Human Rights Watch: Anti-gay laws promote vlence, discrimatn St. Vcent

Contents:

• THE BALKANS – A PLACE WHERE BEG GAY IS NOT OKAY
• FORMER YUGOSLAVIA LBIAN AND GAY RIGHTS NEWS MONORG
• GAY RIGHTS RSIA AND THE FORMER SOVIET REPUBLICS
• ACTIVISTS NMN VLENCE AGAST LGBTQ MUNY ST. VCENT, WHERE GAY SEX IS ILLEGAL
• HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: ANTI-GAY LAWS PROMOTE VLENCE, DISCRIMATN ST. VCENT

THE BALKANS – A PLACE WHERE BEG GAY IS NOT OKAY

Abstract Natnalism has been one of the domtic nstrats to progrs on lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr (LGBT) rights, pecially the Balkans that are alg wh multiple postwar transn reali. Through the lens of genred natnalism, the societal secury dilemma, and polil homophobia, this article analyz how the polics and disurse of LGBT rights durg the past Bosnia reveal tensns between petg and multiple inti and narrativ—European, multiethnic, ethno-natnalist, and relig—g the vlent rponse to the 2008 Queer Sarajevo Ftival as a key illtratn. However, the past , LGBT rights have progrsed and antigay backlash to LGBT visibily ( addn to stronger external leverage and other factors) has rulted stronger activism and change.

She ed to go to shoppg wh my boyiend, my brother is a kd of bodyguard whenever I arrange some gay-iendly parti. He was beaten by five men the middle of his hometown, he got beaten many different towns all over former Yugoslavia where he had attend gay-iendly events, he ed to be spat the streets, he ed to get threats too, but his worst experience were graffis all over his hometown wh his full name, wh a swastika - the emblem of the German Nazi Party, and wh rogatory term for gay populatns. "Another disturbg se was graffi right to my door 'ubij pera' /kill the gay/ when police said wasn't their jurisdictn and swched to munal police; munal police said wasn't their jurisdictn neher sce was the private property and so on.

Although the first gay pri the former Yugoslavia untri took place 2001 /Belgra Serbia and Ljubljana Slovenia/, Bosnia is still the one and only Balkan untry which still didn't manage to anise . As Dennis Altman wrote 1971: “prejudice agast homosexualy as ‘a bourgeois generacy’ beme strongly imbued Communist Parti throughout the world. ” Or as Conor O’Dwyer argued 2013: “munism left a profoundly stctive legacy this sphere, bequeathg a history of state reprsn of gays, lbians, and bisexuals […].

FORMER YUGOSLAVIA LBIAN AND GAY RIGHTS NEWS MONORG

” In my new book, Transnatnal Homosexuals Communist Poland: Cross-Borr Flows Gay and Lbian Magaz, I challenge such imagatns, potg out that one of the key problems behd them is lumpg munist untri together, as if they all adopted a uniform attu towards start, munist Europe had a plited geopolil stcture.

Fally, munist Europe also clud two non-aligned stat: Yugoslavia, which spl up wh the Soviet Unn 1948, and Albania, which ped the Soviet Unn’s patronage Soviet Unn’s ‘antisodomy law’ – which punished same-sex acts between men by up to five years prison wh hard labour – is too often nsired as reprentg how all of munist Europe alt wh homosexualy. In fact, the Bolsheviks, who me to power durg the October Revolutn of 1917, had crimalized male homosexualy already 1922.

GAY RIGHTS RSIA AND THE FORMER SOVIET REPUBLICS

Then, Joseph Stal recrimalized male homosexualy  1933-1934 wh the already mentned punishment of up to five years prison wh hard labour. Fally, Rsia crimalized homosexualy 1993, after the fall of the Soviet Unn 1991, orr to jo the Council of Europe. Other former Soviet republics also crimalized homosexualy only after the breakthrough 1991 or have not yet done so: Ukrae 1991, Estonia and Latvia 1992, Lhuania 1993, Belas 1994, Moldova 1995, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan 1998, Azerbaijan and Geia 2000, Armenia 2003, while the mid-2017, male same-sex acts are still illegal Turkmenistan (up to two years of imprisonment) and Uzbekistan (up to three years of imprisonment), the Soviet Unn did not require uniformy this rpect om s satelle untri.

It was also fluenced by the proment Polish soclogists of that time, Antoni Mikulski and Leon Wachholz, who promoted the terpretatn of homosexualy as nate. Intertgly, many Wtern untri – ually perceived as more progrsive than Central and Eastern European untri – were laggg behd Poland wh rpect to the legal stat of homosexualy. Denmark, for example, crimalized same-sex acts 1933, Swen 1944, England 1967, Canada 1969, Wt Germany 1969, Atria 1971, Fland 1971, Norway 1972, Ireland 1993 and the Uned Stat, often nsired as the prototype of the Wt, fully crimalized homosexualy only 2003, more than seventy years after Poland did satelle untri of the Soviet Unn ually crimalized same-sex acts before the fall of munism Europe: Czechoslovakia and Hungary 1962, Bulgaria and East Germany 1968, the only exceptn beg Romania, which did so 1996.

The suatn was even more plited Yugoslavia, which allowed s different republics to tablish their own laws regardg homosexualy. Other republics ma homosexualy legal only after the llapse of Yugoslavia which started 1991: Serbia 1994, Macedonia 1996 and Bosnia and Herzea 2002. To obta an even more accurate picture, we should also regnize that the 1980s homosexualy was illegal Kosovo but legal Vojvoda, both beg tonomo provc wh the Republic of Serbia, which belonged to Yugoslavia.

ACTIVISTS NMN VLENCE AGAST LGBTQ MUNY ST. VCENT, WHERE GAY SEX IS ILLEGAL

Albania, turn, officially legalized homosexualy 1977, although  realy retaed other laws crimalizg same-sex acts until 1995. In 1948, Romania addnally troduced punishments for public displays of homosexualy (two to five years of rceratn) and 1957, crimalized not only public but also private same-sex acts wh the creased prison time of three to ten years, rced 1968 to one to five years.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: ANTI-GAY LAWS PROMOTE VLENCE, DISCRIMATN ST. VCENT

First attempts at crimalizg homosexualy East Germany were already ma 1952 and 1958, thanks largely to the efforts of psychiatrist Rudolf Klimmer, a closeted homosexual who had also advoted for the official regnn of homosexuals as victims of Nazism.

However, at the same time East Germany implemented a new paragraph which troduced an equaly wh regard to age of nsent: fourteen for heterosexuals and eighteen for homosexuals, both women and men. Moreover, I also dite how that diversy of legal provisns reflected the diversy of state practic and media reprentatns of homosexualy as well as the diversy of velopments of more systematilly anized homosexual groups the regn: one of them, Homeros Lambda Hungary, was fact officially regnized by a munist state March other words, spe the strong polil, enomic and ary alliance between Eastern Bloc untri, they did not adopt a uniform posn towards homosexualy.

Some of them crimalized same-sex acts and persecuted homosexuals throughout the Cold War, as did some Wtern untri at the same time.