The ABC seminar started with a strong focus on HIV prevention, addressing the realities of people coming from different backgrounds - places where conversations about STIs were taboo, where condoms were not readily available, and where asking for them was often met with shame.
Ten years ago, the world was a very different place. The health committee asked us to educate queer minorities in HIV prevention. At the time, PrEP was still under consideration and knowledge about PEP was minimal. The lack of information meant that queer minorities were overrepresented in alarming statistics around STIs, substance use, domestic violence and even self-harm.
In 2016, I started volunteering at Queer World, where my first task was to teach how to put a condom on a banana. Over time, cucumbers became the preferred choice-they held up better during the demonstrations and participants were less likely to eat them when they were bored. The groups consisted mainly of young men from Uganda and Syria, frightened young men coming from a country they didn't want to leave, to a country that didn't fully understand their challenges as gay men. Which in turn made them feel isolated. Norway has changed a lot in the last decade. I'm proud to see that change in front of our eyes.
Over the course of almost thirty runs, this course has welcomed five hundred newcomers, from every nationality you can think of, with every gender expression and sexual orientation on the spectrum. It has gradually evolved from just being about HIV prevention to also include substance abuse prevention, how to navigate toxic relationships (unfortunately very prevalent among us) and trauma-informed care. We pioneered the latter, creating a service that recognises that complex trauma and queer minorities unfortunately go hand in hand far more often than most people realise.
ABC became a beacon, a map and a handbook for Norwegian society. If you think this sounds pretty or like shameless bragging, you should read what the participants themselves have said after sharing space with us in these three-day seminars. The most humbling stories, the most incredible resilience, and also the grief, emerged in our offices: some opened up about their challenges for the very first time in this course and it was contagious; when someone opened up, it was an invitation to almost whisper: "me too, I know how it feels."
This seminar became like group therapy, and many friendships, and even relationships, started here. Imagine that someone had never before been around so many queer people in a non-sexualised environment. This series of almost thirty events (including online during the pandemic, sexy evenings at Elsker, visits to Bergen and many other options) is now coming to an end.
Yes, the funding that made this collaboration with Helseutvalget possible ends at the end of 2024, but we see a need to continue ABC next year, and for as long as queer people come to Norway in need of understanding the basics of navigating life in this beautiful country that many of us now call "hygge hjemme".
