This year Vienna is the host city of Europride, which is a pan-European event to celebrate the 50 year anniversary of New York’s 1969 Christopher Street uprising, the inaugural moment of the LGBTI liberation movement. As a research institute, IHS has been providing the LGBTI community as well as the larger public with scientific work exploring inequality, discrimination and information on the socio-economic situation of LGBTIs in urban, national and international contexts.
In a project funded by the Austrian National Bank, IHS has researched the public availability, provision and quality of large scale data on LGBTIs in 30 European countries by analyzing data of national and European statistics institutes, thereby examining if and how LGBTIs are being “counted” and made in-/visible in socio-economic statistics. IHS has also, together with Vienna’s Antidiscrimination Unit for Lesbian, Gay and Transgender Issues (WASt), conducted a study on the socio-economic situation of LGBTI persons in the city of Vienna (called “Queer in Wien”), which is based on data by the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) and an online survey of more than 3.000 Viennese LGBTIs.
In a connected study funded by the Austrian National Bank’s Jubiläumsfonds IHS has plotted incidences of violence against LGBTI persons in Vienna and places of “queer fear” against the backdrop of a socio-economic map of Vienna’s urban space, connecting intersecting categories of discrimination and socio-economic exclusion. Based on the “Queer in Wien” data, IHS has also specifically looked into the situation of LGBTI youth. Even though young queer people experience substantial rates of bullying and violence in the education context as well as very high numbers of street harassment (especially if they are gender non-conforming), the IHS findings suggest high levels of resilience based on empowering environments and affirmative social relationships.
Currently, IHS is looking into work-related issues for LGBTIs, such as being out at work and the social and economic costs of workplace discrimination, as well as issues of intersectionality connecting racism with homophobia, sexism and transphobia. Furthermore a research platform on Gender and Diversity has been established in 2018 to present the results of research in those fields and to strenghten the integration of the gender dimension into the research topics represented at IHS.
For questions contact: karin.schoenpflug@ihs.ac.at.