Original article (in Slovenian) was published on 05/10/2023; Author: Nika Gradišek
“If it were really true that society ‘has had nothing against same-sex partnerships for a long time,’ there would be not physical and verbal attacks after parades,” says Roman Kuhar, professor of sociology at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana.
On 18 September, two days after the Pride Parade in Maribor, the portal Nova24tv.si claimed in an article entitled Parades provoking incidents that pride parades “are no longer about fighting for equality for homosexuals, because homosexuals have long been equal.” They also argued that society has long had nothing against legally recognized same-sex couples.
After the Maribor Pride Parade, the organizers, the Maribor Youth Cultural Centre, reported violence. One LGBT+ community member and activist was injured and had to seek emergency medical assistance. Violence against parade participants was also reported by the organizers of the Ljubljana Pride Parade in July this year, where several people reported being victims of violence before and after the parade. Rainbow flags were stolen from participants, set on fire, and pelted with eggs.
Roman Kuhar, a professor of sociology at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana who teaches the courses sociology of gender and sexuality and introduction to gay and lesbian studies, explained to Razkrinkavanje.si that when talking about the rights of LGBT+ individuals, the key distinction is between equality, which means formal equality before the law, and equity, “which includes social, political, cultural and similar dimensions of inclusion or exclusion in society, equal opportunities, and the like”.
It is difficult to talk about equality when the victims of violence are always from the same social groups, he added. “If it were true that society has long had nothing against same-sex partnerships, we would not see physical and verbal attacks after parades.”
In his view, it is precisely the violence against LGBT+ people at parades that confirms pride parades are still necessary. Kuhar added that he himself does not see parades as a purely political protest, but also as a manifestation organized in memory of all struggles for equality. Even if it were true that homosexuals are treated equally in society, this would not be a reason to abandon parades.
Equality for same-sex couples from January this year
Until 2017, the rights of same-sex couples were governed by the law on the registration of same-sex civil partnerships. This allowed them to register a same-sex partnership, but not to marry.
Unlike married couples, registered same-sex partners did not have the right to adopt a child or to surrogacy. Until the Constitutional Court intervened in 2009, their inheritance rights were limited as well.
In February 2017, the Civil Unions Act entered into force bringing the rights of same-sex partners on an equal footing with those of married couples, with the exception of the right to adopt a child and to assisted reproduction.
LGBT+ couples were not granted all the rights and obligations of marriage until 31 January this year, with the entry into force of amendments to the Family Code that gave same-sex couples full marriage equality.
And yet, LGBT+ people are still in an unequal position in other areas. For example, in December 2021, the Equality Ombudsman drew attention in a special report to the unequal position of transgender people in Slovenia, for example in medical confirmation and legal recognition of gender. Among other things, it was recommended that the National Institute of Public Health should no longer treat transgenderism as a mental disorder, which would be in line with revisions to the International Classification of Diseases.
LGBT+ persons still victims of discrimination and harassment
The 2022 Slovenian Public Opinion survey found that 35.3% of respondents disagreed with the notion that two female spouses can raise a child as well as a heterosexual couple, and 43.3% disagreed that two male spouses can raise a child as well.
In August 2018, researchers in the EU-funded project Call It Hate conducted a survey on LGBT+ persons in Slovenia on a sample of 602 respondents to explore attitudes towards LGBT+ persons and the general population’s social distance towards them.
In the survey, 80% of respondents agreed with the statement that LGBT+ people should be free to live as they please, but respondents showed a higher level of empathy towards heterosexuals than towards LGBT+ persons.
The researchers found that social distance towards LGBT+ people in Slovenia had been narrowing in the decade to 2018, and that respondents expressed the least support, understanding and empathy towards transgender people.
A 2014 survey exploring how aware LGBT persons are of their legal rights and the everyday lives of gays and lesbians, based on a sample of 1,145 LGBT community members, found that almost 30% had been discriminated against or harassed because of their sexual orientation while they went to school, and 12% reported experiencing such discrimination in the workplace.
Some of the respondents reported that they had been terminated for disclosing their sexual orientation or had resigned because of workplace bullying. Only 40% of respondents chose to come out to their coworkers. The researchers assume this is because of fear of discrimination. Half of the respondents had experienced psychological, physical or sexual violence because of their sexual orientation.
Nova24tv.si was informed of our findings. They replied that homosexual couples are legally equal to heterosexual couples and therefore equal, but they did not comment on the part of the claim that this has been the case “for a long time”. They rejected the surveys on the position of LGBT+ people with the argument that they explore the experiences and subjective feelings of individuals and therefore represent excesses, not the state of society. They backed up their claim that Slovenian society has nothing against such arrangements by arguing that there are no protests or specific initiatives demanding a change in the current legal framework.
Last September, in the week before a parliamentary vote on Family Code amendments, there was a Rally for the Protection of Children and Families at which Aleš Primc announced a referendum if the amendments were adopted by the National Assembly. The referendum was prevented by a National Assembly decision declaring such a popular vote inadmissible. Primc and Metka Zevnik took the case to the Constitutional Court, but it upheld the National Assembly decision.
The claim that homosexuals have long been equal is not true, same-sex couples have in fact only been equal before the law since January this year.
The claim that society has long had no objection to same-sex couples being in legally recognized partnerships is not true either.