Being out was outlawed

In 1948, after World War II, the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia adopted a new penal code that defined homosexuality as a crime against human dignity, declaring it punishable by up to a year of imprisonment. 

Fourteen years later, in 1962, the country decriminalized same-sex relationships following the scientific research of Czech physician Kurt Freund, who concluded that homosexual orientation is innate. 

Although this decriminalization occurred a lot earlier than in many Western European countries, attitudes in Czechoslovakia did not change as a result.

Even though there were few recorded cases of active persecution for private homosexual acts during the Stalinist era (1948-1961), significant challenges remained, particularly regarding public behavior.

Structural homophobia

According to Ladislav Jackson, executive director of the Society for Queer Memory, an organization dedicated to preserving the memories of queer individuals who lived in communist Czechoslovakia, the patriarchal system and structural homophobia persisted in society and within its institutions after the decriminalization.

Being gay or lesbian was essentially taboo and discrimination and psychological violence in the workplace or the public health sector were a common phenomenon.

“Queer people were still ostracized and had to live under constant stress,” Jackson said.

Out in the open

Homosexual people during the communist era faced enormous challenges in finding partnerships, establishing romantic and sexual relationships, and building communities.

“Only a very minor group among homosexual people lived relatively open queer lives,” he added.

Homosexual people congregated in some places in Prague, such as the famous T-club in the city center. But these were under the constant control of the StB, the secret police force in communist Czechoslovakia.

“There were semi-private spaces that were known as salons with an intellectual or cultural background behind them,” Jackson said. “They were more like artists’ studios, with people coming from a mix of the cultural domain and the queer domain.”

The strategy was different for heterosexual men who were married or had a family to conform to societal norms but wanted to find sexual activity with the same sex. Places like parks, public toilets and baths, and swimming pools could serve as meeting points.

“But in the 1970s, when they [the Czech government] started to build a subway in Prague and moved the public toilets underground, people had to pay for the use of these areas. There was constant supervision, so public toilets were no longer an option,” Jackson highlighted.

The fight for LGBTQ rights

Despite the political and scientific approval of homosexual decriminalization, there was a significant lack of activism that could have helped the fight against queer people's exclusion and advocated necessary legal changes and rights.

In the late 1980s, broader societal changes in post-communist countries such as the enhancement of freedom of speech, created a better environment for the rise of activist movements.

According to Jackson, the foundation of “Lambda” in 1988, initially called the Socio-Therapeutic Club of Homosexuals, was a crucial moment. This modest therapeutic group, which later transformed into an official entity under the Sexologist Institute in Prague, aimed to help people accept and cope with their sexual orientation.

In September 1989, just before the Velvet Revolution, Lambda received authorization to publish its own magazine and later formally transformed into a non-government organization. After the events of November 1989, Lambda became one of the first groups actively fighting for the rights of queer individuals in the nation.