GFM Archive - Documents for the Plenary Session of the IGA Conference 1981

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IGA International organisation of -ay woman and men
Third annual conference, Torino/Torre Pellic-e

First plenary s'eesion; april 18, 1981.
Chair: Joany Oosterop, Sylvia va'nBor.en; en Herman Ueenker,Henning
.Jbrgenson .
Opening : The conference was welco n-d by the-.5 vice mpor Guglielmone
of Tor re Pellice municipality.
The conference was opened by Marco Sorgetti by behalf of FUORI!See
appendix 1.
The conference was addressed by Bram Bol on the subject : 3 years' in
the IGA See appendix 2 1
The chairing committee was accepted
Household matters : It was decided not to smoke during the plenary
sessions .
Press people were introduced and asked not to take photos in a speci-
fic part of the meeting room.Nora Neumark from Australia made a
statement on behalf of the women participating in the ILIS conference,
in which she regretted the high costs of the IGA conference and
accepted with thanks the temporary solution found for people unable
to pay for this conference .She proposed a less expensive accomodati
tion and a sliding scale for the conference costs in the future; thisws
was referod to workshop one. See appendix 3
Outw of the informal meeting of friday evening a reccomandation was
put forward: non residents in the hotel who are unable the pay
the registratito feecan participate in the conference for free This
first provoked a legthy discussion about the nature and purpose of an
IGA conference. Two practical proposals were made to provide for a pos-
sible financial deficit.
1) The dificit should be carried by all IGA member-groups by means
of a special fee asked for this purpose only.
2) T e deficit should be provided for by a collection amongst the
conference participants .
However this proposalswere made superfluous by the announcement no
FUORI that they had made satisfying arrangements with all participant
unable to pay. FUORI proposed that all problems of this kind during
this conference were dealt with by FUORI! as their responsibility as
host.
The money collected on the previuos night for this purpose,lire 375000,
was part of thi solution .
The proposed agenda included the time table found in the conference
papers, IGA newsletter 81-1 was approved with the following additions:
In workshop three under the pending actions were included Australia,
Chile, Belgium( Eliane Mosrissens) and USA immigration measures.
Workshop 10 : IGA and the third world Workshop 11 : young gays and
Workshop 12 : woman in the IGA (partially for women only).
The report of Barcelona conference was passed The Fallen Angels
commented of the execution of decisions concerning the PIE case Thei3
objections in the form of the proposal ( see appendix 4) were not
supported by the conference. A vote was taken, 12cabstained, 11 were
in favor and the rest out of maximum 92 votes were against.
The report of the Ghent meeting was passed without comment.
The report of the ILIS conference in Amsterdam was passed without com-
ment The secretariats report was passed without comment The verbal
report of the ILIS conference in Torino 15-17 april was made by Truus
van Bueren See appendix 5 This raised a discussion about the place
of the wemen in the IGA which was referred to a new workshop (12);
The membership list provided bay the financial secretariat (see appen-
dix 6) was approved bay the conference .Objections were made by NGF
(Ireland) to the applications of IGRM ( Ireland) After discussion
a vote was taken. Out of 50 votes 6 abstained 10 supported the
objections which was not sufficient for the 80 o needed. Therefore
the IGRM was accepted as a member. Objections against Revolt Press
as a full member was supported because they are not an organisatio n
open for gay men and women They became associate memberag of the IGA.
Many technical questions were clarified especially the point about
magazines as The Body Politic, Gay Pied, Masques: the collectives










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producing these magazines were considered to be open organisation
which are open to gay women and men .
The report of Americ:n liason office was passed without comment. So
were the report on the secretariat ant information center and on the
financial center
The conference decided to send a telegram protesting at the situation
of gays in New Zealand ( see appendix seven ) .
The conference andorced a statement against police harrassement in
Brixton London ( See appendix 7)-
Sign. The Chair.










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IGA
Third annual conference, Turin/Torre Pellice.
First Plenary session, april- 18, 1981

Appendix 1: Speech 1.Iarco Sorgetti
Appendix '2 : Speech Bram Bol

Those speeches were-handed out during the session. For reasons
of economy they are not multiplied again. They will be included.
in the official report.

Appendix 3: Decleration out of wv.':mei from the ILIS Conference.
We are a group of lesbians from the ILIS conference from different
countries, from different class background, some of whop are
unable to pay the full price. But, in any c-se, we are all in
full sollidarity on the issue of the injus"-ce and opposiveness
of the costs of this conference ( L; 130.OO).' I will explain this
shortly, bu.t want to say one thing first.
We are glad that you raised the qLoney for us %which we acceptt as. a
sign of good will and expediency in dealing with the immediate
practical problem.
However it does n't address basic problems and principles which
we want to raise. That is these costs do not take into account
economic differences bet'.rL us. In other words, it does n't address
issues of class, sexual, racial, ethnic and national differences
which lie behind these economic differences.
It is not acceptable to us that we continually have to fight these
issued within the gay liberation mov.-.ment that we are not given
time and space to deal with other issues of homosexual oppression
'which concern us.

This is especially disturbing since we are continually, fighting
these battles in society as a whole, it s reasonable to expect
not to have to fight these battles within the movement of gay li-
beration. This is part of a wider issue namely, that in our
everyday practice within the gay liberation movement we s: )uld try
to apply principles for which we are fitghing equality, democracy
liberation from oppression on the basis of differences such as
class, sex and race.
X To ensur such practice, we need to agree on certain structur-es
and procedures and we want to propose a few.
jV, 1. Conferences should bo held at less costly footing places in terms
of accommodation, food and facilities.

2. There should be sliding scales of costs starting form mero to
reasonable costs based on considerations such as
a. national location
b. practical or inisation costs neseOsary to ensure a reasonable
and efficient conference.


( Read by Nora Neumark; Australia)








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IGA
Third annual c,-nference, Turin/Torre Pellice
First plenary session, april 18, 1981

Appendix 4: Proposal from Fallen Angels
This conference censures the Dublin secretariat for boycotting
the Barcelona IGA--decision to support actions around the PIE-
trials, not only for their failure to send out the information
snot to them by Fallen Angels, as mandated by the arcelIona-'
conference, but for stating at the Belgian conference that they
had not received this material. 7,LTln this same material was
sent to tha Dublin secretariat for a second time, again it was
not distributed to IG-A-mambers. through lies, evasions and
suppression of information the Dublin secretariat has delibe-
rately tried to sabotage the campaign in defense of those
PIE- members charged with conspiracy to corrupt public mor.ls,
thus le'iig the gay movement in Britain open to very serious
attacks. This conference therefore releaves Dublin of its
secretarial duties,

Appendix 5:Verbal report ILIS-conference Turin
Past few days there has been an ILIS-conference on which we
continued the discussions that we started on the ILIS-conference
in Amsterdam. You have read the results of that conference on
page 4 of the IGA conference papers. In short, in Amsterd..:rL
we decided that the ILIS would be an organisation that would
have autonomy in decision-making, concerning lesbians, and that
there would be an important link with the IGA in matters concer-
ning both lesbians, gay women and-gay men. Well, yesterday the
ILIS-conference decided that the ILIS should be an autonomous
organisation that does n't officially cooperate with the IGA.
In the ILIS both seperatist lesbians and gay women:will work
together. The ILIS secretariat in Amwterdam agreed on continuing
the work for one ,--ar. After that another group will have to
take this job. The ILIS will have conferences, will ditribute
information and will andertake political actions. On an indivi-
dual level of course there will be plant of contacts with the
IGA through the women who pwr.ticipate in both the ILIS and the
IGA. All this means that proposals concerning the cooperation of
ILIS and IGA won't have to be discussed in workshop one. But
I suggest that the other proposals still will be discussed in
workshop one (I think they are quite nice).
On the ILIS conference in Turin were 150 women present, of
whom were 100 Italian women. For them it was very important
because it was the first time that lesbians met on such a
large scale in Italy.
(Read by Truus van Bueren; Netherlands)

Appendix 6: New membership list.
This ,:ipe;.i:: will be provided separately.