Nino Bolkvadze about civil partnership

I am Nino Bolkvadze, 40 year- old, a lesbian woman living in Georgia.

Generally speaking, It is hard to form a relationship when you have to hide that relationship, it’s completely nearly impossible. You express yourself like any other couple but if you have a same-sex partner, that kind of expression is forbidden.

Imagine that your partner who is not out to their parents has to hide the fact that they’re dating you. It means that you won’t be able to attend holidays celebrated with their family and are important to them. Living together is so risky that it’s almost impossible. You can’t even visit because their mother or father might notice that you’re a partner, not a friend.

I, just like every other person, need to have a loving partner beside me, who will be closest to me, who will know everything about me. LGBT community doesn’t have this luxury in Georgia because some people think that we shouldn’t have same things that they have, that’s a nonsense, right?

I wish that the relationship I’m in right now will be successful and my partner and I will be given an opportunity to live as a family.

Enacting civil partnership will fill the gap that occurred in our legislation after marriage was defined as a union between a man and a woman. Same-sex couples will have an opportunity to visit each other at the hospital, make long-term appointments in prisons, name each other as inheritors, a property that they’ll purchase while living together will be co-owned, they will make decisions concerning each other’s health conditions and so on. Those seem like insignificant details but at the end, those details form our lives.