Some 55% of the inhabitants of Chisinau said they “oppose” the persons of the LGBT community (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people), noting they have a very/somehow negative attitude to these. 37% said they are “neutral” and have a neither positive nor negative attitude to them, while 7% consider themselves “supporters” of these and have a somehow positive attitude, shows a survey carried out in the capital city and presented by the Information Center Genderdoc-M in a news conference at IPN.
The Center’s executive director Anastasia Danilova said they often assert that the Republic of Moldova is a homophobe country. “Our opponents say that 98% of the Moldovans are intolerant of the LGBT community, especially the gays. But there is nothing behind these data. These are empty figures that are presented as truth and many of us believe them. We decided to find out if things indeed stand like this. What surprised us a lot is that the people who are somehow or categorically against are not many in number, as we usually hear,” stated Anastasia Danilova.
Within the study, the interviewed persons were asked to say the first associations that come to their mind when they hear “LGBT people”. These mentioned mainly such negative words as “antipathy/disgust” (33%). 22% had neutral associations, such as “indifference”.
“5% said “acceptance”, 2% said “support”, 1% said “admiration”. 22% said “indifference” and I reiterate that the neutral attitude is rather positive in a society in relation to any group. 12% said “confusion and ambiguity” owing to lack of information as the people do not know much about sexual orientation and gender identity. 7% said “pity, compassion”, 5% said “patience, tolerance”, 33% said “antipathy or disgust”, etc.” said projects coordinator at Genderdoc-M Angela Frolov.
10% of those surveyed said they know an LGBT person, while 2% said such a person forms part of the circle of friends with whom they meet regularly. 87% of those polled said they do not know such a person. “In fact, this cannot be true as, if we consider that 7-10% of the citizens are homosexual persons in any state, it is impossible to live a life and not to interact with these 7 out of 100. The citizens definitely know LGBT people and definitely have such persons among their friends, relatives and colleagues. However, for fear of being rejected, the LGBT people do not speak about this side of their personality and citizens consider they don’t know such persons,” explained Angela Frolov.
The respondents said discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation is spread to a certain extent. 40% said it is very spread and 31% said it is rather spread.
“We plan to repeat this research once in two years or even once a year so as to see how things change. And we hope a lot that things will change as carrying this burden of hatred and any phobia on the own shoulders is first of all a problem for the people who have such a phobia. It is not easy to live with negative feelings and carry them throughout life,” noted the coordinator.
The study was conducted during November 15 and December 20 and covered a sample of 815 respondents aged between 25 and 45 from Chisinau. The margin of sampling error is ± 3.4%.
