Abstract

A process of desecularization, sacralizing the nation, and retraditionalizing gender roles has been ongoing in post-Yugoslav Serbia since the late 80s, but has gained new steam since 2012, when a new government of a coalition similar to the 1990s politics was formed, albeit this time with the ostensible aim of joining the EU. Against the backdrop of these processes, Serbian iden-tity has been constructed in a particularly masculine way. And although the use of homophobia to Other the ‘Enemy within’ is not new in Serbian nationalism, a notable shift has been observed as Serbia has been pushed to accept LGBT bodies as part of its Europeanisation process, which is now further complicated by the war in Ukraine. The pride parades, which Serbia has had to endure due to its European integration process, and the tactical decision to appoint a lesbian prime min-ister, have contributed to the impossibility to openly rely on stereotypical homophobic means of othering. As such, the focus of the ‘enemy’ within shifted from the homosexual to other ‘Others’: Albanians, migrants traversing the Balkan route, non-maternal women, and most recently, ‘gender ideology’ in biology textbooks and gender-sensitive language. Tracing the debates in the Serbian media, especially with regard to the discursive chasm between LGBT communities/feminisms and the Serbian Orthodox Church, but also with changes in the dominant media discourse, this pa-per contends that nationalist othering in Serbia is consistently reshaped in order to accommodate the changing political climates. It demonstrates the moving boundaries in the construction of the nation, which constantly fluctuating representations of identities stereotypically associated with LGBT communities, masculinities and femininities, ‘Serbhood’, and Orthodoxy.