Paper short abstract:

This paper explores nationalist opposition to public healthcare support of gender affirming procedures in Montenegro. It focuses on how nationalist actors use the politics of innocence to differentiate between those deserving and those undeserving of care and support.

Paper long abstract:

Two Montenegrin citizens so far have been granted full financial support for gender affirming interventions from the Public Healthcare Fund. Gender affirming was added to the list of publicly insured medical procedures in Montenegro in 2012. This paper explores rising nationalist opposition to this move. The most vocal opponents of the public financing of gender affirming evoke genderless and innocent figures of "sick children" and "the elderly" as those more deserving of public support. How come the Fund has money for trans people, but cancer treatment abroad for a child needs to be financed by charitable and humanitarian SMS donations, the nationalist actors ask. As in many other cases, nationalist actors use the politics of innocence to establish an opposition between those deserving and those undeserving of care and support. In doing so, they direct criticism of the conditions caused by the shrinking healthcare insurance and worsening healthcare system away from capitalist economic transformation (and the responsible politicians) to trans people. Exploring this process, the paper focuses on narrative strategies of nationalist actors tentatively called "crisis-making", "depoliticization", and "scapegoating".