Eastern Europe was once a world lear on gay rights. Then ran out of spegoats | CNN

Contents:

• 9 MOST GAY-FRIENDLY COUNTRI IN EUROPE
• GAY LIFE BERL IS STARTG TO ECHO A DARKER ERA
• EASTERN EUROPE WAS ONCE A WORLD LEAR ON GAY RIGHTS. THEN RAN OUT OF SPEGOATS
• A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
• GAY EUROPE TRAVEL GUI
• EUROPE’S EPENG DIVI ON GAY RIGHTS
• BETWEEN WORLD WARS, GAY CULTURE FLOURISHED IN BERL

9 MOST GAY-FRIENDLY COUNTRI IN EUROPE

The term “homosexualy, ” while sometim nsired anachronistic the current era, is the most applible and easily translatable term to e when askg this qutn across societi and languag and has been ed other cross-natnal studi, cludg the World Valu Survey. Dpe major chang laws and norms surroundg the issue of same-sex marriage and the rights of LGBT people around the world, public opn on the acceptance of homosexualy society remas sharply divid by untry, regn and enomic velopment. However, while took nearly 15 years for acceptance to rise 13 pots om 2000 to jt before the feral legalizatn of gay marriage June 2015, there was a near equal rise acceptance jt the four years sce legalizatn.

In South Korea, for example, those who classify themselv on the iologil left are more than twice as likely to say homosexualy is acceptable than those on the iologil right (a 39-percentage-pot difference). And Poland, supporters of the erng PiS (Law and Jtice), which has explicly targeted gay rights as anathema to tradnal Polish valu, are 23 percentage pots ls likely to say that homosexualy should be accepted by society than those who do not support the erng party. But even untri like France and Germany where acceptance of homosexualy is high, there are differenc between supporters and non-supporters of key right-wg populist parti such as Natnal Rally France and Alternative for Germany (AfD).

GAY LIFE BERL IS STARTG TO ECHO A DARKER ERA

In 25 of the 34 untri surveyed, those who say relign is “somewhat, ” “not too” or “not at all” important their liv are more likely to say that homosexualy should be accepted than those who say relign is “very” important.

EASTERN EUROPE WAS ONCE A WORLD LEAR ON GAY RIGHTS. THEN RAN OUT OF SPEGOATS

“There’s been a gay bar of some kd at this addrs for more than 100 years, ” Nash, an energetic 54-year-old, explaed to a walkg tour he was leadg as he gtured enthiastilly at a neon sign outsi, which featured ttle wh large nose rgs.

But LGBT-rights groups have warned of a parallel rise of vlent homophobia mastream the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party stormed to the Bunstag last year, s policians have lled for homosexuals to be imprisoned, vowed to repeal gay marriage, and nounced those sufferg om HIV. They are also remrs of Germany’s fascist past and, rights groups worry, signs of dangero future clamp-downs on vulnerable is a powerfully queer place—gay culture, polics, activism, clubs, and sex reverberate through the cy. But “Germany is not the shy, progrsive untry wish to be portrayed as, ” says Katr Hugendubel, the advocy director of the Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associatn Europe (ILGA-Europe), which reprents more than 1, 000 LGBT 1918, when Bull’s precsor first opened, Weimar-era Germany was embarkg on a sndalo .

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Berl’s reputatn for wild immoraly and s unually liberal law enforcement, by ntrast, helped turn the cy to Europe’s undisputed gay the 1920s, Berl was home to an timated 85, 000 lbians, a thrivg gay-media scene, and around 100 LGBT bars and clubs, where artists and wrers mixed wh cross-drsg ll girls who supposedly spired the Some Like It Hot director Billy Wilr. For the past eight years, he has transported tourists and earnt genr-theory stunts back time to search for the ghosts of their pneerg hero, as part of his popular LGBT walkg tour around Wt Berl’s “gayborhood” of Schö lately, the tour has taken on a different meang.

GAY EUROPE TRAVEL GUI

Cricized the AfD reprentative Hans-Thomas Tillschneir for a Facebook post that echoed Nazi-era propaganda agast homosexuals by claimg that HIV sufferers were “martyrs of a dishibed, hedonistic, hypersexualized society. ” The party even has a vol LGBT group lled “Alternative Homosexuals” that oppos qutned about her ments, Weil has blamed the media for spreadg “propaganda” and sisted to Der Tagspiegel, a German newspaper: “I’m beg creded wh beg volved a supposedly homophobic party, but that's not the realy.

Hungary’s hardle natnalist ernment passed a new law earlier this month banng ntent that “promot” homosexualy and genr change om beg shared wh children, effectively prohibg any discsn of LGBTQ them schools. “There’s a real regrsn happeng many different untri, and rights that had been regnized are now beg challenged, ” said Evelyne Paradis, the executive director of the European branch of the Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associatn (ILGA-Europe).

“You have plac like Germany, France, Spa where 85% or more say that homosexualy should be accepted by society and then once you’re past the dividg le, on the other si of the former Iron Curta, those numbers beg to fall pretty rapidly and then get even lower as you go to Rsia, ” he said. “When you look at the former Eastern bloc, the untri had a long tradn of really progrsive legislatn towards LGBTQ rights, Poland for stance crimalized homosexualy 1932, which is really, really early, ” Kościańska said. However, throughout 150 years of homosexual social movements (roughly om the 1870s to today), lears and anizers stggled to addrs the very different ncerns and inty issu of gay men, women intifyg as lbians, and others intifyg as genr variant or nonbary.

EUROPE’S EPENG DIVI ON GAY RIGHTS

Such eyewns acunts the era before other media were of urse riddled wh the bias of the (often) Wtern or Whe observer, and add to beliefs that homosexual practic were other, foreign, savage, a medil issue, or evince of a lower racial hierarchy.

The European powers enforced their own crimal s agast what was lled sodomy the New World: the first known se of homosexual activy receivg a ath sentence North Ameri occurred 1566, when the Spanish executed a Frenchman Florida. Biblil terpretatn ma illegal for a woman to wear pants or a man to adopt female drs, and sensatnalized public trials warned agast “viants” but also ma such martyrs and hero popular: Joan of Arc is one example, and the chillg origs of the word “faggot” clu a stick of wood ed public burngs of gay men.

” In Wtern history, we fd ltle formal study of what was later lled homosexualy before the 19th century, beyond medil texts intifyg women wh large cloris as “tribas” and severe punishment s for male homosexual acts. Their wrgs were sympathetic to the ncept of a homosexual or bisexual orientatn occurrg naturally an intifiable segment of humankd, but the wrgs of Krafft-Ebg and Ellis also labeled a “third sex” generate and abnormal. The blu mic of Ain-Amerin women showsed varieti of lbian sire, stggle, and humor; the performanc, along wh male and female drag stars, troduced a gay unrworld to straight patrons durg Prohibn’s fiance of race and sex s speakeasy clubs.

BETWEEN WORLD WARS, GAY CULTURE FLOURISHED IN BERL

This creasg awarens of an existg and vulnerable populatn, upled wh Senator Joseph McCarthy’s vtigatn of homosexuals holdg ernment jobs durg the early 1950s outraged wrers and feral employe whose own liv were shown to be send-class unr the law, cludg Frank Kameny, Barbara Gtgs, Allen Gsberg, and Harry Hay.

Awarens of a burgeong civil rights movement (Mart Luther Kg’s key anizer Bayard Rt was a gay man) led to the first Amerin-based polil mands for fair treatment of gays and lbians mental health, public policy, and employment. Studi such as Aled Ksey’s 1947 Ksey Report suggted a far greater range of homosexual inti and behavrs than prevly unrstood, wh Ksey creatg a “sle” or spectm rangg om plete heterosexual to plete homosexual.