Russian Law Isolates Gay Teenagers
Friday, March 29, 2024

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Fireworks explode above St Basil's cathedral during the Spasskaya Tower international military and music Festival on the Red Square in Moscow on September 1, 2013. That incident led to the creation of Deti-404, pages on Facebook and a similar Russian site called Vkontakte where teenagers can share their stories. Deti means children and 404 refers to "page not found" on Internet searches.

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"They have a very difficult life," Klimova said. "They're afraid to go to school psychologists because if they do, the psychologists call the parents and there are scenes and quarrels at home. Some parents ban their children from talking about it. They take away their cellphones and order them to stay away from their girlfriend or boyfriend. They threaten to send their kids to psychiatric hospitals, and sometimes do."

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While the law has done damage, Klimova said, it has also made her and others speak up. "I don't want to live in a country where a particular group is persecuted," she said.  Ivan Simochkin, a freelance Web site designer in Moscow, helped Klimova develop Deti-404, refusing to worry about whether he could be accused of breaking the law. Fines for violating the law begin at $125, but those who break it using the Internet can be fined up to $3,000.  Simochkin, who began supporting gay rights when a friend opened his eyes to the widespread discrimination, worries that teachers have been put in an impossible situation. "Homophobes have been given the signal that it's okay to persecute gays," he said, "and those who might help them are afraid to do so."

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All LGBT teenagers share two big problems here, Klimova said: isolation and parents who can't accept them. Deti-404 has already helped with the first, she said, but transforming parents will take years. "You have to change the whole society," she said.  Maxim has been an enthusiastic contributor to Deti-404. "I decided I should be an activist," he said. "I want to explain to people who don't understand about homosexuality."  Though Russia repealed a law making homosexuality a criminal offense in 1993, four years before he was born, attitudes inherited from Soviet times prevail today. A national poll by the independent Levada Center in April found that nearly 80 percent of respondents attributed homosexuality to disease, psychological trauma or immorality.  In the Soviet Union, gay men and lesbians could be sent to prison or forced to undergo medical treatment. Sitting in a sunlit Moscow park, under the baleful gaze of a large statue of Lenin, Maxim recalled how classmates called him names and threatened him after he revealed he was gay. Teachers ignored his situation, except for one who picked up scissors and tried to cut his longish bangs. Some kids asked why he became gay. "I didn't become gay," he told them. "I was born gay." His grandmother has come to accept him, but she hasn't heard about the law and he hasn't told her, sparing her worry.  Only one person knew that Svetlana was gay when she wrote to Deti-404, a Russian support group for lesbian teenagers. In her letter, the 16-year-old described a life of hiding her sexuality in a small town in central Russia where a man had been killed for being a homosexual. "I am scared that they will find out about me and lynch me. Sometimes I want to cry out: 'Accept me for who I am! Or at least be tolerant of me,'" she wrote.  Deti-404, which takes its name from the error page that appears when a Web site does not exist, was set up by Lena Klimova, 25, after she wrote an article about the plight of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) teenagers. She had no plans to do anything further, but then she got a letter from Nadya, 15. "Nadya was hounded at school, her mother didn't support her," said Klimova. "She decided to die, accidentally read my article and didn't do it." After Klimova had spoken to Nadya by telephone and understood the depths of her despair, she asked herself: "Why does nobody ring alarm bells, not scream, not shout about it on every corner?"  "Many of them close in on themselves, they don't tell anyone. They are scared of parents and classmates," she added. "If they open up, parents sometimes beat them, insult them, throw them out, take away their phones, ban them from going on the Internet and even lock them up in a psychiatric clinic." The small support group is one of the few for young gay people in Russia. It would also seem to be exactly the thing that the controversial anti-gay law passed by the Russian parliament wishes to crack down on. The law bans the dissemination of "propaganda of non-traditional sexual orientation" towards under-18s and imposes fines on anyone convicted.

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The legislation has caused an outcry in the west, leading British actor and writer Stephen Fry to compare the situation of gays and lesbians in Russia to that of Jews in Nazi Germany. In an open letter to British prime minister, David Cameron, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Fry called for the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi next year to be taken away from Russia. But the prime minister, in a Twitter reply, said he thought prejudice was better challenged by attending the games rather than a boycott. Last week the IOC obtained assurances from the Kremlin that competing athletes would not be affected by the law. But for Russia's LGBT community, the latest move has simply ratcheted up the pressure still further.

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When she set up the group, Klimova surveyed 115 LGBT teenagers all over Russia, creating a closed forum for the teens to interact. Her survey showed that a number had thought of suicide. Fewer than half had come out to their parents. "It is only on the internet that they can find somebody to speak to," she said. "The feeling that most of these children feel is constant fear."

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A number of the teens' letters are shown on the Deti-404 page, with pictures of the authors with their faces with black stripes on them so no one can recognize them. When a teenager gets in touch, if needed Klimova helps them speak to a sensitive psychologist. "I tell practically all of them that they are needed, unique and invaluable. I am not pretending. It is true," she said.  Teenagers in smaller towns — where there is unlikely to be a gay scene or few, if any, openly out people — have it the hardest. "Our school is considered progressive, but it is quite normal for teachers to say that homosexuals will burn in hell," wrote one 16-year-old from a small town "which isn't even on the map".

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The law set off vociferous criticism of Russia around the world, along with debates about boycotting vodka and even the Sochi Winter Olympics. President Obama made hisdisapproval clear on Jay Leno's "Tonight Show." Those rebukes have little resonance here, where the law is widely supported and where gays and lesbians feel the landscape has grown more dangerous than ever for them.   "You can't impose homosexuality on anyone," Maxim said, "but you can easily impose homophobia."


Click Here for More Information on Russia's Anti-Gay Laws

and the International Protest Against this Blunt Violation of Human Rights