Terry Grimoire, co-president of the Pilon Association in Reunion.
Terry Grimoire, 30, co-president of the Pilon Association, a Reunion organization created in 2021 to promote the acceptance of LGBT+ people among their families and society, was in Mauritius with a few other members last week. They had discussions with members of the Young Queer Alliance (YQA), Collectif Arc-en-Ciel (CAEC) and Out Moris. As the modus operandi of the Pilon Association is to transmit its messages through events combining festivities and traditions, it and the YQA organized a rainbow picnic last Sunday on the beach of Flic-en- Flac. L’express takes stock of the Association with Terry Grimoire.
How long has the Pilon Association existed?
The Pilon Association, which I co-chair with Robin Rajaonarivelo, was born after the first Pride of 2021.
Were there no other Prides organized previously?
LGBT+ associations had tried to do this but they did not succeed in mobilizing a large number of people. And as they had organized Pride in St-Gilles, a town where there are a large number of French people, the local population did not come. In 2021, Pride, supported by another Reunion association, was organized in St-Denis, capital of Reunion and the Pilon Association was born in this context. This time, nearly 1,500 people responded. We were pleasantly surprised.
Is homophobia present in Reunion?
She is still present in Reunion. There are still LGBT+ Reunion Islanders who left the island and emigrated to be able to live their lives. Homophobia mainly takes the form of insults at school, in the street, not only towards LGBT+ people but also towards their parents, who can be frowned upon. Consequently, some parents who experience it badly try to convert their LGBT+ child to heterosexuality. Many LGBT+ people would have preferred to be heterosexual but they can’t do anything about it because they were born that way.
Why did you choose the name Association Pilon?
Pilon has several meanings in Reunion. Basically, it is the tool used to crush spices in a mortar. The pestle represents Reunionese culture because it is a tradition to offer a pestle to couples who are getting married. We chose this name to show people that LGBT+ people are also from Reunion because there is a discourse wanting to believe that LGBT+ people come from abroad and not from here. Also knowing that in Mauritius and the Seychelles, the word pilon has a negative connotation, as a sign of solidarity with LGBT+ Mauritians and Seychellois, we have opted for the name Pilon Association. In this way we want to say that we are proud to be drumsticks and that we are not ashamed of who we are.
What are the association’s objectives?
We want to ensure that Reunionese families stop rejecting their LGBT+ children. We take all the Reunionese traditions that we adjust to the LGBT+ context to keep the family united. We made this choice because we noticed that when LGBT+ people are rejected by their families, they tend to lose their traditions. We organize events where everyone is welcome and we specify that this includes fathers and mothers of LGBT+ children, siblings, uncles, aunts, grandmothers, etc. When we organize these events, LGBT+ people find the traditions and family context that they have lost.
We organized our first rainbow picnic in 2023 because before, we had been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. If we opted for a picnic, it’s because it’s a tradition in Reunion. On Sunday, almost all families will take a tour of the island and have a picnic on the beach or at a dedicated picnic area. This first rainbow picnic targeting families took place at the picnic area in St-Paul and attracted 70 people. It was a success because the idea was not to have a huge gathering but a picnic with families and more particularly with mothers, who are generally the first supports of their LGBT+ child.
We also organized a Ball, a cultural show where several houses (Editor’s note: historically, a welcoming house for young LGBT+ people rejected by their families and run by an older LGBT+ person who serves as their surrogate parent) come to dance. and compete in battles. Rosemay Ephrem, Miss Mamie of St Denis, was invited as a jury. The message we wanted to convey that day is that you can be a grandmother, be of a certain age and still accept people as they are. Miss Mamie came and agreed to be the godmother of the Pilon Association. This year, we had a second picnic at St-André. Here again, there were 70 of us and we highlighted Reunion culture through dances.
We also organized a Mothers’ Brunch on the occasion of Mother’s Day because we noted that even if the mother accepts her child when he comes out, the dialogue is somewhere broken or is different. Doing this brunch was a way to allow mothers to better understand their LGBT+ child. We try to always keep a family and festive side to our activities because we think that the message of acceptance comes across better that way. During brunch there was a drag queen show and they taught the moms how to slap their fans. We also showed them voguing, a dance inspired by model poses that comes from the LGBT culture of the 1920s. We explained to them the history of LGBT+ people of the time, LGBT+ culture and everything that comes with it.
We also organized a Mothers’ Conference at the University of Reunion where we gave mothers the floor to express their feelings about having an LGBT+ child. We rarely have the opportunity to hear them on the subject. A mother of a transgender child made us realize that having a transgender child for her is like having to go through a grieving process. The mother carried a child of a certain gender in her womb and finally, she must say goodbye to a girl or boy she gave birth to to welcome a child who changes gender and even name. This mother expressed her suffering, her difficulty with acceptance. For us, it was important to see how parents experience it. Of the four mothers who spoke that day, three said they had drawn the strength from their faith to accept their child because love takes precedence over all other considerations. For the fourth mother, the situation was different because she is a lesbian.
This year, we also organized a tour of the rainbow island in a 60-seat yellow coach, which is the public transport in the Réunion region, and we decorated it with the LGBT flag. We made several stops, which is also traditional in Reunion. When we tour the island on Sunday, we stop at several places. It’s another way of telling the people of Reunion to stop rejecting us because we keep our traditions. In each of our activities, we dance the sega and the maloya to show our attachment to our culture and our traditions. We also organized a rainbow party at the university, a student evening with a sega, maloya and other types of dance show, which attracted nearly 600 people. It was very festive. This is how we send our message of acceptance and tolerance. We also organized at this same university an associative village bringing together activist associations for LGBT+ people. As one of our objectives is also to work with similar organizations in the Indian Ocean islands – our populations have practically the same countries of settlement and music, notably Sega, which unites us – our co-president who is Malagasy, organized a festive evening in Madagascar. This evening brought together around fifty people.
How do you finance your activities?
We do this through commercial partnerships. Then, during Pride, we sell rainbow accessories like fans and flags. Some of our activities require payment. We applied for grants from the Réunion region and the city of St-Denis. We are waiting for a response. In terms of prevention, we have also had miniature pill boxes made for HIV-positive people and those following pre-exposure prophylaxis. The pill boxes given in hospitals are too big and impractical. Ours are discreet and practical. We have offered some and the people involved say it changes their lives. We will make others that we will distribute, each year, to university hospitals.
What was the purpose of your stay in Mauritius?
Before coming, we contacted the YQA and the CAEC and decided to do a joint activity, a rainbow picnic in Flic-en-Flac. It was a bring and share. We were around forty LGBT+ people and we had rented a bus. We brought the rainbow flag and picnicked on it and the people on the public beach looked at us like they would look at anyone and went about their lives. We had a great time. The members of the Pilon Association want to come back and do other joint and festive activities with Mauritian organizations. We also want to discuss how we operate and our best practices. It’s important to tell ourselves that we are not alone in this fight for acceptance of LGBT+ people.
How do you measure the impact of your activities on your target audience?
By the return of people who come there. When a mom says she’ll come march with us at the next Pride, it’s a sign. When a mother tells her LGBT+ son that she wants to reconnect with him, that’s another. When mothers declare that they want to become members of the Pilon Association, we realize that we are on the right track. And when dads stand up at the Moms’ Conference to say that they too want to support their child and that they want a Conference for Dads, it’s a sign that our message is getting across.
