As of today, teachers and teachers-psychologists are not allowed to speak positively. As one mental health provider explained, “The whole situation is just worsening. It looks at their everyday experiences in schools, homes, and in public, and their ability to access reliable and accurate information about themselves as well as counseling and other support services. This report-based largely on interviews with LGBT youth and mental health professionals in diverse locations in Russia, including urban and rural areas-documents the situation of LGBT youth there today. As the European Court of Human Rights concluded in 2017, the law reflects and reinforces “predisposed bias, unambiguously highlighted by its domestic interpretation and enforcement.” And while Russian government officials and parliament members claim that the goal of the “gay propaganda” law is to protect children from potentially harmful subject matter, the law in fact directly harms children by denying them access to essential information and increasing stigma against LGBT youth and their families. Given the already deeply hostile climate for LGBT people in Russia when the law was passed, it is not surprising that its passage coincided with an uptick in often-gruesome vigilante violence against LGBT people in Russia-frequently carried out in the name of protecting Russian values and Russia’s children. Significantly, mental health providers we spoke with said the law interferes with their ability to offer honest, scientifically accurate, and open counseling services, leading some to self-censor themselves or set out explicit disclaimers at the start of sessions to avoid running afoul of the law. But the law’s effects have been much broader: individual mental health professionals have curtailed what they say and what support they give to students, and the law gives the strong imprimatur of the Russian state to the false and discriminatory view that LGBT people are a threat to tradition and the family.
The law has been used to shut down websites that provide valuable information and services to teens across Russia and to bar LGBT support groups from working with youth. The ban includes, but is not limited to, information provided via the press, television, radio, and the internet. And on the international stage, the law helped position Russia as a champion of so-called “traditional values.” The legislation, formally titled the law “aimed at protecting children from information promoting the denial of traditional family values,” bans the “promotion of nontraditional sexual relations to minors”-a reference universally understood to mean a ban on providing children access to information about LGBT people’s lives.
When Russian president Vladimir Putin signed the federal law in June 2013, he pandered to a conservative domestic support base. It targets vulnerable sexual and gender minorities for political gain. Russia’s “gay propaganda” law is a classic example of political homophobia. The law has also had a stifling effect on access to affirming education and support services, with harmful consequences for LGBT youth. In Russia, antipathy towards homosexuality and gender variance is not new-LGBT people there have long faced threats, bullying, abuse inside their families, and discrimination-but the 2013 “gay propaganda” law has increased that social hostility. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth in Russia face formidable barriers to enjoying their fundamental rights to dignity, health, education, information, and association.