Becoming more and more European: nationhood, Europe, and same-Sex sexualities in the life stories of Lithuanian LGBQ people

ABSTRACT

I discuss Lithuanian LGBQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer) people’s views on belonging to the West/EUrope. I will argue that the research participants’ age group, location of residence, their (not)involvement with LGBTQ+ leisure culture and/or their migrant status made a significant impact towards forming their subjective sense of (not) belonging to the West, when they discussed their personal experiences of spending time abroad. When belonging to the West/EUrope was discussed against the backdrop of national belonging, the research participants syncretised the elements of the dominant nationalistic narrative, and the Rainbow Europe narrative in order to homosexualise the national canon and to construct an accommodating version of Lithuania as the Rainbow Nation.

KEYWORDS:

• Europeanisation
• LGBQ
• belonging
• nationalism
• life stories
• discourse

Introduction

The aim of this article is to discuss Lithuanian lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer (LGBQ) peoples’ views on belonging to EUrope (otherwise called Europeanisation) from personal and national¹ perspectives. In this article I employ a definition of Europeanisation (which is sometimes coined as subjective Europeanisation (Mau and Verwiebe 2010) or cognitive Europeanisation (Lahusen and Kiess 2019)) which refers to Europeanisation as ‘thinking of oneself and one’s country as a member of Europe’ (Ibid.), in other words it refers to views on belonging to Europe.

Throughout the analysis I ask the following questions: What does it mean for Lithuanian LGBQ people to be European and to belong to Europe? How do Lithuanian LGBQ people position their national, European, and sexual belongings, and why in such a way? What effect, if any, do the particular meanings of Europe have in their everyday contexts?

There are several reasons to address these questions. First, defining LGBTQ+ rights and liberties as core European values and branding EU as Rainbow Europe (Ayoub and Paternotte 2014) incited discussions aimed at re-evaluating belonging to the EUropean community, particularly in CEE (Central and Eastern Europe) region (Graff and Korolczuk 2021). However, CEE non-heterosexual people’s perspectives towards EUrope are rarely discussed in scholarly literature (with a notable exception of Szulz 2022). Second, the same-sex sexualities and national belonging outside of the West are often discussed in terms of othering and exclusion (Bilic 2016; Kahlina 2015). In this article, in contrast, I will discuss how and why the discursive construction of Rainbow Europe contributes to Lithuanian LGBQ² people’s national belonging. First, I will introduce the method of data analysis, and the research participants. Second, I will discuss the theoretical framework. I will then outline the argument in the following order: first, I will discuss the research participants’ subjective feelings of belonging to the West/EUrope (the terms were used interchangeably) while spending time abroad. Then I will introduce the discursive construct which I will call a Rainbow Nation. I will argue that a Rainbow Nation is a discursive construct which helps the research participants to strengthen the bonds between themselves and their national community. In the following sections I will discuss how the dominant nationalistic narrative and the narrative of Rainbow Europe are selectively employed to define insiders, outsiders, and strangers of the Rainbow Nation. Finally, I will conclude that in my research context belonging to EUrope (i.e. becoming EUropean) when approached against the backdrop of nation belonging is used instrumentally to legitimise LGBQ people’s belonging to the nation.

Methods and research participants

The data I discuss in this article come from a PhD thesis which includes 40 face-to-face interviews with Lithuanian LGBQ people living in Lithuania. Participants were recruited by a participant call sent out to various online LGBTQ+ groups, and by snowballing. The research participants were asked to confirm that they identify as non-heterosexual. The interview data used in this article comes from the larger project, which addressed the particularities of cis-gendered same-sex (in)visibilities, therefore no trans men, women, or gender diverse people were interviewed. In the context of this article, it is considered as a limitation of analysis. The interviews were conducted between 2020–2022. At the time of the interviews 29 interviewees lived in a city, 11 in provincial towns. 19 interviewees were in their 30s, 10 were in their 40s, 6 – in their 20s, and 5 were over 50 years old. 21 interviewees were women, and 19 – men. All research participants were native Lithuanian speakers. When quoting interview excerpts, I use a letter-code which I designed to identify the interviewees. The letters do not relate in any way to the interviewees’ personal data. The interviews were conducted in places chosen by the interviewees, usually at their homes, parks, or cafes, and lasted from 45 minutes to 3 hours. The interviewees received no compensation for their participation in the research. I analysed the data using original transcripts and then translated relevant quotes into English.

The interviews were semi-structured, and the discussed topics included personal experiences of one’s sexuality, sexual self-identification, factors that informed their decisions to disclose or withhold their sexualities from others, and various modes of disclosure and concealment of their sexualities. The topics of EU, Europe, national identity, nation, and ethnicity were not included in the interview topic guide and the participants were not prompted to discuss them. However, the topics were brought up to a varying extent by all research participants when they were discussing their motives to reveal or conceal their sexualities, when they were giving opinions about homophobia, or when they were asked to evaluate their life experiences. In the article I quote the excerpts that discuss these views in the most elaborate manner.

I used Laclau and Mouffe’s (2001) rendering of discourse (The Discourse Theory) to analyse the meaning of EUrope, the nation, and belonging to both in the narratives of Lithuanian LGBQ people. The discourse in this context is understood as ‘a medium through which (…) the material world is given meaning’ (Wennerstein, cited in Mole 2012, 10). Throughout my analysis I inquired which discursive structures informed the meanings of ‘EUrope’ and ‘nation’, how they were (re)articulated in the narratives of the research participants, and for what reasons they were (re)articulated in one or another way. The Discourse Theory maintains that (partial) stabilisation of meanings within a unified discursive field is achieved by marking its limits with a ‘constitutive outside’ i.e. a discursive construct that threatens the existence of a particular discourse (Mole 2012). Throughout my analysis I was inquiring what ‘constitutive outside’ sustains the articulated meanings of ‘EUrope’ and ‘nation’ within the analysed narratives. My analysis has shown, as I will argue in the following sections, that the meanings of EUrope within the narratives were tied to the discursive construct of progress and modernisation and it was sustained by the discursive construct of stasis articulated through the concepts of Soviet and Russian.

According to the Discourse Theory, various concepts (e.g. EUrope, Soviet) are endowed with meanings by employing the logic of equivalence and difference. In other words, ‘the differences cancel each other out insofar as they are used to express something identical underlying them all’ and they can only be expressed through the ‘common reference to something external’ (Laclau and Mouffe 2001, 125). Therefore, I analysed interview excerpts which included discussion of Europe, EU, West, as these terms were used interchangeably, and they all conveyed the underlying idea of progress. I also analysed interview excerpts which included a discussion of USSR, Soviet, Russia, and the Russian speakers, as they all conveyed the underlying idea of stasis. Finally, the Discourse Theory maintains that discursive formations are not merely linguistic, but they manifest in institutional practices, customs, rituals, everyday habits, and activities. In this article I will demonstrate how particular discursively constructed meanings translate into lived experiences of Lithuanian LGBQ people.

Two modes of belonging

Feeling at home: subjective sense of belonging

I will analyse belonging to EUrope and nation by using Yuval-Davis’s (1997, 2006) theorisation of belonging as subjective feelings and/or boundary making. Within this theoretical framework

belonging to groups and collectives (such as EUrope or a nation) can be expressed in two distinct ways: by subjective feelings of comfort and ‘feeling at home’ or by referring to boundaries between the collectives and clearly defining members of the collectives and the outsiders, which is defined as politics of belonging (Yuval-Davis 2006). The subjective feelings of belonging develop in relation to personal and social factors such as an individual’s social location, individual (self-)identifications or emotional attachments, and their ethical and political value systems (Yuval-Davis 2006). An individual’s social location in this context is understood as one’s social position comprised of simultaneous belonging to multiple groups, categories and/or collectives which cannot be reduced to each other (Yuval-Davis 2006). For example, being ‘gay’ in Lithuania or in the UK, a hundred years ago, or now, in a metropolitan city or a conservative village, while being under-aged or elderly, carries different entitlements, obligations, and limitations, hence the sum of positionalities places any individual in a particular social location.

It is argued that transborder activities and meeting people from EUropean nations facilitate a sense of belonging to Europe (Bruter 2004; Fligstein 2008). Individuals who participate in transborder activities such as travelling or working in multiple EU states ‘do not have just national identities but come to see themselves as Europeans’ (Fligstein 2008, 2). Since the image of EU as a Rainbow Europe has been prominent in the last decade, similar idea is expressed in the context of LGBTQ+ cross-border activities (Eleftheriadis 2014; Binnie and Klesse 2014). Indeed, self-identification with EUrope could be the only viable option for LGBTQ+ people from the CEE region, as the dominant nationalistic narratives of belonging exclude non-heterosexual sexualities (Szulz 2022). On the other hand, developing a sense of belonging in newly encountered contexts can be problematic if the new experiences do not resonate with one’s already developed personal and collective identifications and a social location (Yuval-Davis 1997; Stella and Gawlewicz 2021). Certain positionalities that comprise a social location can become more salient than others in developing a sense of belonging. I will argue that within my research context positionalities informed by the research participants’ employment and education, their age, and their (not)involvement with LGBTQ+ leisure culture made a significant impact towards forming the research participants’ subjective sense of (not) belonging to the West.

Establishing and maintaining boundaries: politics of belonging

Politics of belonging is another mode of belonging which is expressed by establishing and maintaining boundaries between the collectives and clearly defining members of the collectives and the outsiders (often referred as ‘others’) (Yuval-Davis 2006). However, the meanings attached to particular collectives (such as ‘the nation’ or EUrope), and the boundaries that delineate them are socially constructed, contested and situated in specific historical contexts by groups who have access to ideological apparatuses (e.g. EU as an economic union or as a community of values; Lithuania as a Soviet Republic or as an independent democratic state) (Yuval-Davis 1997). The rendition of the EU as Rainbow Europe i.e. as a LGBTQ+ friendly space (Ayoub and Paternotte 2014) may offer a protective belonging to Europe for CEE LGBTQ+ people due to its affirmation of LGBTQ+ rights (Szulz 2022). At the same time it may render EUropean belonging ‘uncanny’ in the CEE national contexts, due to the lack of LGBTQ+ rights (Ibid.). The image of western Europe as inherently LGBTQ+ friendly may render the CEE nations as perpetually lagging behind the ‘true’ EUrope and never fully belonging to it (Mizielinska and Kulpa 2011; Arat-Koç 2010). At the same time European homonationalist logic (i.e. seeing LGBTQ+ rights as a benchmark of EUropean modernity) (Colpani and Habed 2014; Kahlina 2015) may be used to draw boundaries between the CEE region and its Eastern neighbours to render the former as more ‘western’ (hence, more EUropean) than the latter (Arat-Koç 2010).

Different politics of belonging produce different versions of the collective past, explanations of present, and projects for the future. While political elites are often considered the main actors in promoting nationalistic projects (including the nationalistic projects that involve belonging to EUrope (Subotic 2011; Fassin 2010) differently positioned social groups within the same nation may use the same cultural and symbolic resources to promote different nationalistic projects (i.e. models of the nation) (Yuval-Davis 1997). Differently positioned individuals select and combine various versions of the collective past, explanations of present, and projects for the future offered by competing or complimentary politics of belonging (Martin 1995). However, certain versions of the collective past, present, and future resonate with subjective individual or collective experiences more than others (Yuval-Davis 1997), because they offer the frameworks for the individuals or collectives to make sense of their personal experiences, of their collectives, and the world (Ibid.). In other words, the politics of belonging provide an array of potential configurations of belonging for differently positioned individuals. To understand the dynamics of various configurations of belonging, we need to approach different politics of belonging as a contested heterogeneous and contradictory resource.

In this article I will argue that the politics of belonging that are reflected in Lithuanian LGBQ people’s narratives is constructed by combining the elements of the dominant nationalistic narrative, and the narrative of Rainbow Europe. The combination helps the participants to ‘homosexualise the national canon’ (Kulpa 2011, 48), i.e. to construct an accommodating version of Lithuania as a ‘Rainbow Nation’), and to rebuild the connection between themselves and their national community.

Rainbow Europe and (not) feeling at home in the West

In this section I will discuss belonging to EUrope in terms of subjective feelings of belonging or ‘feeling at home’. In this respect belonging to Europe is often attributed to transborder activities and interactions with people from EUropean nations (Bruter 2004; Fligstein 2008). In addition, identification with shared values and policies protecting these values are thought to encourage the development of a sense of belonging (Bruter 2004). One could assume, that in the context of LGBTQ+ people’s subjective feelings of belonging, the image of western Europe as LGBTQ+ friendly could help to facilitate. belonging. This could be particularly relevant for LGBTQ+ people who come from the CEE region, as the dominant nationalistic narratives of belonging exclude non-heterosexual sexualities (Szulz 2022; Mole 2016).

However, those LGBQ Lithuanians who lived, worked, or visited the ‘old Europe’ (Case 2009) and had an opportunity to become more familiar with LGBTQ+ cultures, did not reflect on their experiences as formative in developing a sense of belonging to Europe. Despite the research participants’ self-identifications as LGBQ, the narrative of Rainbow Europe did not facilitate the feelings of belonging to the LGBTQ+ friendly West. On the contrary, other aspects of their social location (Yuval-Davis 2006) such as their age group, location of residence, or a migrant status, but not their sexual self-identifications were more prominent, and a sense of not belonging was emphasised.

A 32-year-old lesbian woman who lives in Vilnius, but spent several years in the UK, focused on her working-class migrant positionality, and not her sexual self-identification when she recounted her experiences abroad.

R:

You have mentioned that you lived abroad.

IV:

I went to UK after my BA studies. (…)First I went to Liverpool, because I had a friend there.(…) I did not like it (…)because I found it very racist and xenophobic. A lot of Poles live there, and they often get [beaten up]. I was working in a factory, and it was very difficult to find a better job there.(…) And London (…) was too big for me. (…) There were some nice things there, but I did not like the constant rush, the crowds, and the low quality of life.

The perceived sense of hostility towards migrants, lack of career opportunities, and general discontent with ‘the city life’ informed IV’s sense of non-belonging and encouraged her to come back to Lithuania. IV’s decision could be partly interpreted as a lifestyle migration (Saar and Saar 2019), i.e. migration informed by the concerns related to the quality of life. Indeed, when reflecting on her current life in Lithuania, she described it as ‘ideal’, because she ‘live[d] only 30 minutes away from work (at the time of the interview she worked for an IT company) and all [her] friends live[d] nearby, so [she could] see them any time’. While East European LGBTQ+ migrants often find western European countries more accepting of their sexualities and for that reason they choose to stay there (Szulz 2022), the motives of LGBTQ+ people who choose to return to the less LGBTQ+ friendly native countries are under-researched, and need more scholarly attention.

An intersectional positionality informed by an age-group and geographic location made a 50-year-old bisexual woman from a provincial town feel inadequate and threatened by LGBTQ+ venues abroad, which prevented her from visiting them.

R:

Why do you feel uncomfortable?

RJ:

I am not sure. Sometimes I think that I am too old. Sometimes I think that I am too provincial, and I will not know how to behave there [i.e. in LGBTQ+ venues abroad]. All the stupid insecurities act up. (…) I just feel uncomfortable. I think, oh gosh, I will look so stupid there.

LGBTQ+ venues and symbols such as Rainbow flags and gay bars that are thought to foster a pan-European LGBTQ+ culture (Baker 2017) are not important to a 46-year-old gay man from a provincial town, as he does not associate his sexual self-identification with spending time at LGBTQ+ events and venues.

R:

What do you think about LGBTQ+ events and venues in Lithuania?

DS:

I’ve been to Soho [i.e. a gay bar in Vilnius] a couple of times. (…) But I am not fond of it. If I want to dance, I can dance in any bar. The music there is too loud and being able to talk to people is important to me.

As DS did not feel part of the Lithuanian LGBTQ+ bar culture, he did not feel connected to similar environments abroad.

R:

Have you ever been to a Pride?

DS:

I saw a Pride Parade in Antwerp and in London. We went to London with my boyfriend and we did not even know that it was a Pride time. We bumped into it [laughs] (…) The one in London [had too many] banners with companies advertising that they were tolerant. The one in Antwerp was more joyful, more festive. I got bored in London. (…) We [also] went to a gay club in Berlin. (…) My boyfriend was pickpocketed there.

While East European LGBTQ+ migrants often find western European countries more accepting of their sexualities and for that reason choose to stay there (Szulz 2022), my research participants, who visited western Europe for work or leisure, or those decided to come back after living abroad did not bring up the topic of pro-LGBTQ+ rights and societal attitudes when discussing the (not)belonging to EUrope. The discussed experiences show that transborder activities and interactions with citizens of other EU states do not automatically result in belonging to Europe, (Bruter 2004; Fligstein 2008) nor does the public support of pro-LGBTQ+ values. If the newly encountered situations do not resonate with multiple positionalities that differently positioned individuals have (Yuval-Davis 1997; Stella and Gawlewicz 2021), a sense of alienation rather than belonging is prominent. Furthermore, the discussed experiences show that certain social positionings play a more important role in developing a sense of belonging than others (Yuval-Davis 1997). In this case, the research participants’ sexual self-identification was less prominent than their age, location of residence, or class in forming the experiences of belonging in the LGBTQ+ friendly western EU states.

Europe and the politics of belonging to the nation

In the previous section I discussed the Lithuanian LGBQ people’s subjective feelings of belonging to western Europe while spending time abroad. In the rest of the article, I will discuss Lithuanian LGBQ people’s belonging to EUrope against the backdrop of belonging to the nation. I will argue that belonging to EUrope, when it is discussed in relation to the nation is expressed by selectively employing the dominant nationalistic narrative, and the narrative of Rainbow Europe to establish and maintain boundaries of the collectivity of belonging (Yuval-Davis 1997). In this context I will call the collectivity of belonging a Rainbow Nation. In the following section first I will introduce the construct of Rainbow Nation and argue that it is a discursively constructed imagined (national) community (Anderson 1983) which helps to rebuild the research participants’ national identities and strengthen bonds between themselves and their nation. Second, I will discuss how the narrative of Rainbow Europe is employed to define the Rainbow Nation. Third, I will discuss how the elements of the dominant nationalistic narrative are employed to define the outsiders and strangers of the Rainbow Nation. Finally, I will conclude that in my research context, belonging to EUrope when approached from the national perspective is instrumentally used by the research participants to legitimise national belonging of LGBQ people.

What is the Rainbow Nation?

In this section I introduce and outline the discursive construct of the Rainbow Nation, i.e. the discursively constructed image of LGBTQ+ friendly Lithuania which is present in the research participants’ narratives. The aim of this section is to give an overview of how the boundaries, the insiders, and the outsiders of the Rainbow Nation are discursively constructed. The more detailed analysis supported by interview data will be discussed in the following sections.

Belonging to EUrope when addressed in relation to national communities can be broadly approached from two perspectives. The first perspective encompasses processes where national and European belonging coexist, i.e. individuals self-identify to a varying degree as members of EUropean as well as of the national community (Scalise 2015). In this case Europe is imagined as a shared space, and it is often defined in rather broad and abstract terms such as cosmopolitanism, co-operation, free-movement, and/or democracy (Fligstein 2008). National belonging in this case is expressed through more precisely defined characteristics such as language or customs (Ibid.). In other words, Europe is imagined as a supranational entity which accommodates diversity which is expressed as national characteristics, i.e. one can feel Dutch, English or Latvian (while adhering to historical and cultural aspects of the particular national belonging) and at the same time European (while adhering to broader, more abstract characteristics of it).

Another perspective to approach the dynamics between belonging to EUrope and the nation refers to the processes where diverse discursive constructions of EUrope fortify specific politics of national belonging. In this case Europe is imagined in clearly defined, specific terms which are developed with reference to specific nationalist narratives (such as laïcite in French context (Fassin 2010)). These specific characteristics are posed as quintessentially EUropean in order to promote and legitimise specific nationalistic projects (Ibid.). While both approaches to Europe can create various internal and external outsiders (e.g. ‘non-European’ migrants, or lagging-behind EU states, Szulz 2022; Kuus 2004) who do not fit a particular construction of Europeanness, the first one offers a broader meaning of EUrope and thus provide more ways to form a belonging to it. The first approach accommodates an imagine of Italy and Sweden as both European, but one more religious than the other. The second approach, in contrast, offers much narrower meanings of EUrope, which are closely tied to a particular national context, such as secularism in French and Duch contexts (Fassin 2010; Mepschen, Duyvendak, and Tonkens 2010), or as I will argue later, the Russian ethnicity in a Lithuanian context. When approached from the second perspective, EUrope loses its meaning as a shared space, and becomes merely a rhetorical tool to promote nationalistic projects which vary from country to country (Colpani and Habed 2014). I will argue that in my research context the second approach towards belonging to EUrope is salient in the research participants’ accounts of LGBTQ+ friendly Lithuania. In other words, I will argue that the research participants attempt to discursively construct a new version of an LGBTQ+ friendly Lithuania by applying an image of EUrope which was constructed by the dominant Lithuanian nationalist discourses that render Russian ethnicity as essentially anti-European and anti-LGBTQ+.

In this context national belonging is expressed by a discursive construction of the Rainbow Nation, which is an alternative model of the LGBTQ+ friendly Lithuania. The Rainbow Nation is discursively constructed by integrating discursive elements of the dominant nationalistic narratives and a rendition of EUrope as a resource of pro-LGBTQ+ values and attitudes. The discursive construction of Rainbow Lithuania has the characteristics of the nationalistic project as it involves the idea of a common destiny (‘a golden era of tolerance and non-existent discrimination’ (Kulpa 2011, 49)) and it delineates boundaries based on ethnicity and culture (Yuval-Davis 1997). As I will argue later, the Rainbow nation reproduces the division established by the dominant nationalistic narrative which excludes Russian speakers as ‘naturally’ incapable of change and renders them outsiders of the Rainbow nation. The Rainbow Nation creates a space for LGBQ people’s national belonging by employing European homonationalist discourses (Kahlina 2015) to mark those who are progressive, tolerant and modern, and those who are ‘homophobic others’ (Ibid.). As a result, the homonationalist discourse of the Rainbow Nation applies cultural essentialist stance (Mepschen and Duyvendak 2012) which positions Russian speakers as a culturally homogenous group which is ‘frozen in time’ (Szulz 2022) i.e. they are seen as ‘naturally’ incapable to adopt ‘modern’ and ‘progressive LGBTQ+ friendly views. The Lithuanian speakers who experienced Soviet-occupation, in contrast, are portrayed as victims of the Soviet regime, and their homophobic views are seen as a result of Soviet oppression.

The research participants employ strategic syncretism (i.e. they are integrating elements taken from the discourses that are supposed to be a threat), liberating amnesia and imagination (Martin 1995) to integrate the elements the dominant nationalistic narrative and the narrative of Rainbow Europe. Liberating amnesia allows the research participants to ‘forget’ that the dominant nationalistic narrative delegitimises all other variants of co-habitation and sexual expression, apart from a heterosexual nuclear family, and portrays homosexuality as a threat to the nation (Wakefield, Kalinauskaite, and Hopkins 2016; Mole 2016). Strategic syncretism allows the research participants to include pro-LGBTQ+ stance to the image of the nation. Finally, imagination enables them to connect their personal experiences (such as struggles of accepting their own sexualities, and lack of acceptance from others) to the dominant narrative of national victimhood caused by the USSR and the subsequent victory of national liberation and EUropean protection. By emphasizing certain national and EUropean traits and skewing its established meanings and logic (Martin 1995), the research participants rebuild their national identities and strengthen bonds between themselves and their national community (Kulpa 2011). In the following sections of the article, I will unravel the discursive construct of Rainbow Nation in LGBQ people’s narratives.

Rainbow Europe and the changing nation

When I asked the research participants to evaluate the situation in Lithuania regarding LGBTQ+ people, the common answer was ‘the situation is getting better’. When the research participants spoke about positive changes regarding the LGBTQ+ people in Lithuania, they often invoked the concept of ‘Rainbow Europe’ which resides in the West (i.e. the idea, that western EU states are LGBTQ+ friendly). The Western Progressive Narrative (Szulc and Smets 2015) that portrays the West as a resource of progress, tolerance, and modernity (Kahlina 2015) which guides ‘less-western’ countries towards the same destination was also present in the narratives. The perceived positive changes in Lithuanian society towards LGBTQ+ people were directly attributed to internalisation of the LGBTQ+ friendly attitudes which came to Lithuania from the West. Echoing Western Progressive Narrative, EU, Europe, the West (the terms were used interchangeably) was referred to as a mentor who helps to make Lithuania more pro-LGBTQ+. Progress (expressed as a positive change) of the Lithuanian society which is induced by Rainbow Europe, was the underlying discursive construction in the narratives. The construct of the West was expressed by the images of western companies, western media, or ‘the young (more progressive) generation’ to indicate progress that comes to Lithuania from the West.

A 33-year-old lesbian from Vilnius thought that companies such as Svedbank promote and disseminate pro-LGBTQ+ values in Lithuania.

R:

Do you see any changes in Lithuania in the last 10- or 20-years regarding LGBTQ+ people?

IV:

Yes. Businesses from abroad make big changes in Lithuania. For example, Svedbank. It is a Scandinavian company which promotes gender equality. [R: mhm](…) These companies support LGBT people. (…) I think they are very useful for Lithuania.

A 42-year-old lesbian woman from Vilnius expressed the idea of a positive change by employing the generalised construct of ‘westernised youth’:

R:

Do you see any changes in Lithuania regarding LGBTQ+ people?

JV:

Of course. You cannot even compare [how it used to be] twenty years ago and how it is now. I think the changes come through the people who went to live abroad and came back. The changes are brought back by the young people. (…) You will not be able to convince them that being gay is bad. They have their own opinion. They find a lot of information online and they know that it is OK [to be gay]. They are less scared, so they bring changes.

Portraying the ‘West’ as progressive and leading in terms of LGBTQ+ rights and liberties is often considered a rhetorical tool (coined as Western Progressive Narrative) to construct non-Western countries as eternally lagging behind. However, in context of my research the western leadership in protecting and promoting LGBTQ+ rights and liberties is regarded by the research participants as a catalyst of positive changes in Lithuania, which helps Lithuanian society to become more LGBTQ+ friendly. Even though some narratives echo the hierarchical construct of centre-periphery between the CEE and the West (Mizielinska and Kulpa 2011) by suggesting that Lithuania is ‘lagging behind’ the LGBTQ+ friendly western EU states, the lagging is immediately counterpoised by the narrative of moving forward to emphasize the progress towards becoming more Western/EUropean. A 36-year-old lesbian living in Vilnius emphasises the growing acceptance of same-sex sexualities by contrasting the past and the present:

IxV:

l always say that Lithuania is lagging behind Europe by twenty or fifteen years. (…) We are still running away from Russia, we are still [in the process of] leaving it. But it used to be much worse. There was a time when a lot of homosexual people started to come-out, and there were a lot of hate, because [people] didn’t know what [homosexuality] was. When people do not know [what it is, they think] it is evil. Fortunately, it used to be like that. It is all changing now bit by bit. Lithuania is more open and nicer [now].

Interestingly, the research participant who was critical of the UK when she recounted her personal experiences (see above), attributed the pro-LGBTQ+ views of her friends to ‘spending time abroad’. Initially her friends did not accept her homosexuality, but they have become more lenient (if not always accepting) over time. IV attributes the change to the ‘western exposure’:

R:

I am glad to hear that despite all the negative experiences you also see some positive changes.

IV:

I think the rejection [that I received from my friends] was not about me per se, but it was [rooted in] their fear to open-up to the world. (…)These people left [their homes] saw the world, some of them went to study abroad (…) and the things have changed.

Interestingly, when recounting her personal experiences in the UK the research participant did not discuss diversity or acceptance neither in LGBTQ+, nor in any other context. On the contrary, she highlighted her experience of xenophobia. In contrast, when discussing her friends’ increasing acceptance of her sexuality, the research participant credits the West with promoting diversity. The research participant, I argue, strategically employs a dual image of the West to justify the sense of alienation that she personally experienced as a migrant, and at the same time she delves into the prominent discourse of the West as a catalyst of promoting LGBTQ+ inclusiveness to explain positive changes in Lithuania.

The narratives employ the discursive construct of Rainbow Europe which is portrayed as a promoter of pro-LGBTQ+ values that has the ability to influence public opinion (Wilkinson 2014). However, all the positive changes that Rainbow Europe brings are discussed only with reference to a national collective. Rainbow Europe in this context is imagined as a donor and not as a shared space or a collective that Lithuania is joining. In other words, Lithuania does not become part of a Rainbow Europe, but rather Rainbow Europe helps Lithuania to become a Rainbow Nation.

Why is the Rainbow Europe primarily discussed as a donor, rather than a shared space? I argue that the discursive construct of (Rainbow) Europe as a donor is ‘borrowed’ from the dominant nationalistic narrative which promoted such image of EUrope at the time of Lithuania’s accession to the EU. I do not aim do give a full account of the Lithuanian dominant nationalistic narrative, as the scope of this article does not allow to fully discuss its complexities. I only introduce the main tenets of it which relate to belonging to EUrope and to the nation, as it serves as a backdrop for the analysis of a construct of a Rainbow Nation.

Joining the EU in the dominant nationalistic narrative was formulated as a strategic move intended to create distance from the Soviet past (Case 2009). In order to maintain such a signification of EUrope and Lithuania, USSR and Russia in the dominant nationalistic narrative were constructed as EUrope’s (and Lithuania’s) constitutive outside (Mole 2012). In the next section, I will argue that LGBQ people reuse the ethnic division established by the dominant nationalistic narrative to establish, strengthen, and sustain the signification of Lithuania as a Rainbow Nation.

Dominant nationalistic narrative and boundaries of the Rainbow Nation

The outsiders of the Rainbow Nation

In this section I will discuss how the boundaries of Lithuania as a Rainbow Nation are established, strengthened, and sustained by posing Lithuania’s Soviet past, Russia, and Russian speakers as inherently incapable of change and as ‘frozen in time’ (Szulz 2022). The concepts of ‘Soviet’ and ‘Russian’ in the research participants’ narratives often convey the meaning of stasis, or lack of progress which co-exists with the progressive changes in Lithuania. Lithuanian society’s progress was emphasized by comparing Lithuania to a ‘non-western’ (i.e. ‘European Lithuania’s’ constitutive outside) post-Soviet state. A 33-year-old lesbian activist from Vilnius recounted an experience of feeling ‘western’, when she compared the situation of lesbian women in Lithuania and Belarus:

IV:

We organised a lesbian sports event, and for that occassion we went to Belarus. So [the visit] was a benchmark for us. [It is true that] Lithuania is still in the closet, but when you go to Belarus [smiles] they did not even call it lesbian women games. They just called it women games. They live in such a [horrible] situation … .we started to feel very western there.

Comparing Lithuania to another ‘less LGBT-friendly’ post-Soviet country alters the frame of reference (Lahusen and Kiess 2019) regarding Lithuania’s position on the journey towards becoming a Rainbow Nation. Lithuania’s progress ‘refers to improvement through a comparison over time’ (Wagner 2016, 4) and space in becoming an ideal (European) state (Gaus 2016). However, at the same time it is a subjectivational practice (Arat-Koç 2010) by which the research participant positions Lithuania as the West of an even less western nation.

Another way to establish, strengthen, and sustain boundaries of Lithuania as a Rainbow Nation was posing Russian speakers as inherently homophobic. The research participants’ narratives portray Russian speakers as bearers of the conservative, misogynist, ‘frozen in time’ (Szulz 2022) ‘Soviet’ culture. When sharing unpleasant experiences related to their sexuality, the Lithuanian LGBQ people often singled out Russian speakers as the source of those experiences:

IyV:

I had a colleague from Latvia who was very friendly until he saw my girlfriend and I holding hands at the train station (…) [after that] he did not even say hello anymore. (…) He was a Russian speaking Latvian.

IV:

My boss was a Russian speaker.(… .)You know, the Russian mentality … .I was a head of the department and he was ordering me around to get him coffee. I told him to hire a secretary.

A 28-year-old lesbian woman living in Vilnius is open about her sexuality with everyone except her Russian speaking grandmother. When I asked her why the grandmother was singled out, she answered that the grandmother ‘was Russian, you know … .and her mindset won’t change [KV28]’.

The inability to change is attributed to Russian speakers by essentialising cultural and ethnic attributes (Mepschen and Duyvendak 2012), particularly language. The research participants’ narratives exclude Russian speakers as members of the Rainbow Nation and render them as internal outsiders, i.e. the outsiders who live among them, but due to their inability to change they cannot become members of the collectivity.

The strangers of the Rainbow Nation

While the Russian speakers’ inability to change is posed as ‘natural’ hence rendering them others of the Rainbow Nation, the Lithuanian speakers’ inability to change is constructed as harm caused by the Soviet oppression. Therefore, the Lithuanian speakers are positioned as strangers in the Rainbow Nation. The strangers unlike the outsiders have ‘a somewhat different relationship with the collectives within which they live’ (Yuval-Davis 1997, 46) as they display the signs of nearness (e.g. family ties) and remoteness in relation to the Rainbow Nation.

The victimisation of Lithuanian speakers, I argue, comes from the dominant nationalistic narrative. The Soviet occupation was considered by Lithuanian political and intellectual elites as an event which took away Lithuania’s “traditional’ democratic values’ (Rindzeviciute 2003, 82). The time before the 1990s in Lithuania, like in many other CEE states, is considered as wasted time (Szulz 2022), i.e. a time absent of progress. The research participants extend the discursive construct of victimhood caused by the Soviet occupation to explain and justify the absence of progress towards same-sex sexualities, which is expressed in narratives about homophobia or internal struggles to accept their own sexualities.

A 33-year-old lesbian from Vilnius recounted that her mother was not against her homosexuality per se, but she could not accept the fact that there will be no biological grandchildren. The research participant attributed these attitudes to her mother’s ‘Soviet’ heritage, which in turn aroused empathy towards her:

GV:

She is a Soviet child, the lost generation, who was brainwashed by stereotypes and clichés. It has affected her. There were only a few people who were able to escape it. My mother was not able to do that, and I completely understand her fear.

The mother who is seen as a child of the lost generation is abstained from personal responsibility for her conservative attitudes, because they are attributed to the oppressive Soviet past. The victimhood incurred by Soviet occupation is also extended to justify misogynistic conduct in the lesbian community:

EV:

I went to a lesbian party for the first time, (…)and a huge angry woman dragged me out to dance without even asking me first. I had to literally run away from her and to lock myself up in the bathroom. She was banging the bathroom door and screaming, ‘come on, I know you want it ‘. It was the Soviet macho [mentality] at its finest.

A 73-year-old lesbian living in a city, saw herself as a victim of the damaging effects of the Soviet oppression. According to her, the damage of the Soviet occupation was so impactful, that it rendered her peer group immune to the current positive changes, which made her feel lonely and isolated:

JK:

In our kind of society, in our tiny state, the mentality of people has been formed during the Soviet time. [To think that] a gay person is a fag is an awful thing, isn’t it? It was considered to be OK to kill or imprison people like that. To get rid of them. The elderly people will not change their views. The views don’t change that easily. (… .) The young people travel a lot, they see and read a lot, they have a different understanding about human beings, about human rights. The young people are different. But our grandpas and grandmas will not change.

In the excerpts discussed above the research participants employ the discursive construct of victimhood to justify the inability of certain members of Lithuanian society to adopt pro-LGBTQ+ attitudes and values.

Becoming members of the Rainbow Nation

A discursive construct of victimhood is also employed to interpret the personal struggles to overcome internalised homophobia. A 38-year-old lesbian woman, and a 46-year-old gay man living in provincial towns positioned their struggles of communicating their sexualities to others within the context of damaging Soviet influence which needed to be overcome:

AP:

When I tell some of my friends [that I am a lesbian] they always ask me why I kept it a secret for so long. But it is not easy to tell people [about my sexuality], because I don’t know how they will take it. (…) I think it is (an issue) of our generation. We were born in the eighties … The Sąjūdis (i.e. the Lithuanian independence movement) only started only 88–89, so we lived with Russia for 8 years. The transformation period lasted until about 1995. So, we were brought up under the [Soviet] system for fifteen years.

DS:

I am sure it is our Soviet heritage (…) to care all the time what others will say and what they will think (…) I fought a lot with [the fear] of what will others think [about my sexuality].

When discussing their fear and shame to disclose their sexualities the research participants associate it with the Soviet oppression, which they see as a source of those feelings. By doing so, I argue, the research participants inscribe the oppression of same-sex sexualities and their personal experiences of the oppression (experienced as fear and shame) into a broader canon of national oppression. The portrayal of the Soviet period as the time of personal and generational oppression echoes the dominant nationalistic narrative where the Soviet past is portrayed as a period of national oppression. By bringing the Soviet past into today’s experiences the research participants reflect on it not as the finished period of time, but rather as ‘a contested social practice, and something from which power relations might be generated’ (Martinez 2018, 220). In this context liberation from the Soviet oppression is not an issue of the past, but a complex psychological and cultural process that stretches out through time (Sen 2020). Indeed, it affects LGBQ people’s attitudes towards their sexualities and provides them a framework to position and justify their experiences within the national context.

Conclusions

The paper discusses belonging to EUrope and the nation from Lithuanian LGBQ people’s perspectives. First, I discussed the research participants’ subjective feelings of belonging to the West while spending time in the EU states for work or leisure. I argued that multiple positionalities prevented the research participants from developing subjective feelings of belonging to the West. I noted that the research participants’ sexual self-identification did not foster subjective feelings of belonging to the encountered LGBTQ+ contexts in the West.

In the second part of the article, I discussed Lithuanian LGBQ people’s belonging to EUrope against the backdrop of belonging to the nation. I argued that Lithuanian LGBQ people employed a discursive construct of the Rainbow Nation which helped them to strengthen a connection between themselves and their national community. I contextualised and outlined the main tenets of the discursive construct of the Rainbow Nation and argued that in my research context, belonging to EUrope is used instrumentally to legitimise national belonging.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The research has been approved by UCL Research Ethics Committee. The research participants provided written informed consent to participate in the research. The informed consent was obtained following UCL Research Ethics Committee guidelines and regulations.

2. My research focuses only on Lithuanian lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer perspectives. Therefore, when I refer to my research participants’ views, I use a LGBQ acronym. However, when I discuss policies, legislations and/or discourses related to sexual minorities, I use a LGBTQ+ acronym, as it is commonly used in the discussed literature.