Maria Cyber: The Greek Activist With Which Has Changed Countless Lives, Now Fights For Her Very Own | GO Mag

“This Monday You will find radiation treatment, therefore I’m busy 12 to 5 p.m. I’m hoping after I will be style of okay, just what time will you be free?” composed


Maria “Cyber” Katsikadakou


when I requested to interview this lady in her hometown of Athens finally thirty days.

Maria Cyber, as she actually is nicknamed, is actually a pioneering Greek activist with a list of accolades thus impressive that last October she ended up being awarded utilizing the highest difference associated with the French Republic,


the medal from the Knight of Letters and Arts


, on her behalf contributions toward legal rights and presence of LGBTQ+ people and those with handicaps.

Through various sources – photography, videography, news media, stand-up, debates, festivals and workshops – Maria changed the everyday lives of many individuals. Having appeared regarding LGBTQ+ scene during the age of 16, Maria is now thought to be one of the primary and the majority of seminal lesbian activists in Greece. She is also invested the past 2 full decades combating for equivalent identification and state-support for the people with diabetic issues and people who require medical care care.

Today, at age of fifty-two, she is battling on her behalf own life: 2 yrs ago, Maria’s medical practitioner identified the lady with an aggressive case of cancer of the lung, recommending she may have only 36 months to reside.

Despite Maria’s readiness to get to know right after chemo – a



carpe diem



mindset that’s billed her activist career – we decided to wait a short time; time for Maria to rest, time in my situation to stock up on N95 masks, whilst getting examined and re-tested for Covid.

It absolutely was pouring seat legs (the Greek equal for raining cats and dogs) at the time Maria and that I found. The woman mother, who is now her major care-giver, exposed the door to Maria’s apartment. In genuine Greek mommy trend, she stripped out my personal damp jacket, put me in a couple of slippers, gave me a huge slice of do-it-yourself dessert, and settled me personally into a chair during the spot associated with the space. Maria sat in the middle of her apartment a couple of meters from me, on a large settee in comfy garments, a heater roaring at the woman shins.

Maria relayed tale after story of the woman numerous existence, showcasing a variety of occasions she actually is already been prompted by progress elsewhere – be it premium music at lesbian events in Berlin, hospice care in Oslo or condition benefits for everyone with handicaps in London – and delivered it back once again to Greece. By generating and proliferating visual and social media marketing, Maria tries to spread understanding, “like small vegetables from inside the community, making sure that voices will grow, multiply, and perhaps one-day, we now have it during my nation too,” she states.

Maria’s voice is actually strong and totally genderless in tone: a suitable outward phrase of Maria’s identification. Having never ever believed satisfied from the terms and conditions ‘lesbian’ or ‘dyke,’ Maria recounts the serious experience of reading Radclyffe Hall’s ”


The Properly of Loneliness”


when she ended up being more youthful. “I started initially to weep, i possibly couldn’t prevent my rips, cascades running-down my personal face, whenever Hall writes – and I still believe [like I want] to weep – whenever she writes of ‘the wasteland land between two men and women,’ I believed this within my tissues, within my blood… it absolutely was talking to my cardiovascular system.”

The woman baritone sound frequently cracks as tales merge with rips; the great activist is extremely willing to program the woman inflammation. Possibly this tenderness is actually inevitable at the moment, whenever disease calls for the continual contemplation of life-and-death. “someone said we now have two physical lives, the second existence starts once we realise there is one,” claims Maria, making reference to a quote caused by Confucius, “so I have always been within my second existence now.” Though she releases the odd pained sound and groan, Maria is bursting with existence, constantly getting these types of understanding, frankness and mirth to her stories.

“While I die,” Maria claims, emphasising the ‘when,’ as she, alongside a lot of, hope she gains this battle like she has many other individuals, “i’d like ‘I AM GOING TO SURVIVE’ authored to my headstone.” The woman trifold reason: “it’s a gay hymn,” she claims. “2nd, I can not show how often i’ve experienced this tune along with my personal center, tears, blood, after a break-up. And finally, it will make somebody laugh. I nevertheless should make folks chuckle whenever I’m don’t here.”

Maria’s apartment, which doubles right up as the woman company, is full of thoughts of Maria’s existence as an activist. Stills from many short movies she is developed, clips from posts she’s composed (Judith Butler is actually amongst the woman interviewees), cardboard boxes upon containers of Maria’s photography that she, so far, had not had time and energy to look-through. The space is peppered with flyers from promotions: secure Sex for Women, Trans women can be girls, promotions for her lgbt broadcast program and also for the very first lesbian celebration in Greece, Cyber Dykes, which Maria birthed in 1995 (“Don’t shag With lifestyle – Fuck With A Glove,'” reads a collection of the flyers).

Nestled among this queer paraphernalia tend to be leaflets depicting pricked hands that read in Greek, “Do Not Be Shy. Talk Openly Regarding Your Diabetes.” Though Maria’s spent the majority of her life-creating iconic events like


Gay & Lesbian Pornographic Art Movie Festival


, the


Outview LGBTQI+ Film Festival


,


and  the brand new portal


lesbian.gr


back in 2000, she has already been an instrumental sound and adhesive when it comes to diabetic community of Greece.

In 2007, when she was actually recognized as Diabetic kind 1, she watched that diabetic community was actually “very introverted plus in the wardrobe,” she says. When she told pals that she was recognized, Maria had been surprised to possess many people welcome her on diabetics’ dance club. “i am want, have you been major people, the trend is to state you are a diabetic?”

Maria continues on to spell out that diabetes is just one of the leading chronic conditions worldwide. “I didn’t know any thing about any of it before I became identified, and that I believe almost all of the population does not understand. But it’s so easy and thus important to understand how to save some people that have, straight away, a need for orange juice, for glucose. Every person should be aware these things,” she says. So Maria proceeded to operate the woman secret, “copying everything I did for lesbian visibility, to create for diabetic visibility.” She created


glykouli.gr


(‘sweetie’ in English), an online room pertaining to anyone with diabetic issues to share with you sources, asian connections on onenightfriend.com and organise get togethers. She additionally generates a diabetic chat radio tv show, section conversation, workshops, and small films. By publicizing the heavy weight the condition bears, Maria attempts to eradicate the additional fat of silence and discernment.

Nevertheless, with Maria’s diagnosis, she is seeking introduce important tasks for all with disease. “in just about every amount of my life, what I have always been, we succeed community. I strongly think and practice the motto for the old feminists: ‘the individual is actually political.'” This approach offers Maria’s activism a certain spontaneity; she goes up to meet the waves which come the woman way. “we never realised everything I had been performing. We never counted the thing I ended up being performing as important, i did not realize how much cash I assisted to improve what exactly in Athens. I could cry for this,” she claims, turning down the woman look. “It actually was about undertaking exactly what thought proper… i did not know this will help so much.

“and it’s really just now I realise,” she goes on, “it is like you clothed inside room each day, you lack time for you to tidy or organise so it is chaos. And you just keep tossing and tossing clothes. Together with the disease, i simply noticed the space and all of these parts abandoned there, all of my personal parts.” She sighs profoundly. “and that I’m similar, ‘somebody has got to tidy the area.’ In order that’s what I’m doing today. You must do it when facing demise.”

We stay with Maria all night that afternoon, the rain pattering heavily on the skylight as she candidly recalls the challenges and achievements with marked the woman existence. With glee, she shows a


few her short films


on a theater-sized dull display. Particularly, “pals With Benefits,” about a punk from Camden community, who is had gotten numerous sclerosis, yet seizes each day, every evening around, every will of lager and each toke of a spliff, and “So Quiet: The Performativity of a Pussy,” an 8-minute brief film in regards to, yep, you guessed it. Pussies dance, quivering and basking from inside the limelight, which Maria defines as her declaration about, “the requirement to offer space toward cunt, giving exposure for the vagina. Cocks tend to be every-where, they can be noisy, taking on much room… it is vital that you pay attention to the pussy. You’re going to discover another way of lifestyle,” she says.

Lost in talk of punks and cunt, it’s easy to forget the almighty battle Maria is currently embroiled in. “I really wish we allow it to be,” she claims, “because this time, not absolutely all enough time but no less than half it, i have had a great time. I understand it is crazy but to your workplace through your traumas, to understand situations, to have warm men and women close to you,” she states, referring to her family and friends, the woman mummy pottering around the apartment, the woman sweetheart – exactly who came during our movie tests – organizing vegan treats.

“to really show up in yourself,” Maria continues, “and found in committed, never to be-all across location. This presence provides these types of contentment in your body and brain. Sometimes, without cortisol – because cortisol makes me really hyper and also upbeat – but without cortisol, you can find minutes we encounter such happiness, I cannot go,” she claims, as those stunning, sensitive rips complete the girl vision yet again.

Though it’s traditional for GO to recognize individuals by their own final names, we relate to Maria Katsikadakou by the woman known moniker, “Maria” for “Maria Cyber.”