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This article reports findings from research about trans* citizenship in 14 post-socialist countries. It evidences substantial deficits concerning trans policy making, and a lack of policy debate in this area. Most examined countries have a lack of protocols for official gender change in birth certificates, IDs, passports and other documents. Usually there are no guidelines, measures and procedures defining the standards of healthcare for trans persons. Practice concerning healthcare varies widely, and trans people and advocates exercise agency in negotiating access to care. The article suggests that trans citizenship studies need to foreground legal and social aspects of citizenship, as these are highlighted in the post-socialist context. Policy implications are discussed in relation to key citizenship debates including those concerning challenges to normative models of citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This comparative social-historical study examines different versions of state-socialist body politics manifested in Hungary and Slovenia mainly during the 1950s by using archive material of “unnatural fornication” court cases. By analyzing the available Hungarian “természet elleni fajtalanság” and Slovenian “nenaravno občevanje” court cases, we can shed light on how the defendants were treated by the police and the judiciary. On the basis of these archive data that have never been examined before from these angles, we can construct an at least partial picture of the practices and consequences of state surveillance of same-sex-attracted men during state-socialism. The article explores the functioning of state-socialist social control mechanisms directed at nonnormative sexualities that had long-lasting consequences on the social representation of homosexuality in both countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Synopsis The article deals with the process of the “secularization” of the Roman Catholic Church and its attempts to secure exclusionary patriarchal and traditional values and interpretations in the context of issues pertaining to sexual citizenship. Taking two case studies as examples – the recent Family Code debate in Slovenia and the Health Education in Croatia – it shows how the Church and its satellite civil society organizations increasingly refrain from using “biblical discourse”, substituting it with what appears as a rational, scientific discourse molded into reassuring and populist common-sense statements. In such a way, the Church is secularizing its discourse in order to “clericalize” society. Furthermore, it is successfully reinventing the issues of family and marriage as an ideological battleground of contemporary cultural wars in post-socialist societies, constituting gays and lesbians as the outsiders of the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the comparison of the characteristics, experiences, and perceptions of everyday life of gays and lesbians living in rural and urban areas of Slovenia. We focus on the following thematic aspects: (1) coming out; (2) intimate partnerships; (3) the access and the use of gay infrastructure; and (4) violence against gays and lesbians. The article also addresses and discusses the urban/rural divide as a Western construct that might not be completely applicable to other social and cultural contexts. Taking Slovenia as an example, this article questions the self-evidence of rural/urban divide as an analytical concept. On the basis of our research, we conclude that this concept requires continuous revisions and reinterpretations in a concrete social and cultural context(s). The characteristics of gay and lesbian everyday life either in rural or in urban context in Slovenia lead to the conclusion that even within a specific social and cultural context, the concept of urban/rural divide should be used carefully, taking into account complexities of everyday lives and various factors that influence them. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article builds on data collected in research on the everyday lives of gay men and lesbians in Slovenia, focusing on the families of origin and family relations. It pays special attention to the process of coming out and its consequences for further relationships among family members. It concentrates on the process of negotiating new family relations after coming out. The authors introduce the concepts of “transparent closet” and “family closet” to describe a situation in which family members are informed about a child's homosexuality but refuse to accept the consequences of their child's coming out. All of this holds important consequences for gay men and lesbians and their family members. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The field of intersectional discrimination in Slovenia is not an unexplored topic, but none of the analyses so far has foregrounded the issue of the intersection of (media) representations. This article explores the research question of how the discourse of media texts on online news portals in Slovenia addresses the issues of discrimination and social exclusion in light of the intersectional approach. In the research, we addressed the intersection of the representations of gays and lesbians and foreigners on four Slovenian online news portals (RTVSLO.si, 24ur.com, SiOL.net and Nova24TV.si) during the adoption of laws affecting both social groups. Through the principle of "mirroring" reality, which is based on the assumption of journalistic objectivity, we note that in the case of gays and lesbians, the selected portals uncritically reproduced the conflict between opposing positions pro et contra, which marginalised all views outside of it; in the case of foreigners, there was a normalisation and reproduction of the discourse of the representatives of parliamentary politics. The intersectional perspective was almost completely absent from the discourse of the media texts analysed, which contributed to the weakening of the anti-discrimination position and the strengthening of different articulations of social exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past twenty years, the field of "gender and politics" has flourished in European political science. An example of this is the growing number of "gender and politics" scholars and the increased attention paid to gender perspectives in the study of the political. Against this backdrop, we take stock of how the "gender and politics" field has developed over the years. We argue that the field has now entered a stage of "consolidation", which is reflected in the growth, diversification and professionalization of the subfield, as well as in the increased disciplinary recognition from major gatekeepers in political science. But while consolidation comes with specific opportunities, it also presents some key challenges. We identify five such challenges: (1) the potential fragmentation of the field; (2) persisting hierarchies in knowledge production; (3) the continued marginalization of feminist political analysis in "mainstream" political science; (4) the changing link between academia and society; and (5) growing opposition to gender studies in parts of Europe and beyond. We argue that both the "gender and politics" field and political science in general should address these challenges in order to become a truly inclusive discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]