Abstract
In this first chapter of the book ‘Queer Families in Hungary,’ I set the framework for my book. In terms of theory, I address the notion of intimate citizenship, especially as it relates to kinship and agency. Then I describe the community where I did research, also addressing the groups underrepresented in this community and my research. I will also address issues of ethics and positionality in the case of an LGBTQ activist studying a relatively closeted community in a homophobic national context.
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Notes
- 1.
An island on the river Danube in the center of Budapest, a popular public park.
- 2.
See more on the choice of terminology at the end of this chapter.
- 3.
Originally, the name of FIDESZ was short for Fiatal Demokraták Szövetsége, the Association of Young Democrats, and it was the most liberal party around the fall of the iron curtain. Being no longer young or democrats, they now refuse this title and choose not to explain the acronym.
- 4.
Though arguably the notion that ‘we’ are the ‘defenders of civilization’ has strong historical roots in this region and was present in nationalist discourses already during state socialism (Verdery 1991), with reference to the ‘West’ in general rather than the EU.
- 5.
- 6.
I am grateful to Roman Kuhar for this insight.
- 7.
Even if such laws are rarely enacted, the state may rely on them any time it feels itself threatened or needs a scapegoat (Dave 2012); queer activists in such countries who argue that a fight for decriminalization would be assimilationist (see Dasgupta and DasGupta 2018; Dave 2012) ignore that the prohibition of homosexuality, if enforced, forecloses not only assimilation and recognition but any kind of visible queer existence.
- 8.
Natália Szenteh, who also compiled an interview volume with parents of gays and lesbians (Szenteh 2005), operated a telephone helpline for parents and had personal meetings with them, but her efforts to organize regular group meetings failed. After my actual fieldwork was completed, a Facebook group for family members of LGBTQ people started, but I did not include them in my study.
- 9.
The acronym LGBTQ means ‘lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer.’ Though recently many activist organizations add the letters A (asexual) and I (intersex), this is often more an empty gesture than the incorporation of the specific needs and experiences of these groups (Butterfield 2013). During my fieldwork, asexual and intersex people were practically invisible in Hungary, including in the LGBTQ scene; therefore, I decided against adding their letters to the acronym I use. (The situation is still not much better with regard to intersex; the Hungarian Asexual Association was founded in 2019.) Though (for reasons discussed below) I did not interview trans* people, they did contribute to the production of community discourses at workshops and in online spaces, so I felt the use of the acronym ‘LGBTQ’ appropriate when referring to the community as a whole.
- 10.
Weston’s work is limited to these two groups.
- 11.
In queer theory, ‘identity’ has been criticized as too monolithic and essentialist (e.g., Jagose 1996) and ‘subjectivity’ is often used instead. While this is justified when writing about cultures or ages with no communities based on sexual object choice (e.g., Blackwood 2011; Halperin 2002), I believe ‘subjectivity’ is too individualistic a term, focusing more on the individual’s self-perception or taste (Halperin 2012) than on belonging to and/or identification with a specific community, which is my research area. It is important to note, however, that I use the term ‘identity’ in a soft, more fluid sense (Brubaker and Cooper 2000) and do not wish to suggest that it is in any way inborn or immutable.
- 12.
Communitas, as Turner describes it, is not a permanent phenomenon but is connected to temporary situations like initiation rites, while the rest of the time people are expected to act out given societal roles. Narratives of LGBTQ people, however, often describe the LGBTQ community as a place where they can ‘be themselves’ all the time, as opposed to the hostile heterosexual world (e.g., Bailey 2013; Weston 1991).
- 13.
MSM (men who have sex with men) is a term originating from HIV/AIDS activism to refer to men who engage in same-sex activities but do not necessarily adopt a sexual identity reflecting this practice. Here I denote with this term all men who are completely or partly same-sex oriented, in order to avoid assigning to them identities they may not claim.
- 14.
There was a short-lived attempt to create a women-only bar in the mid-2000s, but it closed down soon; one reason was financial difficulties, the other harrassment by heterosexual men, who repeatedly tried to get in and conflicts with them drove away many of the patrons. This example shows that in Hungarian society, permeated with sexism and the advocation of traditional gender roles (including by nationalist politics, see Chapter 2), allegedly ‘safe spaces’ for women may not be safe at all.
- 15.
Mások, the longest-lived gay and lesbian magazine, was much cheaper in quality and focused on providing information; this and its cheap production costs (the editors and the contributors all worked for free) enabled it to exist from 1990 to 2008, when the internet became the primary source of information for younger LGBTQ. (This resulted in the further exclusion of the elderly non-computer-literate, who still lament the lack of a printed gay magazine.)
- 16.
This, incidentally, is true for most catering venues in the center of Budapest.
- 17.
This will be discussed in Chapter 6.
- 18.
And sometimes even subcultural ones: in several instances, same-sex couples have been asked in gay bars not to show too much affection, as it might drive away heterosexual patrons.
- 19.
Recently, an initiative ‘We Are Open’ was launched by some (usually multinational or gay-owned) companies, but this is mostly limited to their presence at pride marches and does not involve openly targeting LGBTQ people in their general advertising. In a context of state homophobia this is hardly surprising: as this book is being prepared for publication, outrage was created among conservative politicians and Christian denominations by a poster campaign of Coca-Cola featuring same-sex couples, with right-wing public figures calling for a boycott on Coca-Cola products and the mayor of Budapest planning to ban the poster campaign.
- 20.
A community-building project (headed by a Budapest-based organization), which resulted in the formation of some rural LGBTQ organizations, started toward the end of my fieldwork.
- 21.
We must be aware, however, that rural to urban migration is also fueled by the lack of work opportunities in the countryside and is characteristic of younger generations of any sexual orientation or gender identity.
- 22.
1 Euro = about 300 HUF (210 USD). This price is less than 1/3 of what a soft drink would cost in an average bar in Budapest.
- 23.
A poignant example for this took place in a reading group, where some university educated queer-identified women persisted in using expert language and eventually drove most working-class participants away—ironically after they (the women) had declared that women can never be oppressors due to the prevailing gender order.
- 24.
Of course, middle-class participants who wish to discuss their personal issues may feel the same disappointment, but at least understand the presentation.
- 25.
A short-lived initiative, called Queer New Wave (Buzi Új Hullám), did try to address issues of class, but from an explicitly middle-class position: all its members were university educated, and their ideas of addressing class were charity-based, like distributing food for the homeless, which reinforces rather than dismantles class hierarchies.
- 26.
Háttér uses this acronym; my reason for not including the letter ‘I’ with reference to my fieldwork is mentioned above.
- 27.
Indeed, at the time of my writing, of all the Hungarian LGBTQ organizations its events have the highest diversity in terms of non-binary, trans* and asexual presence and topics, as well as the highest awareness of intersectional oppression.
- 28.
Inter Alia ceased to function in 2012, though its website was available for some more years (Bea Sándor, personal communication). The Foundation for Rainbow Families officially still exists, but as two of its three founders have moved abroad, its activities are mostly constrained to online help.
- 29.
Since the end of my fieldwork, the pride.hu website disappeared, then restarted under a different name (pridekozosseg.hu), but the old forum threads can no longer be retrieved.
- 30.
Unfortunately, shortly after I started my research, the melegvagyok.hu website was hacked; the organization started a new website, but without the forums. Therefore, I only had access to one forum thread, focusing on coming out, that I had managed to copy into a file.
- 31.
- 32.
Trolls are people who attempt to pass as legitimate participants of a forum or other internet group but cause disruption by disseminating bad advice or attacking other posters (Donath 1999). While Donath suggests that trolls only assume the identity on which the group is based, on pride.hu I witnessed trolling by self-proclaimed LGBTQ people, especially concerning arguments they strongly disagree with. Flaming is aggressively attacking another user (Donath 1999).
- 33.
Naturally, there are less public sites of communication on the internet, like closed Facebook groups or Skype calls between group members (Csáji 2015), but I did not examine these.
- 34.
Bisexual, transgender, and queer people are not even mentioned in either volume.
- 35.
The oral history project continued with gay men and yielded the book and film Hot men, cold dictatorships (Hanzli et al. 2015); however, as it was published years after my fieldwork, I had no opportunity to analyze it in detail and will only make sporadic references to it.
- 36.
In summer 2019 the government did suggest a modification of the law to ban adoption by gays and lesbians, but no bill has been presented to the Parliament yet.
- 37.
Háttér Legal Aid, besides its advocacy and legal counseling work, also hold trainings and workshops to raise the legal awareness of the LGBTQ community; I participated in such workshops and Tamás Dombos also provided me with training materials.
- 38.
I do discuss a case where the partner was not cisgender in Béres-Deák (2015).
- 39.
This also reproduces community tendencies, as at the time of my fieldwork Roma members usually did not talk about their background. From 2018, one has been able to observe a higher visibility of Roma LGBTQ (especially gay men) in Hungary, including some research projects exploring their experiences.
- 40.
Except one person’s experience of adopting a Roma child, see Chapter 3.
- 41.
A middle-aged gay friend’s email sums up the situation in a funny way: ‘I’d participate in your study, but by the time I wake up in the morning, my same-sex relationships always disappear!
.’
- 42.
In a journal article, I described the story of a woman who, after participating in a legal awareness workshop, started legal action against discrimination, as an illustration to how non-activists also rely on the legal framework. The anonymous reviewer commented that the heroine of my story was indeed an activist, after all, she had taken part in an event organized by an LGBTQ organization.
- 43.
Though Newton (1993) used the real names of her gay and lesbian interlocutors, it must be remembered that these were openly out people in high-class positions, who had less to lose by being identified.
- 44.
I consciously made no attempt to trace forum posters’ offline identity.
- 45.
Apparently, these are the disciplines where Hungarian universities allow research in such topics, and also where it is easy to study them without actually having to meet LGBTQ people in person, e.g., through online questionnaires. Such surveys are often shared on forums and mailing lists, and in most cases harshly criticized for their cisnormativity and lack of background knowledge.
- 46.
I do not think people outside the community would recognize me, but as we will see below, the closet is sometimes associated with an irrational amount of fear; there have been people (not potential interviewees) who were reluctant to appear in my company in public space.
- 47.
Indeed, in the interviews I had to paraphrase the question about discourses, because even university-educated interlocutors were unfamiliar with the term.
.’
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Béres-Deák, R. (2020). Introduction. In: Queer Families in Hungary . Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16319-8_1
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