Voicing women in Eastern Europe-an introduction.

This special issue maps out real and symbolic spaces of women who are attracted to women in Eastern Europe, and highlights some of the challenges they face. One of the main themes emerging from the articles is that constructing spaces for women outside the heterosexual mainstream can be a useful political strategy in societies where non-conventional sexual interests, attractions, and gender expression have discriminative consequences. All of the eight articles in this special issue represent different voices, while demonstrating that there are many similar tendencies concerning the main goals and difficulties of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) and lesbian movements of the region, in terms of legal and social developments related to the most heated issues of same-sex marriage and parenting on the one hand, and the violent attacks against pride marches and political backlash on the other.