Helena Vuković: Same-sex unions are a need that harms no one

LGBT+ activist Helena Vuković, who served as a major in the Serbian Army before her transition, says that allowing same-sex unions in Serbia is “a sheer necessity that will do no one any harm” — a law that would simply regulate the lives of one group of people without troubling anyone else.

“I will not be anyone’s bargaining chip, not even any government’s. I pay taxes in this country. I want the same rights as everyone else. Full stop,” Vuković said in the news agency FoNet’s series Stigma.

The proposed law on same-sex partnerships, she explains, does not even mention marriage: “It speaks of a same-sex partnership, set up so that if your partner dies, you can inherit the property you built together. Rather than some relative who disowned you for being a lesbian inheriting what took thirty or forty years to build — and throwing you out of the house.”

Vuković attended the Military Gymnasium and the Military Academy, and was pensioned off with the rank of major in 2014, after announcing she was beginning her gender transition. “It was a sensation at the time. On the back of that case we managed to strip away some stigmas. What mattered was one warm human story through which a great many people changed their attitude toward the LGBT community in Serbia,” she recalls.

Speaking about Pride, she says there are two kinds of marches in the world: those celebrating freedoms already won, and those still demanding them. “And what freedoms do we have in Serbia? Do we have equal rights? We do not. So what are we celebrating?” she asks.

Today, at 53, she lives in Novi Sad, runs the organization El Komunio and helps others. “The way strangers helped me when friends turned their backs. That chain of kindness should be spread. That way, somehow, things get better for everyone,” she concludes.

Source: FoNet, N1. English adaptation: gay-serbia.com.