{"id":35507,"date":"2025-09-12T12:28:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T10:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/labrisz.hu\/?p=35507"},"modified":"2025-09-12T13:56:28","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T11:56:28","slug":"becsi-leszbikus-aktivistak-budapesten-1982-ben","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/labrisz.hu\/en\/hirek\/becsi-leszbikus-aktivistak-budapesten-1982-ben\/","title":{"rendered":"Viennese lesbian activists in Budapest in 1982"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 1983\/1 issue of Lambda Nachrichten<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(the quarterly magazine of the Austrian LGBT association HOSI Wien, published since 1979) featured a report on the December 1982 visit to Budapest by four lesbian activists from the association. The Austrian lesbians talked to Vali, M\u00e1rta, and Szilvia, and quoted from an interview with Lenke Szil\u00e1gyi from a few months earlier. They also watched the film Egym\u00e1sra n\u00e9zve (Another Way).<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Lesbians in Budapest<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Report by Doris and Helga<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In December 1982, we realized our long-cherished plan: we combined our trip to Budapest with an attempt to establish contact with Budapest lesbians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \"Egyetem\"<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through a gay acquaintance, we met Vali on our first evening at Caf\u00e9 Egyetem (University Caf\u00e9), Budapest's only gay bar. Despite her headache and language barriers, it was clear that she was very happy to see us and had a lot to say. She shook her head in response to our conspiratorial glances when a woman entered the bar: \"No!\" That evening, she and we were the only lesbians among the few female guests. Plus a few female employees of the University. She knows about sixty lesbians personally, ten of whom are good friends. For the sake of disguise\u2014in the interests of both parties\u2014Vali married a friend of our gay acquaintance. She describes how she felt a very strong pressure to conform to heterosexual norms, especially at work and in her family: \"After a while, my colleagues started asking intrusive questions about my boyfriend and, once I reached a certain age, about why I wasn't married. On top of that, they made jokes and comments that made me afraid to reveal myself. If you're married, they leave you alone.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, when asked about the possibilities of finding a partner, she replied that it is not at all hopeless to meet a woman at work if we are patient and skillful enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The click<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following evening, we found ourselves in the middle of the clique. The venue was M\u00e1rta and Szilvia's cozy living room, after the sophisticated \"gay bar\" (not only by Hungarian standards). They are a couple who have been sharing a table for some time now, because M\u00e1rta is in love with an East German lesbian. M\u00e1rta's free sexuality provokes incomprehension and envy in almost all the women in the group. Relationships, solid commitment to a partner, and fidelity are highly valued when a woman finally finds someone she can tolerate to some extent in extremely limited circumstances, and who does not immediately want to deny her lesbianism and the relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among other things, M\u00e1rta claimed that there are countless women who\u2014especially after finding out that the other woman is a lesbian\u2014are very willing to \"try it out.\" But \"no way!\" Even in the best case scenario, they only want to consider themselves a little bit bisexual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lenke<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jessie Jones, a journalist for Gay News magazine (issue 249, September 16, 1982), heard similar stories during her visit to Budapest from Lenke, a lesbian photographer whom she met in a radical intellectual circle. Lenke said that she was the only openly lesbian person she knew. She is not interested in the subculture (University), but believes that the existence of lesbian meeting places that are not oriented towards dating and are not purely private would in itself be a huge support; however, this is mere utopia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lenke: \u201cIt\u2019s fashionable among my friends to be bisexual. I know a few women who have sex with women, even though they\u2019re not homosexual, and we would never call them that. In fact, I\u2019m the only one who actually calls herself a \u2018lesbian\u2019. Nowadays, it doesn\u2019t bother me if my lovers are bisexual. I once had a serious argument about this. I know it's silly, but sometimes I get hysterical\u2014just as an aside.\" And: \"I've only heard of lesbians once. Those who live together as a couple with children. It's much harder to be a lesbian in the working class than in an artistic community like the one I'm in.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a Viennese perspective<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When visiting other countries, comparisons are almost inevitable. However, we prefer to avoid assessments such as \"better\" or \"worse,\" which would oversimplify the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our impression of Budapest could best be described as being like living as lesbians in a small Austrian town, or like living in Vienna a decade or two ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, we believe that the extent of the correlation between lesbianism\/homosexuality and personal well-being does not necessarily depend on which political power bloc a person belongs to, but is shaped by a variety of cultural and personal factors.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We would like to thank Katrin Kremmler for her help with the translation of the German text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"lesb
lesb bp lambdanachrichten 1983 01 1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"lesb
lesb bp lambdanachrichten 1983 01 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Lambda Nachrichten (a HOSI Wien osztr\u00e1k LMBT egyes\u00fclet 1979-t\u0151l megjelen\u0151 negyed\u00e9ves lapja) 1983\/1-es sz\u00e1m\u00e1ban megjelent egy besz\u00e1mol\u00f3 az egyes\u00fclet n\u00e9gy leszbikus aktivist\u00e1j\u00e1nak 1982 decemberi budapesti l\u00e1togat\u00e1s\u00e1r\u00f3l . Az osztr\u00e1k leszbikusok Valival, M\u00e1rt\u00e1val \u00e9s Szilvi\u00e1val besz\u00e9lgettek, \u00e9s id\u00e9ztek egy n\u00e9h\u00e1ny h\u00f3nappal kor\u00e1bbi interj\u00fab\u00f3l Szil\u00e1gyi Lenk\u00e9vel. Megn\u00e9zt\u00e9k az Egym\u00e1sra n\u00e9zve c\u00edm\u0171 filmet is. Leszbikusok Budapesten Doris \u00e9s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":35510,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"3","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hirek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/labrisz.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/labrisz.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/labrisz.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/labrisz.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/labrisz.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35507"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/labrisz.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35514,"href":"https:\/\/labrisz.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35507\/revisions\/35514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/labrisz.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/labrisz.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/labrisz.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/labrisz.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}