The results of the survey on the Pride Parade (September 2016, N=163) show a typically Serbian paradox: personal contact and basic tolerance exist, but public support for the event remains weak. First, experience of “closeness” to LGBT people is not negligible: 26.55% say they have a friend of homosexual orientation, 6.21% work with such a person, and 7.91% mention LGBT neighbors. At the same time, 7.34% stated that they themselves are of homosexual orientation. However, 22.60% say they do not know and do not want to meet an LGBT person, indicating a stable segment of social distance.
When it comes to the key value question—whether homosexuality is a “disease”—attitudes are deeply divided. A total of 33.74% fully or mostly agree, 15.95% partly agree, while 42.94% do not agree at all, with 4.29% having no opinion. This means that nearly half of the sample clearly rejects pathologizing homosexuality, but a substantial share still accepts a medical/normative framework that treats homosexuality as a deviation.
The most interesting finding is the response to a “personal situation”: as many as 72.39% say that if they found out their best friend was homosexual, they would not change the relationship—“it’s a private matter; what matters is what kind of person they are.” Only 6.75% would reduce contact, and 11.04% would advise “medical help.” In other words, in the private sphere pragmatic tolerance dominates, even when ideological attitudes are rigid.
But when the private is translated into the public sphere, the picture flips. Holding the Pride Parade in Belgrade is supported by 18.40%, opposed by 60.12%, while 21.47% have no opinion. Explanations (open-ended answers) mostly cluster into three narratives: “privacy without public display” (sexuality is a personal matter), “the parade as provocation/politics,” and “the parade as a legitimate struggle for rights and visibility.”
Perceived effects of the Pride Parade are even more skeptical. The most widely acknowledged impact is that it opened the topic of LGBT status (fully/mostly: 34.97%), but regarding knowledge, discrimination, and homophobia, most respondents see no progress: 47.24% say “not at all” when asked about reducing homophobia, and 45.40% say “not at all” about reducing discrimination. In short, respondents register it as a “media topic,” but do not recognize a broader social effect.
Methodological note: this was an online survey (N=163) and is not representative of Serbia’s population.
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