Becoming more and more European: nationhood, Europe, and same-Sex sexualities in the life stories of Lithuanian LGBQ people

ABSTRACT

I discuss Lithuanian LGBQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer) people’s views on belonging to the West/EUrope. I will argue that the research participants’ age group, location of residence, their (not)involvement with LGBTQ+ leisure culture and/or their migrant status made a significant impact towards forming their subjective sense of (not) belonging to the West, when they discussed their personal experiences of spending time abroad. When belonging to the West/EUrope was discussed against the backdrop of national belonging, the research participants syncretised the elements of the dominant nationalistic narrative, and the Rainbow Europe narrative in order to homosexualise the national canon and to construct an accommodating version of Lithuania as the Rainbow Nation.

KEYWORDS:

• Europeanisation
• LGBQ
• belonging
• nationalism
• life stories
• discourse

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The research has been approved by UCL Research Ethics Committee. The research participants provided written informed consent to participate in the research. The informed consent was obtained following UCL Research Ethics Committee guidelines and regulations.

2. My research focuses only on Lithuanian lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer perspectives. Therefore, when I refer to my research participants’ views, I use a LGBQ acronym. However, when I discuss policies, legislations and/or discourses related to sexual minorities, I use a LGBTQ+ acronym, as it is commonly used in the discussed literature.