On November 30, the Russian Supreme Court declared the “international social movement LGTBI” “extremist”, which left the way for the persecution of members of the group. Putin defends that his country is fighting against Western colonialism which, through the acceptance of sexual and gender diversities, aims to put an end to Russian culture.
“They want to destroy our traditional values ??and impose their false values ??(…), which lead directly to degradation and degeneration, because they are contrary to human nature,” the Russian president had already declared in a televised message in the which announced the invasion of Ukraine.
The idea that LGTBI groups threaten those who want to live in a traditional way has become a constant among ultra-conservative and religious groups across Europe. But as we move to the east of the continent, these discourses gain visibility and the rights of the LGTBI group decrease, even in countries that are members of the Union, which causes conflicts with European institutions.
In 2022, the Court of Justice of the EU initiated infringement proceedings against Hungary for a law that prohibits showing LGTBI content to under-18s. At the beginning of the year, Lithuania was sanctioned by the European Court of Human Rights after having censored a children’s book with homosexual characters.
Anastàsia Smirnova, director of programs at Ilga-Europe, an organization that has made a map of Europe that classifies countries according to the legal protection of the LGBTI group, spoke to La Vanguardia. “There are countries like Georgia that appear in yellow, which indicates correct legislation, but where hate crimes have increased and often go unpunished,” says Anastasia.
“On the other hand, in other countries such as Hungary or Poland, which are usually considered the worst examples, there is growing acceptance in public opinion of the activity of LGTBI associations”, he adds.
In recent years, Eastern countries have been the European epicenter of attacks on the LGBTI community. At the 2022 Bucharest Pride march, a person threw gas bombs, and in another Romanian city protesters were showered with eggs by ultra-conservative religious attackers. In October 2021, a Bulgarian presidential candidate was involved in an attack on an LGBTI center in Sofia, in which a staff member was attacked and furniture and electronics were smashed. That same year, the headquarters of the Pride organizers in Tbilisi, Georgia, was ransacked by far-right militants. In Bratislava, an attack on a gay bar claimed the life of a young man in October last year.
Poland set off all the alarms when, in 2019, more than a hundred localities declared themselves “LGTBI ideology-free zones”, which led the European Commission to initiate an infringement procedure. The increase in hostility against LGBTI people was closely linked to the Government of the ultra-conservative Law and Justice party, which after eight years in power has just been ousted by Donald Tusk’s progressive coalition.
For the sociologist El?bieta Korolczuk, the Polish case is an example of how a right-wing populist party manages to expand its support by adopting an “anti-gender” discourse. “Viktor Orban in Hungary or Putin since 2013 have used this type of speech to consolidate their support”, he explains to La Vanguardia. He defends that the alliance between right-wing parties and anti-gender movements has been “one of the keys to the spread of LGTBI hatred”.
“In the countries of Eastern Europe, homophobia and transphobia have reached a higher level because our democracies are weaker,” says Korolczuk. “In Sweden or Germany we have seen similar trends, but the institutions are much more stable and this has stopped a situation like the one in Poland from happening”, adds the sociologist.
The good news is that the European population is becoming more tolerant. In Poland, the acceptance of the LGBTI community has reached its highest point in the last eight years.
But Korolczuk says this growing rejection of homophobia is leading right-wing populist parties to change strategy and redirect the discourse to other issues such as migration: “Now the right is using claims of an agenda of progressive gender to promote anti-migration and Islamophobic policies”.
