Since 2011, the organization ILGA has annually published a list summarizing 58 factors of human rights for LGBTQ people. This year, Romania is second last, but unlike Poland – which is last, but has a new government that has promised to introduce better protection for LGBTQ people – Romania is moving towards worse rights.
Next year, Romania goes to the polls, and LGBTQ activists are worried that they will be used as a bat in the election campaign.
– We are used as scapegoats by politicians who want to prove how Romanian they are, says LGBTQ activist Florin Buhuceanu.
Romania’s first LGBTQ museum
In an apartment in Bucharest’s old Jewish quarter, an apartment is being rebuilt to become Romania’s first LGBTQ museum. Oil paintings depicting Romanian LGBTQ people hang on the walls. People who almost always lived with their sexuality in secret. Several images show people in prison uniforms – being gay was illegal in Romania until 2001.
It has gotten better, but life as an LGBTQ person is still not easy. No civil partnership, no same-sex marriage, extremely difficult to adopt, anti-discrimination laws rarely followed. And perhaps the worst – being used by political parties to win votes.
– We are called agents of the Western world. Who are here to destroy Romanian society, says Florin Buhuceanu.
Anxiety before the election campaign
Next year, Romania will vote in three elections: the presidential election, the parliamentary election and the election to the European Parliament. In election surveys, the “Alliance for the Unity of Romania” is in second place with around 20 percent support. The party is right-wing populist, opposed to support for Ukraine, anti-vaccine and strongly opposed to LGBTQ rights.
Among LGBTQ activists, there is a concern that LGBTQ issues could become a central part of the election campaign. And not in a positive way. And LGBTQ people can be pushed down even more.
– We must not be seen. We should not be heard, says Florin Buhuceanu.