Life in Russia became even more restricted for queer people last week, after a decade of increasing repression against the LGBTQ community there.
On November 30, Russia’s Supreme Court labeled the international LGBTQ movement an “extremist organization,” claiming that it incites “social and religious hatred.”
The new ruling is alarming in its own right, in that it could subject LGBTQ people and activist groups in Russia to legal penalties for openly supporting queer and trans rights. But it is also connected to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s greater ideological project. As part of that project, Putin has worked during his presidency, and over the last decade in particular, to create a narrative of “traditionalist” Russian history and culture that has led to the ongoing war in Ukraine and the exclusion of minorities like LGBTQ people, among other things.
The Russian Ministry of Justice brought the case to the Supreme Court on November 17, according to the New York Times, where it was ruled on in a secret, four-hour session. No opposing arguments were permitted in the case, Russian media reported.
The new designation means, according to the SOVA Center for Information and Analysis, a Russian civil rights organization, that organizers and members of LGBTQ organizations could face prison sentences of up to 10 or six years, respectively, and that displaying symbols of the movement, like a rainbow flag, in public could result in a sentence of up to four years. Even “approving statements” about the LGBTQ movement could potentially result in punishment.
Anti-LGBTQ extremism in the Russian government is nothing new, and over the past decade-plus, repression against LGBTQ people and organizations has gotten increasingly more extreme. “This is a continuation of a long-established effort that’s been going on for a decade, at least, and that actually already builds upon a whole anti-LGBTQ+ institution in Russia,” said Alexander Kondakov, a…
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