The Open Final of the Europe Queer Open 2020 was won by I Feel Love (Robert Raos, Simon Luo), speaking against Brave (Adam Lambert, Jamie Clayton) in Opening Government, I Will Survive (Jeffrey Huang Ma, Zuha Tanweer), and Born This Way (Lena Kolle, Rachel Homnick). They spoke on the motion “This House Prefers Utilitarianism to Deontology.” The Final was chaired by Lucie Slamova. Judging with them were Dominique Jackson, Katherine Harris, Parth Pandya, and Rhys Steele.

The Pro Am Final was won by I’m Coming Out (Hannah Gadsby, Daniela Williams) in Closing Government, speaking against Over the Rainbow (Michael Conway, Steward Johnson) in Opening Government, Vogue (Aleks Bell, Rebecca Harrigan), and Come to My Window (Marika Khuchua, Minh Chau Hoang). They spoke on the motion that “This House Would Prefer a World with the Inside-Out Reader.” Chairing the Pro Am Final was Katherine Harris with a panel of Freddie Mercury, Imogen Edwards-Lawrence, Parth Pandya, and Sowmya Srinivasan

The Break:

1. Bohemian Rhapsody (Oskar Sherry, Sam Smith), 17 points; withdrew from break
2. Freedom ’90 (George Filippopoulos, Jamie Beverstock). 12 points
3. Brave (Adam Lambert, Jamie Clayton) , 12 points
4. I Feel Love (Simon Luo, Robert Raos), 12 points; Pro Am
5. Raise Your Glass (Stephan Loor, Fabian Beitsma), 12 points
6.  I Will Survive (Jeffrey Huang Ma, Zuha Tanweer), 12 points; Pro Am
7. People Like Us (Lady Gaga, Laverne Cox), 11 points
8. Mercury is in Retrograde (Prashasti Saxena, Marius Buga), 10 points; Pro Am
9. Born This Way (Lena Kolle, Rachel Homnick), 10 points

The Pro Am Break:

1. I’m Coming Out (Hannah Gadsby, Daniela Williams), 8 points
2. Come to My Window (Marika Khuchua, Minh Chau Hoang)
3. Over the Rainbow (Michael Conway, Steward Johnson)
4. Vogue (Aleks Bell, Rebecca Harrigan), 7 points

Speaker Awards:
1. Oskar Sherry, Bohemian Rhapsody, 81.17 avg spks; 487 total spks
2. Sam Smith, Bohemian Rhapsody, 80.33 avg spks, 482 total spks
3. Jamie Beverstock, Freedom ’90, 79.5 avg spks, 477 total spks
4. George Filippopoulos, Freedom ’90, 78.83 avg spks, 473 total spks
5. Adam Lambert, Brave, 78.33 avg spks, 470 total spks
6. Lady Gaga, People Like Us, 78 avg spks, 468 total spks
7. Jamie Clayton, Brave, 77.83 avg spks, 467 total spks
8. Fabian Beitsma, Raise Your Glass, 77.67 avg spks, 466 total spks
9. Laverne Cox, People Like Us, 77.50 avg spks, 465 total spks
9. Robert Raos, I Feel Love, 77.50 avg spks, 465 total spks
9. Marius Buga, Mercury is Retrograde, 77.50 avg spks, 465 total spks

Novice Speaker Awards:
1. Laverne Cox, People Like Us, 77.50 avg spks, 465 total spks
1. Marius Buga, Mercury is Retrograde, 77.50 avg spks, 465 total spks
3. Simon Luo, I Feel Love, 76.83 avg spks, 461 total spks

ESL Speaker Awards:
1. Fabian Beitsma, Raise Your Glass, 77.67 avg spks, 466 total spks
2. Robert Raos, I Feel Love, 77.50 avg spks, 465 total spks
3. Lena Kolle, Born This Way, 77.33 avg spks, 464 total spks

The Europe Queer Open, hosted on September 26th and 27th by Josh Kemp, included 28 teams and had 6 preliminary rounds, breaking to semifinals and a pro am final. The Adjudication Core included Ashish Kumar, Imogen Edwards-Lawrence, Rhys Steele, Olja Bosnjak, and Hadar Goldberg. The Deputy Adjudicators were Sowmya Srinivasan and Julie Nyerges. Leo Yung & Máté Balassa ran tab.

“Queer Forum III: Return of the Queers” was run the evening of the 26th, moderated by Robyn Lawrence and including Lucía Arce, Oskar Sherry, and Julia Yaegashi.

Motions:

R1: THBT individuals with same-sex attraction who are open about their sexual orientation should be reluctant to date closeted individuals

R2: THW ban investors from suing countries on the grounds of indirect expropriation

R3: Infoslide: You have come across a philosopher’s stone that, when touched, will give you permanent insight into the political truth about the world. This includes but is not limited to knowledge about all “”shadow rulers””, the truth about all conspiracy theories, power relations in the world, and so on. All information on a given political topic comes by association when said topic is brought to one’s attention (e.g. by a news report, actively choosing to think about a topic). Only you can touch the stone

Motion: THW touch the stone

R4: THO the glorification of self-reliance in creating narratives of success

R5: THBT in countries where the LGBT+ movement has secured significant gains for its community, pride marches should focus on directing anger towards continuing injustices rather than celebrating progress already made.

R6: Infoslide: Pay-for-success funding is a model of funding social projects in which a government agency allocates funding to a social project to be paid to investors only upon the achievement of a specified goal within a pre-alloted time frame. The finance to cover the costs of achieving that outcome is provided by the independent investors. In return for accepting the risks entailed in directly funding the project, these investors typically make a profit if the project is successful.

Motion: THP the use of Pay-for-Success funding for charitable programmes to the use of direct government funding

SF: THR the prominence of declaring one’s sexual orientation (EG national coming out Day) as a tactic for acceptance by the LGBT community

NF: The Inside-Out-Reader is a database of emotions which is freely accessible to the public. Using this database, everyone can look up any individuals’ current emotional states on various emotional scales (e.g., Happiness, Fear), but not the cause of the emotion. The Inside-Out-Reader is objective and absolute, so that a ‘7’ on one person’s emotional scale is equivalent to a ‘7’ on that same scale for any other person. The Inside-Out-Reader doesn’t store any information about past feelings – only the emotions a person experiences at that exact moment are tracked. To look up an individual on the Inside-Out-Reader, one needs identifiable information to find them (e.g., their full name or I.D.)

Motion: THP a world with the Inside Out Reader.

Final: Infoslide: Deontology refers to a family of normative ethical theories that state that the morality of an action depends on whether that action is intrinsically right or wrong under a set of rules, rather than the consequences of the action. Utilitarianism is the ethical theory that the morality of an action is determined by how well it serves to maximize happiness.

Motion: THP utilitarianism to deontology