Serbia

Overview

Serbia decriminalised homosexuality in 1994 but same-sex marriage and adoption are not recognized (Equaldex LGBTQ rights: Serbia). Anti-discrimination measures are addressed through several laws, most notably the Law on Broadcasting, forbidding transmission of offensive and discriminatory material against LGBT, Law on Labour which sets the legal framework for protection against discrimination at work and a more comprehensive Anti-Discrimination Law which was introduced in 2009 which is also devoted to LGBT. The Penal Code was amended in 2012 to introduce hate as a crime. Serbia remains socially conservative towards LGBTQ community. Pride Parade in Serbia has been cancelled on numerous occassions due to threat of violence and 2010 saw particularly bad anti-gay riots in Belgrade in response to the first Pride Parade since 2001 (Scores arrested in Belgrade after an-gay riot, BBC News, 10 October 2010).

• An overview of acts and legal rights by ILGA Europe [in English].
• Country ranking by ILGA Europe [in English].

Academic research 

Research Center for Cultures, Politics and Identities (IPAK.Center) at the Faculty for Media and Communications in Belgrade - the center is involved in cultural and political research studies devoted to reflecting on and questioning of rather complex issues of identity formation, difference, otherness and diversity, cultural, political and activist doing, as well as with shared researches deployed locally, regionally and globally.

Resources

Books

• Bilić, B. (2020). Trauma, Violence, and Lesbian Agency in Croatia and Serbia: Building Better Times. Springer Nature.
• Bilić, B. (2016). LGBT activism and Europeanisation in the post-Yugoslav space: On the rainbow way to Europe. (Palgrave studies in European political sociology). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Bilić, B., & Kajinic, S. (2016). Intersectionality and LGBT activist politics: Multiple others in Croatia and Serbia. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Bilić, B., & Radoman, M. (2019). Lesbian activism in the (post-)Yugoslav space: Sisterhood and unity.  Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Fejes, N., & Balogh, A. (2012). Queer visibility in post-socialist cultures. Bristol: Intellect books.
• Hassenstab, Christine M., Ramet, P., S. (2015). Gender (In)equality and Gender Politic in Southeastern Europe. A Question of Justice. Basingstoke:  Palgrave Mcmillan.
• Jaric, I. (2015). Politics of Parenting, Discourses and Institutional Practices. Belgrade: Kontakt.
• Jovanović, M. (2016). Identitet, religioznost, seksualnost: Problem identiteta religioznih LGBT osoba u Srbiji. Novi Sad: Mediterran Publishing.
• Mlinaric, M. (2017). Dissense über sexuelle Differenz in Serbien und Kroatien: eine qualitative Dispositivanalyse postjugoslawischer Massenmedien (2009 - 2013) und quantitative Sekundärdatenauswertung der European Values Study (2008) zu Homophobie im Westbalkan. (Forschungen zu Südosteuropa ; Band 15). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
• Rhodes-Kubiak, R. (2015). Activist citizenship and the LGBT movement in Serbia: Belonging, critical engagement, and transformation. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. 

Dissertations

• Gabbard, S., Suchland, Jennifer, Keating, Christine, & Winnubst, Shannon. (2017). Old Ties and New Binds: LGBT Rights, Homonationalisms, Europeanization and Post-War Legacies in Serbia. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. 

Periodicals

• Gay-Serbia QT Magazine for Queer Theory and Culture active between 2010-2012 ​[in Serbian].
• Optimist [in Serbian].  

Data and statistics

• Serbia hate crime data by OSCE ODIHR [in English].
• State-Sponsored Homophobia report: latest edition, includes maps and dataset, ILGA Europe - a world survey of sexual orientation laws + older editions [in English]. 

Reports

• Amnesty International: Serbia, latest report [in English].
• Annual Review of the Human Rights Situation of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex People. ILGA Europe, available from 2011 onwards [in English]. ​
• Discrimination against sexual minorities in education and housing: evidence from two field experiments in Serbia. Washington, D.C.: World Bank Group, 2017. [in English].
• ECRI - Country monitoring in Serbia. Reports, 1998 - 2019 [in English].
• Homofobija i internalizovana homofobija u Srbiji, kvalitativno istraživanje. ​Marijana Stojcic; Aleksandar Stojaković; Dragana Petrovic; Jelena Zulevic; Dušan Maljković, Vladimir Miletic. 2016 ​[in Serbian].
• ILGA-Europe's submissions to Progress Reports of the European Union [in English].
• LGBT aktivizam u savremenoj Srbiji. Sofija Petkovic. 2015 ​[in Serbian]. 
• Life on the Margins: Survey Results of the Experiences of LGBTI People in Southeastern Europe. World Bank Group, September 2018 [in English].
• Uvodna razmatranja o homofobiji: moć kao definišući faktor. A. Stojaković. 2016 ​[in Serbian].

News portals

• BalkanInsight - a website of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, that focuses on news, analysis, commentary and investigative reporting from southeast Europe [in English].
• BaLConn - news on LGBTQ+ in Serbia [in Serbian].
• Gay Echo [in Serbian].
• Gay Serbia [in Serbian].

Audio-visual

• Imaju Glas / They have a voice - a personal testimony ​[in Serbian]. 
• Merlinka Film Festival ​[in English].
• “Merlinkina Ispovest” theatre play ​[in Serbian].
• Online archive of lectures on LGBTI by the Centre for Queer Studies ​[in Serbian].
• Talk at University of Birmingham: Not 'Coming Out'? The Attitudinal Panopticon and the Shallow Europeanisation of LGBT Rights in Serbia. Dr Koen Slootmaeckers ​[in English].
• Trans iskustva. Sofija Stević ​[in Serbian].
• Zivot bez Maske / Life without a mask ​[in Serbian].

Organisations

• Centar za promociju prava seksualnih manjina / Center for Promotion of LGBT Human Rights [in Serbian and English].
• ERA – LGBTI Equal Rights Association for Western Balkans and Turkey is a Regional Association of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex and queer organizations from Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia and Turkey. [in English].
• Gay Straight Alliance [in Serbian and English].
• Gayten LGBT with an online Library [in Serbian].
• Gey-Lesbian Info Centre [in Serbian].
• LABRIS - Organisation for Lesbian Human Rights  has a rich online library including reports on cataloguing hate crimes, policy reports, textbooks, instructions on working with LGBT communities [in Serbian and English]. 

Other resources

• Blog of Predrag Azdejković [in Serbian].
• ERA - Online Resource Centre [in English].
• Gay Pride Serbia [in Serbian and English].
• LGBT Knjige - list of books on LGBT topics published in Serbia [in Serbian].