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

Contents:

• THE HISTORY OF HOMOSEXUALY RSIA: OM SOVIET SEX CHANG TO GAY GULAGS
• A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
• 'WE'RE NOT HIDG': GAY AND LBIAN RSIANS SAY A CULTURAL SHIFT IS UNRWAY

THE HISTORY OF HOMOSEXUALY RSIA: OM SOVIET SEX CHANG TO GAY GULAGS

Members of a gay rights group at a prott St Petersburg, Rsia 2008. ()In morn Rsia, legislatn is pendg that would allow thori to take children away om gay parents.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Already, promotg a homosexual liftyle is illegal. Homosexualy was crimalised Rsia after the fall of the Soviet Unn, but gay and lbian cizens say they are beg subjected to a 'classic hate mpaign', backed up by hardle legal reforms. Earlier this year, the Rsian parliament passed legislatn makg illegal to promote a homosexual liftyle to mors.

A new law has now been drafted that would allow Rsian thori to take children away om homosexual parents. Experts say the untry has a troubled history when to s treatment of homosexualy Healey is Profsor of Morn Rsian History at the Universy of Oxford and the thor of Homosexual Dire Revolutnary Rsia. He explaed that while the Tsarist regime crimalised male homosexualy 1835, a bld eye was turned to ‘ordary homosexual behavur’ the last year and a half the Kreml has been nng a ncerted mpaign of hatred on televisn...

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

‘We know of stanc where there were members of the Romanov royal fay who were gay, and also of urse famo dividuals like Tchaikovsky, ’ said Profsor Healey. ‘The people were able to functn their social and polil rol and their cultural rol, spe the fact that they were also livg pretty exuberant male homosexual liv. However, thor and journalist Masha Gsen said this was not an ditn of a more liberal attu to homosexualy.

‘They had the ia that the social stutns of Tsarist Rsia need to be stroyed, and the fay went down and all the laws went out, cludg the laws crimalisg homosexualy. In some Wtern lerature that has been misterpreted as a legalisatn of homosexualy, ’ she said.

So 1934 when the Soviet Unn re-crimalised homosexualy, that was a perfectly logil step. ’Joseph Stal me to power the late 1920s, and 1933 he accepted a proposed law that allowed the arrt and nvictn of homosexuals. ‘The procs of mocratisatn and Glasnost openns that Mikhail Gorbachev iat when he to power 1985 that leads to the llapse of the Soviet Unn 1991, that begs to allow the problem of homosexualy to be discsed publicly, ’ said Profsor Healey.