The project's fieldwork included biographic narrative interviews with eleven LGB CEE migrants in Belgium and the Netherlands. The research also included seven semi-structured interviews with migrants’ parents, four interviews with their siblings and six interviews with close friends – all currently living in Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Poland or Slovakia. In regard to individual and interpersonal consequences of migration to Belgium or the Netherlands for LGB individuals, the results suggests that this experience was deeply transformative both for their life trajectories and for their relationships with family members and friends in CEE home countries. First, the participants experienced their migration as liberating at the level of everyday life, primarily observable through a profound change in nature of disclosing their LGB identity. This migration, furthermore, allowed them to realize family lives which, for some of them, had not been possible or even imaginable before. Second, the shift was also reflected in the changing nature of the relationship with the parents in particular. Specifically, while their same-sex marriages prompted LGB migrants to demand stronger parental acknowledgement of their non-heterosexual lives, they still compromised on the visibility of their marriages in the CEE context. In contrast, with the birth of children, such compromises stopped, and LGB migrants took control over the visibility of their family structure back from their parents. Finally, in the relation to the third objective, the study’s results suggest that, while the acceptance of same-sex marriage remains very gradual and difficult, children play an important role in facilitating the integration of LGB-headed families into the extended families-of-origin.
The main results of this projects, targeting general audience, are published in a booklet available both in print and in electronic form, and in eight languages. This booklet also contains comics based on the interview excerpts that were disseminated through Facebook and Twitter. Academic output includes two completed scientific articles (one already available as OnlineFirst publication and one forthcoming in September 2019), and two articles under preparation. Results were further disseminated through four international academic conferences and an invited workshop for academic participants. Targeting stakeholders and general audience, the projects’ results were further presented in an invited talk at the Rainbow Families Conference, at the stakeholders’ seminar which the fellow co-organized with the Network of European LGBTIQ* Families Associations (NELFA) and Homoparentalité, Belgian rainbow families’ association, and at the public lecture organized by the Croatian Sociological Association. Finally, during the duration of the project, the fellow has also organized a well-attended international academic conference on families and sexualities in Europe.
