Sitting in a corner of a “safe” place in Tirana, this is one of the few spaces where they feel free to talk about their sexual orientation and the struggle of being accepted for who they are.
John* (20), who is Albanian and gay, and Nina* (22), a lesbian woman from Italy, both live in Tirana. They share with Exit News their challenging journey to self-acceptance and the hope that one day LGBTIQ rights will be respected around the world.
John realized he was gay when he was 14. “But at that point I was still lying to myself, convincing myself I liked girls, when actually I had always been attracted to boys,” he admitted.
When he was about 15, he finally accepted that he was gay and a few years later, at around 17-18, he finally felt comfortable with it, being more open to people who might ask.
“I can’t live a lie […] I have enough self-esteem,” he says.
However, growing up in a country where being gay is still taboo, John’s journey to self-acceptance was a difficult one.
John says that his family has been through a lot and for years he did not talk to his father, and he has never been able to come out to him. His two older brothers don’t know about it either, since they have “never asked.”
The only person he has come out to is his mother, as she is the most important family member to him.
“The first thing my mom said was ‘I knew it’ before she started crying. She took it very hard because the main thing is lack of information, what they had been told [about being gay] throughout their childhoods. They still don’t have any notion of what being gay actually means and how to accept people like me,” he explains.
Living in a homophobic society, John believes his mother loves him as her son, but he doesn’t think she likes him as an individual.
“And she knows that too,” he says.
He points out that during his life he has had to deal with a lot of rejection, whether from family, friends or lovers, and adds that his mother still hopes that one day John will figure out he is straight.
“Yesterday I wore this earring [an angel wing] and I was playing with it, and she hates it because she thinks of it as something ‘gay.’ So, every time that I remind her I am gay, she gets sad about it. I don’t think she has accepted it yet,” he admits.
John told Exit News that being gay in Tirana means being surrounded by homophobia, “but I think if you know your worth, you will get through it a lot easier.”
Nina, who is Italian, made it clear that Italy is not as gay-friendly as many Albanians would think it is.
“Homophobia runs wild,” she asserts.
When she was 17, Nina decided to talk openly about her identity with her childhood best friend, describing the moment as a crucial point in her life.
“You can know you’re gay, but if you say it out loud to another person, that’s when it becomes real,” she says.
However, what she had hoped would be a positive moment of affirmation for her, turned into a traumatic coming out story because of her best friend’s rejection and their growing distance.
“Before I opened up to her, we would go shopping together, and we would try clothes in the same stall. But then things changed, we started using separate stalls,” Nina said.
“Suddenly I wasn’t the best friend anymore, but rather the gay friend,” she added.
Despite being raised by parents who were not homophobic, Nina never did open up to them.
However, after she lost her mother, she had to leave her home in order to avoid her stepmother’s homophobic comments.
“My stepmother kept telling me things like ‘be normal for one second,’ ‘you are disgusting’, ‘you want to be different, you’re not different so just be normal,’ so I had to leave,” Nina recalls.
Even though her father realized she was gay and told her he was fine with that, she decided to deny it.
“I always denied it, because I couldn’t even accept myself,” she said.
Nina shares an office with her Albanians co-workers in Tirana, and she says that she can often hear them talking about her sexual orientation.
“I understand Albanian, but I don’t speak it very well. I’ve heard people at my office say ‘she is gay, don’t let her hug you,'” she said.
She points out that because of the stigma she has faced in both Italy and Albania, she talks openly about being gay only to other gay people or allies.
“Going through trauma makes you stronger, you have to overcome a lot,” Nina said.
50% of Albanian LGBTI persons have experienced psychological violence and bullying, and one in five have been sexually harassed. This is according to data amassed by Aleanca LGBT, a local NGO, and published in February in the IGLA Europe Annual Review.
Furthermore, recently there has been an increase in the number of violent attacks and instances of discrimination against LGBTI people, fuelled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
*Names have been changed to protect the speakers’ anonymity.
