Abstract
In terms of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights, few organizations have done as much to promote the legal equality of sexual minorities as the European Union (EU). Especially since the inclusion of sexual orientation in the equalities agenda through Article 19 of Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU; formerly Article 13 TEC), there has been increased pressure at the European level for existing members and accession states to promote the equal rights of their LGBT citizens (Slootmaeckers and Touquet 2016). Despite similar top-down pressure, however, the degree of legal equality for LGBT individuals—not to mention social attitudes towards homosexuality—differs markedly across the region, with the situation particularly difficult in the states of the EU’s Eastern Partnership. The aim of this chapter is to suggest that the failure of Europeanization—understood here as the adoption of EU laws and values—to liberalize attitudes towards sexual minorities in Central and Eastern Europe can be explained in large part with reference to the nation. In line with the conclusions of Freyburg and Richter (2010) and Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier (2005) on the need to move beyond rationalist arguments and incorporate ideational factors to explain the relative success or failure of Europeanization, I argue that in many Central and East European member states and accession countries, homosexuality clashes with discourses of national identity, which have greater resonance among the population. This chapter will also demonstrate that EU support for LGBT equality can also have a negative impact on attitudes towards non-heteronormative individuals in states that are neither EU member states nor candidate countries, in that nationalist politicians use the EU’s more liberal position towards LGBT rights to draw a boundary between the ‘decadent West’ and ‘traditional East’ for their own social and political purposes. The analysis will focus in particular on the case studies of Latvia, Serbia and Russia to show that in each case, the marginalization of LGBT individuals is legitimized with calls to ‘the defence of the nation’.
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Notes
- 1.
Indeed, historians of sexuality argue that it was the spread of modern medicine and Freudian psychoanalysis that produced the social categories of homosexual and heterosexual (Schluter 2002, p. 29). Prior to the late nineteenth century, people behaved homosexually or heterosexually—or both—but were never classified as such.
- 2.
This understanding of the relationship between the ethnic nation and the patriarchal family is an example of a non-subjective discourse.
- 3.
Historically, ethnic minorities in some CEE states, such as Bulgaria, have even been forced to adopt the surname conventions of the dominant ethnic group.
- 4.
In addition to homosexuals, other countertypes have historically included Jews, Gypsies, vagrants, habitual criminals and the insane (Mosse 1996, p. 12).
- 5.
For a more detailed discussion of these debates in Latvia, see Mole (2011).
- 6.
The full text is available on the Rossiyskaya Gazeta Dokumenty website: http://www.rg.ru/2013/06/30/deti-site-dok.html [Accessed 14 July 2015].
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Mole, R.C.M. (2016). Nationalism and Homophobia in Central and Eastern Europe. In: Slootmaeckers, K., Touquet, H., Vermeersch, P. (eds) The EU Enlargement and Gay Politics. Gender and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-48093-4_5
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