Suchergebnisse

Over the past few decades, the situation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people has improved significantly and attitudes towards these vulnerable social groups have become more favorable, but discrimination, hate speech and hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity remain widespread. Based on the corpus of data obtained during 1991–2023 from series of representative international and national studies, changes in public opinion about LGBT people in two post-Soviet countries were analyzed. It is shown that despite the numerous differences between Estonian and Ukrainian societies, different legislative fields and other factors, the dynamics of attitudes towards LGBT issues in both countries have many common features (namely, the initial period of stable low public support for LGBT is replaced by its rapid growth, which, in in turn, passes into a period of stable high support), and the process of changes in public opinion over time can be described by a logistic equation. The nature of changes in public opinion described in the article is applied to most of the considered data, and the duration of the initial period of stable-low support (on average, 11 years for Estonia and about 20 years for Ukraine) is comparable to the period separating two generations. The applied mathematical model gives grounds for predicting that the maximum of public support for LGBT may be reached in Estonia at the end of the 2020s, and in Ukraine at the beginning of the 2030s. Unfortunately, social stigmatization of LGBT issues significantly limits the availability of data that can become basis of the analysis. The article discusses some possible factors of changes in public support for LGBT issues (the number and openness of LGBT people, instability in the respective societies / states, etc.), and outlines the heuristic value of the proposed model and directions for further development.

The article presents the results of a content-analytical study of 243 publications in online media of Ukraine during 2021 in comparison with the results of earlier monitorings of Ukrainian offline and online media. Analysis of both scientific literature shows that hate speech against minorities (in particular, LGBT) is an urgent issue that has a distinct practical dimension, because the spread of hate in the online environment can have the nature of an epidemic and be accompanied by an increase in violent acts. Although the results have a number of limitations (different ways of forming selective sets of media materials in the analyzed studies, lack of research consensus on the definition of hate speech, attribution of the collected data to the period before the beginning of the massive invasion of the Russian Federation troops on the territory of Ukraine and impossibility of reflecting the state of society in the war time), it showed that the number of news related to LGBT was decreasing, despite of media samples design. Publications containing hate speech were from 2 to 25%. Hate speech in these publications was usually quotes and does not express the position of the journalist. Hate speech arose in the context of both public and internal actions of the LGBT community and was accompanied by calls for violence or violence itself. Stronger hate speech was more typical for anonymous internet commentators, street hooligans (including those from organized right-wing gangs), and small local public figures. The collected materials are analyzed in the paradigm of R. Connell's hierarchy of masculinities. Hate speech is characteristic primarily for the statements of athletes, military and politicians, that is, those who are associated in the public consciousness with the stereotypical image of a "real man". In further studies, approaches to the formation of media samples should be standardized, as well as, the tools for automatic or semi-automatic content analysis should be developed. All this will facilitate the study of changes in hate speech in the public space.

The article describes the results of an expert survey of activists from two HIV-vulnerable communities (men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender people), as well as public health professionals from seven countries in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region regarding the state of strategic information (SI) regarding MSM and trans people in the context of HIV at the national level (quality, integrity, relevance and use of data). An analysis of scientific literature on studies of these communities was also used. According to the level of completeness and quality of SI, the studied countries can be ranked in descending order as follows: Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Armenia, North Macedonia, Belarus, Estonia. At the same time, information about transgender people is available only in Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine. The integrity, relevance and use of strategic information in countries mostly depend on the availability of international financial and technical assistance resources, as well as the institutional capacity of organizations of vulnerable communities, in particular in the area of advocacy of the interests of the communities they represent in state authorities. The quality of the available information is also determined by other factors: differences in the definitions of the studied communities (in particular, the inclusion of trans women in the group of men who have sex with men), failure to take into account migration processes, the size and structure of general populations (mostly unknown), the impossibility of constructing non-random samples of sufficient size or insufficient quality of construction of pseudo-random samples, lack of coverage of the entire territory of the respective countries (only the capital and sometimes large cities), etc. In general, with few exceptions, the strategic information available in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region on MSM and trans people in the context of HIV is incomplete, underutilized and of limited validity.

The article is devoted to the discussion of the ratio of the public and private, which characterizes the live of homosexual and bisexual men in the urban agglomerations of Donetsk region. In the research, the authors examined the boundaries of privacy, such as intrusion into privacy by family, neighbors, and the ability to exist in a safe environment. Donetsk region is characterized by significant distances between the major urban agglomerations, which in its turn leads to relative mutual isolation of local communities, that in its turn contributes to their weak involvement in the activity of the non-governmental associations of citizens (in particular, in the case of the studied community such associations play a paramount role in the access to public health services). The proposed study is based on the hypothesis of non-congruence of the norms of the represented by public organizations "open world" and "small society" of local communities. The concept of the "small society" originates in the concept of "incomplete modernism", i.e. characterized by poorly developed institutionalization, and social norms of the "small society" are congruent with the norms characteristic to mafia clans. The private in the study is treated as an area free from interference. On the other hand, the public sphere in the understanding of the modern era is one where there is a primacy of impersonal and written procedures over the personalized relationships of specific actors. The authors emphasize that if a prejudice against the backward social groups, in particular LGBT people, is a studied phenomenon, the separation of the private and public life of the representatives of local communities, as well as the lack of regulatory mechanisms are much less studied. An important result of the study is that a weak separation of the public and private in the life of a person from the local community shows that such a community can be described as a premodern one. At the same time, the transparency of the boundaries between the public and private forces a person to look for the ways to hide from the excessive attention of others, and often this way is to live on the margins, i.e. among those whom society prefers not to notice. The study was realized in 2009–2010. And unfortunately, these areas are now inaccessible to sociologists. However, the obtained results, being comparable with the facts from the literature, including those obtained from the material of other territories and communities, may indicate the prevalence of such phenomena and, therefore, become the basis for further research.

The aftermath of Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity provoked a lot of criticism among the students of LGBT topics. The principles of non-discrimination and protection of LGBT rights are an exemplary manifestation of European values to which Euromaidan declared adherence. The Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union, which was signed after the Revolution, as well as visa-free travel, which was granted to Ukrainian citizens, obliged this country to liberalise LGBT-related laws due to the EU's policy on the instrumentalisation of LGBT rights. However, there is a view that this step may cause conflicts in Ukrainian society, which is still predominantly homophobic, and only lead to a superficial change in the condition of LGBT people owing to pressure from the European Union. Some scholars (e.g. Shevtsova [2020], Wannebo [2017]) claim that the instrumentalisation policy has even resulted in a backlash against the LGBT community and worsened the overall situation for them. But has this backlash (if it really happened) entailed a corresponding change in public opinion on LGBT issues? Surprisingly, the dynamics of public attitudes towards the LGBT community and their rights remain unexplored. The paper proposes to fill this gap by a comparative analysis of two cross-sectional surveys on this topic, which were conducted before (in 2013) and after (in 2016) the Revolution of Dignity in several regions of Ukraine. Within the framework of the study, three research questions have been posed: 1. Have Ukrainians' attitudes towards the LGBT community changed since Euromaidan? 2. How different (e. g. positive) were the attitudes towards LGBT people among Euromaidan supporters? 3. Have the events that happened after the Revolution of Dignity, such as Russia is hybrid war against Ukraine, been able to affect attitudes towards LGBT rights? The results show that there have been modest, albeit statistically significant positive changes in Ukrainians' attitudes towards the LGBT community since Euromaidan. However, practically no change in terms of support for LGBT rights has been recorded. Our findings are consistent with other relevant nationally representative surveys according to which public perception of LGBT individuals has not worsened. This fact suggests that the instrumentalisation of LGBT rights has not faced any backlash, at least from the general population. Other data in our study indicate that not all proponents of the Revolution of Dignity displayed favourable attitudes towards LGBT people; nevertheless, they held more positive views on the LGBT community and same-sex marriage than those who did not take part in Euromaidan. The respondents who have experienced the impact of the Donbas conflict also demonstrated relatively better attitudes to LGBT individuals and expressed support for their rights. Still, this may be linked to a significant percentage of Euromaidan participants among them.

The proposed article aims to summarize available quantitative and qualitative data on same-sex partnerships in Ukraine, including data on the presence of children in such partnerships, over the last twenty years (1999–2018). The increasing number of publications on various aspects of the existence of same-sex couples in English demonstrates the relevance of the topic. The information available in Ukraine is the richest in comparison with other post-Soviet countries of the Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia region. At the same time, LGBT families remain out of the academic community in Ukraine, and the data collected are mostly contained in the so-called "gray literature" (mainly research reports by public organizations), and are not introduced into scientific circulation. It is shown that, depending on the composition of the sample and the definition of same-sex partnership used by the researchers, this percentage most often falls within the range of 16–28% of surveyed homosexual and bisexual men residing in the capital and regional centers of Ukraine. Quantitative information on women partnerships is extremely limited (one survey of a small sample), and there is no quantitative data for the couples, where one or both partners are transgenders. Quantitative information on children in same-sex partnerships is also very limited, and the data in the literature (with all the methodological disadvantages indicated) ranges from 14% to 29% of LGB, which have children, but it is unknown whether these children were raised in same-sex couples. With regard to quality information, the situation is different — a little bit more is known about the status of women and partly transgender partnerships (including the issue of children in such families) than about male couples. Separate data demonstrates a significant similarity in the same-sex partnership structure to the typical heterosexual egalitarian family model (two partners and their children), taking into account more egalitarian marriage roles, lack of formal status, and associated socio-economic risks. Further research (including national level) should be based on a common understanding of what constitutes "same-sex partnership", what are the characteristics of same-sex partnership (civil, family), what characteristics of civil partnership turn it into a"family", etc.

Public perceptions (particularly in post-communist societies) of the LGBT community and related issues have extensively been studied in recent years. Still, so far there is little information about how specific occupational groups view these people. The given research paper is intended to somewhat fill this gap by presenting a thorough description and analysis of findings from an empirical study focusing on the attitudes towards LGBT individuals among three occupational groups such as medical workers, social workers and the police. The relevance of the chosen topic is determined by the fact that a person's physical and mental health or even life may often depend on the quality and timeliness of services provided by these professionals. The above-mentioned study consisted of two cross-sectional surveys performed in 2017 and 2019. In total, approximately 1,500 persons (nurses, family practitioners, social care staff, patrol officers, etc.) from five countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, North Macedonia) took part in the two rounds of this study. Research toolkit included a questionnaire (designed by the authors for each occupational group) and the Bogardus social distance scale. Respondents were recruited through snowball sampling, which involved using personal and professional contacts. The survey data indicated the following: (a) the overall attitude of the aforementioned occupational groups towards LGBT people is somewhat positive; in addition, social workers are the most favourably disposed to the LGBT community while the police take a cautious approach to LGBT issues; (b) the overwhelming majority of respondents (except for police officers in Kyrgyzstan) believe that LGBT people should enjoy the same rights as the other citizens of their country; nevertheless, only a third of those surveyed hold the opinion that same-sex marriages should be permitted by law and about one fifth express support for the right of same-sex couples to adopt children; (c) women, residents of Belarus and North Macedonia, religiously unaffiliated respondents and those having an LGBT acquaintance exhibit greater tolerance for LGBT individuals than men, residents of Armenia, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, those belonging to a particular religion and respondents without LGBT acquaintances; (d) during the period under study, a noticeable change in the attitude towards LGBT persons occurred in some subsamples: among Armenian healthcare workers, for example, there was a steep fall in support for the right of LGBT couples to marry. However, little or no change was recorded in other subsamples or in the whole sample: a slight growth in the overall percentage of respondents favouring the idea of LGBT parenting is a case in point. Although the samples of the countries in question are not nationally representative, the research results have a certain empirical value because they can be taken into consideration while developing programmes aimed at fostering tolerance in society and improving attitudes to LGBT people.