Put's Anti-Gay War on Ukrae - Boston Review

Contents:

• RSIA TO GAYS: SHUT UP AND DISAPPEAR
• EXPLAER: WHAT DO NEW ‘GAY PROPAGANDA’ LAW MEAN FOR LGBTIQ+ RSIANS?
• RSIAN GAY SLANG
• 1 5 RSIANS WANT GAYS AND LBIANS 'ELIMATED,' SURVEY FDS
• GAY RSIA
• PUT’S ANTI-GAY WAR ON UKRAE
• GAY WEDDGS FOR RSIA: HOW THE SIMS BEME A BATTLEGROUND FOR THE LGBTQ+ MUNY
• GOLUBóJ. GAY DICTNARY (RSIA).
• THE RSIAN GAY PROPAGANDA LAW

RSIA TO GAYS: SHUT UP AND DISAPPEAR

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.

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

” 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.

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.

RSIAN GAY SLANG

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. In a particularly ironic twist, some propagandists such as Olga Skabeyeva exprsed ncern that the ban on “LGBT propaganda” uld accintally brg the hammer down on homophobic propaganda, bee was unclear what kd of pictns of “nontradnal sexual relatns” were prohibed: Could her own show be slapped wh a fe for showg the Zygar/Shcherbak kiss, albe “wh undisguised revulsn, ” as an exposé of “the liberal public” and of “the Wt and s valu”?

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

The gay-bashg for domtic nsumptn uld achieve at least some sire effect a untry where nearly 70 percent of the populatn believ that nsensual same-sex relatns between adults should be illegal and half say they feel personal hostily toward LGBT people. But is que likely that the current Rsian anti-gay mpaign, cludg the anti–“LGBT propaganda” law, is tend at least part for a Wtern dience—a specific part of , that is. Rsia’s so-lled ‘gay propaganda’ law has banned the promotn of “non-tradnal sexual valu” to unr-18s sce, the Rsian parliament has passed an expand versn of the law that outlaws all mentns of LGBTIQ-related topics the media – cludg film, televisn, advertisg, onle and ’s what you need to history of Rsia’s ‘gay propaganda’ lawOn 29 June 2013, Rsian print Vladimir Put signed a new law lled “On the propaganda of non-tradnal sexual relatns among mors”.

The new law banned the promotn to children of “dgs, paedophilia and homosexualy” – or anythg else the Kreml ems ntradictory to “tradnal fay valu”, although the law do not fe what those valu are some siari wh the UK’s homophobic Sectn 28 legislatn, which prohibed the “promotn of homosexualy” by lol thori and was force om 1988 to Put claims that the propaganda law “do not discrimate agast gay people”, both the European Court of Human Rights and the UN’s Human Rights Commtee have said that rerc stigma, enurag homophobia and harms children the ’s new? The expand law will make providg rmatn about homosexualy – and even childls fai – legally on a par wh pornography or promotg suici, vlence and crimal or extremist behavur. But now unr the new law, the s may shut down a , LGBTIQ rights groups and other non-ernmental anisatns receivg funds om abroad have also been legally required to self-intify as “foreign agents” echo the Natnal Secury bill proposed by nservative MP Pri Patel, which would make an offence for journalists or publitns receivg fundg om a foreign state to report on ‘rtricted’ official ’s Mistry of Jtice add the Rsian LGBT Network a proment gay and transgenr rights umbrella group, to the “foreign agent” registry November last then, an creasg number of LGBTIQ rights groups have been targeted – and even forcibly closed.

This April, the Charable Foundatn Sphere, which provis fancial support to LGBTIQ iativ across Rsia, was the ‘gay propaganda’ law crease vlence agast LGBTIQ people? Followg the troductn of the first versn of the ‘gay propaganda’ law almost a ago, the most flagrant vlatns of LGBTIQ rights have been documented the North Cs, pecially Chechnya, where secury forc have illegally taed, kidnapped, arrted, tortured and killed gay and transgenr 2021, 78% of rponnts to a natnwi survey by the Rsian LGBT Network reported that they had faced vlence or discrimatn nnectn to their genr inty and/or sexual orientatn.

GAY RSIA

Nearly a third of the cints of vlence were mted by anised homophobic and transphobic vigilante survey also found that law enforcement and judicial systems refe to vtigate such crim, spe the fact that homosexualy was crimalised Rsia 1993. "Last December, Rsian Print Vladimir Put signed a law expandg rtrictns on the promotn of "LGBT propaganda", effectively banng gay, lbian and genr-diverse people om any public exprsn of their liftyle.

PUT’S ANTI-GAY WAR ON UKRAE

Earlier legislatn has been ed for years to stop gay pri march and ta mt pass three readgs the State Duma lower hoe of parliament before beg sent to the upper hoe and then to Print Vladimir Put for signg. Хочу мальчика, а кругом одни пидарасы…(I want a boy, but all around there’s nothg but fags…)– Heard nightly at Chance, a Mosw gay club. However, the wake of the relatively recent repeal of the law agast homosexual activy, a new, more open nscns has begun to ph at the lims of language, givg rise to words and exprsns and -optg old on orr to nvey new sensibili.

In addn to the legal sanctns agast homosexual activy, police, the KGB, and rovg gangs of thugs, supported by the unspoken nsent of the public at large, equented gay cisg areas where they threatened, robbed, or even beat gay men and those spected of beg gay.

GAY WEDDGS FOR RSIA: HOW THE SIMS BEME A BATTLEGROUND FOR THE LGBTQ+ MUNY

Though the current climate Rsia has changed somewhat, wh discsns of homosexualy the prs and on televisn talk shows, attus are slow to change. An examatn of the vobulary ed to scribe gays and their activi reveals not only a negative attu towards homosexualy, but also certa prenceptns about exactly what gay men do when they are together. While the etymology of this age is not clear, one ia holds that began Lengrad, where lol gays intified each other by the light blue shirts that they wore while cisg the streets or equentg gay hnts.

GOLUBóJ. GAY DICTNARY (RSIA).

As English loan words ntue to make the transn to Rsian, the word gei has also e to mean homosexual – pecially nversatnal age or the tabloid prs.

Sce phemisms form om a need to circumlocute taboo words or notns, the prence of the words is yet another ditor of the negative attu towards homosexualy the Rsian culture. The unrlyg notn at work is that while heterosexualy is the natural state of beg, homosexualy is a nsc choice ma by the dividual opposn to the norm. By claimg normaly for the heterosexual populatn, the ference n be ma that gays mt be nenormal’nyi, a word whose meangs n om “not good, ” to “mentally ill” or “off balance, ” to “abnormal.

” The word natural and s adjectival form natural’nyi are also ed slang to mean “heterosexual, ” but the effect remas the same, leavg the ia that homosexuals, if not natural, mt be unnatural.

THE RSIAN GAY PROPAGANDA LAW

Further exploratn of words ed to scribe relatns between homosexuals – most always regardg sexual activy whout reference to social relatnships – also dite a general ignorance of the spe of teractn that n be manift between two men. While the word universal exists wh the gay subculture, the stereotype wh the larger Rsian muny – as well as a signifint portn of the gay muny self – is that a gay man mt choose and exclively play out one role or the other. Many words that are llected on web s dited to talogg gay slang al specifilly wh the passive-active relatnship between sexual partners.

Prevalence of such words dit that the negative attus found the straight muny regardg homosexualy have not been eradited the gay muny. As Rsian gays are exposed to a more open subculture om the Wt and allowed to exprs themselv more eely, some trends beg to materialize, most notably the -optg of negative slang, the ventn of new slang, and the art of mp, known some Rsian circl as khabal’stvo. For example, pidor, pidoras, and pedik have all been -opted om the more pervasive heterosexual slang and are ed to simply dite that a person is gay.