Beyond the Pink Curtain. Everyday Life of LGBT People in Eastern Europe

Beyond the Pink Curtain. Everyday Life of LGBT People in Eastern Europe

The idea of this book was born in the Intimate/Sexual Citizenship conference in October 2005 in Ljubljana where scholars focusing on the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in post-socialist Eastern Europe were gathered to discuss the everyday experiences of LGBT people regarding the functioning of social, political and cultural boundaries that separate the “good heterosexual citizen” from the rest. The 21 articles of this volume illustrate the increasingly conspicuous ways of LGBT existence being specifically characteristic to Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, East-Germany, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

Contents
Gert Hekma
Foreword

Judit Takács and Roman Kuhar
Introduction: What is Beyond the Pink Curtain?

I. OUT WE COME

Liselotte van Velzen
Down and Out in Belgrade: An Ethnographic Account on the Everyday Life Experiences of Serbian Gays and Lesbians [Serbia]

Roman Kuhar
The Family Secret: Parents of Homosexual Sons and Daughters [Slovenia]

Jolanta Reingardiene and Arnas Zdanevicius
Disrupting the (Hetero)normative: Coming-out in the Workplace in Lithuania [Lithuania]

II. MAPPING THE SCENES

Katerina Nedbálková
The Changing Space of the Gay and Lesbian Community in the Czech Republic [Czech Republic]

Rita Béres-Deák
Values Reflected in Style in a Lesbian Community in Budapest [Hungary]

Anna Gruszczynska
Living la vida Internet: Some notes on the cyberization of Polish LGBT community [Poland]

Frédéric Jörgens
‘East’ Berlin: Lesbian and Gay Narratives on Everyday Life, Social Acceptance, and Past and Present [East Germany]

III. CHALLENGING IDENTITIES

Bence Solymár and Judit Takács
Wrong Bodies and Real Selves: Transsexual People in the Hungarian Social and Health Care System [Hungary]

Anna Borgos
The Boundaries of Identity: Bisexuality in Everyday and Theoretical Contexts [Hungary]

Judit Takács
‘It is only extra information …’ Social Representation and Value Preferences of Hungarian Gay Men [Hungary]

IV. FAMILIES WE CHOOSE

Eva Polaskova
The Czech Lesbian Family Study: Investigating Family Practices [Czech Republic]

Alenka Švab
Do They Have a Choice? Reproductive Preferences among Lesbians and Gays in Slovenia [Slovenia]

Jana Kukucková
Who Does the Dishes? [Slovakia]

V. REPRESENTING ‘OTHERS’

Kevin Moss
Queer as Metaphor: Representations of LGBT People in Central & East European Film [Eastern Europe]

Hadley Z. Renkin
Predecessors and Pilgrims: Lesbian History-making and Belonging in Post-socialist Hungary [Hungary]

Heidi Kurvinen
Trendy or not? Homosexual Representations in Estonian Printed Media During the Late 1980s and Early 1990s [Estonia]

Monika Pisankaneva
‘Gays and Transvestites Occupied the House.’A Snapshot of LGBT Representations in the Bulgarian Media [Bulgaria]

VI. FEAR AND HATE

Aivita Putnina
Sexuality, Masculinity and Homophobia: The Latvian Case [Latvia]

Gregory E. Czarnecki
Analogies of Pre-War Anti-semitism and Present-Day Homophobia in Poland [Poland]

Ivana Jugović, Aleksandra Pikić, Nataša Bokan
Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals in Croatia: How the Stigma Shapes Lives [Croatia]

Viachaslau Bortnik
Hate Crimes against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People in Belarus [Belarus]

Contributors and Index