Lettres de Russie: Love is not love?

Russia has been on the radar of LGBTQ+ activists for years... and not for the right reasons, writes Kanav Narayan Sahgal

While Russia entered the media cycle notoriously in the early months of 2022 for its vicious (and ongoing) invasion of Ukraine, what has been looming in the background for decades is Russia’s (but more specifically, Vladimir Putin and his supporters’) fierce anti-gay stance that has reflected in not just anti-gay legislation, but extremely hostile attitudes towards gay people in the country as well.

Pew Research Center's 2020 study on the global divide of social attitudes toward homosexuality showed that only 14 per cent of Russians surveyed believed that society should accept homosexuality. Contrast that with India, a country with decades-long anti-gay legislation in its books and a very limited public understanding of gay rights, where 37 per cent of respondents said homosexuality should be accepted! Moreover, the rate of acceptance in India was 15 per cent in 2013, and it rose by a whopping 22 percentage points to 37 per cent in 2019 (the highest percentage growth in acceptance, tied with South Africa, which grew from 32 per cent in 2013 to 54 per cent in 2019). Contrast this with Russia, in which social attitudes decreased between 2013 and 2019 by 2 per cent — from 16 per cent to 14 per cent. We should note that before 2013, social attitudes were actually better! In 2002, 22 per cent of surveyed Russians approved of homosexuality but in 2007, that number dipped to 20 per cent. And by 2019, it was just 14 per cent. To understand these dips, we will have to go into a bit of history.

Human rights & Russian geopolitics

Russia joined the Council of Europe on February 28, 1996 and the UN Human Rights Council in January 2021 as one of 15 countries elected by the General Assembly to serve a three-year term. However, once Russia waged war on Ukraine, it was booted out of both bodies. And while the decision to oust Russia from not just these bodies, but also the UN Human Rights Council happened quickly, Russia’s local human rights records have remained visibly poor for years if not decades, yet, no such prompt action was taken then. The Russian occupation of Crimea and other territories, the "anti-gay purges" in Chechnya, the routine harassment, detention, and imprisonment of artists, human rights lawyers, academics, and journalists like Yulia Tsvetkova, Ivan Pavlov, Galina Arapova, and Pussy Riot (to name a few) and the routine anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda spewed by the Kremlin (and Vladimir Putin in particular) have made Russia a focal point for international human rights discourse and widespread condemnation by Western Human Rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Political theorist, Nikita Sleptcov points out in her succinct essay on Russian anti-gay politics that state-sponsored homophobia has been a part and parcel of Russia's domestic and foreign policy for years, if not decades. During the Soviet era, Stalin used homophobia to attack political opponents. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia liberalised some of its anti-gay laws, including decriminalising homosexuality on April 29, 1993. However, decriminalisation did not lead to acceptance. Sociologist, Laurie Essig points out in her book, Queer in Russia: A Story of Sex, Self and the Other that post-1994, the enthusiasm for queer activism slowly and steadily declined. This occurred due to fissures between queer activists, a hostile external anti-gay environment, disillusionment with Western models of organising and identity, and a sharp decline in funding. Laurie calls this a pivotal moment for the "fall of queer politics in Russia". It was as though activists had already given up. Meanwhile, the rising influence of the Russian Orthodox Church, whose position on homosexuality and gender roles has remained conservative, further worsened public opinion on homosexuality (most Russians identify as orthodox Christians). With little to no pushback from activists, negative social attitudes caught on and have stayed that way for years.

Introduction of gay “propaganda” laws

It was in this ripe moment of increased homophobia that on June 29, 2013, amendments to the federal law ‘On the Protection of Children From Information Liable to be Injurious to their Health and Development’ was signed into force by President Vladimir Putin. Also called the "anti-propaganda law", this law introduced fines of up to 100,000 Rubles on individuals, up to 200,000 rubles on officials, and suspensions for legal entities for spreading any kind of information on what the state deemed "non-traditional sexual relations”. The introduction of the
bill made its intent very clear. It said: "The promotion of homosexuality has sharply increased in modern-day Russia...This is particularly dangerous for children and young people who are not able to take a critical approach to this avalanche of information with which they are bombarded on a daily basis. In view of this, it is essential first and foremost, to protect the younger generation from exposure to the promotion of homosexuality."

But perhaps the most extensive changes were to the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation which, through the introduction of a new section called ‘Promotion of non-traditional sexual relations among minors,’ made it an offence to disseminate information and/or perform public actions aimed at the formation of “non-traditional sexual relations”. Furthermore, the new law banned the presentation of the “distorted idea” that traditional and “non-traditional sexual relations” were equal in society. It should be noted that this law (called the “anti-gay” law by critics) passed with unanimous support in the lower house of the Parliament with just one lawmaker abstaining and the remaining 436 voting in favour. And now, amidst the war with Ukraine, the lower house of Russia’s parliament has passed the final reading of a new bill that expands the 2013 “anti-gay” law. While the 2013 law only prohibited disseminating information about “non-traditional sexual relations” to minors, the new bill would now apply to everyone — minors and adults alike. Thus, any attempt to discuss homosexuality or gender reassignment — be it through books, movies, films, plays, or parades — would incur severe fines. Citizens could be fined up to $6,600, organisations up to $82,100 and foreign nationals could be sentenced to up to 15 days and deported. Russian media reported that Putin signed this bill into law on December 5, 2022.

Free speech & expression

What the controversies at the World Cup in Qatar showed us was that the global divide on gay rights is alive and kicking (no pun intended). Article 1 of the Qatari Penal Code (2004) mandates courts to apply Sharia law for zina. Courts could rely on this provision to impose the death penalty for consensual same-sex sexual acts if interpreted as a form of zina. And while the Qatari government reiterated that ‘‘Everyone is welcome to Qatar”, LGBTQ+ Pride flags and ‘One Love’ bands remained banned in the stadium premises. People wearing clothing with rainbow flags or publicly depicting any kind of solidarity with Iranian women were reportedly denied entry into the stadium. What both the Russian and Qatari stories teach us is that decriminalisation or not, equal treatment of LGBTQ+ people is perhaps less dependent on the letter of the law and more dependent on its substantive application of the law — for which heightened social awareness, greater empathy, and a depoliticisation of queer rights is necessary.

According to The Moscow Times, a 2022 poll conducted by the Levada Center (a Russian non-governmental research organisation) found that 18 per cent of Russian respondents believed that gay and lesbian people should be "eliminated from society" while one-third believed that gay and lesbian people should be 'isolated from society’. Respondents rated gays and lesbians as being more harmful to society than "feminists, drug addicts and prostitutes". While no such comparable survey has probably been done in Qatar, what such data shows us is that the rising visibility of gay and lesbian people in the public domain can be a double-edged sword — one that could lead to greater acceptance, as we saw with Cuba and Slovenia this year (both countries legalised same-sex marriage), or greater backlash.

And what of India? With limited awareness of LGBTQ+ issues and an increasingly hostile central government opposed to marriage equality, there is still some hope. From openly transgender candidate, Bobby Kinner's victory in the recent MCD elections in Delhi, to the Tamil Nadu Government's proposal to include LGBTQ+ awareness programmes in schools — for both teachers and students — a lot more is happening in India than same-sex marriage litigation. It should also be noted that policies for the welfare of transgender people are slowly being adopted in the country, and media depictions of LGBTQ+ characters have improved, especially in Bollywood. The courts have also taken progressive positions on the cohabitation rights of same-sex couples seeking police protection and transgender people seeking access to jobs and education. However, in the long run, social attitudes are hard to change, and laws, even harder.

Both Qatar and Russia should serve as examples of what political homophobia looks like and what enduring impact prejudicial policies can have on the lives of domestic and international LGBTQ+ people.

(The author is a Programme & Communications Manager at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy and Nyaaya and can be reached at [e-mail])