Nice to know: Before he surrendered to male love, D66 senator Boris Dittrich was with a woman during his college days. For five years. Who was she? Kathleen Ferrier. Former CDA Member of Parliament. They have always remained friends. It can be read in his autobiographical book Mandate, which will be presented on Saturday afternoon in the Amsterdam bookshop Scheltema. In it he describes how he learned to accept his homosexuality.
That didn’t happen by itself. His sister turned out to be a lesbian, after which his parents had placed all their hopes on Boris, he would give them a daughter-in-law and grandchildren. When he, too, came out, the turnips were cooked. But it all worked out, in the end his mother even regarded Dittrich’s husband as a second son.
‘If Daniels walks hand in hand with his friend in Qatar, they will arrest him’
This week also reflected on the fact that the WHO only removed homosexuality from the list of mental illness on 17 May 1990, and this week British professional football player Jake Daniels came out. A milestone. But, says Dittrich (66), who has been defending LGBTQ+ people for half his life: “If Daniels wants to arrange a hotel room with his friend at the World Cup in Qatar, he can forget that. And when they start walking hand in hand in the capital Doha, they are arrested. Qatar is one of 11 countries in the world where homosexuality is punishable by death.”
Also read:
Boris Dittrich: ‘When I came out, my mother asked: what have we done wrong?’
Writer Erik Jan Harmens will travel this summer with famous Dutch and Belgians to the place where they grew up. What’s left of the past? Today: back to Utrecht with writer and politician Boris Dittrich.
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