Public Space and a Knot of Visibility: Genders and Sexualities Exposed

Abstract

The notion of visibility and visible appears concentrated around a specific knot, which includes the complexity of an intersection of a presence and visibility. In other words, in order for a visibility to be achieved, the simple presence should be underlined by a specific function, a place that marks its relation to the sociocultural system it exists in. In the cases of gender and sexual minority identities the question of public space and visibility becomes crucial, since minorities are being exposed as otherness in relation to the dominant, heteropatriarchal system that labels them as such. This paper works with the issues of problematic visibilities, using the Pride parade in Belgrade 2009 as a case study, which is directly related to gender and sexual identity positions within the dominant majority-governed system.