'We're not hidg': Gay and lbian Rsians say a cultural shift is unrway

Contents:

• RSIA TO GAYS: SHUT UP AND DISAPPEAR
• 'WE'RE NOT HIDG': GAY AND LBIAN RSIANS SAY A CULTURAL SHIFT IS UNRWAY
• EXPLAER: WHAT DO NEW ‘GAY PROPAGANDA’ LAW MEAN FOR LGBTIQ+ RSIANS?
• RSIAN PRINT VLADIMIR PUT IS 'LATENTLY GAY,' ALLEG CONTROVERSIAL NEW BGRAPHY
• IS HER SISSY BOY ACTUALLY GAY?
• PUT’S ANTI-GAY WAR ON UKRAE
• RSIAN GAY BOYS PORN VIOS

RSIA TO GAYS: SHUT UP AND DISAPPEAR

In other words, where Bud Light has buckled unr prsure as bigotry grows agast the LGBTQ+ muny, Gay Water’s creator Spencer Hodson wants his new boozy brand to be the anthis of that. “The key issue that Bud Light tapped to was the fact that they didn’t unrstand their re dience and know enough about them,” Hodson, a gay man, told CNN about the ntroversy that began when the Anhser-Bch beer brand sent fluencer Dylan Mulvaney a n of beer.

'WE'RE NOT HIDG': GAY AND LBIAN RSIANS SAY A CULTURAL SHIFT IS UNRWAY

“Puttg a product wh the word gay the tle is reprentatn self,” which he hop reclaims the word om the negativy ’s sometim associated wh. The two chatted about the limed amount of gay people wh , and wh Hodson burnt out om his tradnal day job tech, started the nned cktail. Hodson built up a strong social media followg on TikTok and Instagram durg Covid-19 and is g some of the money om that (as well as om iends and fay) to help fund Gay Water.

“Gay is an umbrella term and the ia behd the brand is to be as clive as possible, which means we want alli, we want straight people to be part of this muny we’re buildg.”.

For now, Gay Water is sold largely onle (wh a few retailers) and four sugar-ee flavors — watermelon, lime, peach and grapeu — at lnch. Gay Water might not have the ep pockets pared to s petors, like Whe Claw, but “even at small sle, pani of many siz are havg succs makg spir-based seltzers and premixed cktails,” Bryan Roth, an analyst for Feel Goods Company and edor of the alhol beverage newsletter, Sightl+, told CNN. “There’s lots of space the spir-based seltzer tegory which Gay Water n play, pecially if the brand n offer a cultural or emotnal nnectn that will feel more excg than the prospect of another peapple-flavored vodka seltzer om natnal or ternatnal rporatns,” Roth said.

EXPLAER: WHAT DO NEW ‘GAY PROPAGANDA’ LAW MEAN FOR LGBTIQ+ RSIANS?

Of urse, other drks e the word “gay,” too, cludg Gay Beer and So Gay Rosé, Hodson noted, which are also tryg to reach the queer muny and offer them an alternative the straight-domated space. He portrayed the war as a stggle between those seekg to reject Wtern valu and gay pri paras held as, his words, “loyalty tt[s]” to Wtern ernments. Kreml officials seized on the ia of banng “gay propaganda, ” takg an obscure law that had been gag steam regnal legislatur sce 2006 and passg at the feral level 2013.

RSIAN PRINT VLADIMIR PUT IS 'LATENTLY GAY,' ALLEG CONTROVERSIAL NEW BGRAPHY

The vaguely word law prohibs any discsns of homosexualy plac or formats that may be accsible to mors, cludg the media and onle.

IS HER SISSY BOY ACTUALLY GAY?

The media verage that followed the passage of the gay propaganda law 2013 set the tone for the rise hate crim that was to follow.

PUT’S ANTI-GAY WAR ON UKRAE

In 2016, Dmry Tsilik, a proment art and culture cric who was gay, was stabbed more than 30 tim by a man he met on an onle datg se. As Rsia ntu to flounr Ukrae, wh attempts to pture the small town of Bakhmut turng to a grisly reenactment of the Battle of Verdun, and Kreml propagandists lurchg back and forth between hysteril swagger and the five stag of grief, the Rsian polil tablishment has cid to tackle what’s really important: a natnal “Don’t Say Gay” law.

A bill that outlaws “LGBT propaganda”—fed so broadly as to ver not only gay or transgenr rights advocy but potentially all public exprsns of “nontradnal” sexualy or genr inty—passed the State Duma on November 24 and was approved by the upper hoe of Rsia’s fake legislature, the Council of Feratns, last Wednday. ) But do rell Soviet-era censorship unr which any mentn of Tchaikovsky’s homosexualy was scbbed om books and films about the great poser’s life, while bgraphil prefac to Soviet edns of Osr Wil cloaked the reason for his imprisonment such phemisms as “transgrsns agast moraly. ” Ocsnally, foreign books wh gay characters, such as Iris Murdoch’s 1973 novel The Black Prce, slipped past the censor’s vigilant eye.

But there uld have been no qutn, for stance, of publishg Jam Baldw’s gay-themed masterpiece Gvanni’s Room, even though Baldw was acclaimed the official Soviet media as a fighter agast Amerin racism; the novel had to wa until 2007 for s first Rsian edn. This is not the first time Put-era Rsian legislatn has gone after “gay propaganda”: A more limed 2013 law add “propaganda of non-tradnal sexual relatns” to a broar law that banned the distributn of “harmful” material to mors.

RSIAN GAY BOYS PORN VIOS

The Duma voted down an amendment that would have exempted “universally regnized cultural products” such as lerature and art om the ban; theory, this means, for example, that Rsian translatns of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Pale Fire, whose prcipal narrator Charl Kbote is nspicuoly gay, uld fall unr the ax. Jt last month, the premiere of a play lled The Prcs and the Ogre at a children’s theater Novosibirsk was nceled—or at least layed, sce will apparently open this month after vettg by the Mistry of Culture—bee of an anonymo plat om someone who found too gay.

Many Rsian mentators, such as journalist and activist Renat Davletgilyev, believe the new law is a transparent attempt by the Put regime to shore up flaggg support among the Rsian public by appealg to homophobia, stg gays as the menacg “other, ” and monizg not only the Wt but Rsian antiwar liberals as “sexual viants.

A report by journalist Sasha Belaya on the Khodorkovsky Live YouTube channel noted that the Duma’s discsn and passage of the legislatn had been acpanied by an anti-gay mpaign the Rsian state media that explicly targeted liberals and dissints. Fellow TV host Vladimir Solovyov livered his mentary on “this filth, this abomatn, this foulns, and nasts” a bizarre sgsong apparently tend to mimic “gay” mannerisms.