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ABSTRACT
The region of Central and Eastern Europe and oppressive social conditions in former socialist society often became symbols of the impossibility to articulate non-heterosexual identities under the conditions of a totalitarian regime. This study analyzes data from 19 in-depth interviews with people older than 50 living in the Czech Republic who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, or bisexual. It focuses on the ways in which their forced silence and inability to speak about their sexual desires resonated throughout their biographical narratives. The first part of this paper focuses on themes surrounding the absence of representations of non-heterosexual identities in socialist Czechoslovakia’s public sphere and the impact of this absence on participants’ perceptions of their own life experiences. The second part of the paper analyzes the ways in which participants relate to their own coming out and their reflections on their previous lives in relation to newfound opportunities to live outside of heterosexual norms. The paper strives to problematize the concept of “silence” as one of the defining features of this generation, in contrast with the concept of coming out as a sign of emancipation in younger generations.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. The concept of silence as a distinctive moment accompanying the construction of the subjectivity of elderly LGBT people is also mobilized in the specifics of queer aging. In 2010, the documentary “GenSilent” was launched, which maps the life stories of six elderly LGBT people. One of the documentary’s principal motives, and one that received much attention, is the dilemma that this group faced, i.e., how, and even whether, to talk about their sexuality with staff at healthcare facilities, on whose care they have become more and more dependent. The documentary’s subtitle is “The generation that fought hardest to come out is going back to survive,” in reference to the persistent institutionalized heteronormative nature of elderly-care facilities and the social discourse on aging that render non-heterosexual identity and experiences invisible.
2. Only people who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual were interviewed. Therefore, we use the abbreviation LGB (and not LGBT) when referring to our analysis to highlight the fact that there have been no narratives of trans people captured in the research.
3. As pointed out by Takács, Kuhar, and Tóth (Citation2017), although it is impossible to say that LGBT people were not oppressed during state socialism, police and government did not put too much effort into organized hate campaigns against homosexuality.
4. The turning point in the representation of homosexuality is believed to be the year 1973, when the Mladý Svět (Young World) magazine published a paper by sexologist Pavel Zemek titled “They Live Among Us,” which deflected from the interpretation of homosexuality as a deviation and illness. This text often is stated as being key in the development of non-negative representation of LGBT community in Czechoslovakia (e.g., Seidl et al., Citation2012), even though it remained a rather isolated attempt. Participants in our research also cited Mladý Svět magazine as being an important medium, not only due to this influential article, but also because of its dating ads that were (secretly) used as platforms for LGBT dating. Similarly, Sokolová (Citation2013) shows that Mladý Svět played a significant role in the lives of people experiencing non-heterosexual desires during that period and that reading “They Live Among Us” was often mentioned as one of the first manifestations of relatively positive representations of homosexuality in the media.
5. Extracts from the interviews were adapted to meet standard language usage. All names and places have been changed, and all data that could lead to the identification of the speakers have been excluded/changed.
6. Exceptions included stories of “involuntary” coming out, when others learned about their relationships with people of the same sex by accident (and often under dramatic circumstances). For example, in the case of Ivo (60), his homosexuality was stated by his former wife as the reason for divorce during divorce proceedings. By chance, an observer in court was a woman from his village who did not hesitate to share the information within the community.
7. In these interviews, the death of parents stood out as a significant milestone influencing the decision to get divorced and/or articulate coming out publicly to closed ones (for more details see Hasmanová Marhánková, Citation2019). In this regard, fear of parents’ response played a crucial role, impacting the approach toward coming out publicly. However, participants said during the interviews that these fears were not related to any fear of rejection, but rather to a fear of disappointing their parents (i.e., that their marriage was a failure, or that they probably would not “give” them grandchildren).