Last week, an 80% turnout of Australians voted 62% in favour of same-sex marriage – a clear mandate to politicians to pass legislation. Australia will now likely join 25 other countries who have legalised same-sex marriage. One of them is Greenland.
Same-sex marriage was legalised in Greenland in 2015, though registered partnerships have been possible for over 20 years. This is not to say that Greenlanders have necessarily been accepting of LGBTs. At a Eurovision party in Nuuk’s Manhattan nightclub – certainly the gayest venue in town – an Icelandic man related to me his experience of the recent stunning, almost overnight, change in attitudes. Only a very few years ago, he said, he would not have walked hand-in-hand in Nuuk with his boyfriend, fearing verbal or physical abuse. But things have changed. The transition, he felt, was brought about in no small part due to one person – Nuka Bisgaard – aka Nuka the Diva.
Nuka Bisgaard is a 27 year old Greenlandic drag queen. She initiated Nuuk’s annual Gay Pride march in 2010. And in 2015 she released a documentary film about her life – Eskimo Diva – a film about searching, and fighting, for acceptance. The film was released during a tour of Greenlandic towns and settlements. After each film airing, Nuka performed a drag show, and the community was invited to discuss homosexuality and being different in a small community.
Greenland’s small communities are prone to highlighting people’s differences – it’s not uncommon to see ‘the only gay in the village’ situations – where one particularly flamboyant gay person is known to all. There is no doubt that attitudes toward LGBTs can be less accepting in small settlements, compared with the relative metropolis of Nuuk. On the other hand, small communities can have the advantage that people who are different can be accepted, or at least tolerated, simply because there is little choice but to find a way to get along. The difference is that now Greenlandic LGBTs are more likely to enjoy that same acceptance. Nuka Bisgaard is far from the only LGBT activist whose actions have made a real difference in Greenland, but her film was a hell of an icebreaker.
