In my policy paper (and research paper) I am assessing the climates
of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia in relation to lesbians, gays,
bisexuals and transgendered by revealing:
(i) law and governmental policy, including initiatives of and resistance
to domestic partnership;
(ii) the presence or absence of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered
(LGBT) non-governmental organizations;
(iii) the level of activity of the LGBT movement, using lesbian and
gay publications, radio programs, meeting places, film festivals, Internet
and other cultural activities as indicators; and
(iv) positive and negative (chiefly the latter) perceptions of lesbians
and gays in mainstream media.
I am proposing strategic solutions, including measurements of success and sustainability, to many of the problems I uncovered. In my policy paper I am recommending the following next steps:
* Create a "Virtual Central-Eastern European LGBT Center" on the Internet;
* Establish a think tank to write responses to homophobic media releases;
* Establish a "LGBT Community House" as a way to emphasize the existence
of LGBT in society;
* Organize a CEE Conference on LGBT issues in the region;
* Support research on the social status of LGBT people and levels of
homophobia within the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia;
* Encourage secondary schools and higher educational institutions to
integrate LGBT issues into the curriculum;
* Organize a summer school to train teachers about discrimination against
LGBT people;
* Encourage law and sociology students to work on LGBT discrimination
cases;
* Organize competitions for poetry and prose on LGBT themes; and
* Encourage publication of books with LGBT themes.
In my fellowship in year 2000 I will now broaden my report to include Romania, Poland and Slovenia.
During my 1999 fellowship, I collaborated with the Center for Publishing
Development in Budapest to create the 1999 Lesbian & Gay Issues Translation
Project Competition, a pilot program aimed at translating books into local
languages to raise public awareness of lesbian and gay issues. This pilot
project was successful, some 16 books will be published in Bulgaria, Czech
Republic, Hungary and Slovenia. Other similar projects may follow.
OSI Grants program and other programs within the OSI network provided
few LGBT NOGs in the region with grants and allowed them to participate
on conferences. Hopefully this cooperation will continue and broader to
other OSI and Soros network fundantions.