National
Activist: Russia LGBT rights record continues to deteriorate
Tarya Polvakova arrested last month in Moscow’s Red Square
Tarya Polyakova (Photo courtesy of Tarya Polyakova)
A Russian activist earlier this week said the Kremlin’s LGBT rights record has continued to deteriorate since the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi ended.
Tarya Polyakova – a journalist and human rights advocate who is a member of a prisoners rights organization that Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina of Pussy Riot founded – said during a conference call with reporters on March 19 that authorities recently charged the founder of an LGBT youth group under the country’s law that bans gay propaganda to minors.
They later dropped them.
“She thinks that this was pure luck,” said Polyakova.
Polyakova said a student who was recently attacked at school was beaten up by her parents after Russian child protective services told them she is a lesbian. The advocate further noted her friend last week lost her job after her boss discovered on her Facebook page that she was dating another woman.
“With this piece of legislation, our government basically gave [its] consent to treat people based on their personal characteristics, not on their criminal behavior,” said Polyakova, “and allow any homophobe out there to attack anyone who dares to come out as a gay person.”
Polyakova is among the 10 LGBT rights advocates police arrested in Moscow’s Red Square on Feb. 7 just before the Olympics’ opening ceremony as they tried to sing the Russian national anthem while holding rainbow flags. She said they remained in a local police station for several hours – and officers beat some of the advocates while in custody.
“The police were filming us on their mobile phones the whole time we were sitting in that cage like we were some sort of animals in a zoo,” said Polyakova.
Polyakova and the nine other LGBT rights advocates arrested in Red Square were scheduled to go on trial on Feb. 19 for unauthorized public assembly and incorrectly singing the Russian national anthem. Prosecutors have delayed their court appearance.
“I won’t be surprised if they charge me with treason or something,” said Polyakova. “This is Russia.”
Polyakova said several of her friends who participated in protests against Russia’s possible incursion into Ukraine and the annexation of the country’s Crimea region were taken into custody earlier this month. She said they spent two days in jail before they were “immediately dragged to court” and given 10 day sentences – they were released from detention earlier this week.
“All the LGBT activists are really concerned about the conflict in Crimea and we’re really standing up against war and military intervention in Ukraine,” Polyakova told the Washington Blade in response to a question about whether the ongoing conflict has worsened the Kremlin’s LGBT rights crackdown. “They cut us down when we try to raise our voices, but now we [have] temporarily stopped because we were charged.”
Russian LGBT rights advocates with whom the Blade spoke before and during the Olympics expressed concern their U.S. and European counterparts will no longer pay attention to their plight after the games end.
Retired Olympic diver Greg Louganis and the more than 300 others who participated in the Russian Open Games in Moscow that ended on March 2 faced bomb threats and other efforts that sought to disrupt the event. Shawn Gaylord of Human Rights First, who traveled to Sochi last month with gay Olympian David Pichler, said his organization continues to anticipate the reintroduction of a proposal in the Russian Duma that would allow authorities to take children away from their LGBT parents.
Lithuanian parliamentarians last week postponed the final vote on a bill that would have imposed fines on those who denigrate the “constitutional value of family life.” Lawmakers in neighboring Latvia and Kyrgyzstan have also proposed measures similar to the propaganda law that Russian President Vladimir Putin signed last June.
“It is really important that we don’t keep our eyes off of Russia and the LGBT community there,” said Gaylord.
Pichler and Gaylord during the conference call also discussed efforts in support of the campaign that urges the International Olympic Committee to add sexual orientation to the Olympic charter’s non-discrimination clause. They said the Obama administration and members of Congress are among those who have endorsed the effort.
Pichler added he feels the IOC should also take into account a potential host country’s LGBT rights record during the selection process.
“They should need to look into places when these issues come up and should never have an Olympic games in a location like this,” he said as he discussed Russia.
The conference call took place two days after President Obama issued an executive order authorizing U.S. officials to freeze the American assets of Yelena Mizulina, a state Duma deputy who sponsored the propaganda bill, and six other Russian officials over their country’s incursion into Ukraine that includes the annexation of Crimea.
The anti-gay lawmaker on Twitter said the White House’s decision to sanction her is revenge over the propaganda bill she introduced. Polyakova said another female member of the Duma announced she will support Mizulina and nobody is “going to back down on this law.”
“Regardless of the reason that she ended up on this list, we obviously think if the U.S. is going to respond to human rights concerns that we’re glad that she’s among the people who are facing this kind of response, regardless of how it may have come about,” said Gaylord.
U.S. Federal Courts
Federal judge blocks Trump passport executive order
State Department can no longer issue travel documents with ‘X’ gender markers
A federal judge on Friday ruled in favor of a group of transgender and nonbinary people who have filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s executive order that bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers.
The Associated Press notes U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick in Boston issued a preliminary injunction against the directive. The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the plaintiffs, in a press release notes Kobick concluded Trump’s executive order “is likely unconstitutional and in violation of the law.”
“The preliminary injunction requires the State Department to allow six transgender and nonbinary people to obtain passports with sex designations consistent with their gender identity while the lawsuit proceeds,” notes the ACLU. “Though today’s court order applies only to six of the plaintiffs in the case, the plaintiffs plan to quickly file a motion asking the court to certify a class of people affected by the State Department policy and to extend the preliminary injunction to that entire class.”
Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June 2021 announced the State Department would begin to issue gender-neutral passports and documents for American citizens who were born overseas.
Dana Zzyym, an intersex U.S. Navy veteran who identifies as nonbinary, in 2015 filed a federal lawsuit against the State Department after it denied their application for a passport with an “X” gender marker. Zzyym in October 2021 received the first gender-neutral American passport.
The State Department policy took effect on April 11, 2022. Trump signed his executive order shortly after he took office in January.
Germany, Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands are among the countries that have issued travel advisories for trans and nonbinary people who plan to visit the U.S.
“This ruling affirms the inherent dignity of our clients, acknowledging the immediate and profound negative impact that the Trump administration’s passport policy would have on their ability to travel for work, school, and family,” said ACLU of Massachusetts Legal Director Jessie Rossman after Kobick issued her ruling.
“By forcing people to carry documents that directly contradict their identities, the Trump administration is attacking the very foundations of our right to privacy and the freedom to be ourselves,” added Rossman. “We will continue to fight to rescind this unlawful policy for everyone so that no one is placed in this untenable and unsafe position.”
State Department
HIV/AIDS activists protest at State Department, demand full PEPFAR funding restoration
Black coffins placed in front of Harry S. Truman Building
Dozens of HIV/AIDS activists on Thursday gathered in front of the State Department and demanded the Trump-Vance administration fully restore President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief funding.
Housing Works CEO Charles King, Health GAP Executive Director Asia Russell, Human Rights Campaign Senior Public Policy Advocate Matthew Rose, and others placed 206 black Styrofoam coffins in front of the State Department before the protest began.
King said more than an estimated 100,000 people with HIV/AIDS will die this year if PEPFAR funding is not fully restored.
“If we continue to not provide the PEPFAR funding to people living in low-income countries who are living with HIV or at risk, we are going to see millions and millions of deaths as well as millions of new infections,” added King.
Then-President George W. Bush in 2003 signed legislation that created PEPFAR.
The Trump-Vance administration in January froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for at least 90 days. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later issued a waiver that allows the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS relief and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the freeze.
The Washington Blade has previously reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down because of a lack of U.S. funding. Two South African organizations — OUT LGBT Well-being and Access Chapter 2 — that received PEPFAR funding through the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in recent weeks closed down HIV-prevention programs and other services to men who have sex with men.
Rubio last month said 83 percent of USAID contracts have been cancelled. He noted the State Department will administer those that remain in place “more effectively.”
“PEPFAR represents the best of us, the dignity of our country, of our people, of our shared humanity,” said Rose.
Russell described Rubio as “ignorant and incompetent” and said “he should be fired.”
“What secretary of state in 90 days could dismantle what the brilliance of AIDS activism created side-by-side with George W. Bush? What kind of fool could do that? I’ll tell you who, the boss who sits in the Harry S. Truman Building, Marco Rubio,” said Russell.
U.S. Military/Pentagon
Pentagon urged to reverse Naval Academy book ban
Hundreds of titles discussing race, gender, and sexuality pulled from library shelves
Lambda Legal and the Legal Defense Fund issued a letter on Tuesday urging U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to reverse course on a policy that led to the removal of 381 books from the Nimitz Library of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
Pursuant to President Donald Trump’s executive order 14190, “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” the institution screened 900 titles to identify works promoting “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” removing those that concerned or touched upon “topics pertaining to the experiences of people of color, especially Black people, and/or LGBTQ people,” according to a press release from the civil rights organizations.
These included “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou, “Stone Fruit” by Lee Lai, “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas, “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong” by James W. Loewen, “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe, and “Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul” by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.
The groups further noted that “the collection retained other books with messages and themes that privilege certain races and religions over others, including ‘The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan’ by Thomas Dixon, Jr., ‘Mein Kampf’ by Adolf Hitler, and ‘Heart of Darkness’ by Joseph Conrad.
In their letter, Lambda Legal and LDF argued the books must be returned to circulation to preserve the “constitutional rights” of cadets at the institution, warning of the “danger” that comes with “censoring materials based on viewpoints disfavored by the current administration.”
“Such censorship is especially dangerous in an educational setting, where critical inquiry, intellectual diversity, and exposure to a wide array of perspectives are necessary to educate future citizen-leaders,” Lambda Legal Chief Legal Officer Jennifer C. Pizer and LDF Director of Strategic Initiatives Jin Hee Lee said in the press release.
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