https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9721-7983
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ABSTRACT
This article is to review the development of the LGBT+ movement in Czechia after 1989. The analytical section introduces three distinctive phases: (1) the movement’s establishment and development during the 1990s, (2) the period culminating (and declining) with the adoption of the Registered Partnership in 2006, and (3) the period characterised as a restructuring of the movement towards the goal of equal parental and marriage rights. The article analyses the development and changes in the organisational structure of the movement (according to [Císař, Ondřej. 2013. “A Typology of Extra-Parliamentary Political Activism in Post-Communist Settings: The Case of the Czech Republic.” In Jacobsson and Saxonberg, 139–168]). It uncovers heterogeneity, mostly concentrated around short transitory moments in each phase which allow the establishment of short-term, often informal, self-organised organisations oriented less on transactional activism, typical for NGOs of the region and time period.
Acknowledgements
For comments on an earlier draft of this text, the author is thankful to participants of the ECPG Gender and Sexuality (Lausanne, May 2017) and Gender – Power – Eastern Europe (Berlin, June 2017) conferences. The author is very grateful for the generosity of Prof. Fred Fejes who commented and edited previous drafts.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Civil society is understood as the space between the private sphere, the state and the market. It is an area of civil and political participation, associations among people organised to varying degrees with a common goal (usually a change in the quality of life), a space of civic engagement or space for public debate (for a profound discussion, see, e.g., Cohen and Arato Citation1999).
2 With the exception of Nedbálková’s chapter on lesbian parenting under the Czech sociopolitical situation included in Kulpa and Mizielinska’s Citation2011 book De-Centering Western Sexualities.
3 We do not consider size a decisive and accurate characteristic since besides labour unions and professional organisations (such as a Chamber of Commerce or doctor’s or teacher’s associations) NGOs are generally relatively small. However, we will differentiate: individual or self-organised groups of up to approx. five active members; small organisations with around or over 10 active members or associates; and larger organisations with 20–25 ongoing active members and associates.
4 Communist medicine was progressive in the surgical and hormonal treatment of transsexuality.
5 For example, plethysmography (or phallometry) for the detection and measurement of homosexuality or pedophilia was invented (e.g., Freund Citation1988) and until rather recently used (i.e., within the asylum process) in Czechia.
6 Seidl (Citation2012, 105ff) and (Nozar Citation2013) documented a vibrant LGBT+ community during the First Republic (1918–38) and even the period prior to that.
7 For an analysis of all six efforts to legislate same-sex partnerships between 1997 to 2006, see the text of law theorist Jan Wintr (in Seidl Citation2012, 429ff) or Burešová’s 2020 book Rodičovství a partnerství gayů a leseb v českém právu (Gay and lesbians parenting and partnership in Czech law) (Citation2020).
8 Its agenda was embodied in the analysis of the state of the LGBT+ minority in the Czech Republic (Beňová and et al. 2007).
9 Information acquired within a message exchange via Facebook Messenger with the director of eLnadruhou, Tereza Mikšaníková, 1. 3. 2021.
10 Information available here [1. 3. 2021]: https://www.elnadruhou.cz/cz/novinky/357-odborny-seminar-pro-aktivisty/
11 Information available here [1. 3. 2021]: https://www.elnadruhou.cz/cz/novinky/438-terminy-skoleni/, or https://www.elnadruhou.cz/cz/novinky/533-skoleni---zaklady-financniho-rizeni-a-fundraisingu/ etc.
12 Information acquired from one of the organisers of Brno Parade via FB messenger communication, 7. 3. 2021.
13 PROUD is an acronym for Platforma pro rovnoprávnost, uznání a diverzitu (The platform for equality, recognition, and diversity).
14 In 2008, in Brno, a topically focused NGO Stejná rodina (Same family) was established. It started to collaborate with PROUD, resulting in the “handing over” of their brand (Facebook and webpage) for the purposes of PROUD’s step-child adoption campaign.
15 See the Annual Reports of PROUD, available on their website [1. 3. 2021]: https://proud.cz/o-proudu/dokumenty.html.
16 In 2015/2016, Prague Pride’s leader Czeslaw Walek took a scholarship in the United States. There, he visited various LGBT+ NGOs and pursued rather successful fundraising activities among possible individual US donors for the Czech equal marriage campaign (Available [1. 3. 2021]: https://www.facebook.com/czechfulbright/posts/czeslaw-walek-director-of-prague-pride-fulbright-masaryk-ngo-alumnus-talks-to-eu/10157986667052861/).
17 See https://www.jsmefer.cz/english.
18 In November 2018, the first reading in the Chamber of Deputies started. There was a long list of MPs wishing to express their opinions, and, due to lack of time, it was postponed. The same pattern took place in March 2019, and finally, two years after that, the reading was closed with successful vote. However, to step in force, the second reading and voting for a third reading in the parliament will have to take place. Subsequently, it will be followed by a hearing and voting within the (rather conservative) upper chamber, the Senate. Finally, the amendment must be signed by the president. The president however has already stated he would veto it. Similarly, as in the case of registered partnerships in 2006, a veto override would have to take place in the Chamber of Deputies. This process is very unlikely to be finished before new parliamentary elections in fall 2021. Thus, the novelisation would have to be resubmitted in the new Chamber of Deputies, and pass first reading again.
19 More on this action see (accessed 8. 3. 2021): https://www.alt-pride.cz.
20 The trans* community was and still is organised mostly around therapeutic groups, and it has in recent years expanded to the online space. Besides groups initiated by sexologists for therapeutic reasons, groups were formed around the Transforum platform (since 1998; Spencerová Citation2006) and, more recently, (2017) the NGO Trans*parent. Though Spencerová talks about fragmentation in the 2000s, there is evidence that the Internet allowed the creation of online community groups.
21 It was preceded by the self-organised (two-member) Transfusion organisation (established 2013) which supported (together with PROUD) a complaint by ILGA-Europe and TGEU against Czech Republic for violating the European Social Charter by legally requiring the sterilisation of trans* people. The complaint was recognised as justified by the Council of Europe in 2015 and has (administrative) consequences for the Czech Republic.
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Zdeněk Sloboda
Zdeněk Sloboda graduated in Media Studies at Charles University in Prague and is currently enrolled in the PhD study of civil society studies. He researched homparentality at the Institute of Sociology, the Czech Academy of Sciences. At Palacky University in Olomouc, he teaches in the areas of gender and sexualities, media, and media literacy. From 2015 till 2022 he has been the chair of the Committee for Sexual Minorities of the Czech governmental Council for Human Rights. In 2011, he co-founded the LGBT+ organisation PROUD.