A lavender marriage is a union between two people, often both members of the LGBTQ+ community, entered into to conceal same-sex attraction in a society where being openly queer could mean social isolation, a ruined career, or even criminal prosecution.
The term originated in 1920s Hollywood, when actors’ contracts started including morality clauses and studios began using these marriages to protect the careers of their gay and lesbian stars. The name comes from the color lavender, which has been associated with homosexuality ever since.
Today it sounds like something left behind in history. And yet the phenomenon still exists, even in the Western Balkans.
“Everything comes down to necessity”
In a video posted on TikTok, Lira, an activist and the founder of Queer Albania, called on people interested in lavender marriages, offering to help them find each other.
Couples wanted, if you’re interested. I don’t want to get into whether lavender marriages are ethical or not, how, why, I really don’t care, everything comes down to necessity, and on our different paths through life we make decisions that make things easier for ourselves. You don’t have to make your own life harder than it needs to be. If this is something you’ve thought about, message me privately and I’ll try to introduce you to each other,” she says in the video, which you can find HERE. KËTU.
Her call frames the phenomenon as a matter of personal choice, driven by needs that can push people toward arrangements like these.
Lira isn’t the only one
There are also online groups where people from the Western Balkans look for others interested in entering this kind of marriage. Mollëkuqja reached out to some of them, but given how sensitive the topic is, most declined to talk. Still, speaking anonymously, some said they see this kind of marriage as a way out. Some do it to appear “acceptable” in front of their families, while others choose it because they want children, all while quietly living another, hidden life alongside it.
Lavender marriages aren’t a distinct legal category. The term simply describes the circumstances and reasons behind a marriage, and the arrangements themselves vary from one couple to another.
In the Western Balkans, where LGBTQ+ people still face prejudice, discrimination, and pressure from family and society, this kind of marriage is, for some, a way to hide their sexual orientation and avoid the consequences of it being found out.
Even though countries in the region have made progress in strengthening legal protections, social acceptance and the enforcement of rights remain a real challenge. Mollëkuqja has already reported on the challenges facing the LGBTQ+ community in each country of the region individually.
Lavender marriages today
Today, lavender marriages are taking on a whole new form, especially among Gen Z. With rent prices climbing, an unpredictable job market, and a growing rejection of the idea that every relationship has to be romantic, many young people no longer see this kind of marriage as something to hide, but as a deliberate strategy. A way to build a life with someone who respects, cares for, and supports them, whether or not there’s romantic attraction involved.
A good example of this comes straight from TikTok. Creator Robbies Music, a gay musician, posted a video openly inviting interested people to apply as a “spouse,” saying something like, “you can do whatever you want with whoever you want, the only thing I’m asking is that when the monthly bill comes, you show up with your half.” The video went viral. One commenter wrote that they’d been in a lavender marriage for eight months and had felt more love and care in that time than they had in twenty years with their ex.
How does a relationship like this actually work?
There’s no single model for what a lavender marriage should look like. Some couples stay entirely platonic, while others include physical closeness, mutual caregiving, or even co-parenting. What they tend to have in common is a clear foundation built on honesty, respect, and an open agreement about what the relationship is and what it isn’t.
Before anything starts, couples talk through everything: finances, living arrangements, whether they want kids, boundaries around seeing other people outside the marriage, emotional needs, and what “commitment” actually means to them. Many of these marriages are open, meaning partners can have romantic or sexual relationships outside the arrangement without it undermining the trust they’ve built. And like any long-term relationship, this one changes over time, which means regular conversations to check whether the original agreement is still working for both people.
Ninety years old and finally free
Elida Rose was 90 when she first said out loud that she likes women. In the late ’50s, she was a young immigrant from Colombia, a nurse, and bisexual, at a time when that simply wasn’t something you could say. She married Donald, a gay man who was building a name for himself in Hollywood as an artist and graphic designer, in an industry where a discovery like that could end a career overnight.
There were no lies between them. From the very beginning, each of them knew the truth about the other, and they agreed that both would be free to have relationships outside the marriage. They had two daughters, and later came grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They were each other’s best friends for 63 years, until Donald’s death in 2021.
The story became known in late 2024, when her grandson shared it on TikTok and People magazine interviewed Elida. She called the life they’d built together beautiful, but added that not being able to be themselves had made them feel like they were in prison.
Lavender marriages aren’t failed love stories. They’re stories of survival, and the price for that survival was often paid in decades of a life left unlived.
Do these marriages actually work?
There’s no direct research on this yet. But psychologists John and Julie Gottman, who’ve studied thousands of couples over more than four decades, have found that the strongest predictor of a lasting marriage isn’t passion, it’s friendship. That means knowing the other person’s inner world, noticing the small moments of closeness, and knowing how to repair things after an argument. None of that requires sexual attraction. So maybe the real question isn’t whether a lavender marriage works, but whether the two people in it chose it freely, or felt they had no other option.
In the West, lavender marriages have become a TikTok trend. In the Western Balkans, where marriage is still expected as a duty to one’s family and where most LGBTQ+ people hide their orientation, they aren’t a trend. They’re a quiet reality that the region’s media still hasn’t written about. Maybe because the people living inside them can’t speak up. And maybe because no one has yet thought to ask the women who married into them without knowing.
This publication was produced within the framework of the project Queer and Present: Media, Rights and Safety for LGBTIQ+ persons in Pollog, which is implemented as part of the broader regional project Together for LGBTQI+ Equality, implemented by the Centre for Civic Education (CCE) in partnership with ERA – LGBTI Equal Rights Association for the Western Balkans and Turkey, Queer Montenegro, Queer Center Skopje, Tuzla Open Center, Open Mind Spectrum Albania (OMSA), and the Center for Social Group Development from Kosovo. The programme is funded by the European Union.
The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the Center for Equal Opportunities “Mollekuqja” and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union, CCE, or the project partners.
