Romania

Overview

Homosexuality is legal in Romania since 2001, but same-sex marriage and partnership is not recognised, with an exception of foreign same-sex marriages. Discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is banned under Romanian criminal code in areas of housing, employment and military service. It is legal to change one’s legal gender, but the legal procedures are to accomplish that are not straightforward. National Council for Combating Discrimination is an official governmental body in charge of implementing anti-discrimination laws and policies in Romania. 

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

Resources

Books

• Adam, B., Duyvendak, Jan Willem, Krouwel, André, & Krouwel, Andrâe. (2009). Global Emergence Of Gay & Lesbian Politics. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
• Balan, G. (2004). Homofobia. Bucurest: Maiko.
• Buyantueva, R. & Shevtsova M. (2020). LGBTQ Activism in Central and Eastern Europe: Resistance, Representation and Identity. Cham, Switzerland : Palgrave Macmillan.
• Fejes, N., & Balogh, A. (2012). Queer visibility in post-socialist cultures. Bristol: Intellect books.
• Mole, R. (2021). Queer Migration and Asylum in Europe. London: UCL Press.
• O'Dwyer, C. (2018). Coming out of communism: The emergence of LGBT activism in Eastern Europe.  New York: New York University.
• Sremac, Ganzevoort, Sremac, Srđan, & Ganzevoort, Reinder Ruard. (2015). Religious and sexual nationalisms in Central and Eastern Europe: Gods, gays, and governments.  Leiden: Brill.

Repositories

• ARTHRA is the institutional repository of „Dunărea de Jos“ University of Galați and makes the university scientific output freely available [in Romanian, English].
• The digital lrepository of the “Lucian Blaga” Central University Library from Cluj-Napoca [in Romanian, English].

Data and statistics

• European LGBT Survey, 2014. FRA Europe [in English]. 
• Romania 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

• Annual Review of the Human Rights Situation of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex People in Hungary covering events that occurred between January-December 2020. ILGA Europe [in English].
• Documentation of discrimination in the field of LGBT heath in Romania. ILGA report. 2014 [in English].
• ECRI - Country monitoring in Romania. Reports, 1998 - [in English].
• Legal Study on Homophobia and Discrimination on Grounds of Sexual Orientation – Romania. Study conducted for FRA Europe, 2008 [in English].
• Meeting the challenge of accession Surveys on sexual orientation discrimination in countries joining the European Union. ILGA Europe Policy Paper, April 2004 [in English].
• Persoane trans în România: Recunoaşterea juridică a identităţii de gen a persoanelor trans în România. Accept. ECPR, 2014  [in Romanian].  
• Public scandals: Sexual orientation and criminal law in Romania: A report. Human Rights Watch and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. New York: Human Rights Watch, 1998 [in English]. 
• Romania 2020. Amnesty International report [in English].
• Romania: The Status of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights. Accept, IGLHRC, and ILGA-Europe, 2008 [in English].

News portals

• A list of media articles on LGBT in Romania at Romania libera [in Romanian].

Digital libraries and archives

• Adrian Newell Queer Archive - documents on the history of homosexuality in Romania, available via Facebook page [in Romanian].
• Bucharest Digital Library - Romanian periodicals available freely in digital format from the collection of the Bucharest Metropolitan Library. [in Romanian, English].
• Memoria - Digital library of interviews, memoirs, oral history studies, books and images of Romania's recent history [in Romanian, English].
• The National Archives of Romania  - Electronic services portal that can be used to navigate through fond descriptions and the collections of the territorial structures of the National Archives of Romania, including browsing through certain digital documents [in Romanian, English].
• The National Film Archive - Romanian Cinematheque provides access to selected films excerpts from its collection, also small selection of film posters [in Romanian, English].
• RESTITUTIO is the digital platform of the ‘Carol I’ Central University Library which gathers digitized collections of manuscripts, old and rare books, press, journals and other serial publications, current Romanian and foreign books, iconographic resources, cartographic resources and audio-video resources [in Romanian, English].
• Romanian National Digital Library  - Contains wide variety of digitised documents such as manuscripts, old and rare books, periodicals, stamps, maps, photographic material from the collection of the National Library of Romania, as well as documents originally published only in electronic format [in Romanian, English].

Organisations

• Accept - an NGO that advocates for the rights of LGBT people in Romania. Their website contains articles and videos related to LGBT in Romania [in Romanian].
• Association for Liberty and Equality of Gender - A.L.E.G. - a nongovernmental organization active in preventing and fighting violence against women and children and in promoting gender equality. [in Romanian and English].
• Eu sunt! Tu? [in Romanian]. 
• MozaiQ [in Romanian].
• TRANSform​ [in Romanian].

Other resources

• A list of media articles on LGBT in Romania at Romania libera [in Romanian].
• Ana Dumitrescu photography [in Romanian].
• Bucharest Pride - portal of an annual festival dedicated to LGBT rights in Romania [in Romanian].
• Consiliul national pentru combaterea discriminarii is a good resource for articles on LGBT in Romania [in Romanian].
• Euroregional Centre for Public Initiatives contains reports on LGBTQ and gender issues in the region [in Romanian, English].
• Homoistorii. Lesirea din Invisibilitate. E-book on issuu [in Romanian].
• Romanian equality body provides a list of legal cases of discrimination against sexual orientation and gender [in Romanian].
• Sexul vs barza - a platform dedicated to sexual education, it provides related material including LGBTQ content [in Romanian].  
• Suntgay - LGBT community website [in Romanian].