Yvonne
van Osch
Albania
queer activism
Interview
lhbti-activiste Xheni Karaj
Homophobia
will turn into tyranny and misogyny
In
Western Europe we may finally be awaking from our languid democratic
dream of peace, many Albanians have known it for years: a worldwide
wave of oppression is on its way. ‘We have to stand up and
raise our
voices,’ warns Albanian activist Xheni Karaj. 'Silence is
deadly.'
march
2025
She is known as Albania's first openly lesbian, Xheni Karaj. Her
coming out came unplanned, in 2012, during a live debate on national
television between supporters and opponents of a Gay Pride in Tirana.
Murat Basha, then leader of the conservative PLL, had been airing
hostile comments on the LGBT+ community for minutes, when she stepped
out of the shadows and lectured the man in
very clear words.
Double lives
That
it was because of men like him - men drenched in the luxury of a
patriarchal majority, who deny the existence of anything they
don't see
- that people like her had to hide. We are going to quit living our
double lives, she told Basha, it's done. We are there, there are more
of us than you think, and we have the same right to exist as everyone
else. Get used to it.
It became a historic show on TV Klan. And a
gate of heaven must have opened for tens of thousands of Albanians
acting as cis-gender heterosexuals, the moment that a stunned Basha
sulked after a long shouting and waving his signet ring.
For Xheni Karaj, who had already spent about three years in underground
activism, 2012 was the year of freedom. 'The first Gay Pride came,' she
says. 'We cycled along the Boulevard of the Martyrs. There were only
twelve of us, it was raining, and opponents were throwing tear gas
bombs. But we didn't care, we were out. Visible to everyone. I have
never felt as proud and free as I did then!'
Sickly whim
It says it all. The freedom to be who you are... it is not self-evident
in Albania. Until 2010, the year that a ban on discrimination made it
to the law books, homosexuality was still seen as a sick whim from the
West that would blow past the Balkans. As a girl, Xheni herself also
thought she was the only one who fell for other girls. 'The general
opinion has changed a bit over time,' she says, 'but the fight for
equal rights continues. In fact, it only gets fiercer. There may be a
law that should protect us, implementation and enforcement turns out to
be something completely different. Young people with a different sexual
orientation or gender identity still leave school early and go into
hiding for fear of violence. Gays and transgenders are still banned by
employers and bullied away by colleagues. The police look away.
Disinformation and hate speech remain unchallenged, even in parliament.
We have never seen our Prime Minister Edi Rama, who likes to present
himself as an innovator, at a Gay Pride.'
Albania is also lagging far behind when it comes to laws, says Karaj.
'Same-sex marriage is still not legal here. Children of gay couples are
not recognized for that reason, which means that they do not officially
exist and are in fact illegal. There is no recognition for chosen
gender and trans people do not have access to hormone therapy, which
makes them dependent on the black market for their transition.'
Hate-speech and
violence
ILGA's Rainbow-index
which annually maps the degree of equality between queers and others,
gives a score of 36% for Albania and 59% for the Netherlands by 2024.
The difference lies in particular in the legal recognition of gender
diversity and legal protection when forming a family. Like Albania, the
Netherlands does not yet have an explicit ban on conversion therapy and
non-therapeutic interventions on intersex babies.
Xheni Karaj sees the index as an indication, not as a standard. 'What
matters is that in Western Europe you have the law and the institutions
behind you. In our country, we are largely at the mercy of
arbitrariness.'
Karaj herself has to deal with discrimination almost daily. Hateful
comments especially, but also physical violence. She even goes home
with a detour these days because she is hit by children with stones. 'I
have been pelted several times. The youngest of the group is 5!'
Worldwide
anti-queer lobby
Is that even possible? 'It happens. Homophobia has seeped back into
living rooms and classrooms through all possible channels,' she says.
'Make no mistake.'
We get where she wants to be. The elephant in the room. ‘Make
no
mistake,’ says Xheni Karaj. 'The battle is not over. On the
contrary. The world is full of Bashas. Full of Putins, Trumps, Orbans
and Tates, who dream of a world without queers or dissent.'
She has noticed it around her for a number of years: a growing
antipathy and acceptance of the antipathy against the group she
represents. That group is the proverbial canary in the coal mine, as
was painfully revealed in the Zembla broadcast called God's lobbyists
recently. 'If LGBT rights are under pressure, it is a signal that there
are anti-democratic forces at work, that do not stop there. These
forces will not only want to drive us back into the closet,' says
Karaj, ‘they want to put an end to the freedom of all
minorities.
And then of women. That is what they have in mind as their ultimate
goal: the subjugation of half of the world's population.'
Xheni Karaj
Xheni
Karaj is
director of AleancaLGBT,
which, together with Pro
LGBT and
Pink Embassy
is at the forefront of protecting and empowering Albania's queer
community. Among other things, Aleanca files lawsuits, helps with
asylum applications, arranges shelter, organizes workshops and
education programs and manages a community space at a hidden address in
Tirana, where they also provide HIV testing.
In 2022, Xheni Karaj was awarded Human Rights Defender of the Year by
the international Civil Rights Defenders together with Ugandan Frank
Mugisha.
'Don't be naïve,' she warns, 'you will also have your turn in
the
Netherlands. The anti-queer lobby has ceased to be a local or national
phenomenon for a long time already. It is a well-organized
global
movement of religious and right-wing extremist institutions that have
united and are brimming with money to get their agendas carried out by
spewing out vast amounts of disinformation in virulent hate
campaigns.’
'The same forces put an end to the historic 1973 Roe versus Wade ruling
in 2022, through which abortion is criminalized again in certain states
in the US. And if we don’t rise, we will go back to a time
that
everyone in the West thought they had left behind.'
The future of the
Netherlands
What can we do? You could call it ironic that we, Dutch people who grew
up in freedom, comfort and prosperity, should now consult a socially
ravaged country like Albania. Yet perhaps it is a sign of the times?
This time requires alertness en resilience more than ever.
Exactly those qualities in which Xheni Karaj, like all Albanian
activists, is marinated. ‘Organize yourself,’ she
says. 'As
queers, as women, as like-minded progressive thinkers. Find each other,
make a plan. Make sure you are visible, in schools, on the street, in
the public and political debate, and that your message is heard. Don't
accept it when someone distorts the facts, know the truth. Show
solidarity. And fight! Be aware of what you owe your freedom to. Don't
leave it to others.'
Tekstbureau Yvonne van Osch
Binnenkadijk 117, 1018 ZE Amsterdam
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