I grew up gay Put’s Rsia, where homosexuals are nmned, terrorized, and disenanchised. While reportg on an unsettlg “cure,” I wound up vtigatg my own sexualy.
Contents:
- ‘I’M AAID FOR MY FUTURE’: PROPOSED LAWS THREATEN GAY LIFE RSIA
- MY HARROWG JOURNEY THROUGH GAY CONVERSN THERAPY RSIA
- GAY TIKTOK UPLE ARRTED RSIA
- THE FEAR OF BEG GAY RSIA
- 'YOU CAN BE GAY RSIA – SECRET. WE WANTED A NORMAL LIFE, SO WE MOVED TO ISRAEL'
- 'WE'RE NOT HIDG': GAY AND LBIAN RSIANS SAY A CULTURAL SHIFT IS UNRWAY
- ‘OUR MERE EXISTENCE IS ILLEGAL.’ AS MOSW TOUGHENS ANTI-GAY LAW, LGBTQ RSIANS FEAR FOR THE FUTURE
- RSIA TO GAYS: SHUT UP AND DISAPPEAR
‘I’M AAID FOR MY FUTURE’: PROPOSED LAWS THREATEN GAY LIFE RSIA
* i gay in russia *
”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.
MY HARROWG JOURNEY THROUGH GAY CONVERSN THERAPY RSIA
In an advisory issued jt this month, the State Department warned of “harassment,” among other thgs Rsia, and noted the extrajudicial killg of gay men Chechnya. * i gay in russia *
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. 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. The European Court of Human Rights led 2017 that the 2013 law is discrimatory, promot homophobia and vlat the European Conventn on Human Rights.
The urt found that the law “served no legimate public tert, ” rejectg suggtns that public bate on LGBT issu uld fluence children to bee homosexual, or that threatened public morals. 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.
GAY TIKTOK UPLE ARRTED RSIA
It is the latt attack on LGBT rights the untry, after another anti-gay law was extend last year. * i gay in russia *
And particularly where that base of support is close to relig views, there is a lot of crossover there that works for polil opportunists who are g official forms of homophobia to fe their polil That is Dan Healey, profsor of Rsian history at the Universy of Oxford. In December 2022, Rsia expand s existg “gay propaganda” law to exert ntrol over public discsns and narrativ surroundg non-heterosexual relatnships and inti.
THE FEAR OF BEG GAY RSIA
The Fear of Beg Gay Rsia. Mosw's first gay pri para was held May 2006, thirteen years after homosexualy was crimalized Rsia. It was supposed to be a joyo ocsn, the begng of a new era of openns... * i gay in russia *
I soon published an article about Zhdanov, which my news se labeled for rears aged 18 and over—the standard age lim imposed on all stori about gays published Rsia sce the summer of 2013, when Vladimir Put signed a law banng the distributn of so-lled “gay propaganda” among mors. Petersburg, and other major Rsian ci, members of the Dobrоta gang (whose name, a sister twist, means “Kdns”) were seekg out gays on Grdr and Hor, then gog to their hom to beat and extort them. If both rovg gangs and the regime self were tryg to purge Rsia of gays, did gays ever feel pelled to try to alter their sexualy themselv?
I avoid the streets where I knew there to be unrground gay clubs—I didn’t want any of their patrons to take me for one of them. When yet another attempt was ma to hold a gay para Mosw, I bbed my hands together and thought: “Three, two, one… and here e the police wh their batons.
'YOU CAN BE GAY RSIA – SECRET. WE WANTED A NORMAL LIFE, SO WE MOVED TO ISRAEL'
Rsia's World Cup volunteers have warned they will hunt down gay England fans and report them to police if they see them kissg public * i gay in russia *
” In my school years the worst possible sult was to be lled a “peth” or “rooster”—prison slang for a passive homosexual who is routely raped by other men. I remember a state TV host clarg that hearts om gay an donors were unsuable for transplants, suggtg they stead be burned and buried.
'WE'RE NOT HIDG': GAY AND LBIAN RSIANS SAY A CULTURAL SHIFT IS UNRWAY
Young mothers Yana and Yaroslava don’t want to leave Rsia wh their 6-year-old son. But they fear a harsh new anti-gay law passed by Rsian lawmakers will leave them ltle choice. * i gay in russia *
And Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Rsian Orthodox Church—the church to which I was baptized—asserted that homosexualy was a “loss of moraly.
‘OUR MERE EXISTENCE IS ILLEGAL.’ AS MOSW TOUGHENS ANTI-GAY LAW, LGBTQ RSIANS FEAR FOR THE FUTURE
”In this homophobic society, was far easier for me to hate gay people than to face what I’d been avoidg sce my childhood: That I myself was gay. All I had to go on were acunts of the Wtern experience of nversn therapy, like Sad to Be Gay, a 2005 BBC documentary that follows a reporter at a Christian nversn therapy clic Tennsee.
As wh my creatn of Ala, I still felt that I need a disguise—to adm that I was gay would have seemed like a one-way ticket to a new life that I wasn’t prepared turned out, Tr was fertile ground for my rearch. He said that Goland ed a three-stage nversn procs: Durg the first stage, wh the help of hypnosis, patients are plunged to what Goland lled a “sexual-psychologil vacuum, ” a void between sexual orientatns where homosexuals are no longer terted men but not yet terted women.
” (Acrdg to Andrey, Goland once remend to Agarkov that patients also be given high dos of ffee and apomorphe, a dg ed to duce nsea and vomg, while the psychiatrist turns on gay erotic vios. They were nothg pared to the feelg of ner pury I would have if I uld actually make the transn to beg rrponnce wh Andrey led me to the webse of the clic Nizhny Novgorod, where I read about dozens of “cured” homosexuals. “On Leonov’s iative, ” Goland told me when I vised his clic 2016, “a Center for the Psychotherapy of Homosexualy and Sexual Perversns was to be opened our cy, but the smont’s requt was nied by the Mistry of Health of the USSR.
RSIA TO GAYS: SHUT UP AND DISAPPEAR
)At his clic, Goland told me about a patient who, once “cured” of homosexualy, “veloped schizophrenia, yet remaed heterosexual. One month after I returned om Nizhny Novgorod, I me out to my iends, but they jt shgged: “We knew you were gay when we first saw you, ” one of them told me.
For an explanatn of our Advertisg Policy, vis this ago, a Rsian iend took me to a gay nu beach lled Serebyany Bor up the river om Mosw, where the scene surpassed anythg I ever saw on Fire Island. Petersburg was later shuttered thanks to cy uncilor Valy Milonov, the man behd Rsia's 2013 anti-gay law agast homosexual propaganda (whatever that is) forward to the eve of the first match of the 2018 World Cup Rsia, when news broke of a gay French uple beg btally beaten St.