Nationalism and the Struggle for LGBTQ Rights in Serbia, 1991–2014

Abstract

Serbian ethno-nationalists have long used homophobia to marginalize political dissent and legitimize their claim to power. Effectively accepting this traditional narrative, the 1990s pro-democracy movement pursued a broad social coalition to challenge authoritarian president Slobodan Milošević. Only international actors supported LGBTQ issues, but this backing had the contrary effect of associating the nascent LGBTQ movement with “foreign interests.” Nonetheless, activists slowly built organizational capacity, and capitalized on the pro-EU political shift in the late 2000s. With EU membership conditioned upon enforcement of a human rights regime that included sexual minorities, activists finally made strides toward legal protection and government recognition.

Notes

^1. Timothy Snyder, “Fascism, Russia and Ukraine,” The New York Review of Books (March 20, 2014); Carl F. Stychin, Governing Sexuality: The Changing Politics of Citizenship and Law Reform (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2003), 115–38; Richard Mole, “Nationality and Sexuality: Homophobic Discourse and the ‘National Threat’ in Contemporary Latvia,” Nations and Nationalism 17, no. 1 (2011): 540–60; Katja Kahlina, “Nation, State and Queers: Ethnosexual Identities in the Interface between Social and Personal in Contemporary Croatia,” in Sexuality, Gender and Power: Intersectional and Transnational Perspectives, ed. Anna G. Jónasdóttir, Valerie Bryson, Kathleen B. Jones (New York: Routledge, 2011), 30-44; Costas Canakis, “The ‘National Body’: Language and Sexuality in the Balkan National Narrative,” in Myths of the Other in the Balkans: Representations, Social Practices, Performances, ed. Fotini Tsibiridou and Nikitas Palantzas (Thessalonkiki: Paris Aslanidis, 2013), 300–320.

^2. Jelisaveta Blagojević cites a 2006 survey in Serbia in which 66 percent of LGBTQ respondents had experienced some form of violence. Blagojević adds that due to the fear of further victimization, only ten percent of these assaults were reported to the police and only three percent received court attention. See Jelisaveta Blagojević, “Between Walls: Provincialisms, Human Rights, Sexualities and Serbian Public Discourses on EU Integration,” in De-Centering Western Sexualities: Central and Eastern European Perspectives, ed. Joanna Mizielińska and Robert Kulpa (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011), 29.

^3. Tanja Börzel and Thomas Risse, “Conceptualizing the Domestic Impact of Europe,” in The Politics of Europeanization, ed. Kevin Featherstone and Claudio Radaell (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 57–80.

^4. Mole, “Nationality and Sexuality,” 547–48, 554.

^5. Dubravka Žarkov, The Body of War: Media, Ethnicity, and Gender in the Break-up of Yugoslavia (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007), 19–42.

^6. Joane Nagel, “Ethnicity and Sexuality,” Annual Review of Sociology 26 (2000): 113.

^7. Ibid. Sexual policing is not limited to ethno-nationalists; it is symptomatic of many systems whose objectives necessitate constraint on the choices of its members. Where post-colonial states have pursued state-led economic growth models—based on the rapid mobilization of labor under state command—the state has often expressed deep hostility to LGBTQ persons for depriving the state of future workers and thus limiting economic development. See, Sam Pryke, “Nationalism and Sexuality, What are the Issues?” Nations and Nationalism 4, no. 4 (1998): 541. The centrally planned authoritarian states of communist Europe were also frequently hostile to same sex relations. It might be no coincidence that Stalin criminalized male homosexual acts in the Soviet Union in 1933, at the height of the first (labor-intensive) central plan. In Romania, Ceausescu’s assertion of sovereignty within the Soviet camp led to an intensified economic crisis that demanded large increases in the labor extracted from its people. The rupture was duly followed both by codes criminalizing homosexuality and highly invasive laws that eliminated women’s reproductive autonomy. Contraception and homosexual acts threatened the reproduction of the nation and the basic needs of a labor-extractive command economy. The new ethno-sexual frontier was laid down in the language of socialist nationalism. Women who did not give birth were “deserters” who failed to perform “their patriotic duty.” In case women misunderstood their new subordination, Ceausescu added, “The fetus [is] the socialist property of the whole society.” Stychin, Governing Sexuality,126–27.

^8. Vesna Kesić, “Muslim Women, Croatian Women, Serbian Women, Albanian Women…” in Balkan as Metaphor: Between Globalization and Fragmentation, ed. Dušan Bjelić and Obrad Savić (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), 315. Examples of top politicians deploying the libel of genocide are plentiful. According to Russian president Vladimir Putin, “[Russian] birth rates are low, the Europeans are dying out; do you understand that or not? Same-sex marriages do not produce children. Do you want to survive on account of immigrants?” See Vladimir Putin, interview, “Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club,” President of Russia, Moscow, September 19, 2013, available at http://eng.kremlin.ru/transcripts/6007 (accessed February 14, 2014); the late Polish president Lech Kaczynski opined that “widespread homosexuality would lead to the disappearance of the human race” (Mole, “Nationality and Sexuality,” 548). Similarly, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church compared same-sex marriage to “self-destruction.” See Yaroslava Kiryukhina, “Is Russia’s ‘Gay Propaganda’ Law Alienating It from the West?” Russia Beyond the Headlines, September 10, 2013, available at http://rbth.com/society/2013/09/10/is_russias_gay_propaganda_law_alienating_it _from_the_west_29685.html (accessed June 15, 2015). As of this writing, Slovakia is embroiled in a discussion over Catholic priest Marián Kuffa’s assertion that Slovakian gays and lesbians are “worse than mass murderers” and threaten “national genocide.” See “Kňaz Kuffa: Gayovia, ktorí sa nechcú napraviť, sú masoví vrahovia… .Odpoveď gaya” (Father Kuffa: Those gays, who do not want to change, are worse than mass murderers. … A gay man replies), SmeBlog, August 25, 2014, available at http://ondrasik.blog.sme.sk/c/363595/knaz-kuffa-gayovia-ktori-sa-nechcu-napravit-su-masovi-vrahovia-odpoved-gaya.html?ref=tit (accessed August 27, 2014).

^9. Kahlina, “Nation, State and Queers,” 32–34; Nagel, “Ethnicity and Sexuality,” 113; George L. Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality: Respectability and Abnormal Sexuality in Modern Europe (New York, Howard Fertig, 1985), 25–33; Dušan Bjelić and Lucinda Cole, “Sexualizing the Serb,” in Balkan as Metaphor: Between Globalization and Fragmentation, ed. Dušan Bjelić and Obrad Savić (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), 298–99.

^10. Gagnon, The Myth, 31–51.

^11. Kahlina, “Nation, State and Queers,” 33.

^12. Masha Gessen, “What Is Vladimir Putin Thinking?” William Jovanovich Lecture in Public Affairs, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO, April 22, 2014.

^13. The issue of whether to fight to hold pride parades and their long-term utility thus has been a subject of intense debate and division within the LGBTQ communities especially in Central and Eastern Europe. Jessica Greenberg, “Nationalism, Masculinity and Multicultural Citizenship in Serbia,” Nationalities Papers 34, no. 3 (July 2006): 321–34; Shannon Woodcock, “Globalisation of LGBT Identities: Containment Masquerading as Salvation, Or Why Lesbians Have Less Fun,” in Gender and the (Post) ‘East/’West’ Divide, ed. Mihaela Frunză and Theodora-Eliza Văcărescu (Cluj, Romania: Limes Publishing House, 2004): 171–88.

^14. John Gould and Edward Moe, “Beyond Rational Choice: Ideational Assault and the Use of Delegitimation Frames in Nonviolent Revolutionary Movements,” Research in Social Movements, Conflict, and Change 34 (2013): 123–51; For representative works of a much larger literature on non-violent insurrections see Gene Sharp, Power and Struggle: The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part 1 (Boston, MA: Porter Sargent, 1973); Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy (Boston, MA: The Albert Einstein Institution, 2003); Gene Sharp and Joshua Paulson, Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20^th Century Practice and 21^st Century Potential (Boston, MA: Extending Horizons Books, 2005); Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall, A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000); Srdja Popović, Andrej Milivojević, and Slobodan Djinović, Nonviolent Struggle: 50 Crucial Points (Belgrade: CANVAS, 2006.); Sidney Tarrow. Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

^15. Bill Moyer, Doing Democracy: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2001).

^16. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, framed the African-American struggle for civil rights as both a biblical and constitutional issue, thereby establishing a common language through which he could unify his church-going followers and communicate with (and reassure) moderate white Americans. Similarly, Mahatma Gandhi, from whom King drew extensively, sought to weaken British resolve through an appeal to the traditions of Christ’s “Sermon on the Mount” and British civil liberties, and he built support among his Hindu followers through a call to justice found in the traditions of the Bhagavad Gita. Both Gandhi and King mobilized a mass following by appealing to identity constructs that emphasized a community well beyond their activist base.

^17. Kathy Davis, “Intersectionality as a Buzzword: A Sociology of Science Perspective on What Makes a Feminist Theory Successful,” Feminist Theory 9, no. 1 (April 2008): 67–86; Kimberley Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Morality Politics and Violence against Women of Color,” Stanford Law Review 43, no 6 (July 1991): 1241–99.

^18. International pressure can also “substitute” for LGBTQ activist capacity. In Serbia, Bosnia, Russia and Romania, for example, international organizations, foreign embassies and western rights-based NGOs were deeply involved in the effort to decriminalize homosexuality in the 1990s. Decriminalization was a vital milestone in the LGBTQ rights struggle, yet the dominance of international actors in the process may have reduced the need a broadly organized, domestic activist network with the capacity to engage society in a contentious dialogue about the extension of basic rights to LGBTQ persons. It’s hard to judge how concerned one should be with this. Given the weakness of the emerging post-communist LGBTQ communities, decriminalization provided formal legal protection from harassment and allowed embattled activists to concentrate on building and protecting community. International concern was therefore a vital resource. See Stychin, Governing Sexuality, 133–34.

^19. Jelena Subotić “Explaining Difficult States: The Problems of Europeanization in Serbia,” East European Politics and Societies 24, no. 4 (October 2010): 599.

^20. Milada Anna Vachudova, Europe Undivided: Democracy, Leverage and Integration After Communism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 38.

^21. Subotić, “Explaining Difficult States,” 599.

^22. Gessen, “What Is Vladimir Putin Thinking?”

^23. Stychin, Governing Sexuality, 133–34; Mole, “Nationality and Sexuality”; Greenberg, “Nationalism, Masculinity”; Conor O’Dwyer and Katrina Z. S. Schwartz, “Minority Rights after EU Enlargement: A Comparison of Antigay Politics in Poland and Latvia,” Comparative European Politics 8 (2010): 220–43.

^24. Conor O’Dwyer, “Does the EU Help or Hinder Gay-Rights Movements in Post-Communist Europe? The Case of Poland,” East European Politics 28, no. 4 (2012): 13–17. O’Dwyer’s analysis contrasts with theories of Europeanization based on the related processes of socialization and leverage. Socialization is where societies undergo a process of social learning in which they come to value what the EU values. Leverage is where they face direct conditionality whereby they are asked to give up things domestically that the EU does not want in order to gain EU membership. See Koen Slootmaeckers and Heleen Touquet, “Old Habits Die Hard? The Western Balkans and the Europeanization of LGBTQ Rights,” Paper presented at the 20th International Conference of Europeanists, Amsterdam (June 25–27, 2013). Milestones in the Europeanization literature include Vachudova, Europe Undivided; Heather Grabbe, The EU Transformative Power: Europeanization through Conditionality in Central and Eastern Europe (New York: Palgrave, 2006); Wade Jacoby, The Enlargement of the European Union and NATO (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Frank Schimmelfenning and Ulrich Sedelmeier, “Introduction: Conceptualizing the Europeanization of Central and Eastern Europe,” in The Europeanization of Central and Eastern Europe, ed. Frank Schimmelfennig and Uli Sedelmeier (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), 1–28.

^25. O’Dwyer, “Does the EU Help,” 13–17.

^26. Bert Klandermans, The Social Psychology of Protest (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997); Martijn Van Zomeren, Tom Postmes and Russell Spears, “Toward an Integrative Social Identity Model of Collective Action: A Quantitative Research Synthesis of Three Socio-Psychological Perspectives,” Psychological Bulletin 134, no. 4 (2008).

^27. O’Dwyer, “Does the EU Help,” 13–17; Stychin, Governing Sexuality; Mole, “Nationality and Sexuality.”

^28. Greenberg, “Nationalism, Masculinity”; Irene Dioli, “From Globalization to Europeanization—And Then? Transnational Influences in Lesbian Activism of the Western Balkans,” Journal of Lesbian Studies 15, no. 3 (2011): 311–23; Interview with Lepa Mladjenović, Labris, Belgrade, Serbia, February 6, 2013.

^29. Interview with Sasha Gavrić, Sarajevo Open Center, Sarajevo, Bosnia–Herzegovina, May 26, 2014; Gagnon, The Myth, 3.

^30. Kesić “Muslim Women,” 311–21, 315.

^31. Many of the rumored crimes against Kosovo’s Serbs were fabricated. Gagnon, The Myth, 66 (fn 43), 67; see also Žarkov, The Body of War, 19–42.

^32. By the same logic, ethno-national survival depended on preventing co-ethnic women from having sex with men outside of the ethnic group (Žarkov, The Body of War, 122–23). Interview with Vesna Nikolić-Ristanović, Director, Victimology Society of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia, February 7, 2013; Vesna Nikolić-Ristanović, Women, Violence and War: Wartime Victimization of Refugees in the Balkans (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2000), 45–78; Zarana Papić, “Nationalism, Patriarchy and War in Ex-Yugoslavia,” Women’s History Review 3, no. 1 (1994): 115–17.

^33. Kahlina, “Nation, State and Queers,” 33; Nikolić-Ristanović, Women, Violence and War, 45–78.

^34. There has been an extended debate among feminists over the role of ethnicity in sexual assault during war. See in particular Vesna Kesić’s response to Western feminists who paid particular attention to the ethnicity of the victims of sexual assault, the numbers of Bosnian victims of ethnic Serb rapes, and the use of the term genocide to describe the assaults (Kesić “Muslim Women,” 314–17). See Catherine McKinnon, “Turning Rape into Pornography: Postmodern Genocide, MS, July–August 1993, 24–30; Nikolić-Ristanović, Women, Violence and War, 45–78; Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975).

^35. “Interview with Sonja Biserko,” Vreme, November 21, 2013, available at http://www.bosnia.org.uk/news/news_body.cfm?newsid=2889 (accessed September 4, 2014).

^36. Lepa Mladjenović, “Notes of a Feminist Lesbian During Wartime,” European Journal of Women’s Studies 8, no. 3 (2001): 382–85; Eric D. Gordy, The Culture of Power in Serbia: Nationalism and the Destruction of Alternatives (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999); “Interview with Sonja Biserko.”

^37. Zarana Papić, “Europe After 1989: Ethnic Wars, the Fascistization of Civil Society and Body Politics in Serbia,” in Thinking Differently: A Reader in European Women’s Studies, ed. Gabrielle Griffin and Rosi Braidotti (London: Zed Books, 2002), 127–44; Papić, “Nationalism, Patriarchy and the War,” 115–16.

^38. Eric Gordy, “Serbia after Djindjic: War Crimes, Organized Crime, and Trust in Institutions,” Problems of Postcommunism 51, no. 3 (May–June 2004): 10–17; John A. Gould, The Politics of Privatization: Wealth and Power in Postcommunist Europe (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2011), 178–80.

^39. Franklin Foer, How Soccer Explains the World (New York: Harper, 2004), 7–34; Peter Andreas, “Criminalized Legacies of War: The Clandestine Political Economy of the Western Balkans,” Problems of Post-Communism 51, no. 3 (May–June 2004): 3–9.

^40. Gordy, Culture of Power, 137–38.

^41. Izabela Kisić and Slavija Stanojlović, “The Post-2000 Situation in Serbia,” in Civic and Uncivic Values: Serbia in the Post-Milošević Era, ed. Ola Listhaug, Sabrina P. Ramet, and Dragana Dulić (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2011), 165.

^42. Jessica Greenberg, “Nationalism, Masculinity,” 333–34; Svetlana Slapšak, “The After-War War of Genders: Misogyny, Feminist Ghettoization and the Discourse of Responsibility in Post-Yugoslav Societies,” in Violence and Gender in a Globalized World: The Intimate and the Extimate, ed. Sanja Bahun-Radunović and V. G. Julie Rajan (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2008), 99.

^43. Mladjenović, “Notes of a Feminist.” 384

^44. The term “hierarchy of discrimination” was used by activist Lepa Mladjenović (in ibid., 385) to describe the low priority rights activists gave LGBTQ issues.

^45. Bojan Bilić, “Not in Our Name: Collective Identity of the Serbian Women in Black,” Nationalities Papers 40, no. 4 (July 2012): 609.

^46. Mladjenović, “Notes of a Feminist,” 385.

^47. Civic Alliance later founded the basis of the pro-European Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). While LDP and most other parties include many LGBTQ persons in their membership, as of this draft, only one openly identifies as LGBTQ. Interview with Boris Miličević, Serbian Socialist Party (SPS), Belgrade, Serbia, February 1, 2013.

^48. Interview with Daša Duhaček and Katarina Lončarević, Center for Women’s Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Belgrade University, Belgrade, Serbia, March 6, 2013.

^49. Interview with Miličević, February 1, 2013.

^50. Interview with Duhaček and Lončarević, March 6, 2013.

^51. The murder was connected to Nebrigić’s personal life. Fellow activists assert that neither the state nor homophobic attacks played a role. Interview with Mladjenović, February 6, 2013.

^52. Karen Louise Boothe, “Enemies of the State: Gays and Lesbians in Serbia,” Lavender, February 11–24, 2000, 11–12.

^53. Boothe, “Enemies of the State,” 11–12; Mladjenović, “Notes of a Feminist,” 384.

^54. Karen Louise Boothe, “Gays in Belgrade Struggle to Find a Sense of Self,” The Advocate, October 12, 1999. http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Gays+in+Belgrade+struggle+to+find+a+sense+of+self.-a055983589 (accessed June 22, 2015).

^55. For more on the similar use of misogyny to demobilize women activists, see Slapšak, “The After-War War.”

^56. Interview with Igor Vojdović, Gay Straight Alliance, Belgrade, Serbia, January 30, 2013; Interview with Duhaček and Loncarević, March 6, 2013; Fareed Zakaria, “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy,” Foreign Affairs 76, no 6 (November–December 1997): 35.

^57. Denisa Kostovicova, “Civil Society and Post-Communist Democratization: Facing a Double Challenge in Post-Milošević Serbia,” Journal of Civil Society 2 no. 1 (2006): 28–29

^58. According to Mark Downes and Rory Keane “Milošević’s removal from office may best be described as a negotiated transition […in which] many of his entourage and supporters switched allegiances in order to maintain their personal prerogatives.” Mark Downes and Rory Keane, “Police Reform Amid Transition: The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Serbia,” Civil Wars 8, no. 2 (2006): note 3.

^59. Florian Bieber, “The Serbian Opposition and Civil Society: Roots of the Delayed Transition in Serbia,” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 17 no. 1 (2003): 73–90; Daniel Bochsler, “The Party System of Serbia,” in Party Politics in the Western Balkans, ed. Vera Stojarová and Peter Emerson, (Abingdon, UK: Routledge 2010), 99–118; Ognjen Pribicevic, “Serbia After Milosevic,” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 4, no. 1 (2004): 107–18.

^60. Meanwhile, Đinđić sought support from factions within the state security apparatus. Timothy Edmunds, “Intelligence Agencies and Democratization: Continuity and Change in Serbia after Milosevic,” Europe-Asia Studies 60, no. 1 (2008): 25–48.

^61. Pribicevic, “Serbia After Milosevic,” 107–18; Kostovicova, “Civil Society,” 29.

^62. Daniel Šuber and Slobodan Karamanić, “Symbolic Landscape, Violence and the Normalization Process in Post-Milošević Serbia,” in Retracing Images: Visual Culture after Yugoslavia, ed. Daniel Šuber and Slobodan Karamanić (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2012), 322–23; Nenad Dimitrijevic, “Serbia After the Criminal Past: What Went Wrong and What Should be Done,” International Journal of Transitional Justice 2, no.1 (2008): 5–22.

^63. Religious instruction was an elective course for students. But it was symbolic of political support for a church role in policy-making. Interview with Milan Pantelić, Gay Straight Alliance representative on the Council for Gender Equality of the Serbian Government, Belgrade, Serbia, June 23, 2013; Rada Drezgić, “Religion, Politics and Gender in the Context of Nation-State Formation: The Case of Serbia.” Third World Quarterly 31, no. 6 (2010): 955–70.

^64. Timothy Edmunds, “Illiberal Resilience in Serbia.” Journal of Democracy 20, no. 1 (2009): 135–36.

^65. Gayten emerged from Arkadia after the death of Nebrigić. For a firsthand account, see Greenberg, “Nationalism, Masculinity,” 324; Marek Mikuš, “‘State Pride,’ Politics of LGBTQ Rights, and Democratization in ‘European Serbia,’” East European Politics and Societies 25, no. 4 (2011): 834–51; Ana Simo, “Violence Stops Yugoslavia Gay Pride.” TheGully.com. May 7, 2001, available at http://www.thegully.com/essays/gaymundo/010705gay_yugoslavia.html (accessed December 18, 2012); Interview with Mladjenović, February 6, 2013.

^66. Duhaček, “Engendering Political Responsibility,” 252–60.

^67. “Gayten–LGBTQ, Centar za promociju LGBTQIQ prava” [Gayten-LGBTQ, Center for the Promotion of LGBTQIQ rights] (Gayten–LGBTQ, Belgrade, Serbia, 2014), available at http://www.transserbia.org/o-nama (accessed April 22, 2014).

^68. In 2003, Šešelj turned himself in to The Hague.

^69. Jelena Subotić, “Explaining Difficult States: The Problems of Europeanization in Serbia,” East European Politics and Societies 24 (2010): 601.

^70. Freedom House, Nations in Transit 2006: Serbia (Washington, DC: Freedom House, 2006), available at http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/nations-transit/2006/Serbia (accessed June 23, 2013).

^71. This was alleged in a number of our interviews. See too, Edmunds, “Illiberal Resilience in Serbia.” 128–42.

^72. Nielsen, “Stronger than the State?”

^73. Subotić, “Explaining Difficult States,” 602–4.

^74. Interview with Boris Miličević, Socialist Party of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia, June 14, 2013.

^75. This mirrors the pathway of the EU impact on the LGBTQ community in Poland. See O’Dwyer and Schwartz, “Minority Rights After EU Enlargement.”

^76. Interview with Zoe Gudović, Reconstruction Women’s Fund, Belgrade, Serbia, April 11, 2014. See Queer Beograd Collective (QBC), “Preparing a Space: Documentation of Party and Politics Festival” (Queer Beograd, Belgrade, Serbia, 2006); QBC, “The Malfunction,” (Belgrade, Serbia, 2007); QBC, “Anti-Fascism and Direct Action” (Queer Beograd, Belgrade, Serbia, 2011).

^77. Interview with Mirjana Bogdanović, Gay Straight Alliance, Belgrade, Serbia, February 4, 2013.

^78. Jelena Subotić and Milada Anna Vachudova, “What’s the Matter with Serbia?: Understanding the Varying Effects of International Diffusion and European Integration,” Paper presented to the National Conference of the International Studies Association, April 5, 2013.

^79. “Serbian Parliament Speaker Calls for Closer Russia Ties,” RFE/RL, May 9, 2007, available at http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1076353.html (accessed March 20, 2014).

^80. Bernhard Stahl, “Another ‘Strategic Accession’? The EU and Serbia (2000–2010),” Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity 41, no. 3 (2013): 461.

^81. Subotić and Vachudova, “What’s the Matter with Serbia?”; Vachudova, Europe Undivided.

^82. Interview with Meličević, June 21, 2013.

^83. The following year, Boris Meličević quit GSA and joined SPS, becoming Serbia’s first and only openly gay politician. Interview with Meličević, February 1, 2013.

^84. Slootmaeckers and Touquet, “Old Habits Die Hard,” 6

^85. Interview with Goran Melitić, Human Rights Defenders, Belgrade, Serbia, February 3, 2013.

^86. Gay Straight Alliance, “Freedom is not given[,] freedom is taken: Report on [the] human rights status of LGBTQ persons in Serbia 2011” (GSA, Belgrade, Serbia, 2012); online. Accessed 6/23/15 http://en.gsa.org.rs/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/GSA-report-2011.pdf; Gay Straight Alliance, “The conference ‘Incrimination of hate crime—a good way to decrease violence’ was held” (GSA, Belgrade, Serbia, 2013); online. Accessed 6/23/15. published 6.04.2013 http://en.gsa.org.rs/2013/04/the-conference-incrimination-of-hate-crime-a-good-way-to-prevent-and-decrease-violence-was-held/ Online. p25–44 (English) Accessed 6/23/15; Jovanka Savovic, “Annual Report on the Position of LGBTQIQ Population in Serbia,” Labris, Belgrade, Serbia, 2012 http://www.mc.rs/upload/documents/izvestaji/2012/LABRIS_izvestaj_2011.pdf Cited information can be found in GSA, p12; Labris p14.

^87. “Constitutional Court Bans Right-Wing Organization.” B9, June 12, 2012, available at http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2012&mm=06&dd=12&nav_id=80718 (accessed December 18, 2012).

^88. Interview with Meličević, February 1, 2013; Interview with Bogdanović, February 4, 2013.

^89. In fact, 17 percent of Serbs reported being willing to use violence to change the sexuality of a LGBTQ family member. Gay Straight Alliance, “Freedom is not given.”

^90. Nielsen, “Stronger Than the State?” 12. The Catholic Church, the Islamic Community of Serbia, and evangelical groups similarly lobbied against the measure. See Blagojević, “Between Walls,” 32.

^91. Dana N. Johnson, “We Are Waiting For You: The Discursive (De)construction Of Belgrade Pride 2009,” Sextures 2, no. 2 (2012): 6–31; Aleksandra Djordjevic, “Has The International Human Rights Paradigm Failed Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People? If So, What Can Be Done to Fix It?” Master’s thesis presented at the University of British Columbia, April 2013.

^92. Interview with Bogdanović, February 4, 2013. Questions of sexual orientation, he has asserted, “should be kept behind walls” (Blagojević, “Between Walls,” 32).

^93. Nielsen, “Stronger than the State,” 7.

^94. Blagojević, “Between Walls,” 31–32.

^95. “Pride Parade Signals Faster Accession Talks,” B92, September 27, 2013, available at http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics.php?yyyy=2013&mm=09&dd=27&nav_id=87817 (accessed May 16, 2014).

^96. “Conditioning EU Accession with Gay Rights ‘Not Working,’” B92, March 1, 2013, available at http://www.b92.net/eng/news/society.php?yyyy=2013&mm=03&dd=01&nav_id=84953 (accessed May 16, 2014).

^97. Andrew Rettman, “Gay Rights Not Decisive for Serbia–EU Talks,” euobserver, April 10, 2012, available at http://euobserver.com/enlargement/11775 (accessed May 16, 2014).

^98. Susan C. Pearce and Alex Cooper, “LGBTQ Movements in Southeast Europe: Violence, Justice, and International Intersections,” in Handbook of LGBTQ Communities, Crime, and Justice, ed. Dana Peterson and Vanessa R. Panfil (New York: Springer Science+Business Media, 2014), 319.

^99. “Rainbow Picnic Against Homophobia and Transphobia,” B92, May 13, 2013, available at http://www.b92.net/eng/news/society.php?yyyy=2013&mm=05&dd=17&nav_id=86231 (accessed May 16, 2014).

^100. Conversation with Srdja Popović, CANVAS, Belgrade, Serbia, May 6, 2014.

^101. “Srebrenica ‘not genocide’—Serbia’s President Nikolić,” BBC News, June 1. 2012, available at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-18301196 (accessed May 16, 2014).

^102. “2013 in Review: 10 Most Significant Events in Serbia,” B92, January 1, 2014, available at http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics.php?yyyy=2014&mm=01&dd=01&nav_id=88848 (accessed May 16, 2014).

^103. “Time for Vučić to Become Prime Minister,” B92, January 30, 2014, available at http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics.php?yyyy=2014&mm=01&dd=30&nav_id=89164> (accessed May 16, 2014).

^104. “Results of the 2014 Parliamentary Elections,” Republic Voting Commission, Serbian Republic, March 17, 2014, available at http://www.rik.parlament.gov.rs/cirilica/saopstenja_frames.htm (accessed March 20, 2014).

^105. “Pace of EU Accession Talks to Depend on Serbia’s Progress,” B92, January 22, 2014, available at http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics.php?yyyy=2014&mm=01&dd=22&nav_id=89070 (accessed May 16, 2014).

^106. O’Dwyer, “Does the EU Help,” 13–17.

^107. On September 13, 2014, after an all-day session of a regional LGBTQ conference in Belgrade, a gay German man was beaten by a Serbian man who allegedly shouted “Nećemo strance ovde!” (We don’t want foreigners here!). Correspondence with Jordan Maze, Belgrade, Serbia, September 14, 2014. For the conference resolution following the attack, see “Common Resolution against Violence and Hate Crimes, Balkanist, September 13, 2014, available at http://balkanist.net/common-resolution-against-violence-and-hate-crimes/ (accessed September 16, 2014).

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to thank the Social Science Executive Committee and the Dean of Colorado College for financial assistance.