Achieving Acceptance of the LGBTI Community in Bulgaria
This February, me and a group of friends decided to take part in the Innovation Station competition, where our task was to solve a social issue in less than two days. This was, of course, a big challenge for us, but the biggest challenge was the case we received — acceptance of the LGBTI community in Bulgaria.
In Bulgaria, LGBTI is a sensitive topic, especially after the outrage of the Istanbul Convention. The document aims to create a framework for the protection of women and girls from violence. Even though Bulgaria signed the convention in 2016, the Constitutional Court declared it unconstitutional. The reason? They believed that the definition of “gender” introduced in the document “relativizes the borderline between the two sexes — male and female as biologically determined”, BIRN explains in an article for the Balkan Insight.
Furthermore, me and my team members have been raised with quite a traditional view of family. Although we would never engage in any type of discrimination or harassment towards LGBTI, it was a topic that was unfamiliar to us and we weren’t sure how we should approach it. Some members of the team were very hesitant to move on with the case, but I was determined that we would be able to find common ground and a fresh perspective.
We started looking at statistics, and we were shocked. In a September 2019 Eurobarometer study on LGBTI acceptance across the EU, Bulgaria ranked last in almost every category. According to an upcoming survey provided by our mentor Ivan Dimov from Single Step in partnership with Bilitis, 83 percent of LGBTI students have been bullied in high school. Over two-thirds of the victims experienced verbal harassment and one-third — physical. A 2019 report on awareness of anti-LGBT hate crime in the European Union said that victims in Bulgaria rarely contact the police because they either think they wouldn’t be taken seriously or they are afraid of facing additional discrimination from the police.
The problem continues beyond school as LGBTI representatives are sometimes denied health services and mistreated on public transport. They have difficulties finding a safe workplace environment and their co-workers and neighbors feel uncomfortable around them.
Legislation-wise, the 2019 Rainbow Europe Index shows that Bulgaria covers only 20% of the legal standards for protection and equality of communities with non-heterosexual orientation. The country has even taken a step back by abolishing existing administrative and legal procedures regarding name and gender change in the official documents of transgender people.
So, what are the reasons for this situation? To begin with, LGBTI is not being discussed enough. It has always been a taboo topic in our society and people are unaware of the realities of being a member of LGBTI in Bulgaria. Speaking from my own experience, I would never imagine they face this level of discrimination and harassment. Despite some existing laws, they are not treated equally, which is unacceptable.
Furthermore, being such a traditional society, we are simply afraid of difference. This doesn’t only involve LGBTI as a minority, but also people of different religions, ethnicities, abilities. These people are not considered “normal” and often suffer a lot of discrimination and marginalization. Even if they are protected by legislation, in their daily lives, they will still see people pointing fingers, making remarks, and avoiding social interaction with them. However, society’s fear is unfounded, because the way these people live their lives is not “contagious” or harmful to others. People should not be judged for the way they love, which is not their choice, but how they naturally feel.
Stating that no one is doing anything about these issues would be a lie. There are several organizations, such as Single Step, Bilitis, GLAS Foundation, Deystvie, LGBTI Community Center and others which support LGBTI people on their journey to equal rights and acceptance by society. These organizations conduct research and training, support groups and hotlines. While most such initiatives have been successful, the ones we mostly hear about are instances such as fights at the Sofia Pride Parade that is often criticized by the public and the December 2019 billboard campaign by the EU showing homosexual couples in Bulgaria which were vandalized, as reported by Glas Foundation and several media outlets. If we look at the Sofia Pride Parade, LGBTI members see it not as a form of imposition, but rather as a declaration that LGBTI people are among us and part of society, not the “different ones”.
Initially, me and my team considered ideas such as introducing new legislation promoting equal rights and protecting LGBTI against harassment and discrimination, as well as introducing diversity training at schools. However, we realized that the top-down approach really wouldn’t work as an immediate solution. Change needs to happen on a smaller scale. By trying to put themselves in the other person’s shoes, hearing what they go through and getting to know their personalities, people will realize that sexuality, or any other aspect of the human identity, does not define them as a whole. People are way too complex to be defined by a single characteristic.
This was at the core of our solution — a board game that walks the players through the journey of life, putting them in the shoes of a member of a minority group. Each time they play, they get a different gender, ethnicity, family background, sexual orientation, hobbies and dreams, creating a fully and randomly customized character. Based on what minority groups this character belongs to, they will get different challenges throughout the game. There will also be discussion cards, trivia cards, devil’s advocate challenges, etc. Later on, if the game is successful, we would like to create a mobile platform with an app version of the game, as well as discussion boards where people can exchange ideas about facing minority issues in local communities.
Our idea is to introduce entertainment with purpose as a small step, making for a smooth transition to acceptance rather than starting big and expecting radical changes. This is just one example of a bigger message — start small to reach the big change. While a lot of changes on a higher level are necessary, this is not the right timing for that in Bulgaria.
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Trayana Karamihaleva is a business administration and journalism and mass communications student at the American University in Bulgaria. This story is based on her work during the Innovation Station event organized by the Better Community Club at the American University in Bulgaria.
