LGBTQ Activism and Mental Health in the Post-Yugoslav Space

Over the last two decades, the post-Yugoslav space has witnessed unprecedented legal advancements aiming to improve the status of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ) people. Mostly as part of the European Union (EU) enlargement process, governments across the region have passed anti-discrimination laws and many have also allowed or are preparing to allow different forms of registration of same-sex unions. Nevertheless, such legal improvements do not lead, in a direct, linear, way, to more liveable LGBTQ lives. Rates of homophobic and transphobic violence have remained high in spite of intense legislative activity in this domain. As a consequence of still widespread discriminatory attitudes, LGBTQ persons may have higher chances of becoming estranged from their families and be more easily rejected by their peers and the wider social environment in ways that compromise their emotional well- being. High levels of stigma and discrimination, compounded by material hardship, may lead to depression, suicidal thoughts and attempted suicides, as well as other risk behaviours (e.g. substance use), particularly among non-heterosexual and trans youth with insufficient parental support. While a lot of scholarly attention has been paid to LGBTQ mental health in Western Europe and the United States, there is still no qualitative study examining the development of LGBTQ- affirmative mental health services in the post-Yugoslav space or postsocialist Eastern Europe, more generally. Psychiatric and psychological education programmes in the region barely cover non-heterosexual and trans issues or do so in outdated and pathologising ways. Some mental health professionals with a high level of public visibility may even demonstrate overtly homo- rans-phobic stances which have harmful long-term effects on LGBTQ people through undermining their trust in the quality of official psychotherapeutic services and reducing their readiness to seek help. This transnational and comparative research project brings together three neighbouring post- Yugoslav countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia. It makes use of their unique structural position with respect to the EU which plays a paramount albeit contested role in domestic political life. The project, based on a range of empirical methods, focuses on the entanglements between LGBTQ-identified people, activists, and mental health professionals. It explores 1) the extent to which mental health professionals have absorbed emancipatory legal change into their practice, and 2) engages with LGBTQ activist alternative forms of mental health support developed as a response to the homophobiaransphobia in official mental health institutions. The project contributes to redressing the imbalance between Western and Eastern European research on LGBTQ politics and enables activists, practitioners, and policy makers to ensure services that better meet the mental health needs of LGBTQ persons.

Over the last two decades, the post-Yugoslav space has witnessed unprecedented legal advancements aiming to improve the status of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ) people. Mostly as part of the European Union (EU) enlargement process, governments across the region have passed anti-discrimination laws and many have also allowed or are preparing to allow different forms of registration of same-sex unions. Nevertheless, such legal improvements do not lead, in a direct, linear, way, to more liveable LGBTQ lives. Rates of homophobic and transphobic violence have remained high in spite of intense legislative activity in this domain. As a consequence of still widespread discriminatory attitudes, LGBTQ persons may have higher chances of becoming estranged from their families and be more easily rejected by their peers and the wider social environment in ways that compromise their emotional well-being. High levels of stigma and discrimination, compounded by material hardship, may lead to depression, suicidal thoughts and attempted suicides, as well as other risk behaviours (e.g. substance use), particularly among non-heterosexual and trans youth with insufficient parental support. While a lot of scholarly attention has been paid to LGBTQ mental health in Western Europe and the United States, there is still no qualitative study examining the development of LGBTQ-affirmative mental health services in the post-Yugoslav space or postsocialist Eastern Europe, more generally. Psychiatric and psychological education programmes in the region barely cover non-heterosexual and trans issues or do so in outdated and pathologising ways. Some mental health professionals with a high level of public visibility may even demonstrate overtly homo-/trans-phobic stances which have harmful long-term effects on LGBTQ people through undermining their trust in the quality of official psychotherapeutic services and reducing their readiness to seek help. This transnational and comparative research project engaged with the former Yugoslav space and focused on lives, cultures, and activisms of the regional trans communities. Drawing on a range of empirical methods, the study explored trans activist alternative forms of mental health support developed as a response to the transphobia in official mental health institutions. It was found that above and beyond their empowerment function, trans activist groups constitute epistemic communities which generate embodied knowledge about transgender lives. The project examined policy implications of such insufficiently visible community-based strategies for improving transgender mental health and highlighted the necessity of the official mental health institutions to incorporate them into their practice. In such a way, this research contributed to redressing the imbalance between Western and Eastern European scholarship on LGBTQ politics and enabled activists, practitioners, and policy makers to ensure services that better meet the mental health needs of LGBTQ persons.