'Our mere existence is illegal.' As Mosw toughens anti-gay law, LGBTQ Rsians fear for the future | CNN

Contents:

• 'WE'RE NOT HIDG': GAY AND LBIAN RSIANS SAY A CULTURAL SHIFT IS UNRWAY
• ‘I’M AAID FOR MY FUTURE’: PROPOSED LAWS THREATEN GAY LIFE RSIA
• WHY RSIA TURNED AGAST THE GAYS
• WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT RSIA’S SO-CALLED ‘GAY PROPAGANDA’ BILL
• ‘OUR MERE EXISTENCE IS ILLEGAL.’ AS MOSW TOUGHENS ANTI-GAY LAW, LGBTQ RSIANS FEAR FOR THE FUTURE
• GAYS RSIA FD NO HAVEN, DPE SUPPORT FROM THE WT
• 1 5 RSIANS WANT GAYS AND LBIANS 'ELIMATED,' SURVEY FDS
• MAJORY OF RSIANS BELIEVE GAYS NSPIRG TO STROY UNTRY'S VALU, POLL FDS
• HOW TO BE GAY
• SORRY, RSIA, BUT TCHAIKOVSKY WAS DEFELY GAY
• 'PASSAG' DIRECTOR NOUNC 'DANGERO' NC-17 RATG ON A FILM PICTG A GAY LOVE STORY

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

”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.

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.

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. Speakg before Put signed the bill to the law on Monday, Tanya Loksha, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch said: “The 2013 ‘gay propaganda’ law was an unabashed example of polil homophobia, and the new draft legislatn amplifi that broar and harsher ways.

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

Rsian society remaed wily homophobic, and there were many who saw gays and lbians as an evable and evil Wtern import, but there were other thgs to worry about — reverg om the llapse of a polil-enomic system, clawg out of poverty, alg wh the explosn of vlence that engulfed a untry sudnly flowg wh sh and then me Vladimir spent the first two terms of his princy, om 2000 to 2008, lg wh no iology.

Petersburg and Mosw have been marked by state vlence and arrts, while an crease the number of attacks on LGBTQ people throughout Rsia—both by dividuals and by anized homophobic groups—creased after the 2013 law, acrdg to a 2014 report published by Human Rights Watch. 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.

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. In one episo of the highly-acclaimed HBO seri The Whe Lot, a Rsian streamg service changed the word "gay" to "man", eded a towel onto one male character's bare backsi and leted a gay sex scene, jt days after the law was ptn, The book Shattered, about the romance between two men, has been heavily redacted RsiaBooks, too, are beg censored.

WHY RSIA TURNED AGAST THE GAYS

Over the past several years, there have also been a number of disturbg reports of state-sponsored tentn, vlence and torture agast gay and bisexual men Chechnya, a semitonomo Rsian regn“The state giv the signal that LGBT people are not real people, that they are send- or even third-class cizens, ” Zakharova said. “Thgs om a polil pot of view have bee worse, but still somehow Rsian nscns tri to be better, ” she said, notg that 1989, the survey’s first year, 35 percent of those polled wanted to “elimate” gays and lbians, pared to 18 percent the latt fdgs. “It’s nice to see that actually the willgns to see homosexuals, to accept them, is actually risg, ” Kocherga poted to a separate survey released by the Levada Center last year that found Rsian attus toward LGBTQ people — while still predomantly negative — have improved, pecially among young, ted women.

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT RSIA’S SO-CALLED ‘GAY PROPAGANDA’ BILL

The 2019 data also found that those wh gay and lbian acquatanc have more posive attus toward sexual Zakharova said the suatn for the untry’s lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and queer muny is ed dire, the Rsian people are “not as homophobic as thori or feral mass media try to portray them. Wh the troductn of the “anti-propaganda bill” June last year, Rsian print Put not only banned discsn of “non-tradnal sexual relatns” wh mors, he amplified the voic of an already homophobic populatn and further stigmatised many vulnerable young people. Proment poets this group clud Nikolai Kliuev (1884-1937), Mara Tsvetaeva (1892-1941), Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) and Sofia Parnok (1885-1933), who was scribed as the “Rsian Sappho” – th, for a brief perd, beg lbian or gay was no longer an inty that had to be hidn, but one which uld be theoretilly openly celebrated.

The Gay Sunshe article was later clud the 1993 anthology Gay Roots: Twenty Years of Gay Sunshe: An Anthology of Gay History, Sex, Polics, and Culture eded by Wston Leyland wh substantial addnal materials add unr the tle “ Rsia’s Gay History and Lerature om the Eleventh to the Twentieth Centuri. The removal of legal penalti for homosexualy by the Bolsheviks 1917 as part of the elimatn of the Imperial Crimal Co should, his view, be seen as a polil event occurrg a plex environment of fluenc as diverse as the ways which the Rsian medil muny fed and managed homosexualy as a phenomenon and the history of prev attempts to legally addrs same-sex behavr. The ia of restg social attus towards men and women attracted to their own genr which formed a central part of the work of the German lbian and gay movement the first s of the twentieth century had no visible unterpart Rsian society, due part to the majory of the populatn livg outsi urban centers where agatn for such change uld be visible and effective.

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

The ntents offer a tailed view of the legal suatn of gays and lbians Rsia durg the Gorbachev era, and scribe the of law the historic reprsn of this part of the populatn, based on se rmatn gathered by many activists both wh and outsi Rsia. Of particular tert is the sectn “After the Repeal “, which looks at the actual suatn for lbians and gays the areas of eedom of exprsn, eedom of associatn and assembly, eedom om cel and unual punishments (such as imprisonment and forced psychiatric re), the right to privacy, and the limed optns for former prisoners to ga legal rehabilatn and damag. ” The prcipal ntent of the journal is a mixture of nonfictn articl discsg the history of notable gay and lbian wrers Rsia and translatns of stori by ntemporary wrers and a send terview wh Alexanr Shatalov on the Glagol publishg pany and s projects.

Among the LGBT topics discsed is the appearance of Tema, the first gay and lbian newspaper, found by Roman Kal, and background on historian and soclogist Igor Kon, whose book The Sexual Revolutn Rsia: om the Age of the Czars to Today would be published 1995 by the Free Prs as an English translatn. ) Kon scrib the attus toward and legal limatns on homosexual behavr the society of prerevolutnary Rsia then clus as an issue of sexualy durg the succsive polil revolutns enacted to create the Soviet Unn, Most of the tailed discsn on the suatn of gays and lbians after 1933 is found the seventh chapter “Comg Out Into Chaos “whose verage extends up to 1993.

GAYS RSIA FD NO HAVEN, DPE SUPPORT FROM THE WT

A key pot of Engelste’s say is the tailed exploratn of how Rsian attus and iologi towards homosexualy (both social and legal) had veloped up to the time of the Revolutn and their evolutn wh the new socialist system after the publitn of the new crimal 1922 until the re-crimalizatn of sodomy 1933.

The llectn opens wh an troductn by Simon Karlsky on Rsian gay lerature and history, then mov chronologilly om the neteenth century to the 1990s, prentg English translatns of excerpts om published and unpublished novels, plays and diari, letters, says, and poems.

The foc on the retrieval of Rsia’s tradn of LGBT wrg ntued 1998 wh The Columbia Anthology of Gay Lerature: Readgs om Wtern Antiquy to the Prent Day, which featured a sectn on “ Erotic Revolutnari: Rsian Lerature ( 1836-1922) wh selectns om the wrgs of Alexanr Phk, Nikolai Klyuev, Sergei Esen and Mikhail Kuzm. 1998 also saw the acceptance of a doctoral this at the Universy of Toronto wrten by Daniel Healey, Homosexual Dire Revolutnary Rsia: Public and Hidn Transcripts, 1917-1941, later issued as Homosexual Dire Revolutnary Rsia: the Regulatn of Sexual and Genr Dissent by the Universy of Chigo Prs 2001. Healey’s work was plemented 1999 by Lrie Essig’s thoughtful study Queer Rsia: A Story of Sex, Self, and the Other, based upon rearch done primarily 1994 and centered on “that moment when objects of expert knowledge and public hostily beme subjects of their own sir “(Essig: xi), the emergence of some lbians and gay men om visibily to kdle a public dialogue on homosexuals for the first time sce the Silver Age (1905-1917).

1 5 RSIANS WANT GAYS AND LBIANS 'ELIMATED,' SURVEY FDS

” (Schluter 2002: 7) The stutnal settgs for LGBT life Rsia examed are dividual, societal and legal, wh the first noted as “sufficient only for promotg the sense among Soviet homosexuals that they are a distct ‘people’…not enough to spire their ordated soc-polil actn or.. Their public self-intifitn as homosexuals, ” (Schluter 2002: 7) Taken together, the societal ntext of burecracy, legal rtrat, mographic patterns and geographic lotns where gay and lbian social life was possible did not allow for the formatn of a “ gay muny “ the sense ed Wtern gay life.

Schluter utns that, “ sce the general enomic, polil, societal and cultural ndns …the former Soviet Unn have generally not veloped well enough for even the anizatns of “mastream “ social groups to functn effectively, …those of the homosexual mory are not likely to materialize-or at least to be very succsful- the near future.

” (Schluter 2002: 8) Rears may fd eful to pare Schluter’s nclns about dividual gay and lbian life wh the acunts David Tuller’s Cracks the Iron Closet: Travels Gay & Lbian Rsia, as part of his time post-Gorbachev Rsia overlaps wh Schluter’s vis there. ” His rponse is a clear and valuable asssment of the ways homosexualy was thought of Rsia ( both imperial and Soviet tim) and how the perceptn of Rsia as a natn sentially nocent of such behavrs (as ntrasted wh the civilizatn of Wtern Europe and the perceived tolerance of same-sex practic Central Asia) shaped reactns to them.

MAJORY OF RSIANS BELIEVE GAYS NSPIRG TO STROY UNTRY'S VALU, POLL FDS

An excellent summary of three of his books published Mosw between 1999 and 2003 (cludg Lunnyi Svet Na Zare: Liki i Maski Odnopoloi Liubvi’ [Moonlight at dawn: fac and masks of same-sex love) was provid 2005 by Brian Jam Baer his article for the Journal of Homosexualy “Igor Kon: The Makg of a Rsian Sexologist. And 2009, Brian Jam Baer’s Other Rsias: Homosexualy and the Crisis of Post-Soviet Inty explored” the often extravagant disurse on the subject that has been generated om the late 1980s through Vladimir Put’s princy…that may not only fluence the ways which homosexual-intified men and women…image themselv and nstct their inti but also say somethg about the ways Rsians general-and Rsian men particular-image their post-Soviet inty, their cultural prediment. While foced chiefly on the natns of the former East European bloc, also clus chapters by Kev Moss speakg of the “Straight Eye for the Queer Guy: Gay Male Visibily Post-Soviet Rsian Films “and Brian Baer’s “Now You See It: Gay (In) Visibily and the Performance of Post-Soviet Inty.

HOW TO BE GAY

The third sectn of text, “Journeys and Interviews Rsia, “ begs wh her arrival Lengrad July 1991 for the first gay and lbian film ftival and follows wh -pth terviews and lorful stori of the women and men she met there and her travels to vis them ci across the untry cludg Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Mosw.

“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. 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.

But to actually be lockg ey wh Ellen and hold her, shakg hands as she said, "I'm gay, " on natnal televisn and for the first time, as she has shared outloud that way publicly, was such a profoundly extraordary and timate gift to that moment that I will forever be grateful for. Wh a day of s publitn, the Natnal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsiya) announced would open an vtigatn to “this ugly se” prsure om the regnal ernor, the rector of the Ulyanovsk Instute of Civil Aviatn, Sergei Krasnov, likened the ts’ suatn to Psy such an “unfivable” disgrace to veterans, he said, they uld be expelled, perhaps, even, tried unr Rsia’s ntroversial anti-homosexual laws. “How To Be Gay is…wrten by a gifted thker and wrer who has e to see that there is not jt a polil and sexual gay culture (s foundatnal event the rtg outsi the Stonewall Inn 1969), based on gay inty rather than sensibily, but also a nonsexual gay culture, based on mos of feelg and exprsive artifacts.

SORRY, RSIA, BUT TCHAIKOVSKY WAS DEFELY GAY

“[Halper] provotively argu that when to fg what means to be a homosexual man, sex is overrated… Culture matters more… [How To Be Gay] is never a bore… [It] explor a fundamental kd of gay sensibily… Halper teas an enormo amount out of [a] scene [ Mildred Pierce], cludg the sense of ‘glamour and abjectn’ gay dienc fd [Joan] Crawford, and how the film packag the ‘transgrsive spectacle of female strength, tonomy, feists and power.

As he pots out, sexualy is the area where gay men differ least om straight men… Gay taste is somethg more sgular, probably lked to cipient feelgs of dissiary om one’s peers… Halper is right to fend the old ruals and the lgo and body language that go wh them… So long live mp, and all the other cultural pursus that gay people have tradnally embraced.

“[A] provotively tled cril cri r… To summarize Halper’s amb book is tricky, but thk of as an exploratn of the tensn between the official Pri Para, celebratg post-Stonewall gay inty, and the Drag March, celebratg pre-liberatn gay culture… Halper is at his bt when criqug the current assiatnist mol of gay-rights activism, wh s nial of any cultural terts or athetic pots-of-view that ht of femy or mps or of the ‘stereotypilly gay. ’ His cultural history of how this attu emerged the 1970s will be surprisg to those who view the gay-rights movement as a nsistently posive progrsn; Halper argu nvcgly that as butch mascule styl beme ever more mandatory, both for attractg sexual/romantic partners (no femm, no fats!

'PASSAG' DIRECTOR NOUNC 'DANGERO' NC-17 RATG ON A FILM PICTG A GAY LOVE STORY

…Halper is plyg his own twist on the faiar ia that by aligng themselv wh certa forms—flamboyance, abject glamour, exaggerated femy—gay men implicly challenge the uptight s of a patriarchal culture… Gay culture, for Halper, isn’t really attached to any given person’s experience; rather, ’s a set of tactics, adopted behavrs, and strategi imbrited a much larger social field… Frivoly, irony, superficialy, thenticy, flamboyance, snobbishns, exquise taste: How To Be Gay works hard to unpack the stereotypil characteristics of gay male culture and succeeds monstratg how the tat of pathology and the rise of a post-Stonewall ethos of hypermascule self-termatn nspire to shut down a ank quiry to the persistence of such ‘faggy’ tras. Rather, Halper’s book is an terventn agast those who tmpet the ‘ath of gay culture’ (which he argu has been clared for over 40 years now) now that wing tolerance and greater visibily of gays the media should make Judy Garland, show tun, and drag queens obsolete… Halper’s h re-evaluatn of the theory and practice of mp is one of his most fascatg sights… Halper mak a se for mp as polilly subversive and a se study for the plited stcture of gay intifitn… One gets the sense that Halper anticipat his greatt tractors to not be social nservativ (though he has been their pariah the past), but stead to be other gay men who fear the sentialism of acknowledgg the role a distct gay culture plays shapg gay inty… Halper narrat the history of this mascule reactn agast gay culture, cullg om his own memori the 70s of how newly ‘liberated’ gay men appropriated the machismo of biker culture, mtach, and nstctn worker clothg to bat the stereotype of the pathetic queens and fairi of the prev generatn. This is a valuable history lson to rears om subsequent generatns given that the signifiers of ’70s gay masculy are now nsired the mpy light of The Village People, and th part of the gay culture om which today’s champns of machismo and normaly try to distance their selv.