Translated material
Will they score stones?
By the level of repression against LGBT, Russia overtook ex-Soviet countries and even Pakistan
Detention for promotions in Moscow. Photo: David Frenkel / Kommersant
In Russia there is a campaign to search for an internal enemy. Journalists, activists, human rights activists fall into this category. The group, the struggle from which is formalized, is introduced into the rank of laws and prohibitions, - LGBT. Why it was gays, lesbians and transgender people who were appointed main adversaries that can only be guessed, but the list of discriminatory laws is impressive. We compared the regulatory framework of modern Russia with the legislation of other countries - and not from the list of the most tolerant.
The malicious citation of the Constitution
The State Duma adopted the Law “On the complete ban on propaganda of LGBT” in the third reading on November 24, 2022 (on December 5 it was signed by Putin). The bill caused an unprecedented ardor of lawmakers - the authors were already 389 parliamentarians out of 450. Before its entry into force in Russia, the “propaganda of non -traditional sexual relations” among minors was prohibited - the relevant law was adopted in 2013. The new prohibited the "propaganda of non -traditional sexual relations and (or) preferences" among Russians of all ages.
The concept of propaganda is interpreted as “the spread of information aimed at the formation of non -traditional sexual attitudes, the attractiveness of non -traditional sexual relations, a distorted idea of the social equivalentness of traditional and non -traditional sexual relations.” Practice shows that any positive mention of LGBT becomes punishable. The fines are huge: up to 400 thousand rubles for citizens, up to 800 thousand rubles for officials and up to five million rubles for legal entities. Foreigners, in addition, are threatened with deportation.
New norms also prohibit the “propaganda” of LGBT in any goods sold in Russia - films, books, commercials, materials in media and audiovisual services.
Streaming services have already received the first fines, and the subject of sane offenses introduces into a stupor - for example, the film “Bridget Jones Diary” with the labeling “16+” and other similar ones.
At the same time, the fineds in vain indicate that the age marking is set by the Ministry of Culture, which issues rental certificates, and not themselves ...
In addition to the fight against demonstration of homosexual relations (and we are not at all about sex now), it is forbidden to disseminate information, “able to cause a desire to change gender,” among adolescents.
The first case under the new article became known on January 10 - a month after its appearance. It was excited against the Popcorn Books Publishing House. The first to write about this in his telegram channel was the deputy Khinshtein: “After the laws on the prohibition of the LGBT propaganda entry into force, the publishing house not only continued to sell such books, but also defiantly brings a quote from the 29th article of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and a ban on censorship,” now defiantly inflicts on their covers. ” The quotation of the sized in the days of the Basic Law was so outraged by Khinshtein that he personally wrote to the Prosecutor General, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Rospotrebnadzor and Roskomnadzor. The very next day, the Golyanovo Ministry of Internal Affairs opened cases under Art. 6.21 Code of Administrative Offenses (“Propaganda of non -traditional sexual relations and (or) preferences, sex change”) and under Art. 20.1 ("petty hooliganism").
The authorities drew attention to the “Popkorn” after the release of the book “Summer in the Pioneer Tie” Katerina Silvanova and Elena Malisova (real names - Ekaterina Dudko* and Elena Prokasheva*). Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Family, Women and Children, Communist Nina Ostanina in 2022 complained about the book in Roskomnadzor:
"There is an undisguised propaganda of homosexuality among young people and a perversion of the image of a heroic pioneering."
Roskomnadzor then did not find violations, since the book “18+” is standing on the book, and the “image of the heroic pioneer” was not protected by the law. After the entry into force of amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses, the book is outlawed. The authors of the novel are included in the list of foreign agents.
Without the right to the body
In April 2023, the Minister of Justice of Russia Konstantin Chuychenko announced plans to cancel the law transgender persons who have not passed the surgical correction of the floor to change the gender marker in the documents. This was served as a measure of the fight against the deviators from the army. But already on June 14, 2023, the State Duma adopted in the first reading a law prohibiting both the change of marker and any medical interventions aimed at the formation of primary and secondary sexual characteristics. The only exception will be the treatment of congenital anomalies in children.
Thus, the regulatory framework for defeat in the rights of LGBT is drawn up: Trans-loves lose their right to their body, and the rest of the Quir-Pernsons become second-grade people. Any mention in a positive way or a conversation about the acceptability of their relationship threatens a fine.
Even the ICD-11-an international classification of diseases of the 11th revision, which translates the diagnosis of “transsexuality” from the class “ mental disorders and behavior disorders ” into “ states related to sexual health ”. The Minister of Health Mikhail Murashko at the plenary meeting of the State Duma on June 14 stated that Russia is not obliged to apply it, and, perhaps, the document will be used in abbreviated form - taking into account the adoption of new laws.
From July 1, the sexologist’s office will appear in clinics-for people with “disorders related to sexual development and orientation”-this is provided for by the order of the Ministry of Health, published on November 14, 2022, when the bill on gay propaganda was promoted in the State Duma. Recall that according to the Russian Ministry of Health and operating in the Russian Federation, which was adopted in 1990, without any exceptions, ICD-10, sexual orientation cannot be considered a person’s disorder. Nevertheless, according to the order of the department, the sexologist will have the right to apply “compulsory medical measures”, developed jointly with a psychiatrist.
In fact, this can legitimize conversion therapy - pseudo -Dodicing services to "normalize" orientation.
No matter how he appealed the Geobors to “traditions”, Russia historically was not a homophobic country - the punishment for “sodding” was introduced only by Peter I, and it was borrowed from Germany. Active campaign against homosexuals unfolded only in 1933, in the midst of Stalinist repressions. The men entering the same -sex contacts were declared “spies” and “counter -revolutionaries”. The author of the legend was a berry who reported to Stalin about the disclosure of a conspiracy, in his note the places of meetings of Soviet gays were called "spy cells." 130 people were subjected to arrest then. The 121st article of the Criminal Code "On Sodigy" lasted amendments until 1993. Only in 2008, the Ministry of Health canceled the previously valid order to ban on donor blood by men practicing one -sex sex.
Human rights activists began to record a new deterioration in the legal status of LGBT in Russia in the mid-2000s. By the summer of 2023, 9 Russian organizations protecting the rights of LGBT were declared "foreign agents."
-In Russia, a persecution is already taking place for an open manifestation of non-heterosexuality or transgenderness, for example, for announcements of acquaintances in social networks, the provision of entertainment services for LGBT Person, etc. Most likely, a law will be adopted that will leave a transperson without medical care, ”said Ksenia Mikhailova, lawyer of the LGBT group“ Exit ”. - Whether plans to introduce criminal liability for “propaganda” will be implemented, and whether hints will turn into convertible therapy into reality, it is difficult to say. In itself, the existing and planned legislation and possible practices, of course, violate human rights and are discriminatory. But this is not their only drawback. They also reflect the extremely low level of legal technology (take at least the very concept of “propaganda”) and are in no way consistent with modern medicine.
Execution by mutual agreement
If you compare the Anti-LGBT laws in force in Russia, it turns out that in matters of attitude to this minority, the country is more conservative than other Muslim states.
The transgender transition is allowed in most countries of the former USSR, including not the most prosperous in terms of observing human rights Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. It is permitted even in Iran and Pakistan, where at the same time they exist in the first - the death penalty, and in the second - imprisonment for homosexual relations.
By the way, that is why about 450 surgery for surgical floor correction (for comparison, about 300) is performed annually in Iran annually, which puts this country in second place in the world after Thailand in the number of such operations. Partially they are financed by the state.
As before Pakistan, in 2018 there was generally adopted a law on the protection of transgender rights - 9 years after the country's Supreme Court decided to expand civil rights for transgender people in 2009. At the same time, same -sex relationships can theoretically be punishable by the death penalty. However, to date, it is not known about cases when this measure would have been put into practice in relation to homosexuals and bisexuals.
The possibility of changing sex in documents, if a medical institution issues an officially approved document, provides for the legislation of Tajikistan. However, it is extremely difficult to get such a document. In Kyrgyzstan, the first sex change operation was carried out at the end of 2013 at the Republican Scientific Center for Urology of the National Hospital at the Ministry of Health.
In Kazakhstan, same -sex relations are decriminalized, sex correction operations and its legal change are allowed. Since 2022, a ban on the service in the army of the LGBT Person was lifted. At the same time, registration of same -sex unions is officially prohibited by the Code “On Marriage (Wasp) and Family”, as well as the adoption of children with such partners. Homosexual couples cannot use surrogate motherhood, since it is available only in marriage.
In 2015, the country tried to adopt an analogue of the Russian law “On Propaganda”. The upper house of the parliament approved the bill “On the Protection of Children from Information Causing their Health and Development”, including “promoting unconventional sexual orientation”. But in the same year, the Constitutional Council of Kazakhstan recognized this bill to not compliance with the basic law.
Trans-transition is allowed both in Belarus and Ukraine, which, by the way, the first of the post-Soviet countries-December 12, 1991-canceled the criminal article for “Sodigy”.
The death penalty for same -sex sexual acts by mutual agreement is put into practice in only two countries of the world: Iran and Afghanistan. The execution is also legalized, but is not used in Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and the UAE. In 2019, Sultan Brunei announced the introduction of a death penalty for homosexual relations. The execution was supposed to occur in the form of clogging with stones. But a month later the Sultan changed his mind - and declared an unlimited moratorium on it.