Tomorrow, November 30th in Russia, the abbreviation LGBT, which, it should be noted, has long been outdated (I prefer to say queer and trans people), will be declared an extremist organization (which has never existed until today). Many human rights activists agree: this will be followed by repression against activists and NGOs. Loyal authorities will leave queer people free, but transgender people, after the adoption of a transphobic law in the summer of 2023, do not exist as such for the Russian state. The rainbow flag, which in my opinion is non-inclusive and outdated, will become banned symbolism.

The idea of banning LGBT is based not only on the idea of an invisible Western hand, which controls an amoral army of agents seeking to reduce the country’s demographic indicators, but also on the myth of a homophobic and transphobic consensus in Russian society. The law on propaganda among minors adopted in 2013 was supposed to respond to this public demand to protect traditional values, invented in the 1930s. But after the adoption of this law, strangely enough, the idea of queer education did not disappear, but on the contrary experienced an unexpected renaissance. The era of permissible culture, which began on February 26, 2012 (Pussy Riot case) and ended on February 24, 2022, gave Russia new human rights NGOs with modern views on sexuality and gender, new representation of queer and trans people in the media. It must be said that even before 2013, the theme of queer and trans people was not very developed on Russian television (several episodes of «Pro Eto,» «Pust Goroyat,» the series «Will & Grace» on Ren-TV, «Modern Family» in the late-night air of Channel One, dirty jokes in KVN and Comedy Club, transwoman Erika Kisheva and open bisexual Rustam Solntsev in Dom-2 (most popular reality). Thanks to the availability of the internet and social networks, a new generation of flexible and non-conforming people on gender and sexuality has grown. Mainstream foreign series on streaming platforms have introduced leading queer characters, YouTube shows have started to be produced and TikTok trends have been created, queer Instagram bloggers who have started participating in cosmetic brand advertising campaigns. Specialized publishers have opened up, fiction and non-fiction works by gender researchers and philosophers have started to be translated into major publishing houses. Russian authors and researchers have appeared, universities have begun to study queer theory and gender studies. Rupaul’s Drag Race was extremely popular among teenagers and zoomers, a show about drag queen competitions that enriched the Russian drag scene with new talented artists. Extremely popular blogger Nastya Ivleeva even attempted to shoot her own version, noting in her explanation that she «does not promote anything (propaganda).» In 2013, as a protest against the queerphobic law, a whole gay issue of Afisha magazine was released, queer-media «Otkrytye» appeared, and educational shows and podcasts such as Gender Blender, Raduzhny, Gay Propaganda emerged. Hundreds of Russian Onlyfans models (porn actors) emerged, the Russian-speaking Twitter turned into a queer dating network, a huge ballroom scene grew inspired by the Black and Latinx american trans community, a whole youth subculture based on the idea of the absence of binary gender oppositions appeared on TikTok. Over the years of the first «propaganda» law, the amount of quality information on queer and trans people on the internet has sharply increased.

Over the past 2 years of full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian government has managed to almost destroy all of this. As it seems to me, the idea of ​​destroying everything related to queer and trans people is based on a principle that is adhered to not only by the Russian authorities, but also by most political forces around the world — the principle of the obligatory public consensus on granting equal rights to these queer and trans people — the ability to adopt children and enter into marriages, change gender markers in documents, and receive medical assistance. Queer and trans people themselves are not independent, immature, their difficult fate is caused only by the consequences of their own wrong decisions, for which responsibility again falls on the shoulders of the mature heteronormative majority. This majority, which calls itself society, delegates guardianship to authorities, the right to control incorrect bodies, limit them, and direct them. And here we return to my first thesis, LGBT does not exist, there is only queer and trans, and they are a priori beyond systems, therefore they do not have properties that allow their bodies to be tamed and controlled. Queer and trans identities are an indestructible virus that will disappear only with humanity itself, they cannot be detected, they cannot be fully realized within oneself, they cannot be described and explored in detail. They are everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

*LGBT movement recognized as extremist in Russia

*LGBT movement recognized as extremist in Russia

*♪ LGBT movement has been recognized as extremist in Russia ♪

*LGBT movement recognized as extremist in Russia