Pride (and Prejudice)

A Pride flag near the Russian coat of arms during a protest outside the Russian Embassy in London, 16 March 2023. Krisztian Elek/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Russian authorities have banned nine groups that provide support to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people as “extremist,” Human Rights Watch said today. The apparent aim is to further suppress, stigmatize, and criminalize those who document abuses, share information, and provide legal, medical, and other assistance to Russia’s LGBT population.

Following the 2023 Russian Supreme Court decision to outlaw as “extremist” the “International LGBT Movement”—a legal and factual mischaracterization of a diverse, decentralized global human rights cause—the authorities have targeted numerous civil society organizations. Between March and May 2026, courts banned nine LGBT groups in seven Russian regions as “extremist,” namely Coming Out, LGBT Resource Centre, Parni Plus, Moscow Community Center for LGBT+ Initiatives, Irida, Russian LGBT Network, Kallisto movement, T9 NSK, and Centre T. A lawsuit against Alliance of Straights and LGBT for Equality is pending.

“Russian authorities are intensifying their criminalization of those who provide critical support to the very LGBT people they have systematically persecuted,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Authorities should vacate all court decisions and criminal convictions based on these spurious ‘extremism’ charges.”

On April 22, a court in Orel banned Parni Plus, an LGBT media outlet. The court based its decision largely on an “expert assessment” by the Nizhny Novgorod Academy of the Internal Affairs Ministry, effectively a law enforcement university. It found that Parni Plus “belittled Russian spiritual values and showed contempt for Russian President Vladimir Putin,” criticized Russian laws, and attempted to create “an alternative, anti-state hierarchy of values.” Parni Plus said the authorities were “trying to label the visibility, voice and experiences of the LGBTQ community as ‘extremism’” and said it would continue its work.

A similar report formed the basis for the Moscow city court ruling banning the Moscow Community Center for LGBT+ Initiatives on April 23. The center said it “cannot ignore the fact that queer people have not ceased to exist and require support.” The group also said it would continue its advocacy and providing psychological, legal, and other support.

Centre T called the May 4 decision by the Moscow city court to ban the organization “unfounded and repressive.” The group pledged to continue its work to provide support and information for transgender and nonbinary people.

On March 3, the Saint Petersburg city court banned Coming Out, a prominent LGBT support group, as “extremist.” The group said the authorities have been expanding the definition of extremism to criminalize “virtually any independent activity, any dissent, or any act of solidarity to isolate, intimidate, and silence those who speak about issues and support vulnerable people.” Coming Out said it would continue its work to resist the state’s efforts “to make LGBT+ people unseen and unheard.”

Russian LGBT Network, which the Saint Petersburg city court on April 27 also banned as “extremist,” said the court’s judgment had “nothing to do with justice,” and that its activities essentially consisted of supporting the LGBT community, documenting discrimination, protecting rights, and discussing the situation of queer people in Russia. It also said it would continue its work.

On April 7, the Sverdlovsk Region court outlawed the LGBT Resource Centre. The court said the center engaged in “propaganda” and that its activities contradicted Russia’s state policy. On April 29, the Yaroslavl Region court banned Kallisto as “extremist,” claiming the movement aimed to “reshape and effectively destroy Russia’s fundamental spiritual and moral values, in particular traditional family values.”

On May 19, a court in Novosibirsk used the same reasoning to ban T9 NSK, an initiative that supported transgender people and their friends and family. The group shut down its website and social media accounts. In May, the Saint Petersburg city court registered the Justice Ministry’s lawsuit to ban the Alliance of Straights and LGBT for Equality as “extremist.” The group said it would continue working to provide support, security, overcome isolation and censorship, and focus on education and outreach. This was the last known case to be tried, in closed proceedings.

Under article 282.2 of Russia’s criminal code, participation in organizations banned as “extremist” carries penalties of up to 6 years in prison, while leading such an organization carries up to 12 years. Donations to such organizations are punishable with up to 8 years in prison under article 282.3, and repeated displays of “extremist” symbols, such as the rainbow flag or banned organizations’ logos, up to 4 years under article 282.4.

On March 6, a court in Samara convicted Artyom Fokin, the leader of Irida, a local LGBT community organization, on charges of leading an “extremist” organization and repeated violation of the country’s repressive “foreign agents” legislation and fined him 450,000 rubles (US$6,000). A Samara court subsequently banned the group on April 24.

Human Rights Watch monitoring has found that at least nine people had been convicted on criminal charges based on the “extremist” designation of the “International LGBT Movement,” including for allegedly leading organizations supposedly belonging to this movement, sharing content, organizing drag shows, conducting activism, or supporting same-sex dating. At least 25 others are facing criminal charges.

In 2023, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, condemned the Russian Supreme Court’s “LGBT-extremism” ruling. Independent UN human rights experts warned that the designation enables arbitrary and abusive application of the law and jeopardizes a wide range of activities protected under international human rights law.

“The Russian government’s banning of LGBT rights organizations is absurd, harmful, and discriminatory,” Williamson said. “Rights-respecting governments should support Russian LGBT groups and activists, including by enabling them to continue their work from abroad.”

Source: “Russia: LGBT Rights Groups Further Criminalized,” Human Rights Watch, 28 May 2026

Evgeny Pisemsky, founder and editor of Parni Plus, at the 2024 Pride parade in Bristol. Photo: Evgeny Pisemsky/DW

It has been nearly three years since the nonexistent “International LGBT Movement” was declared an “extremist” organization by the Russian Supreme Court, per its 30 November 2023 ruling. The decision unleashed a crackdown resulting in over one hundred convictions on charges of “LGBT propaganda.” Russian police have detained people at clubs and private parties, and queers have been remanded in custody and fined several thousands of rubles. Numerous LGBTQ+ organizations have been targeted, and many of them have been declared “extremist” as well, although they provided medical and legal assistance, hosted cultural events, and reported on the queer community via social media. Deutsche Welle spoke with members of these organizations about how they continue to operate in Russia and render assistance to people despite all the obstacles.

“The greater the pressure has been, the more attention we’ve paid to the LGBT movement”

Parni Plus, which has been around for eighteen years, is the principal Russian-language queer news website, and it has been closely linked to Phoenix Plus, an NGO that was founded two years earlier. Phoenix Plus focused on raising awareness, promoting free testing, and supporting HIV-positive people. Phoenix Plus’s chair, the cisgender male Evgeny Pisemsky, had also worked as a volunteer at the public awareness center Info Plus. Since Info Plus provided little specific information for HIV-positive gays, the idea arose to launch the site Parni Plus.

“Originally, running the site was my hobby, but at one point I realized it was a great way of reaching a bigger audience,” Pisemky, who became the website’s editor-in-chief, told DW.

Parni Plus has transformed along with the changing political climate in Russia. After the Russian State Duma passed a law banning “promoting LGBT to minors,” the site started publishing articles about the LGBTQ+ movement’s fight for its rights.

“The greater the pressure has been, the more attention we’ve paid to the LGBT movement,” Pisemsky explained to DW.

At one time, the media project tried to “navigate” the legal obstacles while also publishing articles criticizing the authorities for ignoring HIV prevention. This resulted in numerous instances when the authorities blocked the website.

“Our lawyer and I would send off complaints to Roskomnadzor [the Russian media watchdog] along the lines of ‘Where did you find that?’ and they would unblock us every time,” said Pisemsky.

When Phoenix Plus was declared a “foreign agent,” in 2020, Pisemsky had to shut it down in order to safeguard Parni Plus. But its consciousness-raising and activism continued, as Pisemsky consistently helped people get online HIV consultations from anywhere in Russia. The covid-19 lockdowns and Russia’s subsequent full-scale invasion of Ukraine did not put a stop to the organization’s work either: its team was ready to assist anyone and everyone remotely.

The team made the decision to reject the “18+” warning label it had been obliged to post on the website. In June 2023, they wrote that information about sexuality and sexually transmitted diseases were particularly vital to children and adolescents.

“[W]e are sick and tired of turning our back on queer children and teenagers. They are the most vulnerable segment of our communities, which are in particular need of support nowadays. We are not only freeing them from the need to lie when accessing the site. We [also] plan to publish many more articles just for minors,” they wrote.

After the LGBTQ movement was declared “extremist” in Russia, the Parni Plus team was forced to flee the country.

“We became ‘foreign agents’ twice: first as Phoenix Plus, and then as Parni Plus. Practically all our reporters were also declared ‘foreign agents’, and we racked up over twenty fines, totaling two million rubles,” Pisemsky recounted.

He argues that remaining open matters most of all.

“The ‘extremist’ label makes you worry about family members, and the authorities have been trying to erase us, but we have been surviving against the odds. It is vital to LGBTQ+ people that [our] organizations remain visible,” said Pisemsky.

80% of transgender people in Russia want to leave

Centre T is an organization specializing in assistance to trans people. It emerged in 2020 from a therapy group run by Yan Dvorkin, who is non-binary, and his colleague.

“We didn’t plan on founding a special organization. We were just psychologists who did sessions for trans people. But we quickly realized that our clients had a huge number of unmet needs in different areas, and that there was nowhere in Moscow for them to turn. There was nowhere to refer people for medical care or for meeting people and relaxing,” Yan explained.

That was how Centre T came into being. Its first project was called “Plush Toy Cat”—monthly tea parties featuring board games and dancing. These events took place for several years and, according to Dvorkin, would draw as many as 150 people.

“People from the regions would even come to hang out with other transgender people. It was an unbelievably positive experience: the participants found friends, partners, and future roommates at the get-togethers.”

Centre T gradually expanded. Its staff began providing consultations on emigration and means of obtaining medical care. They engaged in public education and community building, opened a shelter in Moscow, and set up regional associations.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Centre T team immediately sensed that negative changes were afoot in Russian society. According to Dvorkin, the active persecution of trans people in Russia kicked off precisely after February 2022, culminating in the 2023 law banning “sex change” (the correct term is “gender transition”).

“We worked with a medical board based at a clinic, and its physicians treated transgender people with respect. They issued diagnoses of ‘transsexualism’—a classification that enabled individuals to start redoing their identification papers and getting ready for surgeries. The passage of the law banning gender transition changed everything. We had fought against its adoption, and it was largely for this reason that our organization was designated a ‘foreign agent’ in 2023,” he said.

Dvorkin has no regrets that Centre T put up such a fierce fight. The team received many words of support in return.

Centre T staff members attended court hearings of cases involving LGBT individuals. Members of ultra-right gangs would occasionally attack them at the entrance to the courthouse.

Dvorkin described how the Centre T team coped with tough times.

“One time they attacked us with pepper spray and a child passing by got caught in the crossfire. His mother came to our defense and went with us to the police station. But our arguments about dangerous radicalization or the literal example of who was actually harming children fell on deaf ears in court. After losing such cases we would go to my place to ‘celebrate’ by eating a cake baked in advance and singing along to a guitar,” he recounted.

After the “LGBT movement” was ruled “extremist,” it became much harder for Centre T to operate, as many organizations voided their cooperation agreements with them, and they had to cancel in-person events. The situation in Russia changed drastically, and Centre T began moving its staff members abroad; many of them had been charged with violating the anti-LGBT “propaganda” law. Centre T also made the decision to close its Moscow shelter, which had attracted unwanted attention.

“This dude tried to kick down the door. We called the police. Our people saw through the window that he went outside, shook the policeman’s hand, and they went their separate ways,” recounted Dvorkin.

Currently, Centre T continues to operate online: it helps people access medical care and responds to crisis calls, providing support not only to trans people and their families but also to professionals at various levels. Centre T has also been providing more robust counseling on emigration matters.

“It has become clear that transgender people can no longer live a normal life in Russia. Eighty percent of transgender people in Russia want to leave and are looking for a way to do so,” concluded Dvorkin.

Although he sees Centre T’s new status as an “extremist organization” as dangerous, he has no plans to go into hiding.

“If I’m detained and extradited, then that’s life,” he said.

The MCC has gone underground

Unlike the majority of LGBTQ+ organizations, the Moscow Community Center for LGBT+ Initiatives (MCC) is still engaged in offline work in Russia and make it their emphasis. The MCC was formed in 2015 and conceived as a place where people could drop in, feel safe, and have a good time by reading books, drinking coffee, attending themed events, and meeting new eople. In 2019 it was transformed into a co-working café.

“We wanted casual passersby to be able to walk into our café, see the special ‘signs,’ and immediately realize they were in an LGBT space,” notes Olga Baranova, the MCC’s non-binary president.

Another of the MCC’s big projects is the queer festival OpenArt. Launched in 2017, it still takes place, under wraps, in Russia. Although it is hard to imagine now, the festival’s first edition was even guarded by police officers.

“An FSB officer arrived and asked what was going on. I told him to come in and have a look. He was afraid of possible riots and that skinheads would go after the festival attendees on the dark streets and beat them up. So we were assigned a police patrol. The provocateurs showed up at the doors, of course, but our guards kept everyone safe. No one inside noticed a thing,” Baranova recounts.

Despite the law against “gay propaganda” among children, the MCC managed to navigate the obstacles and and engage with a young audience: in 2022, for example, the festival was held in a two-story venue, with a 16+ area on the first floor. Nevertheless, it wasn’t without its challenges.

“Center ‘E’ officers [the Russian Interior Ministry’s anti-“extremism” police] came and talked with me. They asked me to shut everything down. Ultimately, though, the festival was a huge success,” Baranova recalls.

When the “International LGBT Movement” was declared “extremist” by the Russian authorities, the MCC went underground. The organization is now focused on emergency assistance, whether that means moving people abroad or getting them into a shelter.

“It’s important to remember that we cannot help everyone because we simply don’t have the resources,” Baranova points out. “If the police are pounding on your door, if you’re up against a tough situation in life, then you definitely should write to us and submit a request.”

Otherwise, the MCC continues to hold events on important topics, and their goal is to ensure that people do not end up being isolated.

“We see what are our beneficiaries need and every three to six months we change the focus of our meetings,” notes Baranova. “For example, right now many of them are looking for jobs.”

The community center wanders among various venues, and Baranova regrets the constant need to move from place to place. “In your own home you can put your favorite pillow on the bed and your favorite glass on the table. These are the things that create a sense of home, not bare walls,” she complains.

Members of the Russian LGBTQ community are persecuted for their identity

Eighteen years ago, a small community center called Coming Out opened in St. Petersburg. Since then, it has grown into one of Russia’s leading LGBTQ+ rights organizations. Coming Out also provided free psychological counseling and ran in-person solidarity groups, but its primary activities were legal support and consultations.

Thanks to Coming Out, there is an archive of accounts of discrimination against queer people in Russia.

“Long before 2022, we gatherd accounts of discrimination against queer people by law enforcement, of workplace and domestic discrimination, and of discrimination at medical and educational institutions. We analyzed the messages transmitted by the state propaganda machine and corroborated the existence of worrying trends with the numbers. We annually presented the outcomes of our work to Russian and international officials,” Denis Oleinik, a cisgender man and Coming Out’s executive director, explained to DW.

Coming Out was designated a “foreign agent” by the Russian authorities in December 2021. A few months later, realizing they could no longer work in Russia because they could not guarantee their own safety, the organization’s staff gradually fled Russia and moved its entire operations online. When Coming Out was declared an “extremist” organization, in March 2026, all of its staff members were ready for this turn of events, according to Oleinik.

“Over the past four years, we’ve learned to do everything remotely, put together a secure volunteer system, and set up systems for gathering and storing information that are as anonymous as possible. It’s really important to us that the beneficiaries of our assistance are safe and that the help we provide doesn’t harm them. To date, there have been no cases of people being persecuted for receiving support or assistance,” he explained.

Oleinik wants anti-queer discrimination to disappear in the future, but Coming Out’s research paints a completely different picture.

“In 2025, members of Russia’s LGBTQ community were subjected to persecution and discrimination not only for things they said or wrote but also for their very identity. Thus, in 2025, posting personal photos featuring kissing, publishing a blog about the lives of a same-sex couple, and organizing meetings in one’s own home were classified as ‘propaganda’ and ‘extremism,'” its report says.

This means that Oleinik and his colleagues have their work cut out for them.

Source: Dima Yelagin, “How ‘the boys’ became a threat to Russia,” Deutsche Welle Russian Service, 16 June 2026. Translated by the Russian Reader

Kolya* says they would not dare to go to a state health-care facility for the therapy they are receiving for a mental health condition. The 19-year-old from a city in Russia’s far-east, who identifies as non-binary and gay, tells The Lancet they fear that information about their sexuality could be passed on to other state institutions and used against them in some way. “I wouldn’t have told the mental health specialist treating me about my sexuality if they weren’t a private doctor. I wouldn’t tell the municipal clinic, I wouldn’t want them to have that kind of information about me in case they passed it on somewhere”, they say.

Kolya chose a private clinic because, like many in the LGBTQ+ community, they perceive them to be less likely to divulge their gender identity or sexuality to others, and less likely to be discriminatory. Kolya’s distrust of the Russian health-care system, and their avoidance of it, is becoming increasingly common among the heavily marginalised LGBTQ+ community, according to one of the largest surveys of how LGBTQ+ people are living in Russia, released in May.

The survey of more than 6000 people in Russia by the Coming Out and Sphere Foundation organisations showed a significant rise in the number of LGBTQ+ people avoiding seeing a doctor for fear of discrimination or biased treatment last year, reaching 35%.

Many of the respondents who reported discrimination said they had faced inappropriate comments, jokes, or offensive remarks from medical professionals, as well as experiencing reproductive coercion. Others specifically mentioned issues that arose when seeking help from psychologists and psychotherapists. In such cases, respondents reported instances of outing and breaches of confidentiality, including the disclosure of information about sexuality or gender identity without their consent.

The report’s authors say LGBTQ+ people, and especially transgender people, are losing access to medical services due to this distrust. “In our latest survey we saw a 6 percentage point year-on-year rise in people avoiding seeing a doctor. Historically, annual increases for this indicator have been in the range of 1–2 percentage points. A 6-point rise represents a marked departure from that trend—that’s why it is significant”, Denis Oleinik, Executive Director of Coming Out, told The Lancet.

“If this rate of increase were to continue at the same pace annually, within 5 years a substantially larger proportion of LGBTQ+ people would be avoiding medical care, with serious consequences for both individual health outcomes and broader public health. The 6-point rise may not sound dramatic in isolation, but viewed against the historical baseline and the potential trajectory it represents a genuinely concerning shift”, he added.

Over the past decade, a series of repressive anti-LGBTQ+ laws have been passed in Russia, including bans on any public information or activities supporting LGBTQ+ rights or displaying non-heterosexual orientation, on same-sex marriage, and on transgender people officially or medically changing their gender. A 2023 ruling by the Supreme Court also banned the international LGBT movement, declaring it extremist, allowing people to be fined or prosecuted for anything that could be construed as promoting “non-traditional sexual relations”.

In previous years, authorities have used these tools to crack down on groups and activists taking action to support LGBTQ+ rights, but now they are increasingly being used against individuals, with prosecutions even for displaying or wearing rainbow-coloured materials. “The persecution has moved to people being targeted not for something they have done, but just for being LGBTQ+,” said Oleinik. This in turn has made many in the community concerned about going anywhere, including health-care facilities, where their gender identity or sexual orientation could be identified and possibly disclosed.

Vitaly Djuma, Executive Director at the Eurasian Coalition on Health, Rights, Gender and Sexual Diversity told The Lancet that, in many cases, an LGBTQ+ person with a particular complaint that could be linked to non-heterosexual sexual behaviour would “not give up that kind of intimate information unless they really trusted the doctor, especially if they thought it could lead to disclosure [of their sexual orientation]”. Instead, he said, they would be forced to go to a private clinic, if they could afford it, or risk seeking treatment within state health care. “They would have to just try and deny the complaint is any indication of their sexuality”, he added.

Groups providing harm reduction services in Russia say that LGBTQ+ people are accessing their services, which they can legally provide to other key populations, to resolve health issues. “The LGBTQ+ community is increasingly reaching out to us in a more discreet way, sometimes through third parties. People are afraid to disclose that they are LGBTQ+”, a worker at a non-governmental organisation in a major Russian city, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Lancet.

The situation is especially difficult for transgender people, who, the survey shows, are more likely to face discrimination in health care, and more likely to avoid going to a doctor, than other members of the LGBTQ+ community. Oleinik said there were “few cases where doctors or clinics outright rejected providing services to someone just because they were gay or lesbian, but for trans people, it’s much worse”.

He added that there had also been cases of transgender people who, with medical changing of gender banned, turned to the black market to get the medicines they needed to transition, administered them unsupervised, and subsequently became ill.

Lucy Shtein of the North Caucasus SOS crisis group, which evacuates persecuted LGBTQ+ people from Russia, pointed out that following the ban, transgender people had become even more vulnerable as a group. “After the ban on gender transition, access to medical care became even more restricted for them”, she told The Lancet.

Furthermore, anti-LGBTQ+ legislation has forced groups which provided health services for members of the community, such as harm reduction, prevention of sexually transmitted infections, or psychosocial help, to either close down or leave the country, cutting off another line of access to health care for people who do not trust state medical services. Experts say it is difficult to determine what effect this avoidance of, and inability to access, health care, is having on health among the LGBTQ+ community in Russia.

Data for some common health indicators in the community, such as numbers of HIV/AIDS cases and other sexually transmitted infections, as well as depression and other mental health conditions, are not always available or lack relevant detail. Although there are official figures for the number of people currently living with HIV and new infections, specific data on epidemiological trends among key populations is either not publicly available or, according to experts, not reliable.

Routes of transmission—according to some reports most new infections are now transmitted through heterosexual contact—are determined through self-reporting, while historical data have shown the proportion of overall HIV testing carried out among key populations is decreasing year on year.

This makes it very difficult to get an accurate picture of the epidemiological situation for the disease among the community, which could indicate potential wider consequences of individuals avoiding health care.

“Data for transmission routes is unreliable with the use of self-reporting and a large amount of unidentified transmissions. The HIV epidemic is absolutely still ongoing among men who have sex with men and other members of the LGBTQ+ community, especially in big cities where the practice of chemsex is burgeoning”, Djuma said.

Oleinik added that systematic research on LGBTQ+ people has become essentially impossible as researchers, non-governmental organisations, and public health professionals cannot gather such data without risking being associated with extremist activity. “If anything does exist in official sources, it tends to appear exclusively in negative framing—for example, linking same-sex behaviour to HIV transmission in ways that stigmatize the community rather than support it. Such studies or statistics cannot be trusted as objective public health data”, he said.

Additionally, apart from physical health, there are serious concerns of a deterioration of mental wellbeing among the community, with studies having previously established links between discrimination and mental health among LGBTQ+ people.

There are no specific data available on mental health in the community— statistics for relevant indicators, such as suicide, are not up to date—but there is some anecdotal evidence of worsening mental health in the general population, and all those who spoke to The Lancet said mental health among the community was inevitably being impacted by the government’s repressive legislation and an increasing normalisation of homophobic discourse among politicians and society.

Kolya says that “aggressive government anti-LGBTQ+ narratives” were one of the key reasons they were in psychotherapy and taking anti-depressants. “It’s stressful as hell sometimes. Every queer person I know feels that same stress [caused by these narratives]”.

Groups working with LGBTQ+ people in Russia said they had seen a rise in demand for their mental health services. “We have received significantly more requests for psychological support, especially from young LGBTQ+ people. Many have become more willing to seek support, are less afraid of psychotherapy, and are more open to working with psychologists and psychiatrists. This is likely connected both to the deterioration of mental health due to repression and to a broader understanding of the importance of mental health in general”, said Shtein.

“The number of people who come to us seeking psychological support is higher than last year and it’s growing every month”, added Oleinik. “The number of people thinking about suicide or who [harmed] themselves is also growing every year”, he said.

Kolya, and others who spoke to The Lancet, said that suicidal ideation and attempts were common among the community, again especially among transgender people. However, Oleinik said that despite the grim situation facing the community, groups like his would continue to help LGBTQ+ people access health care. “Our role in the current situation is increasingly important. We understand that people in the community need us—a lot of organisations have closed, stopped offering some programmes, but we can still reach the community. It might look like there is little hope at the moment, but we won’t stop”, he said.

Source: Ed Holt, “LGBTQ+ Russians increasingly avoiding doctors,” The Lancet, 25 June 2026

A magistrate in Moscow has been delivered a complaint of “LGBT propaganda” (as defined by Article 6.21.3 of the Russian Federal Code of Administrative Offenses) filed against Olga Baranova, program director of the Moscow Community Center for LGBT+ Initiatives. Apparently, this is her first fine—coming after the MCC was designated an “extremist” organization.

The hearing will take place on July 8, according to the court’s website. The court has not disclosed which agency drafted the report. Cases involving “LGBT propaganda” can be launched by various agencies: the Interior Ministry, the Prosecutor’s Office, or Roskomnadzor. However, in politically motivated cases, the instigator is most often Center “E”—the Interior Ministry’s department for “combating extremism.”

In late April, a court ruled in favor of the Justice Ministry and designated the MCC an “extremist” organization. It is one of ten LGBT groups that were given this designation in 2026. The Center is currently appealing the decision, so it is not yet listed in the registry of extremist organizations.

Source: “MCC director Olga Baranova gets her first ‘propaganda’ citation,” Parni Plus, 27 June 2026. Translated by the Russian Reader

Alexander Klimov, art director of the Orenburg bar Pose. Source: Social media/Moscow Times

A court in the Orenburg region on Monday handed down prison sentences to a bar owner and two of his employees in Russia’s first criminal case targeting people accused of belonging to what authorities call the “International LGBT Movement.”

The trio was arrested on LGBTQ+ “extremism” charges in March 2024, representing the first instance of criminal charges being pressed in connection with the Russian Supreme Court’s designation of the non-existent “LGBT movement” as “extremist” the year before.

Bar owner Vyacheslav Khasanov received a seven-year sentence, according to Ostorozhno Novosti. Manager Diana Kamilyanova was sentenced to six years and three months, while art director Alexander Klimov received two years and three months.

All three were accused of organizing events that demonstrated “affiliation with individuals of unconventional sexual orientation under the guise of running a nightlife venue.” According to the exiled news outlet Mediazona, the bar hosted drag shows.

The trio denied the charges during the court proceedings, which were held behind closed doors.

While the case represents the first instance of criminal charges being brought under the LGBTQ+ “extremism” designation, Russia’s first actual prison sentence under the ban was issued separately in January 2025 in the Kemerovo region.

The Orenburg court said Monday that its verdict has not yet taken effect and remains subject to appeal.

In addition to the prison terms, the court seized 1 million rubles ($12,800) in revenue from Khasanov. It also barred all three defendants from working in the entertainment and hospitality industries for two to three years following their release.

Source: “Orenburg Court Jails 3 Bar Employees for LGBTQ+ ‘Extremism,’” Moscow Times, 29 June 2026

Alexandra: A Russian Trans Woman in Trump’s America

Alexandra in Times Square. Personal photo courtesy of Republic

Alexandra left Russia four years ago, fleeing oppression, propaganda, and ever harsher anti-LGBT laws. She applied for political asylum in the U.S., made a home in New York, and felt safe for the first time. But with Donald Trump’s return to power, her fears have returned. The new rules and laws, the rhetoric, and the swaying of public sentiment against trans people have been much too reminiscent of what she had escaped. Alexandra spoke to Republic about how America has been changing and what now lies in store for thousands of people like her.

I arrived in the U.S. exactly four years ago yesterday. A lot has changed in that time. I arrived right when the covid restrictions were still in force. Just a couple of days before I arrived in New York, an order to wear two masks each had been issued. The city was completely empty. I went straight to Times Square, and there were maybe one or two people walking down the street. Gradually, the restrictions were lifted, and more and more people were out in public. And then the border with Mexico was opened, and everything changed dramatically in terms of jobs, the economy, and real estate — rent went up about forty percent. Now there are new problems: Trump and Musk. But first things first.

“I always had a hard time in Russia”

I am thirty-four years old. I lived in Perm until I was twenty-five, then I moved to St. Petersburg and lived there until I moved to the U.S. I did a lot of jobs in Russia, mainly sales. In my final years in Perm, I worked at a real estate agency.

I had traveled a lot and at first I decided to just move to a big city in Russia, which didn’t make me safe in the end. I decided to leave Russia after the lockdown started. My ex-husband had gone to the U.S. in 2011 on the Work and Travel Program and he had really liked the country. Besides, when it was possible to fly anywhere again, the only valid visas we had were for the U.S.

When I was twenty-five years old, I officially changed my gender and got a woman’s passport. This was in 2016, back in Perm. It was quite difficult to do this. The problem was that at the real estate agency where I worked, no one knew about me, but I had to sign legal documents there. So I had to change my surname, first name, and patronymic to something feminine, but without specifying my gender. The civil registry office did not immediately know how to do this legally: they discussed it among themselves for several months. In the end, they changed my name and surname to the feminine versions of the original ones. I had been Alexander, and so I became Alexandra. They got rid of my patronymic because they didn’t know how to come up with a feminitive for it.

Later, after the updated information had been entered into my birth certificate, I went to the passport office. They remembered me there because a couple of years earlier they had refuse to issue me a passport on the grounds that the photo I had given them was of a young woman, but my papers indicated my gender as “M.” I had filed a complaint with the prosecutor’s office, but it hadn’t led to anything at the time. Ultimately, though, the [passport office] staff decided to meet my needs and help me. I was issued a passport with an “F” in it. I have had several cosmetic surgeries, but have not had intimate plastic surgery, meaning I haven’t undergone a complete transition, but a social one. I don’t want to have surgery yet.

It was always hard for me in Russia. If you are lesbian or gay, you can hide it from society somehow. This is impossible for us transgender people.

You go to apply for a job and you are simply rejected, at best. At worst, you are threatened and humiliated.

I was also harassed at school. For example, I was subjected to a full body search with no clothes on at the checkpoint when I took my Unified State Exam. When it comes to medical institutions, even if you go to a private clinic for a paid operation, you still face discrimination. When I tried to get permission for a sex change, they suggested I go to the male ward because in the female ward they thought I would “rape all the female patients.”

I was an activist in Rainbow World, the Perm branch of the Russian LGBT Network: I constantly attended events and was actively involved in organizing them. When I needed supporting evidence [for my asylum claim] from the head of Rainbow World, she was afraid to communicate with my lawyers, since she seriously feared reprisals from the authorities. Now she doesn’t contact me at all.

We once took part in the May Day rally. We had got all the permissions beforehand, but the placards had not been discussed, and so we ended up having our own mini-gay pride parade. Things were still relatively calm at the time: we marched down the street and people heard us; we were written about and discussed. But then the pressure started. Public opinion shifted dramatically in the direction of aggression towards LGBT people. A few months later, the police came to the offices of our organization and searched them. They confiscated our laptops, and there, of course, they found all our info — addresses, contacts, and passwords. No one thought at the time that things would take such a turn for the worse.

At one point, when I was working at the real state agency in Perm, a local activist came into my life. I don’t know who he was, but he had sent me clip from an episode of the Malakhov show in which he had taken part. He was always stalking me outside the real estate office where I worked. When I would walk past him with my colleagues, right in front of them he would say, “You have to give me an interview.” I would say, “I don’t know you. What’s this about anyway?’ And he would say, “If you don’t, I’ll tell everyone who you are.” This would happen in public, right on the street.

After the first law banning so-called LGBT propaganda for minors was adopted in 2013, police officers started showing up at my house because I right then I was helping out transgender teenagers. The police would knock on our door and ring the doorbell. They would try to get into my flat under various pretexts. One time they stood outside the door for three hours. We just pretended nobody was home. Then, when it got quiet, we looked out the window. The police officers looked up too, realized we were looking at them, and came upstairs again. They stood outside our door again for a while.

Then some people assaulted me and my ex-husband. It turned into a brawl, and a police patrol turned up “by chance.” We were all taken to the police station and advised to “keep quiet and stay inconspicuous.” After that, in 2019, we decided to move to Peter. Everything was relatively calm in Petersburg. But then they found us there too. I do not know what kind of databases they have, but they found us, although I didn’t show my face anywhere at all in Petersburg, and I wasn’t involved in any organizations. The only thing I did was go to the Side by Side LGBT film festival.

I was in no hurry to leave Russia because I have an elderly father, who is seventy-one. I didn’t want to leave him. And I never thought that I should leave the country where I was born, grew up, worked, and paid taxes. Plus, I had a flat and a car in Russia. I didn’t want to start all over again in another place. When covid started, my husband’s and my Schengen visas had expired. We only had our U.S. visas left, and they were still valid for about six months. We decided to give it a try, because we were afraid that, later, the authorities wouldn’t let us go anywhere at all, that the country was heading towards the Iron Curtain.

“Since Moving to the U.S., I Haven’t Been Hiding Anything from Anyone at All”

We arrived in New York on a visa, on a direct flight from Moscow. We started looking for human rights organizations who could provide free lawyers. We called various places: our English was nonexistent, so we used online translators and sometime just read the text into an answering machine. Several organizations reached out to us. Eventually, an organization which deals with domestic violence helped us out. We lived in a hotel at first. We were quarantined there for a fortnight, then we rented a place through Airbnb and looked for a permanent place. I started working three weeks later.

I am currently working as a cleaner and as a webcam model. Webcam modeling is not an easy gig. I started doing it back in Petersburg, because I was afraid of getting a on-the-books job. Initially, you think that it’s easy money and that it won’t affect you in any way, but then you realize you’re just a piece of meat. It’s quite tough psychologically. All this overlapped with my old traumas, and eventually led to big psychological problems. Before the New Year, I stopped taking the antidepressants I’d been taking since 2018.

You can make $100, $300, and $500 a day in the webcam industry. Here in the U.S., it’s a legitimate job, you pay taxes, it’s all above board. Since moving to the U.S., I haven’t been hiding anything from anyone at all. It’s my new principle in life.

I am horrified to read the news from Russia about LGBT people being labeled “extremists” and being murdered in prisons, about gay bars and clubs being raided. It’s wacky, it’s incomprehensible. After moving to the U.S., especially after Russia’s war with Ukraine began, I realized how effective propaganda was in Russia. All my friends and acquaintances in Russia suddenly changed their opinions about politics dramatically, even about LGBT people. Even my friends who are LGBT people themselves either try to avoid the topic or say, “Well, that’s right, but what can we do? It’s the way it has to be.” Some of them I’ve stopped talking to, some I haven’t. Maybe they are simply afraid to say too much.

The authorities inserted pedophilia into the law on “LGBT propaganda” and thus made a strong link in people’s heads between LGBT people and pedophiles. This propaganda has been effective even in my own family.

My dad’s new wife has a niece. The niece’s son was three years old at the time. Kids are drawn to me and I always play with them. But at one point I saw how afraid she was to leave her child alone with me. The propaganda has affected even those closest to me.

In the U.S., I saw a completely different world and attitude towards people like me. When I told someone at work for the first time that I was a transgender woman, I got a neutral reaction, as if I was talking about something quite ordinary. The first time I went to the New York Pride March, it was more like a carnival: it was beautiful, friendly, and flamboyant. There were a lot of children there, and there were separate events for them. For the first time in my life I felt I was no different from anyone else, that I had rights, that I could speak openly, that I could receive proper medical care. When I lived in Perm, I was even unable to find an endocrinologist who did hormone replacement therapy. [Living in New York] has changed my sensibility a lot.

Donald Trump’s policies have not affected me specifically yet. But knowing how it all kicked off in Russia, I am scared. In 2013, there was the ban on “gay propaganda,” and consequently, teenagers were left without the support that, for example, they had received from Lena Klimova and her project Children 404. I also helped kids out then, shared my know-how with them, and tried to support them. All transgender people have been dismissed from the [U.S.] army. It’s a nightmare. When the state starts cracking down on a single albeit tiny segment of the populace, and it succeeds, it keeps on going.

“Judging by the First Month of Trump’s Presidency, We Are in for Tough Times”

I believe that common sense should prevail in all things. Previously, the bias had gone in the other direction in the U.S.: people used to be afraid to say something against LGBT, and this was also wrong. Everyone should have freedom of speech. For example, my acquaintances from [the country of] Georgia had this thing happen to them. They were working on a commission for a moving company: a gay couple was moving. One of the workers looked askance, or they said something among themselves. They then got a call from the front office and a dressing-down. They were warned that they would be fired if it happened again. Or there was the case of the flower shop: the owners refused to sell flowers for a same-sex wedding, and the shop had to close because of the scandal that erupted. That’s over the top. I think that if you’re refused service somewhere, you can go to some other place. Let them lose their profits. It’s the same with clubs: if the bouncers don’t let you in, well, those are their views. Everybody has different views. But now it’s going too far in the other direction and it’s scary. I hope that one day we will reach a sensible balance.

Now I live with my fiancé, who is from Ukraine. We discuss politics, and we both want the war to end soon, for people to stop dying. I would like to make a trip to Russia.

I don’t think Russia belongs to Putin and his lackeys. It’s my country, just like it is yours, just like it is everyone else’s. I would like to believe that things will change and we can go back someday.

I am in the U.S. legally, but I am waiting for political asylum. There are numerous such cases, and they take a very long time to process. The approximate wait time for a green card in the past was ten years . I was involved in a class action lawsuit against the U.S. Immigration Service, and I was told that as long as I had a short wait time, the case would not be considered. I appealed that decision and have been scheduled for an interview for late 2026. I would like to go to Turkey, for example, to meet my relatives. I would really like to see my dad. But even if everything goes well at the interview, I will probably not get a green card until 2028.

My father loves me, but over the last three years, since the war started, we have come to disagree about Russian politics, and over time we stopped discussing it. He watches [Russian] television and relays to me what is said there. He constantly accuses me of being under the influence of “American propaganda” and “brainwashed.” But I just reply, “Fine.”

They usually say that the first one hundred days of a presidency set the course for the next four years. Judging by the first month of Trump’s presidency, we are in for tough times, although maybe these measures are like Margaret Thatcher’s — first shock therapy, then stabilization. I hope to get citizenship in the future. I would finally feel safe: there is still a risk of deportation for now. I try not to give up, to hope for the best. Let’s see if positive thinking does the trick.

Source: Maria Litvinova, “‘Trump’s rhetoric has become similar to Putin’s, and it’s scary’: How does a Russian trans woman who emigrated to America under the Democrats feel?” Republic, 27 February 2025. Translated by the Russian Reader

Trump’s War on Trans: An American Story

Late Monday evening, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that effectively lays the groundwork for a sweeping ban on the 15,000 transgender troops currently serving in the United States military. The order, delegating much of its implementation to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, declares that being transgender is “incompatible with service.” It further mandates that all transgender personnel must be misgendered in official military communication and policy. Most notably, the order frames transgender identity as inherently at odds with “a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”

The executive order, titled “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” claims its purpose is to “protect unit cohesion” from “ideologies harmful” to it—explicitly targeting the service of transgender troops. It asserts that the medical needs of transgender individuals are incompatible with military service, despite evidence that treatments like hormone therapy result in no operational downtime. Aware of this contradiction, the order offers an additional justification for the ban, framing transgender individuals as inherently “selfish” and “false.”

See the rationale given by the order here:

Consistent with the military mission and longstanding DoD policy, expressing a false “gender identity” divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service. Beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life. A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.

While the order itself is vague on the specifics of implementation, its intent is clear: to serve as a ban on transgender service members. It declares that being transgender is “inconsistent with service” and mandates that pronouns used by the military must “accurately reflect an individual’s sex.” The order gives Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth 60 days to implement these directives, including ending “invented and identification-based pronoun usage” and prohibiting transgender service members from bunking with others of their gender.

If implemented broadly, the ban will have immediate and damaging consequences for both transgender service members and military readiness across the United States. SPARTA, a leading transgender military advocacy organization, estimates that removing 15,000 transgender service members would result in the loss of an $18 billion capital investment, with the Palm Center projecting an additional $1 billion cost to recruit and train replacements. Notably, up to 73% of these service members are senior enlisted personnel with 12-21 years of experience—expertise that cannot be easily replaced by the U.S. government.

You can see SPARTA’s figures here:

When asked about the potential for a ban when it was first floated in November, Emily Shilling, President of SPARTA, stated, “The most immediate impact is that transgender people serve in every theater of the world. If it were a fairly fast-moving ban, you would be pulling these individuals out of their units, leaving critical gaps in skill sets, experience, and leadership positions that you’re just not going to be able to fill with equivalent people anytime soon, especially given the shortfalls in recruiting,”

A transgender officer with years of military experience, speaking anonymously about the rumors of an impending transgender military ban, shared that she had recently spoken with several transgender service members deeply concerned about the possibility. When asked about claims that transgender people are a liability to the military, she dismissed the notion outright, stating, “Every trans service member that I have observed performing their job excels at their job, and that’s because we have to… Every trans sailor, every trans soldier, every trans Marine, and airman that I have known has excelled at their job.”

It remains unclear how swiftly or extensively Defense Secretary Hegseth will implement these changes, how many transgender service members will face discharge, or whether the administration will revert to a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach—forcing transgender personnel back into the closet or demanding their detransition. What is clear, however, is the administration’s framing of being transgender not as an inherent aspect of human diversity but as a dishonorable and incompatible choice. This rhetoric signals a chilling disregard for the thousands of transgender service members who have served with distinction for decades, suggesting the administration feels no obligation to temper its actions with respect or restraint.

Source: Erin Reed, “Trump Military Ban Says Being Trans Conflicts With ‘Honorable, Truthful, Disciplined Lifestyle,” Erin in the Morning, 27 January 2025

Source: Poetry Daily

Within hours of his inauguration, President Trump signed an executive order titled “Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government”, following a whipping up of anti-trans feeling during the US election.

The order states that Trump’s administration will make it “the policy of the United States to recognise two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”

The response from LGBTQ+ groups was dismay and fear. Quoted in the Detroit Free Press, trans woman Rachel Crannell-Crocker remarked that Trump “wants to say we are not real,” while Bobbie Hirsch said “I’m scared, I’m really scared for my future.” Kimberly Frost, co-director of ILGA World, said Trump was “emboldened by anti-gender movements” to “use the lives of trans people as tools to sow divisions in society. Our communities deserve better.”

Trump’s move is not unexpected. During a fraught and divisive election campaign, Republicans spent nearly $215m alone on network TV ads that vilified transgender people, according to recent data from AdImpact. The past few years have seen a rush of anti-trans bills in red states, such as banning changes to birth certificates or defining sex as immutably set at birth. Books featuring LGBTQ+ content have been banned, and drag shows have faced protests and been subject to lurid conspiracy theories by Trump’s far right supporters.

Having spent nearly a decade reporting on far right threats to gender rights, the order’s purpose is clear to me: it sits squarely within the attack on so-called “gender ideology” with the ultimate aim to restore a “natural order” of white male supremacy. And while the target is trans people, the threat goes much wider, potentially laying the groundwork for further attacks on the US’s already degraded abortion rights.

What is gender ideology?

Originating in the mid-1990s in Catholic and other conservative Christian circles, the term “gender ideology” sprung up in response to feminists seeking to place “gender” into a United Nations report on its 1994 women’s conference. Initially the term focused on abortion rights, but quickly expanded to criticise any rights related to gender and sexuality, including LGBTQ+ and trans rights.

As the term gathered momentum, it became framed as a threat to ‘traditional’ – see conservative and Christian nationalist – values. LGBTQ+ activists and feminists were accused of imposing “gender ideology” on everything from schools to families and government, determined to “indoctrinate” children and young people with the “transgender agenda.”

Attacks on “gender ideology” were amplified by conservative writers such as Dale O’Leary who popularised the term in her book Gender Agenda, and picked up by the Vatican, as well as the anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ+ ‘religious freedom’ organisations such as Alliance Defending Freedom and the Heritage Foundation. The right-wing think tank is behind the controversial Project 2025, with ADF on the project’s advisory board.

The project – which brings “together … over 100 respected organizations from across the conservative movement, to take down the Deep State and return the government to the people” – is key to understanding Trump’s move.

Project 2025 published a “Mandate for Leadership”, providing an anti-rights blueprint for the incoming administration. It offered policy ideas to demolish so-called “gender ideology”, demanding that “enforcement of civil rights should be based on a proper understanding of those laws, rejecting gender ideology.” It demanded that “gender ideology” be removed from school curricula and, in language echoed in Trump’s order, warned “radical gender ideology is having a devastating effect on … young girls.”

The project also called on the government to “reverse the DEI [diversity, equality, inclusion] revolution in Labor policy”. Trump’s order did so willingly, revoking previous executive orders that protected against discrimination and stating that government agencies must “take immediate steps to end Federal implementation of unlawful and radical DEI ideology.”

A threat to abortion?

While the executive order is first and foremost a frightening attack on trans people, its wording sets alarm bells ringing for abortion rights, too. It will be no surprise that curtailing abortion rights is a key focus of Project 2025 – the mandate mentions “abortion” 199 times.

Trump’s previous administration created a conservative-majority Supreme Court that overruled Roe vs Wade, opening the door for individual states to implement deadly and devastating abortion bans across the US. Now, the executive order’s wording suggests a wider attack on reproductive rights.

The order defines “female” as meaning “a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell”, while male is defined as “a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.”

As well as being troubling for trans identity, the wording defines male and female foetal personhood from conception. If the foetus is recognised as a person at conception, then that foetus legally has the same rights as a born person, with catastrophic consequences for pregnant women and people. Foetal personhood means a woman can be prosecuted for murder if she has an abortion, as it violates the right to life. She can face manslaughter charges if she has a miscarriage for which she is blamed.

Bethany Van Kampen Saravia, senior legal and policy adviser at the gender rights NGO Ipas, told openDemocracy that “the language used in this cruel and dehumanising executive order is undoubtedly deliberate and deeply flawed on several counts. Simply put, it is outside of the executive authority to declare a fertilized egg a ‘person’ who has constitutionally protected rights.”

This is not a new threat. So far, 24 US states have included foetal personhood language in laws regulating or banning abortion, while 17 states have foetal personhood by law or judicial decision that applies to either criminal or civil law, or both. There have already been multiple cases where women in the States have been criminalised for miscarriage.

“Personhood arguments have long been used by anti-rights actors in attempts to fully ban and criminalize abortion and to punish pregnant people,” warned Van Kampen Saravia. “This language can also ban some forms of birth control and fertility treatments like IVF. This is a clear and deliberate signal of what is to come from this Administration.”

“It is outside of the executive authority of the President to instate a nationwide abortion ban, yet there is much that he can do to limit access to medication abortion and those threats need to be taken seriously,” she added. “Ipas US condemns these egregious acts of hate and bigotry. These executive orders are nothing shy of human rights violations and the world should be paying very close attention now to what is being feigned as ‘defending women’ and who is actually being targeted and criminalized.”

The ideology behind the ‘natural order’

The attacks on abortion and LGBTQ+ rights are often interlinked, as both pose a threat to the far right idea of a ‘natural order’ which has been undermined by feminism and human rights, and must be returned to through reversing social progress and protections.

The idea that there is a ‘natural order’ which needs to be re-established has its roots in fascist ideology, and its intent is found in almost all attacks on gender rights including from Trump, Putin, and anti-gender ideologues in Europe. It valorises male supremacy, female subordination, and declares the non-existence of LGBTQ+ people.

As I write in my book, the existence of trans people is a grave threat to the natural order and its advocates who want to reassert male supremacy and abolish the rights of LGBTQ+ people. The goal of male supremacist, anti-gender movements is to ‘naturalise’ gendered stereotypes about men’s and women’s behaviour and status: they want to naturalise male supremacy and female inferiority.

The far right wants to tie women’s inferiority to biology, and to claim that harmful gendered stereotypes are biologically innate in order to pin women to specific roles in society. These same stereotypes are used to justify women’s oppression: women are just more nurturing, or they are bad at leadership, for example, they should stay in the domestic sphere and leave the public sphere to the boys. The anti-gender movement wants to claim that women’s oppression is natural, rooted in women’s biology, and therefore cannot be challenged.

But biology is not destiny, as the famous feminist slogan states. The ‘natural order’ of female inferiority and male supremacy is disrupted by feminists saying women can have control over their fertility, or LGBTQ+ people saying one can express their gender identity as they choose. They therefore have to be stopped.

This order has nothing to do with “defending women” from “extreme gender ideology.” The extreme gender ideology is the one that tries to push women into oppressive boxes, ban abortion, and seek to abolish the existence of trans people and the LGBTQ+ community more widely.

The extreme gender ideology is the movement that elects a President after a judge in New York found a rape allegation made against him to be “substantially true”. It is the movement that celebrates his election with the slogan “your body, my choice.”

Source: Sian Norris, “Trump’s new anti-trans executive order is a ‘human rights violation’: Trump’s first act in office is part of the global far-right’s war on so-called ‘gender ideology’,” openDemocracy, 23 January 2025

The Russian Reader Reads: Erin in the Morning

This is the second in a series of posts in which I showcase some of the newsletters, blogs, Substacks, and websites — all of them produced by hardworking, passionate lone wolves or tiny, perpetually underfunded grassroots collectives — which inspire me to continue making the Russian Reader and inform me about parts of the world and communities about which otherwise I would be utterly clueless.

Erin Reed describes Erin in the Morning as a place to “stay up to date on all of the most important pieces of trans and queer news and legislation for the week. I summarize it all complete with links to source documents. I hope to distill the information that you get from me in other places like @erininthemorn on TikTok and Twitter into a digest so that you can be sure you didn’t miss anything!”

Ms. Reed’s latest post on Erin in the Morning, endorsing Kamala Harris for U.S. president, could not be timelier, of course. More importantly, as a blogger who has chronicled the Putin’s regime ferocious war on Russia’s LGBT community and their rights, I cannot help but be inspired by Ms. Reed’s fierce, fact-driven defense of the transgender community and their rights in the U.S. I hope you’ll consider subscribing to Erin in the Morning and supporting it financially, as I have done. \\\ TRR

As one of America’s leading transgender journalists, I have reported on the wave of anti-transgender legislation sweeping across the United States over the past four years. These laws impact nearly every aspect of our lives: from using restrooms in peace to accessing essential medical care, from seeing our histories taught in schools to expressing our identities through art at Pride parades. I’ve listened to thousands of hours of testimony on these bills. Facing the 2024 election, I can’t stay silent on the dangers a second Trump term would pose to my community. For the long-term safety and dignity of transgender Americans, I believe there is only one viable path forward: electing Kamala Harris this November.

In some of my earliest reporting on anti-trans laws, many Republican elected officials were less fanatical than they are today. For instance, the first bill banning transgender healthcare in Arkansas was vetoed by Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson. In his veto statement, Gov. Hutchinson described the bill as “overbroad and extreme,” noting that it would “create new standards of legislative interference with physicians and parents.” In early 2022, Republican Gov. Spencer Cox vetoed a sports ban, making an impassioned plea: “I want them to live.” Many anti-trans bills failed early on, failing to gather enough Republican votes. Even Republican-nominated justices crossed party lines to side with Democratic-nominated justices, affirming that transgender individuals deserve protection under the constitution.

But soon after, the party began waging a fear campaign, leaving countless people in my community harmed in the process. I watched as one Republican-controlled statehouse after another, spurred on by far-right Freedom Caucus members, voted to enact some of the most draconian laws targeting transgender individuals ever seen. I listened as members of my community were labeled “dangerous,” “an infection,” and even “demons.” Gov. Cox no longer “wanted us to live,” and instead quietly signed the first bathroom ban to cross his desk.

I have seen transgender people forced to flee anti-trans states, seeking new lives in places where they are protected. Some of my earliest work involved families in Texas with transgender children who were targeted by Attorney General Ken Paxton, accused of child abuse simply for supporting their kids. Soon, other states followed with healthcare bans, bathroom bans, and more. I reported on these bills as families begged their state legislators for dignity, only to be ignored. I then helped these families raise funds, and I’m glad to report that many now lead fulfilling lives as valued members of their new communities.

I am keenly aware of which states transgender people are fleeing—and which ones they are fleeing to. Every state enacting extreme anti-trans laws has either a Republican trifecta or a Republican supermajority. Meanwhile, transgender people are finding refuge in states where Democrats have established safe havens. One of those havens is Minnesota, thanks to Governor Tim Walz. I know people whose lives were saved by his actions—people who can now live authentically and freely, without fear of government persecution.

Erin Reed posted the latest edition of this periodically updated map yesterday. It was not included in her endorsement of Ms. Harris, but I’ve inserted it to show what is at stake in the upcoming election.

I have followed this election cycle intently and was among the first to report that transgender people would be a primary target of Trump’s 2024 campaign. In early 2023, Trump released a video outlining a dozen anti-transgender policies he would enact upon taking office, including national bans on trans care for youth, investigations into hormone therapy manufacturers, probes into affirming teachers, and eliminating funding for schools that treat transgender students with dignity and respect. These policies would take the harmful measures I’ve seen in Republican statehouses and nationalize them.

In 2024, it’s clear that the Trump campaign intends to follow through. If you’ve watched any sporting event or turned on the TV in a battleground state, you’ve seen the culmination of this fear campaign against transgender people, now led by Trump himself. Nearly $100 million in anti-trans ads have blanketed the nation, with Trump spending more on these ads than on immigration, housing, and the economy combined. I have seen what other Republican leaders do when they center their focus on my community, and I know the end results are not pretty.

When Kamala Harris was chosen as the Democratic nominee, I watched her closely. While the Biden administration was not flawless on transgender rights—and I often criticized it for these shortcomings—no federal anti-trans laws passed during his presidency. I reported on the defeat of 50 anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ policy riders as Republicans threatened to shut down the entire government over transgender issues, and Biden did not back down. His nominees have overturned anti-trans laws and policies. Thanks to Biden, I was able to change my passport, even though my home state of Louisiana doesn’t allow birth certificate changes. I wanted to see if Harris would continue that commitment.

I’m convinced she will. One of Harris’s first moves that reassured me was selecting Gov. Tim Walz as her choice for vice president, fully aware of the Republican attacks against him for making Minnesota a safe haven for those fleeing anti-trans laws in other states. Walz, who campaigned on his record of starting his high school’s first Gay-Straight Alliance decades ago, has consistently been at the forefront of supporting LGBTQIA+ people. He brought that commitment with him to the Governor’s office, where he governed with a focus on making the state welcoming and inclusive for all.

Then in the final weeks of the campaign, she and Tim Walz were asked no less than three times about transgender people in interviews with Fox News, NBC, and Glennon Doyle’s podcast. I was encouraged to see Harris stand on her record of supporting transgender people when questioned. She had ample opportunity to throw us under the bus—as some other Democrats have done this campaign cycle—but she did not.

On Fox News, she criticized Trump for spending $20 million on ads targeting our community. On NBC, echoing her stance on abortion, she emphasized that transgender care is a decision to be made between doctors and patients. Her framework mirrored the approach used by many Democrats—and even some Republicans—to successfully push back against anti-trans bills in dozens of states. Meanwhile, that same week, Walz passionately defended transgender youth, stating that Donald Trump was attempting to “demonize a group of people for being who they are” and pledging that the administration would appoint justices committed to protecting our rights.

With over 1,000 bills introduced in the past three years targeting trans and queer people, undoing the harm they’ve caused will require sustained and strategic effort. The path forward depends on nominating justices who can help reverse these laws, while also protecting our rights in cities and states that offer refuge. For those living in oppressive states where their care, bodily autonomy, and right to exist freely have been threatened, we will continue organizing, supporting each other through mutual aid, and building the foundation to dismantle these discriminatory laws for good. The future rights of transgender people depend on electing Harris, uplifting Walz’s leadership, and securing the justices their administration will appoint.

If Trump wins a second term, we could be bound by his justices for an entire generation. Many transgender adults may never see the day when his court no longer controls our right to exist peacefully in public. Project 2025 could become a national reality, turning the same hateful bills and rhetoric shaping statehouses across the country into federal law. Schools could be defunded for allowing transgender youth to use restrooms in peace, and our very existence could be labeled obscene. There may be no return from the harm he intends to inflict on our community.

Transgender people are in a fight for our lives, and we are a powerful voting force, with millions of us across the United States. In an election that could come down to a few thousand votes in key swing states, we have the numbers to make a difference. In states like Georgia and Arizona, the transgender population is four times the size of the previous vote margins. We cannot afford complacency this election cycle. There is a path forward from the harm inflicted by Republican policies championed by Trump—a path that depends on us showing up and casting our votes for Kamala Harris.

Source: Erin Reed, “As A Leading Transgender Journalist, Here’s Why I’m Endorsing Kamala Harris,” Erin in the Morning, 29 October 2024

“We Shall Overcome”: Russia’s New Anti-Transgender Law

The State Duma has been drafting a ban on transgender transition in Russia since spring. Despite the fact that experts and doctors opposed it, the MPs have now passed the law in its second reading.

And it has proven even worse than expected.

The original bill already prohibited all “medical interventions” for transgender transition and changing gender markers in passports and other documents. But the MPs also proposed new restrictions.

Now, according to the draft law, if one spouse changes their gender marker, their marriage will be annulled. In addition, those who have transitioned to another gender will be banned from serving as guardians and adopting children. Depriving them of parental rights is not on the table yet, but the Russian authorities have taken children from trans people in some cases in the past.

Moreover, MPs would ban not only “medical intervention” in the form of surgery, but also hormone therapy.

Finally, the Duma reworded the law on vital records. Previously, it was possible to amend a passport using a sex-change certificate issued by doctors. Official documents can now be amended if the individual provides a medical report “on the correspondence of [their] sexual characteristics with the characteristics of a particular sex.”

Although the bill has not yet been adopted into law, it is already causing trouble for transgender people. Robert Lebedev, a transgender man, told Bumaga, citing his own acquaintances, that civil registry offices in Moscow had been delaying issuing new documents to transgender people for longer than the month prescribed due to an “order from above.” And yet, the draft law does not even prescribe penalties for doctors or civil servants who violate the ban on assisting a person with transgender transition and gender marker change.

The bill’s co-sponsor, Pyotr Tolstoy, argues that “the western transgender industry is trying to infiltrate our country,” and Russia’s “cultural and family values” must be preserved.

Even before the adoption of the law, transgender people faced endless humiliation and persecution. The new law will give the security forces a free hand and effectively outlaw an entire group of citizens.

Source: “State Duma decides to turn lives of transgender people into hell,” I Don’t Get It newsletter (Mediazona), 13 July 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader

We shall overcome

On this dark day, when we find ourselves at rock bottom, I want to scream with rage and impotence. While voicing emotions is vital, I’m also trying to find a foothold—in myself, in others, in my own experience….

I have nothing but a profound belief that this night of total obscurantism, injustice, and hatred will end one day, and hopefully sooner rather than later. I am overwhelmed with feelings of love and admiration for the trans activists to whom life has introduced me during my ten-plus years in activism. I didn’t always say these feelings out loud.

We started working hand in hand when I didn’t know a single open trans person in my own circle yet. Gradually, I was surrounded by more and more trans people, who did a lot of cool, useful and, sometimes, fantastic things.

I befriend trans people and even became romantically involved with them. Over the years, trans initiatives and trans people have truly accomplished a great deal. It’s no exaggeration to say that they have become the vanguard of the Russian LGBT+ movement.

I learned about the difficulties they face and about ways to help them. I still appreciate the patience, tact, determination, and dignity with which I was corrected when I made mistakes myself, or when mistakes were made in the communities I moderated.

Things became visible that I, a cisgender person, simply had not noticed before: sniggering and transphobic “jokes” at passport control at the airport, misgendering, violence, rejection at home, discrimination at work, sexual exploitation, increased risk of suicide, etc. Interacting with trans people also helped me to understand the narrowness of the binary gender framework and my own gender nonconformity, despite the fact that I consider myself a man.

Further immersion in the topic, collaborations, and a desire to contribute in this area led to the creation of the project Transformation on trans people in the Russian prison system. At the same time, we tried not to speak for trans people. Instead, we delivered their own stories about their prison experience and commentary by experts, among whom there were also trans people. We plan to continue, realizing that it is a long-term job, although the new law will make this work more complicated, apparently.

Again and again I listen to the song “We Shall Overcome,” the anthem of the movement for the rights of African Americans. In new, difficult circumstances, the importance of mutual support, assistance, unification, and finding non-standard channels increases.

I believe in the power of the LGBT+ community’s solidarity in the face of difficulties. Fear and feeling powerlessness are understandable emotions. But it’s important to move on and fight the consequences [of this law].

The song ends with these words:

We are not afraid,

We are not afraid today.

For deep in my heart

I do believe:

We shall overcome someday!

The photo, above, from his personal archive, shows the author during the campaign against transphobic legislation in St. Petersburg, with a view of Trinity Bridge in the background.

Source: Alexei Sergeyev (Facebook), 13 July 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader