Growing Oppression, Growing Resistance LGBT Activism and Europeanisation in Macedonia

This chapter provides one of the first socio-historical overviews of the LGBT groups in Macedonia and argues that an important impetus for the proliferation of LGBT activities has been the growing state-endorsed homophobia starting from 2008. The homophobic rhetoric of the ruling parties was clearly manifested in the promulgation of antidiscrimination legislation which did not recognise sexual orientation as a ground for discrimination, the unwillingness to prosecute the spreading instances of hate speech and other forms of anti-LGBT violence, and the two (failed) attempts to constitutionally define marriage as a union between a woman and a man. Because of this, the LGBT activists have to invoke the support of various international NGOs and (supra)national bodies, including the EU, as well as remind the Macedonian authorities of the requirements which Macedonia has to fulfil as an EU candidate country.