Abstract
In recent years, right-wing discourses in Romania have been progressively constructed through nationalistic and homophobic voice pipes, triggering reactions from LGBT+ community and their allies. I frame these recent developments within a history of LGBT+ issues in post-1989 Romania—from changes in legislation to protests, public declarations, alliances, to the implication of the Orthodox Church and other cults. Since 2016, heated debates around changing the Constitution and the right to enter a civil partnership lead to a referendum. Although the referendum failed, the media campaigns leading to it arguably represented a tool for right-wing groups to strengthen their agendas and further polarize society. In this chapter, I analyze their main discursive strategies and trace the patterns reflected in both offline and online mediums as well as how these were countered by LGBT+ communities and other grassroots initiatives.
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Notes
- 1.
On Les Sisterhood Cluj website (now Queer Sisterhood Cluj): ‘Les Sisterhood Cluj is a group of female persons who identify as lesbians, bi, trans, queer. The aim of the group is connecting and consolidating a united community which can offer support’.
- 2.
The page that offers a brief account on the initiative, hosted by The Alliance for Families website, was removed; however the article can still be accessed via Internet Archive—Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20140804102931/www.alianta-familiilor.ro/proiectulcivic.html.
- 3.
Media Bias/Fact Check (MBFC News) is an independent online media outlet dedicated to educating the public on media bias and deceptive news practices.
- 4.
By the date of the final review of this present article, the website https://denecrezut.faction.ro/ was removed but it can still be consulted here: https://web.archive.org/web/20170324084822/, https://denecrezut.faction.ro/.
- 5.
After the referendum was invalidated, the majority of the resources hosted on the website were deleted. These can still be accessed thanks to archiving internet engines such as Wayback Machine. The older version of the parteneriat-civil.ro website can be found here: https://web.archive.org/web/*/, http://parteneriat-civil.ro/.
- 6.
Media often referred to them as the ‘laws of justice’. One of the most discussed aspects was the change of the conditions for magistrates, and in consequence, the number of eligible prosecutors and magistrates was drastically decreased. This also affected some well-known cases involving several politicians (including the Romanian Prime Minister).
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Maria Cohut, Simona Dumitriu, and the editors and reviewers of this volume for their patience, insights, and suggestions that played an important part in the process of developing this chapter.
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Dima, R. (2020). Trends of Homophobic Activism in Romania, or ‘How to Turn Religious Convictions into a Referendum and Still Fail’. In: Buyantueva, R., Shevtsova, M. (eds) LGBTQ+ Activism in Central and Eastern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20401-3_8
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