Who Controls a Gay Rsian Teen-ager’s Story? | The New Yorker

Contents:

• YOUNG AND GAY PUT'S RSIA
• ‘OUR MERE EXISTENCE IS ILLEGAL.’ AS MOSW TOUGHENS ANTI-GAY LAW, LGBTQ RSIANS FEAR FOR THE FUTURE
• MEET THE GAY RSIAN TEENAGER USG TWTER TO COMBAT HOMOPHOBIA
• ‘I’M AAID FOR MY FUTURE’: PROPOSED LAWS THREATEN GAY LIFE RSIA
• WHO CONTROLS A GAY RSIAN TEEN-AGER’S STORY?
• IN LGBT+ RIGHTS VICTORY, RSIAN TEEN WS 'GAY PROPAGANDA' SE
• GAY RSIAN TEENS MUNITE SECRET TO AVOID LAW ON 'PROPAGANDA'
• 'WE'RE NOT HIDG': GAY AND LBIAN RSIANS SAY A CULTURAL SHIFT IS UNRWAY
• A YOUNG, GAY RSIAN JEW NAVIGAT ’80S NEW YORK ‘MYAN,’ A NEW FILM SET BRIGHTON BEACH

YOUNG AND GAY PUT'S RSIA

But they fear a harsh new anti-gay law passed by Rsian lawmakers will leave them ltle choice.

As the Kreml prepared to falize the expansn of the 2013 discrimatory anti-gay law, members of the LGBTQ muny Rsia told CNN they feared the uncerta future ahead. The measur clu g private acunts on social media, havg accs to a work of tsted people, sendg their son to a private krgarten where the fact a kid has two moms is ls likely to spark a homophobic reactn, and g a private hospal where they n ls risk of a doctor llg child protectn thori to make quiri about their fay set-up, they said. “As an thor of books that raise [the LGBTQ] topic, of urse, I am very ncerned about this, ” gay wrer Ksenia told CNN.

Sce the first law on “gay propaganda” passed 2013, Rsia has seen repeated crackdowns on the gay muny, most notably 2017 and aga 2019 the southern regn of Chechnya, where activists reported dozens of men and women were taed and some tortured and killed for their sexual orientatn, and no proper vtigatn followed. “This is not only an anti-gay law, this is also explicly an anti-trans law, ” said Vanya Solovey, an advocy and program officer for Eastern Europe and Central Asia at the trans rights group Transgenr Europe, referencg the part of the package that forbids the promotn of rmatn that uld e people to want to change their genr assigned at birth.

‘OUR MERE EXISTENCE IS ILLEGAL.’ AS MOSW TOUGHENS ANTI-GAY LAW, LGBTQ RSIANS FEAR FOR THE FUTURE

They were tryg to ply wh a 2013 Rsian law that bans exposg mors to anythg that uld be nsired “gay propaganda. ”The anizers had good reason to be wary: Life has been challengg for gay Rsians sce the law passed, as the ernment has treated gay life as a Wtern import that is harmful to tradnal Rsian valu and Rsia’s Parliament is set to pass a legislative package that would ban all “gay propaganda, ” signalg an even more difficult perd ahead for a stigmatized segment of laws would prohib reprentatn of L.

MEET THE GAY RSIAN TEENAGER USG TWTER TO COMBAT HOMOPHOBIA

Exprsn wh s ratnale for the war Ukrae, sistg that Rsia is fightg not jt Ukrae but all of NATO, a Wtern alliance that reprents a threat to the Put drove home that argument a speech last week, sayg that the Wt n have “dozens of genrs and gay pri paras, ” but that should not try to spread the “trends” elsewhere. Aleksandr Khste, a puty om the lg Uned Rsia party and the lead thor of the new anti-gay bills, was even more blunt.

Lunchenkov said that 2010, when he was school, he felt that he uld exprs his gay inty eely among his classmat. Olenichev said that though the police do not track hate crim agast queer people, he and his lleagu have noticed an crease clients who have suffered inty-based attacks sce rhetoric behd anti-gay laws may have dangero nsequenc for gay Rsians, said Vladimir Komov, a lawyer wh the group Delo 2013 law was promoted as protectg children, while the new on “seek to prohib gay propaganda as a danger to the state system, ” fg as extremism, he Lunchenkov said the proposed laws uld leave gay people “aaid to go to medil clics to get treatment or ttg” for sexually transmted diseas. ”Some gay Rsians doubt that the new laws will greatly affect them.

“I am more sred of beg drafted to fight the war than for beg arrted bee I am gay, ” said Andrei Melnikov, 19.

‘I’M AAID FOR MY FUTURE’: PROPOSED LAWS THREATEN GAY LIFE RSIA

Lawmakers llg gays a danger on a par wh war “is more funny than sry, ” he now, gay Rsians and their alli have found exprsn spe rtrictive laws. A versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn A, Page 7 of the New York edn wh the headle: Life for Gay Rsians Is About to Get Worse. At a lol church, he met a gay uple, two elrly ary veterans who were raisg two adopted boys.

WHO CONTROLS A GAY RSIAN TEEN-AGER’S STORY?

They promised to shelter him, to fix him up wh a uple of gay lawyers who would handle his asylum se, and even, acrdg to the Rsian prs acunts, to pay for him to attend Harvard. Thori would perm her to meet wh him only the prence of Rsian nsular officials and the boy’s gay lawyers. The boy had met a gay uple through a lol L.

The Rsians, the lawyers told me, ma clear that beg homosexual—which they believed the boy had bee unr the fluence of Amerins—did not f their fn of “well. He has moved out of the group home and wh the gay uple om the Kalamazoo L.

” The lead paragraph of the Washgton Post’s article ced a “former participant’s cisn to stay wh a gay uple”—an assertn that the paper repeated the followg day an eloquent edorial on Rsian homophobia, xenophobia, and rptn.

IN LGBT+ RIGHTS VICTORY, RSIAN TEEN WS 'GAY PROPAGANDA' SE

A story the Tim stated that the program was ncelled “after a teenage Rsian boy who beiend a gay uple sought asylum the Uned Stat.

MOSCOW (Thomson Rters Foundatn) - In an unexpected victory for gay rights, the first mor to be charged Rsia for promotg homosexualy won a urt appeal on Friday fense of his right to post photos on social media of men Neverov was fed 50, 000 bl ($760) Augt after a missn on juvenile affairs found him guilty of “promotg non-tradnal sexual relatnship among mors” had posted onle photos of shirtls men openly huggg a natn where gays face legal challeng and risk wispread an appeal the cy urt of Biysk and several heargs, a judge found there was not enough evince to tablish Neverov’s guilt and overturned the fe. Neverov was the first mor - age 18 or unr Rsia - to be fed unr the law, which mak illegal any event or act regard by thori as an attempt to promote homosexualy to has been ed to stop gay pri march and to ta gay rights activists.

GAY RSIAN TEENS MUNITE SECRET TO AVOID LAW ON 'PROPAGANDA'

Neverov’s lawyer Artyom Lapov, a member of the gay rights group Rsian LGBT Network, said the lg is “a signal to the LGBT muny that they n, and should, fight for their rights.

Rsian urts rarely acqu people acced of “gay propaganda”, Network spokwoman Svetlana Zakharova told the Thomson Rters Foundatn. “This se shows that the jtice system is aware that the implementatn of the [gay propaganda] law often go too far.

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

Homosexualy was a crimal offense Rsia until 1993 and classed as a mental illns until year, the European Court of Human Rights led that the Rsian gay propaganda law breached European treaty l, vlated the right to eedom of exprsn and discrimated agast LGBT people - a lg Mosw lled. Only one person knew that Svetlana was gay when she wrote to Deti-404, a Rsian support group for lbian teenagers.

In her letter, the 16-year-old scribed a life of hidg her sexualy a small town central Rsia where a man had been killed for beg a homosexual.

A YOUNG, GAY RSIAN JEW NAVIGAT ’80S NEW YORK ‘MYAN,’ A NEW FILM SET BRIGHTON BEACH

Or at least be tolerant of me', " she, which tak s name om the error page that appears when a webse do not exist, was set up by Lena Klimova, 25, after she wrote an article about the plight of LGBT (lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr) teenagers. "The small support group is one of the few for young gay people Rsia.

It would also seem to be exactly the thg that the ntroversial anti-gay law passed by the Rsian parliament wish to crack down on.

The law, siar to the sectn 28 law that was passed by Margaret Thatcher's ernment 1988, bans the dissematn of "propaganda of non-tradnal sexual orientatn" towards unr-18s and impos f on anyone legislatn has ed an outcry the wt, leadg Stephen Fry to pared the suatn of gays and lbians Rsia to that of Jews Nazi Germany. Teenagers smaller towns – where there are few, if any, openly out people and no gay scene – have the harst. "Our school is nsired progrsive, but is que normal for teachers to say that homosexuals will burn hell, " wrote one 16-year-old om a small town "which isn't even on the map".