{"id":412,"date":"2014-11-20T15:51:11","date_gmt":"2014-11-20T15:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/the-lgbtq-struggle-for-hospitality-in-eastern-european-cities\/"},"modified":"2015-07-07T15:09:42","modified_gmt":"2015-07-07T15:09:42","slug":"the-lgbtq-struggle-for-hospitality-in-eastern-european-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/the-lgbtq-struggle-for-hospitality-in-eastern-european-cities\/","title":{"rendered":"The LGBTQ struggle for hospitality in eastern European cities"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span> Commentary<\/p>\n

In 2003 we participated\u00a0as a gay couple\u00a0in Eastern Europe\u2019s first LGBTQ visibility campaign,\u00a0Let Them See Us. <\/em>Feminist artist Karolina Bregula, supported by\u00a0the\u00a0NGO Campaign Against Homophobia, authored a pioneering artistic-social action: 30 real same-sex\u00a0couples,\u00a0depicted in the act of coming out\u00a0while\u00a0holding hands\u00a0in the\u00a0Warsaw cityscape. Presented on billboards, the portraits were censored or vandalised in urban spaces,\u00a0but when\u00a0they\u00a0travelled\u00a0across Poland as a popular exhibition shown in artistic institutions,\u00a0they\u00a0sparked a heated debate.<\/p>\n

Although more visual campaigns for LGBTQ rights followed\u00a0Let Them See Us<\/em>, the plight of\u00a0the exhibition\u00a0typifies the ambivalence towards queer (non-heterosexual, subversive minorities) participation in the public sphere of Eastern Europe.\u00a0On the one hand, the streets and cultural hubs are increasingly hospitable\u00a0to\u00a0lesbian and gay events,\u00a0whereas\u00a0on the other,\u00a0the\u00a0danger\u00a0of\u00a0destruction or physical attack lurks\u00a0in the homophobic darkness. Ever-present oppression and violence threaten democratic activism, openness and hospitality.<\/p>\n

Only through public visibility in urban spaces can queers advocate for our rights to full and unrestricted access to the democratic agora and at the same time trigger social change that goes beyond citizenship towards cosmopolitan politics of human rights and participation. <\/p><\/div>\n

In this difficult context, LGBTQ activism in the city offers diverse forms of struggle for a new urban citizenship and inclusion in the human geography of Eastern Europe. Only through public visibility in urban spaces can queers advocate for our rights to full and unrestricted access to the democratic agora and at the same time trigger social change that goes beyond citizenship towards cosmopolitan politics of human rights and participation. Through public demonstrations and cultural initiatives for queer expression, the suppressed urban subjectivities based on sexual and gender difference are articulated, highlighting minorities\u2019 essential place in the democratic urban sphere. Through freedom of same-sex sexual expression in cities, an increasingly open and less oppressive urban society is being formed. Through political petitions and demands of LGBTQ organisations addressed to municipal institutions, legal rights are fostered: here participatory art that makes a political point is crucial. Through queer protests set up against homophobic restriction, the status quo of city power is questioned, allowing critical movements and civil society to flourish.<\/p>\n

By collaborating with other disadvantaged and oppositional groups, we help create the urban space as a human rights arena. This moves beyond the question of national citizenship, embracing a more inclusive approach to human rights and participation. We argue that LGTBQ rights are tied to all minority rights and as such develop an urban citizenship that promotes the visibility and participation of all minorities, questioning the discriminatory non-citizenship status imposed by a nationalism that co-exists with heteronormative order. (By \u201cheteronormativity\u201d, we refer to an oppressive system that takes heterosexuality<\/a> as the sole gender and sexual norm).<\/p>\n

Alarmingly, the worst cases of homo- and xeno- phobic assault have taken place in Wroclaw, designated the European Capital of Culture for 2016.<\/p><\/div>\n

Although\u00a0in 2013 major Polish cities\u00a0carried out their Pride Parades (which are\u00a0no longer banned as they notoriously were by\u00a0Warsaw\u2019s\u00a0mayor in 2004 and 2005, or raided by the police\u00a0like\u00a0in Poznan in 2005),\u00a0they\u00a0require very heavy police protection. At Prides a cordon\u00a0is set up to separate\u00a0the\u00a0marchers\u00a0from their brutal\u00a0opponents, who come\u00a0from far-right and ultra-nationalist youth militias and thuggish soccer groups. Without this heightened security,\u00a0gays would\u00a0be attacked in the same way\u00a0that\u00a0queer individuals continue to be verbally and physically assaulted on Polish streets. Alarmingly, the worst cases of homo- and xeno- phobic assault\u00a0have\u00a0taken place in Wroclaw, designated\u00a0the European Capital of Culture for 2016. For example, on 22 June 2013 British-Polish-Jewish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman\u2019s lecture at the University of Wroclaw was disrupted by far-right extremists. On the night of 6 July 2013, openly gay curator of Wroclaw\u2019s Contemporary Museum Bartlomiej Lis was severely beaten and verbally abused in Strzegomska Street because of his queerness. LGBTQ groups and citizens in Poland are exercising their legal rights to use urban spaces, but its cities are\u00a0not yet safe for queer intimate or political expression: one always has to be very careful.<\/p>\n

The violence of the urban space and the precarious state of LGBTQ urban citizenship is also exemplified by the predicament of the public artwork The Rainbow<\/em> by feminist artist Julita Wojcik. The installation, erected in June 2012 in Plac Zbawiciela in the heart of Warsaw, depicts a huge rainbow made of artificial flowers created by hand with the help of volunteers as a symbol of peace and tolerance. The Rainbow has been repeatedly vandalised and burned, and requires constant reconstruction. This is a testament to how the forces of creation and destruction, acceptance and aggression compete in Polish streets and, generally, in its public life.<\/p>\n

The biggest challenge facing LGBTQ citizens in Polish cities is the protection of their safety from verbal abuse and physical violence in public. This holds true for all Eastern European countries where LGBTQ people are a controversial, if not taboo, minority whose increased public visibility ignites social conflicts and resistance. Much of Eastern Europe is\u00a0still conservative in its attitudes towards queer participation and love. But things are changing: the level of diversity differs significantly between these new EU countries and their cities. It is no longer possible to treat the entire region as one \u201canti-gay\u201d entity. Instead basic queer rights are legally protected in Eastern European countries that are part of the EU. In virulently homophobic Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, however, this is a completely different story.<\/p>\n

Yet all of Eastern Europe continues to lag behind Western countries when it comes to societal acceptance: Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia have no legal recognition of same-sex unions. On the other hand, the East\u00a0is at the forefront of\u00a0robust\u00a0activism for queer participation, as numerous social initiatives counter the discriminatory residue left over from the old system or supported by the religion-turned-ideology in right-wing fundamentalism.<\/p>\n

Therefore queer\u00a0expression in the public spaces of Eastern Europe has a very political character\u00a0that is linked to the democratic diversification of\u00a0the\u00a0public. This stands in contrast to the commercial and entertainment-based element of public queer presence in\u00a0urban spaces in Western cities. Prides in Polish cities are not urban festivals or street parties \u2013 local governments do not use them as tourist attractions or massive money-making events.<\/p>\n

Dividing our time between Britain and Poland \u2013 that is, Brighton and Lublin \u2013\u00a0we live between two poles of the EU when it comes to LGBTQ issues.\u00a0We have noted this East versus West divide in Brighton, which is\u00a0considered to be the gay capital of\u00a0the\u00a0UK, but in fact is no different from other British urban centres in the twenty-first century. In Brighton,\u00a0Pride has been\u00a0turned into an amusement park, an all-city festival for everyone \u2013 including children who enjoy the colourful costumes and music \u2013 bringing together thousands of young people\u00a0from the region.\u00a0Although it includes political, artistic and religious initiatives (such as solidarity with LGBT people in Russia), the event has become commercialised. In stark contrast, the Polish city of Lublin,\u00a0which is similar in size to Brighton, has never had a Pride, or even one long-lasting gay nightclub for that matter. Thus when queer events\u00a0are launched in Poland, they have a radical edge. In Eastern Europe projects focused on queer urban presence\u00a0are characterised by\u00a0a vanguard social and cultural character that attracts progressive audiences and media attention. The\u00a0Transeuropa Festival, which we co-curated in Lublin, can serve as an example.<\/p>\n

Held in Lublin from May 5 to 15th, 2011, the festival celebrated hospitality, ecology and the rights of women, minorities and refugees. Through free public arts events such as exhibitions, performances, debates and workshops held in a variety\u00a0of public, institutional and alternative\u00a0spaces, the festival fostered acceptance of the LGBTQ community within the broader framework of women\u2019s rights\u00a0and transnational culture and history. Transeuropa sought to revive the city\u2019s murdered intercultural life. Before the Holocaust, Lublin was a key home to Jewish life, learning and politics. The diverse and transnational character of Lublin was explored during the festival in presentations by\u00a0Jewish, Romany and Ukrainian communities. We also involved\u00a0Chechen refugees who presented their precarious situation: exclusion, unemployment, problems with education and housing. Transeuropa Festival demonstrated how\u00a0LGBTQ people mobilise as active citizens, helping themselves and other \u201cOthers\u201d (including non-citizens, refugees and other migrants) join and transform urban life in Poland.<\/p>\n

Lublin\u00a0hosts the nonprofit Transeuropa Festival to promote wider\u00a0social change.\u00a0Because we have lived in both Brighton and Lublin, we have experienced how central cities are to the acceptance of LGBT communities throughout Europe. Historically, big cities, with their diversity and anonymity, have provided gay people with shelter, refuge and opportunities for meeting and cultural expression. Cities have offered an escape from claustrophobic and controlling communities, as historian George Chauncey demonstrated in his book Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890\u20131940<\/em>.<\/p>\n

We deplore the ban on Prides in Russian cities, imposed recently for the next 100 years. Lublin is in between Brighton and Moscow: hostile at times and only beginning to become tolerant. And yet it was turned into a rainbow city for a week during Transeuropa in celebration of the EU\u2019s sexual-affective diversity. We invited two Polish politicians, Anna Grodzka and Robert Biedron, who happen to be transgender and gay, respectively, and who half a year later would become the first out and proud LGBTQ members of the Polish parliament. At the same time, many Transeuropa events took place in the anti-capitalist squat and vibrant countercultural hub Tektura.<\/p>\n

Queer events in Polish cities bring together not the mass culture of public entertainment, but independent activists, organisations and coalitions that oppose the right-wing government and the rising far-right fringe. <\/p><\/div>\n

The Transeuropa Festival in Lublin underscored the role of alliances in the movement for democratic participation in Poland.\u00a0As in Lublin, there is a\u00a0rich history of queer cultures in other East European cities, as well as collaboration with the feminist movement, labour unions, anarchists, Greens and minority rights initiatives. Queer events in Polish cities bring together not the mass culture of public entertainment, but independent activists, organisations and coalitions that oppose the right-wing government and the rising far-right fringe.\u00a0Queer events in cities have been\u00a0protected by anarchist partners from fascist youth aggression \u2013 as seen when the Human Library, run by the informal NGO Rainbow Lublin, was looked after by antifascist members of Tektura. This alliance links the LGBTQ community\u2019s political\u00a0agenda to the radical left movement, which seeks to reclaim urban spaces from commercial or governmental control.<\/p>\n

Yet the situation is more complicated: many big cities in Poland\u00a0and Eastern Europe also have a thriving commercial clubbing scene that plays a major role in queer urban life.\u00a0There is no denying that\u00a0the commercial entertainment sector is also present and increases the visibility of LGBTQ people and their\u00a0participation in city life, alongside activism\u00a0manifested in\u00a0cultural urban projects. Both commercial and social components within urban spaces help to ensure that the queer community is not only visible, but also actively and openly involved in creating our own space and defending our rights while opposing homophobic speech and actions by some parts of society and the political elite. Queer life in big Polish cities is not clandestine but highly visible through clubbing, demonstrations and, most importantly, inclusive, participatory projects as Transeuropa, Human Library and visual actions as Let Them See Us<\/em>.<\/p>\n

We believe that in contemporary Europe\u00a0the question of LGBTQ rights and inclusion must be connected to broader engagement with the\u00a0issues of democracy and an attitude of social acceptance toward all kinds of\u00a0otherness in the public realm.\u00a0With the expansion of the EU and the current economic crisis, European societies are both becoming increasingly mobile and mixed while remaining chained to old divisions and prejudices. When Poland and several other East European countries\u00a0joined the EU in 2004, many LGBTQ people left the East to start a new life in more tolerant Western European cities. Yet they have only traded their second-rate \u201cqueer\u201d citizenship status in their own old countries for the even more precarious condition as the migrant in their new residence. We have experienced this ourselves, which has convinced us that there must be close cooperation between\u00a0queer and migrant rights\u2019 groups\u00a0in Europe.<\/p>\n

Queers are like archetypal strangers in hetero-normative society \u2013 the strategies and achievements of the LGBTQ movement must be employed in order to advance migrant participation in all European cities. The urban strategies of inclusion and acceptance are historically necessary in both Western and Eastern Europe. And here the stereotype of a progressive West versus a backwater East\u00a0is\u00a0collapsing. The two halves of our continent are both caught in a deep ethical crisis.\u00a0We are as outraged by far-right militias and soccer thugs who unleash their gender norms by terrorizing\u00a0Polish streets as we are by the British immigration officers who target and arrest unjustly named \u201cillegal\u201d\u00a0migrants in the streets and railways stations of London, using the most crude forms of racial profiling.\u00a0There cannot be queer participation in European cities without the recognition of migrant rights, as for ages intercultural European\u00a0cities have been safe havens for both groups. The\u00a0norm-challenging diversity we\u00a0bring to the city could not be further from conformist, aggressive ultra-nationalism.\u00a0The Other Europe needs more participation and solidarity from the Other: queers, migrants, the unemployed, homeless and all precarious residents. Instead of globalisation, we call for cosmopolitanism as an ethics of care for the democratic diversity of minorities.<\/p>\n

Image: Brightonlite.wordpress<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2003 we participated as a gay couple in Eastern Europe\u2019s first LGBTQ visibility campaign, Let Them See Us. Feminist artist Karolina Bregula, supported by the NGO Campaign Against Homophobia, authored a pioneering artistic-social action: 30 real same-sex couples, depicted in the act of coming out while holding hands in the Warsaw cityscape. Presented on billboards, the portraits were censored or vandalised in urban spaces, but when they travelled across Poland as a popular exhibition shown in artistic institutions, they sparked a heated debate.
\nAlthough more visual campaigns for LGBTQ rights followed Let Them See Us, the plight of the exhibition typifies the ambivalence towards queer (non-heterosexual, subversive minorities) participation in the public sphere of Eastern Europe. On the one hand, the streets and cultural hubs are increasingly hospitable to lesbian and gay events, whereas on the other, the danger of destruction or physical attack lurks in the homophobic darkness. Ever-present oppression and violence threaten democratic activism, openness and hospitality<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":156,"featured_media":1016,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[139],"tags":[178],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/156"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1021,"href":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412\/revisions\/1021"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}