Flagships of homophobia: discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community is becoming a key tool of authoritarian populism and promoting the anti-Western agenda in the post-Soviet space

Over the two years of war, the situation surrounding the issue of the LGBTQ+ community in the post-Soviet space has seriously deteriorated. This applies both to Central Asian countries, where “non-traditional relationships” were already criminalized or semi-criminalized, and to countries where the authorities adhered to a policy of neutrality and non-interference in LGBTQ+ issues, such as Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Georgia - human rights organizations recorded increased discrimination and direct repression against LGBTQ+ people. A special role in this drift belongs to Russia, which acts as the flagship of this offensive, using it for the purposes of conservative mobilization and as an instrument of authoritarian populism. At the same time, the corresponding initiatives are promoted under the brand of fighting “Western influence,” and Russian laws on “foreign agents” and the ban on “LGBT propaganda” are exported to post-Soviet countries in one package. The Russian authorities are accumulating the symbolic resource of positioning Russia as the main homophobic power in the region (or even wider), seeing this as a source of their strengthening in the confrontation with the West and the sympathy of the countries of the global South.

Since the outbreak of full-scale war in Ukraine, the situation of the LGBTQ+ community in post-Soviet countries has deteriorated significantly, according to a review prepared by the Memorial Anti-Discrimination Center (ADC) . First of all, this concerns countries that previously did not dare to take discriminatory initiatives at the legislative level, but in recent years have adopted or are discussing the adoption of repressive homophobic laws (Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus). However, the situation continued to worsen in those countries where LGBTQ+ identity and non-conventional sexuality were already criminalized. (In Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, there is a criminal article that criminalizes voluntary same-sex sexual relations; in Tajikistan there is an article for the spread of HIV, which law enforcement officers use to persecute the LGBTQ+ community.) Here, human rights activists record an increase in the number of cases of criminal prosecution and tightening of legislation. In Turkmenistan, in 2023, the age limit for punishment for “sodomy” was lowered to 14 years. In Uzbekistan, according to the Eurasian Coalition on Health, Rights, Gender and Sexual Diversity (ESOM) , 191 cases of human rights violations based on sexual orientation or gender identity were registered in 2023, with 209 victims. In Tajikistan, according to ESOM , 25 cases of violation of the rights of LGBTQ+ people have been recorded.

Human rights activists include Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus among the countries where the situation of the LGBTQ+ community has significantly worsened over the past two years. But Russia plays a special role in this series. “Homophobic rhetoric and the proclamation of the protection of “traditional values” have become part of Russian military propaganda... Russia is spreading negative influence, directly or indirectly, over almost the entire region,” the authors of the ADC review state. Indeed, in the countries listed above, despite the rather low level of tolerance towards non-traditional sexual relations, in the first post-Soviet decades, governments remained neutral regarding the LGBTQ+ issue, officially declaring their commitment to the principles of equality and non-interference.

The situation began to change in the early 2010s, when, after the mass protests of 2011–2012, a package of repressive and openly conservative laws was adopted in Russia (“Dima Yakovlev’s law”, the law on “foreign agents”, the law on “protecting the feelings of believers”, the law tightening the procedure for holding rallies and demonstrations), among which was a law banning “propaganda of non-traditional relationships among minors.” Opinion polls have shown that of the entire pool of conservative initiatives, the latter received the greatest support. After this, anti-LGBTQ legislation becomes a tool for mobilizing conservative and anti-Western sentiments in countries with semi-democratic, semi-authoritarian and authoritarian regimes, a kind of banner of “authoritarian populism”.

This trend is typical not only for post-Soviet countries. The global regression of democracy that the world has been experiencing over the past fifteen years (→ Re: Russia: Pendulum of Democracy ) is associated, in particular, with the strengthening of radical traditionalism, statist, right-wing or far-right political forces in many countries (from Germany and the USA to India and Philippines) and the increasing influence of their public agenda, including themes of increasing the role of religion in society, anti-globalism, “protection” of “traditional” family relationships, anti-feminism, anti-migrant xenophobia and homophobia. In the post-Soviet space after 2013, the propaganda machine of the Putin regime becomes the locomotive of these trends, using homophobic rhetoric as a tool for consolidating anti-Western sentiments. In this sense, the presence in one package of laws limiting the rights of citizens to rallies and demonstrations, laws on foreign influence (“foreign agents”) and homophobic initiatives is not a coincidence, but a holistic political program of autocratization under the banner of “traditional values.”

At the beginning of the 2020s, the export of this package to other post-Soviet countries began. Thus, in Belarus the situation began to deteriorate sharply immediately after the suppression of the 2020 protests, the ADC review notes. Public organizations, including human rights organizations, were liquidated, and any difference was persecuted. After the start of the war, against the backdrop of Russia’s growing influence, officials of the republic began to publicly discuss the adoption of a law on the “ban of LGBT propaganda,” and in September 2023, the General Prosecutor’s Office of Belarus announced that it was beginning to develop such a law to “protect children from possible criminal acts and neutralize the efforts of individual Western countries to disastrously promote non-traditional sexual relationships, gender reassignment and childfree ideology.”

In Kyrgyzstan, in August 2023, the parliament adopted amendments to the law “On measures to prevent harm to the health of children, their physical, intellectual, mental, spiritual and moral development,” which classify as harmful to children information that “denies family and traditional social values.” , promoting non-traditional sexual relationships and creating disrespect for parents or other family members.” According to the new rules, the dissemination of such information does not entail criminal liability, but is punishable by a fine. In addition, in Kyrgyzstan there is no opportunity to make changes to documents when changing a gender marker, and there is also strong discriminatory pressure on the LGBTQ+ community both from the political elite and from traditionalist activists.

In Georgia, the issue of (anti)homophobia is a powerful factor in social polarization: the country has had a law combating various forms of discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, for a decade, but its application is regularly opposed by far-right and Orthodox activists. Homophobia among grassroots radical traditionalist movements in Georgia is often expressed in disruptions of LGBTQ+ events , attacks on activists , aggressive anti-LGBTQ+ and homophobic actions . Attempts to institutionalize discrimination against LGBTQ+ people also continue. Thus, in May 2023, far-right politicians initiated the adoption of amendments to various laws in order to ban the demonstration or propaganda of “non-traditional” sexual orientation at meetings, and in April 2024, the ruling party initiated large-scale constitutional amendments against the LGBTQ+ community: a ban on adoption for LGBTQ+ people, a ban on any medical intervention related to gender reassignment, a ban on meetings and the distribution of programs or materials that “promote” same-sex unions or medical interventions related to gender reassignment. The mobilization of the conservative electorate around these initiatives is intended to facilitate the adoption of another law - on “foreign agents” - and help the Bedzina Ivanishvili regime gain a foothold in Georgian politics, limiting the influence of pro-European political forces (→ Re: Russia: Homophobes' Dream ).

Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Armenia are in something of a gray zone. Homophobic sentiments in society and among the elite of these countries are quite strong, but the state does not take offensive repressive actions against the LGBTQ+ community there. A law banning the dissemination of information about LGBTQ+ among minors has been discussed in the Kazakh parliament since 2014, but has not been adopted. Also, attempts by some deputies to amend the law “On Mass Media” to prohibit the media from writing about LGBTQ+ people were rejected. Likewise, attempts by LGBTQ+ activists or feminists to hold public actions with an anti-discrimination agenda are systematically prohibited by the authorities, and activists receive threats from radical traditionalists. The situation is similar in Armenia, where the government is developing a plan to combat discrimination, but is being rebuffed by the Armenian Church and far-right activists. In addition, Armenian human rights activists have recorded an increase in crimes against LGBTQ+ people over the past year, including the murders of two trans women. A similar thing is observed in Azerbaijan, where in 2022 there was a high-profile homophobic murder of a journalist , which was preceded by an aggressive discriminatory statement by a conservative blogger. Any attempts to publicly demonstrate the problems of the LGBTQ+ community are suppressed in Azerbaijan. However, so far the Azerbaijani authorities have not made any attempts to legally discriminate or criminalize LGBTQ+ people.

The Russian case demonstrates the progress of a discriminatory approach to LGBTQ+ issues as anti-Western rhetoric becomes harsher and the regime becomes more repressive. The ban on “LGBT propaganda” among minors, introduced in 2013, was extended to all ages at the end of 2022. Thus, a complete ban on public display or discussion of “non-traditional relationships” was introduced. The adoption of the law became a permitting mechanism for the use of practices of semi-formal violence against the LGBTQ+ community - raids by security forces on gay clubs and private meetings with the use of violence against their participants. ( According to a large-scale survey study by the Coming Out group and the Sphere Foundation , 44% of LGBTQ+ respondents said they had experienced some type of violence in 2023, versus 30% in the 2022 survey.) Finally, November 30, 2023 year, Judge of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation Oleg Nefedov declared an “extremist organization” and banned the non-existent “international public movement of LGBT people”. This decision effectively criminalized being a member of the LGBTQ+ community without introducing a criminal offense for “sodomy.” In addition, a ban on trans transition was introduced in 2023: the new law completely prohibited medical support, changing the gender marker in a passport, and deprived trans people of the right to adopt/guardianship of children. People diagnosed as transgender have lost access to medical care and life-saving medications.

The Russian authorities are accumulating the symbolic resource of positioning Russia as the main homophobic/anti-LGBTQ+ power in the region (or even wider), seeing this as a source of their strengthening in the confrontation with the West and the sympathy of the countries of the global South. Human rights activists also note that homophobia in the post-Soviet space is often an umbrella category that includes not only issues of gender identity or sexual orientation, but also anti-feminism, the fight against transsexuals, and even pedophilia or childfree behavior. Thus, homophobic policy initiatives often contain greater discriminatory and oppressive potential, which is not limited only to members of the LGBTQ+ community, but affects wider groups in society.