
According to Lena Tzigounaki, a bar owner who moved to Eressos from the capital 15 years ago, says the “more conservative” visitors from Athens who are not comfortable with all the lesbians come in August.
Above the bar, she has a rainbow gay pride flag, as do many of the lesbian-run establishments in the village. She says “When people from Athens see women sitting together, I see whole families looking strange and shocked, but locals don’t find anything unusual in women holding hands, or even kissing.” Adding “but there is a limit, of course.”
Greek gays and lesbians are still without many of the rights and legal provisions provided in other countries in Europe. Same-sex marriage is not recognized. IVF access and adoption are not allowed.
However, Greece passed a law in 2005 protecting employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation, as well as hosted its first Gay Pride parade the same year.
According to surveys, public opinion is shifting: in 2008, 48.3% of Greeks opposed same-sex marriage, compared to 84% in a 2006 poll by the European commission.
Evangelia Vlami, an activist and founder of Lesbians For Equality, a non-governmental organization, says that Greek lesbians are still “totally invisible” under Greek law. She added that “Without visibility, lesbians lose their sense of who they are, their issues and their problems.”
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