BEING A LGBTTIQ – MEANINGS THAT SHAPE US

Text topic: Culture and Deviance

Text author: Марија Радоман

This paper analyses certain aspects of everyday life of the LGBT population in Serbia, starting with Gerc’s understanding of culture. Aspects that shape the “identity” of a non-heterosexual person in a predominantly heteronormative and heterosexual environment are a stigma, internalized homophobia, and various strategies of “passing” and connecting with the “gay” community. These elements are an integral part of the lives of LGBT people and based on them we can talk about certain meanings that are common to LGBT population. The first part deals with concepts such as identity, internalized stigma/homophobia, while the second part deals with several case studies of non-heterosexual persons. The experiences such as sexual orientation different from heterosexual and gender identities that are not binary make it possible to speak in Gerc’s sense of a certain “culture” that is familiar to LGBT minority, which is largely not shared by heterosexual women and men in the same society. That culture of the LGBTTIQ population forms part of a hidden and an invisible culture – being in opposition to the heteronormative concepts means exposure to discrimination and violence, which brings a lot of misunderstandings but also means resistance – a certain challenge to the society that is standardized by heterosexual rules and binary gender regimes. The LGBTTIQ “culture” has the power to deconstruct oppositions such as heterosexual/homosexual, men/women, etc.