Russia Cracks Down Further on LGBTQ+ Community

Disclaimer: The terms ‘queer community’ and ‘LGBT community’ used throughout this article are, for all intents and purposes, interchangeable with the term ‘LGBTQ+ community’. The use of such terms is not meant to exclude anyone, but rather, multiple terms are used as to not sound monotonous.

Gay rights activists marching during St. Petersburg’s May Day rally in 2013. (AP Photo)

The regime in Russia further cracked down on its queer community this month, with Russia’s top court ruling to ban the so-called “international LGBTQ movement,” labeling it an extremist organization. It is now illegal — and punishable — in Russia to “promote or praise LGBTQ relationships, publicly express non-heterosexual orientations or suggest that they are normal.” This comes after nearly a decade of queer suppression in Russia, which arguably began in 2013, when the Kremlin passed a law banning the “dissemination of LGBTQ-related information” to minors. The new iteration of the 2013 law passed nearly a decade later extends the dissemination ban to adults as well. 

The expansion of the dissemination ban comes after Putin’s regime passed an “LGBTQ propaganda” ban last year that prevents anyone in Russia from suggesting that non-heterosexual relationships are normal and bans, in vague terms, the promotion of same-sex relationships. The queer propaganda ban — extreme on its own — has been wielded with ridiculous results, which have included the re-rating of My Little Pony for adult audiences only. Violation of the propaganda law has resulted in fines between 100,000 rubles and 4,000,000 rubles and expulsion from Russia (should the violator be a foreign national). Further, this year Russia also passed a law prohibiting gender-affirming care and gender transition procedures for its citizens. The law also amended marriage rules, allowing for the annulment of marriages on the grounds of one partner’s decision to change genders, and prohibits those who have changed genders from becoming adoptive parents.

A gay rights activist being detained by police in Moscow in 2009. (AP Photo, File)

In response to the further crackdowns on Russia’s queer community, Amnesty International declared the court’s ruling “shameful and absurd.” The group’s director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Marie Struthers, stated that the ruling “will affect countless people, and its repercussions are poised to be nothing short of catastrophic.”

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Russian Orthodox Church, one of many in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, praised the court’s ruling, telling the state-run RIA Novosti press agency that the ruling was “a form of moral self-defense by a society” against efforts to “push the Christian idea of marriage and family from the public and legal realms.”

The day after Russia’s top court labeled the queer movement as an extremist one, Russian police carried out raids on popular gay venues in the capital, Moscow. According to two independent Russian Telegram news outlets, Ostorozhno Novosti and Sota, “at least” three gay entertainment venues in Moscow were targeted by Russian police, including the gay club Secret Club, the gay bar Mono Bar, and the queer pop-up Hunters Party. During the raids, police allegedly photographed the passports of those participating; partygoers feared that they “would be imprisoned for 12 years.” Police claimed that they were simply conducting “routine drug raids.”

The popular St. Petersburg queer venue Central Station Club announced that it planned to shut its doors to business in the wake of the top court ruling and Moscow raids; Central Station Club management claimed that they were “denied further rental” of the business space “due to the new law.”