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Gela Gogishvili and Haoyang Xu led a happy life as a gay couple in Russia, even as President Vladimir Putin’s government took an increasingly anti-LGBTQ+ stance.
Their social media posts and videos drew thousands of followers, and they were greeted by them sometimes on the streets in Kazan, in Russia’s Tatarstan region, where Gogishvili was a pharmacist and Xu, from China, studied international relations at a university.
But the online threats began after the Kremlin in December 2022 expanded its ban of “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” from minors to adults, effectively outlawing any public endorsement of LGBTQ+ activities. Then came the complaints about them to authorities.
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They were detained in 2023 and accused of spreading “LGBT propaganda” among minors. Gogishvili was given a hefty fine, while Xu was put in a detention center for migrants to await deportation.
They eventually fled abroad separately. Now reunited in France, where they’re seeking asylum, they look with concern at Russia, where new, even harsher anti-LGBTQ+ measures have been adopted.
Just over a year ago, Russia’s Supreme Court effectively outlawed any LGBTQ+ activism in a ruling that designated “the international LGBT movement” as extremist. The move exposed anyone in the community or connected to it to criminal prosecution and prison, ushering in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.
“I’m scared for the queer community in Russia that remains in the country,” Gogishvili told The Associated Press.
That community in Russia has been under legal and public pressure for over a decade but especially since the Kremlin sent troops to Ukraine in 2022. Putin has argued that the war is a proxy battle with the West, which he says aims to destroy Russia and its “traditional family values” by pushing for LGBTQ+ rights.
Putin insists Russia isn’t discriminating against LGBTQ+ people, but he also decries “perversions that lead to degradation and extinction.” Parliament Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin last year called gender transitioning “pure satanism” and “diabolical policy” that should stay in the U.S.
Any public representation of gay and transgender people is banned. Gender-affirming medical care and changing one’s gender in official documents are prohibited. With the Supreme Court’s ruling in November 2023, anyone involved with the LGBTQ+ community could be imprisoned for up to six years.
As a result, many left the country. But others remain -– and find themselves in a community pushed into the shadows, marginalized even further and dogged by fear of repression.
“Six years, it’s not a joke,” Olga Baranova, head of the Moscow Community Center for LGBT+ Initiatives, said in an interview from outside Russia. “‘What is worth me going to prison for six years?’ Every person who’s doing something right now (in LGBTQ+ activism in Russia) has to answer this question these days.”
