Resource mobilisation and Russian LGBT activism

ABSTRACT

The paper explores the role of resources in LGBT activism in Russia. Russian LGBT activism emerged and developed after the fall of the Soviet Union with activists engaging in various activities such as organisation of cultural festivals, publication of press, litigation, and organisation of street events. However, the state’s pressure and negative public attitudes that intensified in the country in recent years make the work of LGBT activists increasingly complicated. The paper analyses Russian LGBT activism through a prism of social movement theories to examine resources available to Russian LGBT activists.

KEYWORDS:

• Social movements
• human rights
• sexuality
• sexual identity
• homophobia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Radzhana Buyantueva holds PhD in Politics from the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at Newcastle University, UK.

Notes

1 It is worth mentioning that “LGBT” is a relatively recently adopted term in Russia. The first activists of the early 1990s, for example, used the term “sexual minorities” as an umbrella term to embrace non-heteronormative sexualities (Nemtsev 2008). Now, the term “LGBT” is widely employed by LGBT activists, the media, political and religious elite, and homophobic activists. A detailed discussion on sexual identities of non-heteronormative Russians could be found in the works of Essig (1999) and Stella (2015). The paper uses the term “LGBT” since, according to the empirical findings, Russian activists choose this term when referring to their work. The term “LGBT activists” employed in the paper includes lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender activists as well as heterosexual activists supporting LGBT rights.

2 The federal law, adopted on June 29, 2013, restricts information on LGBT topics that could be potentially accessed by children. The laws banning information on LGBT-related topics that might be accessible to children were adopted on the regional level first: Ryazan in 2006, Arkhangelsk in 2011, Saint Petersburg in 2012, Kostroma in 2012, Novosibirsk in 2012, Magadan in 2012, Samara in 2012, Krasnodar in 2012, Bashkortostan in 2012, Chukotsk in 2013, Irkutsk in 2013, and Kaliningrad in 2013.

3 The concept of abeyance was offered by Verta Taylor (1989, 1997) to examine how social movement organisations sustain themselves in the context of increasing repression and other negative developments. To preserve themselves, they choose certain unthreatening to the state tactics and strategies (i.e. organisations of cultural events). Taylor (1989) identifies three routes for the sustainability of organisations: networks maintenance, development of collective identity, and sustaining and developing tactics and goals. This way, they may sustain their human resources (however minimal) that might be potentially involved in activism in the future. Taylor's concept is limited to only formal organisations, however. It might apply to the Russian case with certain concessions since Russian LGBT activism is less institutionalised and based more on activists’ networks.

4 As a large-scale phenomenon, Gulag left a prominent mark on Soviet society. At its peak in the 1950s, its camps contained as many as five million prisoners (Barnes 2011). Inevitably, former Gulag prisoners and their negative views on same-sex relations greatly affected public attitudes towards LGBT people (Healey 2018).

5 It has been argued (Healey 2018; Kon 1997) that the adoption of democratic ideals, the intent to take up democratic policy changes to prevent the return of the Communist rule, and the aspiration to join the Council of Europe were the likely causes for the decriminalisation of homosexuality.

6 Vitaliy Milonov is a member of the State Duma, a member of the United Russia party, a nationalist and Orthodox politician, backer of the 2012 Saint Petersburg law banning “homosexual propaganda” to children.

7 Recognising the Internet’s importance for activism, the state consistently introduced certain policies to suppress the exchange of opposing opinions and organisation of public events:

• “The Yarovaya laws” that require web companies to store users' personal and communication data in the Russian territory and disclose it to the authorities without a court order

• “The blacklist law” that allows the authorities to block websites containing harmful to children information without a court order

Among other tactics to control online media, the authorities intimidated and harassed website owners, bloggers, and activists to remove information posted online. For example, in response to 2011 protests against election fraud (the majority of which were organised through Vkontakte social network), the FSB demanded Vkontakte owner Pavel Durov to remove over 130 activists’ groups from the website (Asmolov 2011). After his refusal to do so, the pro-governmental media group Mail.ru took over Vkontakte and Durov was forced to leave the country (Walker 2014).

8 As of January 2020, LGBT activist Yulia Tsvetkova was accused of LGBT propaganda and pornography for the educational project “Woman is not a doll” and for posting sex educational pictures on Vkontakte social network (Merkur’eva 2020). Transgender woman Michelle was sentenced to three years in prison in November 2019 for posting anime pictures on Vkontakte. The authorities define Michelle’s gender by her official documents (male). She would likely be forced into the male prison, which is quite dangerous for her (Mikisha 2019).

9 In January 2019, Russian LGBT activists reported that the persecution of LGBT people continued becoming more violent. Over 150 people were evacuated from the region to escape the abuse (Russian LGBT Network 2019).

10 Rainbow flash mobs were the most popular flash mobs among Russian LGBT people organised on an annual basis since 2009. The German LGBT organisation Quarteera introduced that event, which involved releasing colourful balloons on May 17 (the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia).

11 Since the early 2010s, the state steadily introduced policies to control and limit civil society. Such policies include, for example, “the foreign agents law” that requires politically active NGOs receiving foreign funding to register as foreign agents, which involves severe fines and complicates receiving further funding.