Kenya is on the verge of introducing legislation that would criminalise openly identifying with, or supporting, the LGBTQ+ community, with punishments including the death penalty.
Labelled the Family Protection Act, the East African country’s bill would see a complete ban on activities that “promote homosexuality”, including openly identifying as LGBTQ+ or wearing Pride emblems.
Those found in breach of the law would face a minimum of 10 years in jail while those found guilty of performing same-sex acts would face a minimum of 14 years.
Additionally, anyone found guilty under a clause for “aggravated homosexuality,” defined as engaging in “homosexual acts with a minor or disabled person and transmitting a terminal disease through sexual means”, could be executed.
Similar bills are also being proposed in Tanzania and South Sudan, while Ghana‘s president, Nana Akufo-Addo, has signalled that an anti-LGBTQ+ bill is being proposed there, although he is wary of its “constitutionality”.
MP George Peter Kaluma, who has led the bill through the Kenyan parliament, said that he and the bills’ proponents want to prohibit “everything to do with homosexuality.”
He told the BBC: “The bill will propose a total ban on what the West calls sex-reassignment prescriptions and procedures and prohibit all activities that promote homosexuality.”
He added that this would include Pride parades, drag shows, wearing rainbow colours and flags, and openly wearing “emblems of the LGBTQ+ group.” Same-sex acts are already prohibited in Kenya.
In response, a coalition of LGBTQ+ and human rights groups have urged the Biden administration in the US to impose sanctions on Kenya should the bill be enacted.
In an open letter published on Monday (17 July), at least 50 not-for-profit organisations urged the government to cut Kenya’s Strategic Trade and Investment Partnership (STIP) until the bill was dropped.
The letter asked individuals to sign a petition to “stop US-Kenya trade negotiations until president [William] Ruto commits to vetoing legislation that criminalises the LGBTQI+ community.”
Additionally, Zambian priest and Boston University academic Kapya Kaoma told the BBC that he believed bills such as this are part of lobbying efforts by right-wing groups to impose “militant homophobia” in Africa.
“It’s one thing to say, ‘I don’t agree with you being gay’, but politicians now are saying: ‘You go to jail for life, you go to jail for talking about being gay’.”
Annette Atieno, from the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, branded the legislation hateful, adding that it will make the lives of queer Kenyans unbearable.
A 2019 survey from the Pew Research Center, a non-partisan US think tank, found that 83 per cent of Kenyans think society should not accept homosexuality.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines face bias-motivated violence and discrimination in their daily life, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The authorities should repeal the country’s colonial-era laws that criminalize consensual same-sex conduct and pass comprehensive civil legislation prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The 58-page report, “‘They Can Harass Us Because of the Laws’: Violence and Discrimination against LGBT People in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,” exposes the physical and verbal assaults, family violence, homelessness, workplace harassment, bullying, and sexual violence that sexual and gender minorities face under the shadow of discriminatory laws. Those responsible for mistreatment include people close to LGBT people – family members, neighbors, coworkers, classmates, and teachers – as well as strangers and police officers.
“The criminalization of gay sex gives tacit state sanction to the discrimination and violence that LGBT people experience in their daily lives and compels many to look abroad to live freely and fulfill their dreams,” said Cristian González Cabrera, LGBT rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The lack of public policies in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines acknowledging the needs and capacities of LGBT people has furthered their social and economic marginalization, barring them from contributing fully to society.”
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is one of six countries in the Western Hemisphere that still criminalizes gay sex. It punishes “buggery,” or anal sex, with up to 10 years in prison and “gross indecency with another person of the same sex,” with up to 5 years. These laws single out consensual gay sex in the “sexual offences” section of the criminal code that is otherwise reserved for crimes like rape, incest, and sexual assault. While there have been no recent reported convictions on the basis of these criminal provisions for consensual gay sex, the laws stigmatize LGBT people and create an obstacle to full equality.
The other countries in the region that still criminalize gay sex are Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, and Saint Lucia.
Human Rights Watch conducted most of the 30 interviews for this report during a research trip to Saint Vincent in October 2022. Human Rights Watch conducted additional remote interviews, reviewed documentary evidence and a range of secondary sources, and carried out legal analyses in early 2023.
Archaic laws outlawing consensual same-sex conduct, although dormant, contribute to a climate in which discrimination and violence take place with impunity. As a 25-year-old gay man from Saint Vincent told Human Rights Watch, “People feel they can harass us because of the laws. If people are having an argument, that’s [their] justification for homophobia. They say it’s the laws, that it’s illegal.”
Nearly all LGBT people interviewed reported at least one recent incident of physical or verbal abuse, threats, sexual violence, or harassment. Some had sought police assistance, but in most instances, the authorities were not helpful, and in some cases they were openly discriminatory towards them, those interviewed said.
Most of the LGBT people interviewed said their family members had physically and verbally abused them. For many, family violence deprived them of a social safety net, sometimes leading to a precarious life, including homelessness. Some said that family rejection was often couched in moralistic terms, echoing the homophobic rhetoric preached in some churches, which are a cornerstone of social life and shape social attitudes in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
For LGBT job seekers, employment discrimination is common. While unemployment is generally high in the country, LGBT people face additional barriers. Many people interviewed said they were not hired, or they had been fired explicitly because of their sexual orientation. Some lesbian and bisexual women interviewed said they faced sexual harassment in the workplace because of their sexual orientation, gender, or both.
At school, most of those interviewed had experienced stigma and discrimination from teachers and fellow students. Most also endured physical and verbal bullying, which led some to leave school early, setting them on a path to economic and social marginalization. For some, bullying was often accompanied by sexual harassment and violence.
Every LGBT person interviewed said they wished to leave the country and envisioned their future abroad due, in part, to the homophobic or transphobic violence and discrimination in the country.
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has ratified international human rights treaties that obligate the government to protect the rights of everyone, including LGBT people, to life and security, freedom from ill-treatment, non-discrimination, housing, work, and education. Consensual sexual relations are protected under multiple rights, including the right to freedom from discrimination, the right to privacy, and the right to protection of the law against arbitrary and unlawful interference with, or attacks on, one’s private and family life and honor.
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines should repeal the buggery and gross indecency provisions in the criminal code and pass comprehensive civil anti-discrimination legislation that includes protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The National Prosecution Service and the National Security Ministry should develop policies to ensure prompt, thorough, and independent investigations into crimes and discrimination against LGBT people and hold those responsible accountable, including law enforcement officers. Ministries responsible for labor and education should initiate public campaigns to educate employers, educators, and the general public on the basic human rights of LGBT people.
“Saint Vincent and the Grenadines should move closer to equality by recognizing and protecting sexual and gender diversity, thereby strengthening the rule of law for everyone,” González said. “It should also shake off relics of its colonial history and contribute to making the Western Hemisphere free of laws that punish people for whom they choose to love.”
A Portuguese man says he was arrested and jailed in Turkey for 20 days because he “looked gay.”
During a visit to Istanbul last month, Miguel Alvaro says he was on his way to meet a friend for lunch when he asked police officers for directions. According to LBC, Alvaro was unaware that an unsanctioned LGBTQ+ march was happening nearby. Alvaro says that one of the Turkish police officers order his arrest.
“They grabbed my arms and I tried to free myself. One of them hit me in the ribs, they pushed me against a van, they hit me on the shoulder, which started to bleed,” he told the British radio station.
Alvaro told Portuguese media outlet P3 that he was placed in a police van where he reportedly waited for five hours before officers told him that he’d “been detained because of my appearance.”
“They thought I would participate in an unauthorized LGBTI+ march that was going to take place nearby because I looked gay,” he said. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Human Rights Watch estimated that at least 149 people were arrested in Turkey, at least 96 of them in Istanbul, during the weekend of June 25, when police violently interfered with Pride demonstrations.
Alvaro says he spent a total of 13 hours in the van before being taken to a police station for processing the next day. According to LBC, he spent several hours in an immigrant detention center where the sheets were reportedly crawling with maggots before being driven 17 hours to a prison near the Syrian border.
Alvaro says that other prisoners threatened him because he was gay and that he barely slept during his stay at the prison for fear of being attacked. He also claims that prisoners were barely given any water.
In early July, he was finally allowed to phone his father, who asked the Portuguese embassy for help. Alvaro was not released until July 12, 20 days after his arrest.
Alvaro told P3 that the ordeal has left him “in a horrible psychological state.”
“I’m very afraid of the consequences in the future,” he said. “I can’t believe this happened to me.”
According to LBC, Alvaro is now warning members of the LGBTQ+ community not to visit Turkey. While homosexuality is legal in Turkey, the country lacks anti-discrimination protections, and same-sex marriage is not legal. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is staunchly anti-LGBTQ+. In 2021, Erdogan withdrew from the Istanbul Convention – an agreement between 45 countries to better protect women from violence – after stating it was “hijacked by a group of people attempting to normalize homosexuality.”
Last year, police in Istanbul arrested hundreds of marchers, protesters, and bystanders in and around Taksim Square, where LGBTQ+ people had gathered for a Pride march that was banned by the local governor.
In January, Italy’s right-wing government ordered state agencies to cease registration of children born to same-sex couples. Now they’ve taken it a step further: a state prosecutor in northern Italy has ordered the cancellation and re-issuance of 33 birth certificates of lesbian couples’ children, endangering access to medical care and education.
Non-gestational mothers are receiving letters informing them that they are being retroactively removed from their children’s birth certificates. New birth certificates are being issued listing the name of only one of the child’s mothers.
In February, Human Rights Watch released the first global report on violence and discrimination against lesbian, bisexual, and queer (LBQ+) women, which found access to fertility treatment and the rights of non-gestational lesbian mothers were two of the top concerns for LBQ+ activists across 26 countries. In January 2022, a United States court removed lesbian mother Kris Williams from her child’s birth certificate, replacing it with the name of the sperm donor, who petitioned for custody. In December 2022, a Japanese draft law proposed prohibiting doctors from providing fertility treatment to any woman not married to a man.
In Italy, lesbian couples cannot access fertility treatment, same-sex couples cannot marry, and the law does not explicitly regulate whether same-sex parents can both be registered. Many lesbian couples go abroad for fertility treatment and even to give birth, then bring home their child’s birth certificate for registration with the local municipality. Italy’s recent moves attack this already expensive, precarious, and difficult path to legal parenthood.
In interviews I conducted for the 2023 investigation, queer women’s concerns about parental rights often superseded hallmark LGBT rights issues, like marriage equality or the decriminalization of same-sex conduct. Lesbians want to create and protect their families, regardless of if, when, and how the government decriminalizes their lives and recognizes their relationships.
The right to create a family is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the European Convention on Human Rights – all of which Italy has ratified.
Italy should immediately reinstate the women removed from their children’s birth certificates and drop its ban on the registration of children born to same-sex couples. Authorities should pass inclusive parental recognition bills that explicitly recognize the legal parenthood of non-gestational lesbian parents.
Same-sex intercourse is already illegal in the West African nation, and is punishable by up to three years in jail.
The Ghanaian parliament has been debating the Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values bill for two years, with most MPs in favour of it.
It would criminalise same-sex relations, being transgender and advocating for LGBTQ+ rights (which alone is punishable by up to 10 yeas in jail under the bill), Reuters reported.
A legal challenge, filed by academic researcher Amanda Odoi, said the proposed legislation would affect donor aid and other financial support for the country, according to the news agency.
However, the Supreme Court ruled last week that her arguments were not convincing enough to grant an injunction, meaning Ghana’s parliament has a clear path to getting the bill through its final stages and signed into law.
Shortly after the bill had its first reading in August 2021, a group of 13 United Nations experts called for it to be rejected, branding it “a textbook example of discrimination” and a “recipe for conflict and violence”.
Earlier this year, United States vice-president Kamala Harris, standing next to Ghana president Nana Akufo-Addo during a press conference, said she felt “very strongly” about supporting the development of LGBTQ+ rights in Africa.
It was something she considered “a human rights issue and that will not change,” she added.
Other African countries are also clamping down on queer rights.
Uganda has already passed a strict anti-homosexuality bill into law. It introduces a death sentence for “aggravated homosexuality”, which is defined as sex with a person under the age of 18 and having sex while HIV positive, among other categories.
Kenya is also considering an anti-homosexuality bill. The Family Protection Act would see a complete ban on activities that “promote homosexuality”, including openly identifying as LGBTQ+ or wearing Pride emblems.
It heavily reflects the law in Uganda, with a similar “aggravated homosexuality” clause that could also result in the execution of offenders.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law that bans transgender individuals from receiving gender-affirming care, changing their gender in official documents and public records, fostering or adopting children, and having a legal marriage. Marriages involving at least one trans person will be annulled.
Legislators who promoted the new law said it is necessary to protect Russia’s “traditional values” against “Western anti-family ideology,” including the “pure satanism” of transitioning, The Guardian reported. Similar rhetoric has been used to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a deadly ongoing attack now entering its 516th day.
“There will be suicides in the trans community, no doubt because [the law] will make some people feel really hopeless and trapped,” one trans Russian told the BBC. The law may also create a dangerous black market for hormones that are unregulated by medical authorities, an expert told the Bangkok Post.
Between 2016 and 2022, 2,990 Russians legally changed gender, the Post reports. Russia also granted gender marker updates on ID starting in 1997. But anti-LGBTQ+ authoritarianism has grown in the country since Putin rose to power in 1999.
ILGA-Europe, a continental LGBTQ+ rights advocacy group, said that the new law “flagrantly violates fundamental human rights standards and principles.”
“The trans and gender diverse community in Russia [and their] rights and wellbeing are under attack,” the group added. “Everyone has the right to self-determination, privacy, and the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.”
The group also noted that denying trans people healthcare will worsen their mental health. Furthermore, denying trans people the rights to correct gender markers on documents, to marriage, and to raise children will place them “in legal” limbo, ILGA-Europe noted, reinforcing negative stereotypes about trans people harming children and creating “unnecessary burdens on trans people, forcing them to disclose their private and medical history and exposing them to discrimination, harassment, and violence.”
Yan Dvorkin — a 32-year-old psychologist who works with the non-governmental trans advocacy organization Russian Centre T — called the law “fascist” and said it will be “difficult for people to hear that the state thinks of them as ‘enemies of the people,’ takes away their rights… and puts them beyond the law.”
The law is just part of Russia’s ongoing and years-long crackdown against LGBTQ+ individuals. Putin first signed a law banning so-called “gay propaganda” in Russia in June 2013. The law ostensibly sought to “protect children” from any “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relationships,” as stated in the law’s text.
The law has mostly been used to silence LGBTQ+ activist organizations, events, websites, and media, as well as to break up families and harass teachers. It has also been roundly condemned by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, the human rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as civil rights activists around the world.
Last December, Putin signed a law expanding the country’s prohibition on LGBTQ+ “propaganda.” The newly signed law effectively outlaws any public expression of LGBTQ+ life in Russia by banning “any action or the spreading of any information that is considered an attempt to promote homosexuality in public, online, or in films, books or advertising,” Reuters reported.
Critics say the updated law will further endanger the lives of Russia’s LGBTQ+ population, which has already suffered increased harassment, violence, and hostility in recent years. It has been used to prosecute a 40-year-old German teacher for sexually propositioning another adult man and also to prosecute a same-sex couple for sharing their relationship on social media.
Anti-LGBTQ+ religious leaders and right-wing political figures in the U.S. have praised Putin for his law. Indeed, Republican legislators, so-called “parents’ rights groups,” and right-wing pundits have increasingly moved to ban American kids from accessing any LGBTQ+ content, gender-affirming healthcare, or drag shows over untrue claims that these “sexualize” and “groom” children.
In 2013, Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM) President Austin Ruse said Russia’s anti-LGBTQ+ laws were a “good thing” that “most of the people in the United States” would support. In 2014, anti-LGBTQ+ evangelical leader Franklin Graham also defended the law.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. The Trans Lifeline (1-877-565-8860) is staffed by trans people and will not contact law enforcement. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgment-free place to talk for youth via chat, text (678-678), or phone (1-866-488-7386). Help is available at all three resources in English and Spanish.
The rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people have taken center stage ahead of Spain’s July 23 national election.
Opinion polls predict Alberto Nunez Feijoo’s conservative People’s Party (PP) will win the election after four years of coalition government by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialists and the leftist Unidas Podemos.
But Feijoo would likely need the support of the far-right Vox party to form a government. Vox has strongly opposed LGBTQ rights.
Here is what you need to know.
Why are LGBTQ+ advocates worried?
Local elections in May paved the way for PP-Vox coalitions in several Spanish municipalities.
Vox made headlines in May by hanging a sign from a Madrid building showing a hand dropping cards with symbols representing feminism, communism, the LGBTQ community and Catalan independence into a rubbish bin.
A new Vox-led authority in the small eastern town of Naquera last month said it would no longer display the rainbow-colored flag on public buildings.
In Valdemorillo, a small town near Madrid, the new PP-Vox council cancelled a performance of a theatre adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel “Orlando,” in which the protagonist changes gender.
What do right-wing parties advocate?
Both Vox and the PP have promised to take action against some pro-LGBTQ measures passed by the left-wing government.
They have both pledged to change a self-determination law that came into force in March, allowing trans people over 16 to change their legal gender simply by informing the official registry, rather than undergoing two years of hormone treatment.
The law also allows children over 14 to change their legal gender with parental approval.
The PP and Vox, as well as some women’s rights groups, argue the legislation puts women in single-sex spaces at risk and have accused the left of forcing children to medically transition.
“Changing your sex is easier than getting a driver’s license,” Feijoo said. Vox party leader Santiago Abascal said “the ‘trans law’ discriminates against women.”
But the parties have not clarified which parts of the law they would revoke. The legislation also banned so-called conversion therapy, which aims to change someone’s sexual orientation and gender identity, and unnecessary surgery on intersex babies, who are born neither exclusively male nor female.
Both the PP and Vox declined to answer requests for comment.
Vox has also proposed allowing parents to take their children out of sex education classes and lessons covering sexual and gender diversity.
What do LGBTQ activists say?
Spain is fourth in the ranking of European countries’ LGBTQ rights by advocacy group ILGA-Europe, but LGBTQ activists said a PP-Vox government would roll back their rights.
Several international surveys rank Spain amongst the most LGBTQ-friendly societies in the world, although hate crimes against the community rose by 68% between 2019 and 2021, Interior Ministry data showed.
A right-wing government could also target LGBTQ rights by failing to implement existing laws, said Uge Sangil, head of LGBTQ umbrella group, FELGTB.
“We could go back 40 years,” Sangil said.
For some, a PP-Vox coalition could also delay long-awaited measures such as including a nonbinary option on identity documents.
“It would not only mean bring a setback in rights — we would also have practically no chances of moving forward,” said Darko Decimavilla, a nonbinary activist.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people in Cameroon are all too aware of homophobic rhetoric and violent attacks against them. This has been highlighted once again in the outpouring of vitriol before a scheduled visit by Jean-Marc Berthon, the French ambassador for the Rights of LGBT+ Persons.
Berthon was due to visit Cameroon later last month for an event on gender and sexuality hosted by the French Institute in Yaoundé, the capital. Cameroon’s government officially registered its objection to the visit, and Foreign Minister Lejeune Mbella Mbella said in the media that the visit would contravene Cameroonian law, which forbids consensual same-sex relations.
The visit was then cancelled.
Since the visit was announced, many people have called for mob justice and violence against LGBT persons on social media. Some government and political officials, as well as public figures, referred to LGBT people as “against nature,” “an anomaly,” “vampire citizens,” “destructive of the family,” “destructive of the state,” or as using “satanic and demonic practices.” In addition to this online hatred, people perceived as LGBT live with constant threats of harassment and physical violence every day.
Tamu (not their real name), an LGBT activist living in Yaoundé, told me, “The situation is very tense. People are scared. Everywhere you go you hear: ‘We have to burn them all.’ … There are young [LGBT] people calling me from everywhere. They don’t know what to do.”
The foreign minister claimed that there are no LGBT people in Cameroon, which is patently false. LGBT groups exist in Cameroon and several even manage to work with the government on initiatives to combat HIV/AIDS. But Cameroon has a dismal track record on upholding the rights of LGBT people. Security forces have failed to protect LGBT people from violence and in some instances have been responsible for acts of violence, or complicit in them. The Cameroonian government should unequivocally condemn violence and incitement to violence against LGBT people, investigate such crimes against LGBT persons, and bring those responsible to justice.
In June, the Japanese Diet, the national legislature of Japan, passed its first-ever law on sexual orientation and gender identity. It seeks to “promote understanding” and avoid “unfair discrimination.” The law states that “all citizens, irrespective of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity, are to be respected as individuals with inherent and inviolable fundamental human rights.” While a good start, the measure falls short of the comprehensive nondiscrimination legislation called for by a number of Japanese rights groups.
The legislation obligates the national government to draw up a basic implementation plan to promote understanding of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, and to protect them from “unfair discrimination.” It also stipulates that government entities, businesses, and schools “need to strive” to take similar action.
A first draft of the bill had to be shelved following opposition from conservative members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which included prejudiced statements and political posturing. But in early 2023, LGBT rights groups united to revive the bill, launching a new Group of Seven (G7) engagement group, Pride7, to establish a dialogue between civic groups and G7 governments about LGBT-related policies. With encouragement from peer G7 nations, the LDP submitted a revised bill to the Diet on May 18, a day before the G7 summit began in Hiroshima. But again, facing opposition from lawmakers, the bill was subject to delays and revisions.
The long journey for equality for Japan’s LGBT community is not over. This new law, while advancing the rights of LGBT people, falls well short of ensuring them equal protection from discrimination.
In an address to Russia’s Duma last month, Deputy Speaker Pyotr Tolstoy summed up his government’s rationale for a recent onslaught of discriminatory legislation and government action targeting the LGBTQ+ community in the country.
The occasion was the introduction of a bill to outlaw gender-affirming care and surgery and gender ID changes in the country.
“This is another step in protecting national interests,” Tolstoy told the Duma on June 14.
Referring to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine starting in February last year, Tolstoy said, “We are implementing this because Russia has changed since the beginning of the special military operation. And those guys who today defend our country with weapons in their hands, they must return to another country, not to the one that was before.”
For Vladimir Putin and his rubber-stamp parliament, the war in Ukraine is an effort not only to remake Russia geographically but an opportunity to transform the country into a Greater Russia free of the “moral decay” and “pure Satanism” they say has infected the country since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
“We are preserving Russia for posterity, with its cultural and family values, traditional foundations, and putting up a barrier to the penetration of Western anti-family ideology,” Tolstoy said during the bill’s first reading in June.
The new law is the latest in a slew of government actions aimed at erasing LGBTQ+ identity in Russia.
In December, Putin signed legislation banning “LGBT propaganda,” which includes any public reference to “non-traditional lifestyles,” along with a crackdown on the conflated sins of “pedophilia and gender reassignment.”
Bookshops have been forced to remove LGBTQ+ content from shelves, while gaming and streaming platforms have pulled down content, including same-sex pornography. Google was fined in May for refusing to remove LGBTQ+ videos from YouTube in Russia.
The same law has been used to target consensual sex among LGBTQ+ people in the country. In May, a 40-year-old German teacher was convicted of violating the law for inviting a 25-year-old man to his hotel room for sex. In March, a same-sex couple was prosecuted for going public with their relationship on TikTok.
Earlier legislation, including a law passed in 2013 that placed a limit on LGBTQ+-affirmative content disseminated to minors, has been used to shut down Pride marches, detain activists, and lay the foundation of the culture of fear overwhelming the LGBTQ+ community in Russia today.
The latest legislation would ban gender-affirming care for trans people of any age in the country and overturn the ability of trans individuals to change gender on official documents.
Richard Volkov, a 26-year-old trans musician from Moscow, told Reuters trans men he knows in Russia are scrambling to change IDs and start hormone treatment.
“This is the worst thing my country could do,” he said from Sagarejo in Georgia, where he fled after the war began. “It seems that if I simply tell myself that I exist, I am already violating the law.”
36-year-old Elle Solomina, another trans political refugee in Georgia, calls the pending legislation a purely “fascist law.”
“I have not found any explanation for it,” she said in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, “except that in a totalitarian system, the population must live in fear.”
Russia has granted gender ID changes since 1997, four years after it decriminalized homosexuality in the wake of the Soviet Union’s breakup.
But the tide has turned since those liberalizing policies accompanied Russia’s brief opening to the West.
Now Vladimir Putin is invoking the bad old days of the Soviet Union in a call to form a new institute to study LGBTQ+ behavior at the state-run Serbsky Psychiatric Center, notorious in mid-20th century Soviet Russia for its mental and physical torture of dissidents.
