Gays in Belgrade struggle to find a sense of self.

Graffiti at the the American Center in downtown Belgrade reads CLINTON-FAGGOT and MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, WE DON'T PRACTICE SODOMY. Just as it did during the NATO bombing campaign earlier this year, the spray paint serves as a testament to the homophobia that continues to plague this city's gay men and lesbians.

Milan Duric, 26, thought the nationalistic tendencies stirred by antiwar protests in Belgrade would have created a sense of unity among Serbians. Instead, he said, he found himself to be a target among his own people. "If I were to have stood [on a] stage to say `I am gay, and I am here'--you should imagine what the audience would do: kill me or lynch me or something like that."

For Duric and others, any sort of gay identity has become secondary to the struggle to survive in this country so gripped by political unrest and economic hardship. To be a gay activist is a luxury in such times. "An American gay man or lesbian cannot imagine how hard it is to be gay here. We're seen as perverted and sick. People have become more aggressive against us--especially during the war." In fact, gay men and lesbians were described as enemies of the state during the bombings and implicated by government officials as NATO collaborators, Duric said.

A new report by the European Youth Association of Serbia and Gay Lobby Arcadia describes increasing incidents of street bashing, workplace discrimination, and police detention in Belgrade. It states that police hold files on known gays and lesbians that include photographs and data collected during raids at gay meeting points and through other illegal methods, such as phone tapping and mail interception.

The future seems bleak too, Duric said, adding, "I don't know from what source we derive strength." Belgrade no longer has a regularly published gay newspaper, and there is no sense of community. A downtown bar caters to gays and lesbians on Saturday nights, and there are periodic lesbian poetry readings and video screenings, but nearly everyone remains closeted the rest of the time. "We were making progress in 1991, when the first gay pride day was publicly celebrated," Duric said. "But then the war in Bosnia started, and then we had the international trade sanctions imposed upon us, and we suffered an economic depression that continues today. When we started making plans for another publication, NATO began bombing." And with the approach of winter and economic disparity leading the country into lethargy, it's not likely those plans will be resumed any time soon. Adds Duric: "We don't have the time to maintain even a basic gay identity right now."

Boothe is a political affairs reporter for public radio in Minnesota and president of the Washington, D.C.-based National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association.