Police raid Moscow gay bars after a Supreme Court ruling labeled LGBTQ+ movement ‘extremist’
apnews.com
Russian security forces raided gay clubs and bars across Moscow Friday night, less than 48 hours after the country’s top court banned what it called the “global LGBTQ+ movement” as an extremist organization.
Police searched venues across the Russian capital, including a nightclub, a male sauna, and a bar that hosted LGBTQ+ parties, under the pretext of a drug raid, local media reported.
Eyewitnesses told journalists that clubgoers’ documents were checked and photographed by the security services. They also said that managers had been able to warn patrons before police arrived.
To everyone cracking jokes about a gay uprising, it's a lot simpler than any of that.
They just want to exterminate the gays. Like literally. They want to find that portion of the population and destroy it, because they think it's disgusting and evil.
That's it. Putin and the Russian conservatives are going after gays because it's an easy win with their conservative base, and they can claim moral superiority. Also distracts from Ukraine.
If you are gay in Russia... Its a very bad time to be gay in Russia.
American "conservatives" are over here drooling at the possibilities.
Florida here checking in.
Our government is hard at work on this.
Check out this pending bill up for vote during the next session: https://m.flsenate.gov/session/bill/2024/599/billtext/filed/pdf https://m.flsenate.gov/session/bill/2024/599/billtext/filed/pdf
Essentially it makes it illegal to be transgender and have a job in government or government adjacent.
Here is an excert: It is the policy of the state that a person's sex is an immutable biological trait and that it is false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person's sex. This section does not apply to individuals born with a genetically or biochemically verifiable disorder of sex development, including, but not limited to, XX disorder of sex development; XY disorder of sex development; sex chromosome disorder of sex development; XX or XY sex reversal; and ovotesticular disorder.
An employee or a contractor may not be required, as a condition of employment, to refer to another person using that person's preferred personal title or pronouns if such personal title or pronouns do not correspond to that person's sex.
An employee or a contractor may not provide to an employer his or her preferred personal title or pronouns if such preferred personal title or pronouns do not correspond to his or her sex.
An employee or a contractor may not be asked by an employer to provide his or her preferred personal title or pronouns or be penalized or subjected to adverse personnel action for not providing his or her preferred personal title or pronouns.
It continues on about not being able to fire people for thinking being gay is a sin and so on, but I don't want this to be a novel.
Well, if gay people weren't sabotaging electric substations, mass murdering innocent people and attempting to overthrow our government...., oh, wait!
Don't forget that big gay plot to kidnap a governor, and the other big gay plot to seize control of the capitol, the Supreme Court, and the Department of State and installed Donald Trump as an unelected dictator. Yes, they planned on having a lot of proud boys go hard into Foggy Bottom.
E: I forgot that other big gay plot to send mail bombs to all the Democratic leadership, ex-presidents, and governors that they could.
When do we get around to turning the frogs gay? That’s my favourite part.
Well I for one am so glad the government of Florida is tackling the REAL problems. Pronouns are scary and difficult to understand, and I never had to deal with calling my friend Dick by anything other than his given name.
/s because of poes law.
Their Stochastic terrorism has too low of a rate. Either move onto more practical efforts, or make the whole world worse to increase the Stochastic terrorism rates.
Well shit, they’re just going to do both.
Hahaha, the word conservative dies at war doesn't it?
This is just standard fascism. They need a constant stream of enemies weak enough that they can't defend themselves. Whom they can paint as responsible for all a societies woes.
Fascism 101. We see Republicans employing that heavily here in the United States.
There you said it. They don't care about gay people. They need an easy win with conservative public before future (mock) elections and to distract people from Ukraine. And they also want a weapon to proclaim anyone they dislike an extremist.
Can you prove you aren't gay? Let's see. It'a either you record a video of apologizing for being gay, or we stuff a broom up your ass and you record a video of apologizing for being gay 🤗 Either way, 10 years in a joint.
I've recently seen a good article in a ru-language blogosphere. These pieces of shit who climbed to the power in the 90s and 00s break every ladder to their positions, they want to establish themselves as new nobles, and they need a variety of tools to persecute whoever they dislike. They want the good ol' serfdom. They build it as we speak.
It's not bad if you are gay and noble. Gref, Volodin, others are gossiped to be gay. Rather it's bad to be not in their club, like most do. Then you are in a risk of being persecuted and robbed of everything over nothing.
It's 21th century and neo-feudalism is on the rise! Fuck, I hate it here.
Milonov. He makes a lot of anti-gay statements, but he is gossiped to be gay.
I think I've read he was openly gay in the 90s (I mean, Zhirinovsky too to some extent) and there are photos of him from parties of the relevant thematic. I think I saw them even.
Zhirik is his own phenomenon. There are for example Zhirinovsky's Sauna Boys - a group of men, who were often seen in sauna with him and then got position like Degtyarov.
I'd argue that for what he was used for, being a vehicle for unpopular laws, he may not be gay (as we don't have solid proofs and it doesn't really matter), but he is sure an f-word.
Just like that guy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Krasovsky
His reaction to treating LGBTQ+ as extremists while being an open gay? Hurr-durr I mean, sometimes you take what your Motherland needs over what you want. That's the same dude who got banned from the TV because his suggestion of burning ukrainian kids blocked in houses was just too extreme for our media. He's not unlike fucking Sharikov with that line of choking stray cats.
For what I care, they can eat whatever, may it be a pussy or a dick, but I'd strongly approve if they'd eat a fucking brick. They do everything to make it be seen as a consensual act.
They need a new enemy every now and then. If the current enemy happens to be exterminated, they'll need one sooner, but they'll need a new one anyways.
My bet is they round up the men and send them to the front as fodder.
The convenient thing about the LGBTQ+ community though is that we can pop up anywhere, at any time. The perpetual boogieman.
I don’t think not being gay changes much in this statement
I mean, they are literally mounting campaigns targeting gays now. Maybe it sucks for both but it sucks especially hard for gay people in Russia at the moment.
E.g. Maybe it sucks to live in Mordor. But as a Goblin instead of as an Orc, maybe it sucks especially hard when Sauron starts the "let's purge the Goblins" campaign led by the Orcs.
Yes, I know, the article speaks for itself. It was more of a joke about how it’s “a very bad time to be in Russia, period”.
The Russian conservatives include plenty of gay people. Obviously hypocritical, but I wouldn't expect them to support actual extermination.
The reason such actions happen is to show the average ignorant citizen (as Putin & co imagine that) that what said person wants is being delivered. Of course the average ignorant citizen doesn't care about hurting LGBTQ people (at worst cares about hurting anyone happier than him, but still with no specifics). They just have a skewed picture of what that average citizen is, some drunk guided (in their imagination) by Russian prison culture only interested in having a better car.
Ah, also Putin & co are not conservatives. They in general have no consistent ideology to speak of. Take anyone important - they've been with "democrats pushing for reform" in the last years of the USSR, then "democrats fighting the Communist beast" in Yeltsin's early years, then "centrists trying to prevent the integrity of the federation" in his late years, then with Putin "law against terrorism", then "law against neo-Nazis", then "economic stability unlike the bad-bad 90s", and so on. At some point they got lazy and the facades became less consistent and memorable.
Example: Milonov
For those who don't know difference between totalitarism and authoritarism, this is the differece.
CORRECT
Well, it appears that some people not from Russia or its neighborhood are so unwilling to change their simple and wrong picture of what happens there, that they even care to downvote a comment simply pointing out that Putin, Shoigu, Patrushev, others have in various roles been near the top for all of the last 30 years, and then simply listing the main state "ideology" lines in Russia in the last 30 years, with no political position taken.
Or maybe it's my bad English in that comment, I meant "preserve the integrity", of course =\
Happens to me too.
Anyway, if it was on mastodon, I would say you are downvoted because your comment contradicts their General Party Line, but mastodon instances can't downvote, so no idea.
Russia looking a lot like their old enemy the Nazis these days.
Russia has always been anti-LGBT+. Stalin called them abomination and Putin is just a dimestore version of that monster.
It's worth remembering that for all of the numerous issues Western nations and especially the US have with freedom of speech and expression, for every convert to some racist ideology, there is also a new supporter of LGBT+. The rise in hate we see is paralleled by a rise in acceptance of the marginalized. Freeze peaches is a double edged sword and always has been.
The paradox of tolerance is certainly an issue, but the very fact we've evolved as a culture to the point we're having a discussion about it says something about the benefits of that freedom. Our culture isn't stagnant. We have the capacity for growth and change, and while the government usually maintains the social status quo, we in turn can affect what the status quo is.
Fucking peaches.
Not always. Soviet Russia decriminalized homosexuality in 1917, and it was the first country in the world to do that. But it was recriminalized again in 1933 by Stalin.
Fuck Stalin
I was reading several months ago that there was a time in the mid ‘90s that there were a few gay clubs in Russia that were relatively unmolested by the cops, as long as the local “roof” was paid off.
Not always, there were periods in their history of acceptance of homosexuality.
Ironically, Russians think they are fighting Nazis in Ukraine.
And Ukraine's president is Jewish.
And they always have
I don’t know people incorrectly try to associate everything with Nazi. It’s hard to take anyone serious when they don’t even know what a Nazi is.
This isn’t dissimilar from how they were under the Soviet Union. Russians are just going to Russian.
Not so much “Russians being Russian” as it is “Fascist power structure being fascist power structure “
It's more accurate to say that Russia under the Soviets was also an authoritarian state.
Authoritarians by their very nature are right-wing.
Putin, the Soviets, the Nazis, Conservatives, and Fascists of all flavors are obsessed with control and conformity.
It's far easier to control a population when everyone is exactly the same.
This is why the true left wing movements have always embraced minorities and outliers.
This of course is a call back to the very origins of the terms left and right when discussing politics. The French Revolution. A vote was held. One of the first of the new assembly. The question was, "Should the king have an absolute veto over new laws?". Those in support of the monarchy sat to the right of the speaker's podium. Those opposed sat to the left.
All the economic bullshit of capitalism v communism was added later. Making the Soviets, a supposedly communist nation, firmly right wing. Not that the Soviets were particularly good at actual communism. Communism sort of requires the workers to control the means of production, not the State. Workers must be working for their own profit, not the profit of the State.
Working for the profit of the State is more of a kleptocracy.
The nazis criminalized, imprisoned, and eventually exterminated gay and transgender people in death camps. So yes, comparisons to nazis are fair when you criminalize lgbt people and start rounding them up in jail, preventing them from gathering together, etc etc
I see you are well acquainted with the idea of redfash
no such thing.
It's true that authleft often looks a lot like authright, which supports the theory that political alignment is more like a circle than a line. After all, they were allies before Hitler betrayed Stalin. Since then being anti-Nazi became a big part of Russian propaganda.
When you are losing the war you started.
Blame gays.
When your policies fail.
Blame gays.
When your government is less popular than cancer.
Blame gays.
When you are getting mass protests.
Blame Jews. But Jews have nukes, oops. Then blame gays!
No, Israel has nukes. The Jews have a space laser though, which is better. Netanyahu lost his space laser privileges a long time ago, I could maybe petition the Council to let The Gays have his time slot?
So what I'm hearing is give The Gays™️ nukes....
That's one way to create a rainbow
Maybe they should. Carve out a piece of land and make it a homeland for them which would included a whole mess of weapons
Since most gay people don't reproduce, they'd have to import a lot of people constantly to be a functional society, but I bet their military uniforms would be fabulous and their showers would be hot.
It could be a place that consistently welcomes immigration, since it has to. Sounds like a win, win. It's like a Krakoa for the gays.
Well, there are plenty of gays in the society, so they usually start with blaming weak people, like sects, youth subcultures and prostitutes, then "socially weird" pastimes (like LARP`ing or video games), then immigrants, then gays, and then finally some of the ethnic minorities with citizenship.
Can we not blame gay Jews?
Like especially the communist gay Jews, the true root of global disharmony
Please stop using term 'communist' in context of progressive far-left socialism.
Communism is totalitarian oppression. Every time you mention communism, you mention Stalin, you cannot separate communism and gulags.
The communism as envisioned by Karl Marx never existed. The closest thing to Marx communism right now is Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, with their over-50% tax rates and hyper-socialist policies, and they sure as hell do not call themselves communist.
Really?! I made a ridiculously tongue-in-cheek comment, but of all the vile implications of blaming a single minority group for destroying the world, this was your rebuttal?
It wasn't a rebuttal, I'm being pedantic about a technical term.
The joke about Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism is funny to English-speaking audience. People who actually experienced communism know there's nothing fully automated, luxury, or gay about it. There was some Space, but it was done more to show'em dirty capitalists than to perform big scientific discoveries, and capitalists didn't care all that much about communists' posturing, it was more about science.
Off the mark, sure, but he's not incorrect.
The Nordic Model isn't really all that Socialist. It's based on strong welfare and labor rights, but also very much on the free market. The most Socialist country in Europe is probably France
Well, France is France. Revolutions is their national sport.
Also bureaucracy and public ownership
Wouldn't public ownership be Sweeds' national sport?
No. Get back to us when you tossers can get your story straight. Until then, bugger off.
Agreed. I appreciate a lot of Russian culture, the use of matrices, etc and some of their discoveries and all as much as the next guy, but it's sad to see the way that their government is going about with things.
Fuck it half the problem is that straight people and breeders consistently expect themselves to not be held accountable for being assholes. Being the majority should not mean you are free from consequences when you cause harm. Love returns threefold.
I honestly could not care if there was another world war at this stage. People who claim to give a fuck about humanity as a whole really need to start justifying why they don't deserve a war and actually try to fix their own shit or mediate stuff.
Consider that if someone is aware they're a minority and attempt to do their best to get level without looking to do harm to the majority status quo, if they know that they could do better, they're giving you an opportunity to step up to the plate, and as for their morals ,at least they're standing up for themselves, even better if they're standing up for others by trying to teach and lead by example.
It's like, how is it you can seriously have the audacity to ask for good things for anyone, yourself, society or your own children when you treat people like such shit that they literally choose to leave.
It's like people asking why people leave Saudi, Russia or China etc, and you just only have to look at how ridiculously stupid and pansy the way they treat their children, saying things like they wish that they suffer for being disobedient, for being gay or for being bisexual or for not having a haircut, or for driving a car, or for not following their advise. Anyone with half a braincell would see it as a petty and weak attempt to feminise and handicap someone into compliance with the status quo simply for something they can't change.
It's like, would I try and punish a woman by dropping a nail under the tyre or cutting the line for their brake pedal for not knowing how to change their brakepads before their wof is due? No I would not, because it's dumb as fuck and an idiotic attempt to try teach someone a lesson that very transparently demonstrates bad faith and a sadistic desire to assert dominance more than a real commitment to someone's well being and long term future.
This comment is a minor masterpiece of rambling disjointed incoherence. I couldn't do better if I tried. Were you roaring drunk when you wrote it? Do you even remember writing it?
Look at Russia. Now imagine that Putin is probably straight.
Well well well. I thought Russia said the nazis were in Ukraine. Huh. Funny, that.
"But Vladimir, you were never going to find any Nazis out there! The Nazis were in you all along!"
Perhaps the true nazis were the friends we made along the way.
Russia never said that. Putin did.
both can be true
Sure it can. But that doesn't mean it is.
Oh I'm sure if you look hard enough you'll find one or two nazis hiding anywhere, even if they don't identy as nazi or even know what it means.
But Russia, with its actions, have proven themselves to be an imperialist, nationalist, fascist piece of shit. And while both could be true, actions speak louder.
I think it's pretty natural to want good things for your imaginary team, everywhere you go across the USA you'll see whites, blacks, asians, etc even in Chinatowns where people, particularly migrants consistently demonstrate a need to be self reliant, and on a higher level, extending that to your country, region or continent is not necessarily indicative of an anti-collaborative attitude at all.
I look at it like a case of expanding your circle of sympathies from yourself, to your country, and further towards a collective transhumanism. If you cannot take care of yourself, rationally, you should be skeptical of your ability to take care of others, and makeup etc often does no justice considering the price these days
integrating the azov brigade into the national guard sounds like a bunch of Nazis are in the government to me.
Yeah, it's a problem. A threatened country integrated a fascist militia into its army. Yes, and that's bad.
But the country as a whole does not like Nazis at all, and doesn't vote for them.
"In the 2019 Ukrainian elections, the far-right nationalist electoral alliance, including Svoboda, National Corps, Right Sector, Azov Battalion, OUN, and Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, under-performed expectations. In the presidential election, its candidate Ruslan Koshulynskyi received 1.6% of the vote, and in the parliamentary election, it was reduced to a single seat and saw its national vote fall to 2.15%, half of its result from 2014 and one-quarter of its result from 2012."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-right_politics_in_Ukraine
The country has a Jewish president and a Muslim cabinet minister. Sound like a Nazi country to you?
Agreed. Remember the golden rule of warfare: so long as the guy beside you is shooting in the right direction, you can sort your differences out later.
identity politics are boring. there were Jewish collaborators in the third Reich.
In most cases, Jews who chose to collaborate with Nazis did so to guarantee their personal survival, which distinguished them from most other ethnic groups who collaborated with Nazi Germany. It's not exactly a fair comparison.
but you see that identity is not a preventative for fascism, right? I don't think the president of Ukraine is any more fascist than Biden or Obama. but I also take a pretty dim view of them.
While voting is a necessary but insufficient way to combat fascism, 96% of voting Ukrainians choosing to not support fascism is a good indicator that fascism is NOT on the agenda in Ukraine. A fascist coup by that 2% supporting fascism would be opposed by the vast majority of Ukraine.
You completely ignore that fact with your hardon for attacking the identity of persons chosen by the Ukrainians.
Edit to explain: I made no argument on what Zelinsky as a Jew or the Muslim cabinet member would be politically, which would be identity politics. This statement of fact (Zelinsky is Jewish) was relevant to the political preferences of the Ukrainian people. Fascists don't choose Jews and Muslims to represent them.
Zelinsky is a pretty terrible neoliberal, and I'm not actually a fan. But I am a fan a national self determination. So was Lenin.
this is a spurious accusation and you should apologize
I see your point and it stands. Certainly anyone can lead a country down the wrong path and we don't know their true motives.
My point was mainly that the power structure is seemingly reversed, so the incentives don't make as much sense.
Where's Azov now, and where's Rusich?
you can't believe anything I've said is defending any country or group of Nazis.
I don't pick my favorite nazis here too lol. I point out one had 9 years of being dismantled and intermixed with regular corps, meaning it's non-existent by now, and one is still intact and active as it's own entity.
i don't believe this is true for a second. integrating was wrong: some of those Nazis surely stayed in leadership, shaping an even larger recruitment base. that shit doesn't just disappear. it must be rooted out.
You can see a context for that and think if you could do it better.
I know what to do about Nazis.
You mean sitting around and arguing?
no
The irony of the whole Azov thing is a majority of their members are ex Russians who moved to East Ukraine because Russia wasn't being Nazi enough for them.
You need to study the subject more closely before stating that (: Slavik nazism is a deep rabbithole, but for the purpose of this article, I compare two governments, and one of them does indulge in that kind of rhetoric more than the other.
I dunno man, obviously I don't like Russia for the dictatorship and propaganda aspect, but if we're comparing hot German ladies to Russian ladies, someone should really call the Wagner boss for his opinion hahaha
Prigozhin is dead and old tho, I won't trust his opinion in choosing a date material lol. All women are different, all have their preferences and kinks, and it's not a question of a race or an ethnicity mostly, but your personal compatibility with this exact girl. Some russian women like what you ennjoy, some don't, same with germanese.
Germanese. Whose got a cute sneeze?
I don't think either government is any better than the other. I don't think either set of Nazis is any better than the other.
Let's get this perfectly straight:
There are no nazis in Ukraine. Ukraine is not behaving like a fascist country. So your downplaying of Russia is crap. You're making up a middle ground that doesn't exist. To what end I don't know, but I'm starting to think you're not merely ignorant but actually have an agenda.
Sorry, but there are nazis in Ukraine. Lots of them. As in any slavic country.
The difference is: their government doesn't support them and is now under offence by a country that dismisses them having any identity.
that's a lie
I didn't do that
I hardly think "fuck Nazis" is middle ground.
Strawman. :D
wrong
Yes there are stupid people everywhere. In most places they aren't literally running the country.
in most places they aren't being integrated into the military.
Are you suggesting that the Russian military isn't part of the Russian government, which is doing pogroms against gays?
I'm saying most places don't integrate neo-Nazi units. I didn't say anything about Russia.
Most countries aren't fighting in an existential war either, sometimes one must take the allies they can get. You seem to be implying that Azov's existence means something about Ukrainian national policy though, which is totally wrong. Zelensky is Jewish, and as others have pointed out to you Azov is shrinking and its members being integrated into other units:
it's one thing to send them to the front lines with slingshots, it's another entirely to let them poison your own ranks.
You don't murder your own troops in war, even if you don't like them, I shouldn't have to tell you this holy shit
You totally have the Russian mindset
I just hate Nazis.
And you're objectively stupid. At least on this issue. Hatred can do strange things.
It's a bit unsettling how this statement resembles whataboutism often employed by Russian politicians to brush off any criticism
I'm not downplaying any criticism of Russia. fascism is always bad.
Looks legit. I wonder what will happen to all those soviet-era daycares "Rainbow"s?
Absolutely hilarious huh
People want to be treated like human beings regardless of who they love? Yes, that’s a dangerously extreme view. Wanting to exterminate them all is perfectly normal, however.
"Seriously? I'm being arrested for being gay?" Extremely gay.
Where is that from?
Sad news for Russia. If only they made matchmaking lists instead of hit lists
Ah yeah, the daily reminder that Russia has indeed become the comical evil country as it was always portrayed in Tom Clancys books, if not worse...
Twin Clancy that's an old name I haven't heard in ages
Twin Clancy, that's a name I never heard before 😅
Dude you have no idea, I've got so many doppelgangers lol
That's the worst part. Being on any list of this state is a danger. Especially when they want another batch of bodies to once again storm Avdyivka. Hope they can nope-out from all possible traps. It's just... it would be totally spelled out they are here because they are gay, and it means a faith worse than death. Place is cursed.
Hexbear and lemmygrad be like: "Russia is just avoiding a potential color revolution."
Actual quotes from Hexbears that I got when discussing Russia with them:
"Those reactionary shitstains [the Russian government] has little to be proud of."
"Russia is extremly Reactionary [...] thats why Russia has a Real Problem with "White Supremacy" , [and] no problems with hunting down LGBTQ+ [...]"
Now I don't exactly see anybody on Hexbear presently discussing this particular bit of news about crackdowns on LGBT+, but I'll go post about this news on Hexbear and see how the people there react. I have a feeling it's going to be consistent with my previous experiences discussing Russia with Hexbears, which is also going to be the reaction that I'd expect from an instance that skews heavily LGBT+.
My experience has been exactly the opposite. They go out of their way to defend Russia and China and will hardly utter a word of criticism against either.
Here's the thread I made on Hexbear.
https://hexbear.net/post/1232126
Four comments as of me writing this comment:
So yeah, if you're looking for Hexbears criticizing Russia, then there you go.
I'm confused. Don't they want to leave Nato countries? Why not go to the next best thing to them, China?
I can only assume it's for reasons such as:
Language: there is a very large Russian/FSU diaspora in Germany, while there is only a very small Russian community in China; and LGBT+ Russians are more likely to be proficient in English than in Chinese. It then follows that integrating into society and accessing services would be easier in Germany than in China, since Germany has a high English proficiency, and a large enough Russian population for many services to be provided in that language, or for Russophones to be able to find community on the basis of shared first language. German itself, of course, is also more similar to English and Russian than it is to Chinese.
The state of LGBT+ rights: rights for LGBT+ people are better in Germany than in China. This is not to erase the strides that China has made in terms of LGBT+ rights, nor the difficulties that LGBT+ people face in Germany and the very real possibility of regression as right-wing sentiment grows in Germany; but it's also just a fact that LGBT+ Hexbears obviously acknowledge, that it's in many ways just easier to be LGBT+ in the core than in the periphery or semi-periphery. It sucks, but that's the way it is, for now.
Ease of applying for asylum: becoming a refugee in China is more difficult than becoming a refugee in Germany. Last I checked, China does not officially grant asylum, and has all refugees living in the country processed by the UNHCR. Germany, on the other hand, does grant asylum. While it's obviously a good thing that people can flee from dangerous situations and seek asylum in another country, and China really should grant official asylum to refugees; one should be aware that systemically, the imperial core's policy towards refugees is a form of economic domination over the imperial periphery, meant to provide themselves with cheap labor and drain the capital of the periphery.
China does not need more communists: it's not like it's a bad thing to move to China by any means — there's a lot of good that can be done there — but it's also not a bad thing to move to the imperial core in order to fight the good fight "in the heart of the enemy". That's more people to do activism, more people to join and contribute to organizations, and so forth: if we want to build socialism around the whole world, obviously we'll want to live around the whole world.
I dunno, these are just some of my thoughts on potential reasons why an LGBT+ Russian socialist might prefer to take refuge in Germany rather than China... Like, it could've also just been that Kaplya just stated the name of the first country Kaplya thought of, and the comment wasn't meant to be read into to this extent, but either way it's a good writing exercise.
Or, you know, it's because nobody wants to immigrate to China? Ever notice that unlike Europe and Canada and Australia and the US, China doesn't have an immigration problem? I wonder why that is?
In case anyone wants to know, there have been over 40k undocumented Chinese immigrants to the US this year alone, and the numbers are growing. Fortunately they are pretty easily able to claim asylum and are easily integrated into existing Chinese-American communities.
It's so strange that we don't see any Americans immigrating to China.
Seems like they are mostly concerned with connecting "Russia bad" to liberalism, the ideology which is actually doing the most for LGBT rights. So even in contrition, they push misinformation and information warfare.
Just so that you're aware: liberalism here refers to the belief in market economies and the right to private property. There is a bit more to liberalism, naturally, but that's the main point. So whenever you see Hexbears talk about "libs" or "liberals", rather than applying whatever American definition or preconception of the word "liberalism" that you may have, instead think, "someone who supports the free market and private property"... And indeed, the liberal parties in Russia are right-wing and deeply conservative: "liberal" non est "progressive". Decouple those terms in your mind. You can have liberal progressives and liberal conservatives alike if you're not using "liberal" as a synonym of "progressive", like Americans tend to do.
Furthermore, LGBT+ criticisms of capitalism have a history stretching back even before Stonewall. Harry Whyte's letter to Stalin in 1934, which criticizes the regress of gay rights in the USSR while also analyzing the position of gays in capitalism at the time, stands out. Leslie Feinberg (1949-2014) is another important figure in the history of LGBT+ communism. You might find Feinberg's Lavender and Red to be particularly interesting, as it lays out a history of the intersection of LGBT+ rights movements and leftism.
Just so you're aware: liberalism is the European enlightenment philosophy which holds that individual liberty and civil freedom is foundational to the curation of political agency and democratic self determination. This ML reduction to "liberalism is everything I don't like" is factually incorrect and, like I said, intentional misinformation. Or more realistically, just bad political science, which is what most of us have come to expect from hexbears.
Russian oligarchy is in no way, shape, or form related to the belief that democracy is sacred, and political agency is a necessary condition thereof.
I think they were referring to difference between classical liberalism (usually implied by "liberalism" term in Europe) and social liberalism (usually implied in the US). The European enlightenment philosophy sounds like something that was a basis for both but contemporary state may be far from the original ideals.
Either way they're still full of shit, so I don't see that it even matters.
As opposed to you reducing liberalism to everything you do like, of course. How's that "sacred democracy and political agency" working out in practice? How are you enjoying your "individual liberty"?
In terms of LGBT rights? It's working out pretty good.
I'm not reducing anything. I'm just giving the freshmen political science definition of the term.
I know a closeted trans girl who is very clearly autistic, but who has not pursued an ASD diagnosis because she believes that she will not get treatment for her gender dysphoria if she also has an ASD diagnosis. And so she goes without any accommodations for her autism, just so that she has a better chance of getting treatment for her other major problem. Norway's state trans health system refusing to treat autistic people is a known problem. According to Norwegian law, this type of discrimination is not supposed to happen, rather anyone who desires to transition should be allowed to transition. And yet it still happens that many Norwegians are denied that right to transition on grounds such as being autistic, and for this the health system responsible gets at most a sternly-worded letter from the government, as if reciting the law makes it a reality.
So this girl I know first pursued transitional healthcare in 2016, but is yet to actually receive any of that healthcare. Rather, the staff in the health system said that my friend needed to get out more, become more outgoing, and earn some money first. That's what she told me they said. And so now my friend goes with me to this job skills course organized by some shoddy welfare contractor. Several other people who attend this course have gone on absolutely vitriolically transphobic tirades with us two present. And several times, my friend and I attempted to contact the staff organizing the course, to tell them that she was genuinely scared of these vitriolic transphobes, that they were traumatizing her and causing her immense distress. And the staff refused to take any action at every turn, always saying, "When you get a real job, you'll have to be ready to deal with all kinds of people, even if you don't agree with the things they say".
What we could do about the staff's refusal to take action was to file a complaint to the welfare administration, but it takes many weeks for these complaints to be processed, and this was an issue that needed to be resolved immediately. And who knows what the welfare administration would've actually done about the issue, probably the same "sternly-worded letter" nonsense as before, or at best transferring us to a different contractor, which would probably have the exact same issue of being too fond of cost-cutting to actually do anything about the actual Nazis in our midst... Thankfully, though, one of the transphobic reactionaries was kicked off the course when he threatened another participant with violence, another has become a no-show on most days, the third hasn't brought up trans issues ever again after his first tirade. On top of this, another pro-trans participant has been attending more regularly, and she is principled enough to shut down transphobia even when the staff refuses to do the same. So the issue of transphobia at the job skills course seems to have died down somewhat.
I myself am taking this job skills course because I live in a home with a deeply transphobic relative, and I need to find a well-paying job that will allow me to move out and fund my transition. I already have an autism diagnosis, and I am also non-binary, which means that state healthcare is very unlikely to give me transitional medicine unless I wait and wait and wait and work myself to the bone trying to get them to actually respect their legal obligations. And other options for trans healthcare in Norway are getting thinned out, and state healthcare itself is getting gutted. Which means that I intend to fund my own transition entirely by myself, including by buying gray-market hormone therapy.
The last time I tried scraping together however little money I could for one measly pack of bicalutamide, it was seized by customs and destroyed. Customs even sent me a nice little letter about the dangers of buying medicine from foreign online pharmacies. I still keep that letter beside my bed.
And trust me, I tried voting, too. I voted Socialist Left, because I believed that of the parties that I liked "enough", that Socialist Left were the most likely to get a substantial number of seats and join the governing coalition, without compromising my political interests too much. And indeed, 2021 was a pretty good election for Socialist Left. But they didn't end up in the governing coalition, because they demanded that Labor have stronger commitments to fighting climate change. So the current minority government of Norway is between Labor and Center. Which means that even though I tried voting for a party with good LGBT+ policy proposals, nevertheless a number of major government positions in Norway are currently filled by people who have openly expressed transphobic views.
And indeed look at the news media. Hell, look at social media! Ain't it just great to read a privately-owned newspaper, only to suddenly find oneself gazing at yet more transphobia? Even ostensibly publicly-owned news publications like NRK, they aren't immune to transphobia, either. And social media, fediverse aside, has all these damned algorithms that keep showing me the most vitriolic shit. And this is the type of stuff that people form their opinions and worldviews from!
So I have "rights" under liberalism. The right to change my legal name and gender marker, the right to transitional healthcare, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the right to control my body and have a say in the government... But time and time again, all practical experience shows that having rights on paper does not mean anything unless the system in place allows them to mean something. I still consider myself to be an anarchist, but I have a lot of respect for Marxist-Leninists. Both anarchism and Marxism-Leninism understand that liberal "democracies", "rights", and "freedoms" are practically speaking worthless. Liberal rights only truly apply to the bourgeoisie, because it was the bourgeoisie who came up with these rights, as they secured their class interests in the transition out of feudalism. Liberalism was a progressive force at that time: it is a progressive force still today only insofar as it sows the seeds of a better permanent replacement, and it is a regressive force insofar as it sows the seeds of a worse temporary replacement.
It is always grassroots LGBT+ activism that brings forth LGBT+ rights. Always. Do not ascribe to liberalism what was the work of some of the most wretched of the Earth, working tirelessly to build a better world despite liberalism.
I honestly appreciate you sharing this. I read every word, and I agree that this is still obviously an imperfect system and there is a lot more work to be done. I sympathize with your struggle to find peace in your own body and mind, and I would never question your politics in that regard. I genuinely hope that you are able to transition and would personally support you if I could.
I want to make it clear that in no way do I consider the liberal status quo adequate, but I do see it as the best imperfect framework for progress we have at the moment. I also consider myself as more of a libertarian leftist/democratic socialist, but I strongly reject the idea that MLs are any ally to this cause in any way, and am far more sympathetic to liberal social justice ideals in comparison.
Again, I appreciate your attestation, and I wish you the best.
Honestly, it was very cathartic to write, so I appreciate your sympathy very much. Sometimes I just need to scream at the world, you know. So just reading my attestation is all the support you could give right now.
So I wish you the best as well. All animosity has dissipated. Take care of yourself and stay curious.
But the right to private property is as important as the right to your bodily autonomy! If you can own nothing then prepare to die losing your body and your mind. Imagine that, a communist alien that will take everything, even your mind from you!
The blob will have no mercy on us! Burn it to death with fire if we have to
Just so that you're aware, that's a bullshit definition of liberalism and no one is under any obligation to cede it to authoritarian liars and chumps. Any legitimate definition of liberalism has also to include a fundamental respect for basic human rights and the consent of the governed. Liberalism stands in antithesis to authoritarianism and that's precisely why the hexbear bozos hate it so much.
How exactly do I revoke my consent?
What on Earth does this even mean?
No idea. Letter from mental asylum?
So they're not even consistent and you trot that out like we're supposed to somehow respect it? Call it what it is; intellectual dishonesty. Those people are intellectual contortionists because they don't actually have a coherent ideology that's defensible in the light of basic human rights. It's all authoritarian bullshit and the sooner you realize that, the better off you'll be.
I second your experience. Additionally, if you disrupt their echo chamber too much, they'll delete your comments and ban you. This has happened repeatedly when trying to have civil discussions like this one. They justify it as preventing misinformation so I have yet to see a fair debate on there.
Which is why they said it's not being discussed much over there.
They don't want to defend it, but they can't bring themselves to be critical of Russia either, so they just don't speak up.
My thread on Hexbear
https://hexbear.net/post/1232126
It's because they are campists. They don't actually care about egalitarianism. Or leftism.
Or stateists. Well, stateists usually call themselves nationalists, who they are not.
Those slimy bootlicking fucks on hexbear I imagine are mostly fortunate Russians that haven't been sent to the front line. I wonder if they feel anything watching their country men die in dirt while posting pig balls on the internet. Strange fucking world. I'd post this on hexbear, but I've just been banned by them, typical spineless fascists.
Did they think the guys were gonna rise up, form a gayocracy?
Edit: angry tankies down voting their ridiculous beliefs being talked about
No, they just take a far-right government appropriating left-wing terminology in good faith, which they did since the 1920's.
Like the sacred band of Thebes, but they're a government body instead of an army platoon.
Revolution is politically inconvenient -- it's a color revolution
Revolution fits my ideology -- it's a righteous uprising that confirms my ideology is superior
This one got me confused. Flee to a Nato country that they hate?
Who says gay Russians hate NATO countries? And for that matter, who says most Russians do regardless of sexual orientation?
I'd imagine if I hated the authoritarian autocrat of my country, I'd naturally align with countries that hated the autocrat too. Especially if said countries were offering to save my life and give me the freedom to live how I wish (so long as I'm not hurting others).
Russians are not a monolith, but a lot of other Russian expats (for economic reasons) are causing issues for very well agreeing with Putin too much on non-economic issues. I know one such Hungarian in the Netherlands, who begged his colleagues to vote for Wild Geeters, because of Orbán.
Wouldn't lemmygrad be pro-revolution?
I dunno if anyone is interested but of you got some spare coins laying around the Canadian based charity Rainbow Refugee has been helping get out threatened LGBTQIA+ folks from multiple countries including Russia for quite a while now by arranging sponsorships and legal support and advice for LGBTQIA asylum seekers. If you know anyone looking to get out or would like to donate here's a link :
https://www.rainbowrefugee.com/
My daughter is queer and if Trump wins, we will probably have to seek refuge in Canada. I have an uncle there, which will also help, but this is a good resource. Thanks.
Nothing happened to lgbt people when Trump was in office. It won't happen if he gets voted back in. Like Trump or not, he's never been anti-lgbt.
Fuck off, liar. Transgender ban in the military against the advice of generals in easily the most obvious one.
The best you could say is that he let several states set up ways to systematically genocide LGBT people, (cough cough Don't Say Gay) but he also actively fought to take away several of their rights, so that would still be a mischaracterization.
Trump wouldn't give a shit if every LGBT person on earth was dead, he'd just find new minorities to go after.
Trump is anti anyone who doesn't conform to his view of how people should be. This is especially problematic because he also doesn't trust intelligence, and of course to Trump, if you can successfully open a crisp packet you're considered dangerously intelligent.
Oh yeah. Totally an ally.
https://www.hrc.org/news/the-list-of-trumps-unprecedented-steps-for-the-lgbtq-community
Thank you for contributing something helpful and useful to this conversation.
Meanwhile "pro lgbtq" hexbears keep licking Putins boots
That's because they're all 12 years old and have no brain. When you talk to them it's quite clear they don't actually know what they're talking about. My favourite thing to do is quote events and dates at them of things that that didn't happen, and most of the time they don't pick up on it.
when you argue they will just post the pig poop balls
An obvious sign of an intellectual superior individual. I don't think.
That sissy, lemme.ml isn't exactly any better
i haven't seen anything bad on this instance, and it doesn't constantly defederate from random instances (unlike instances such as lemmy.world, a while back it tried to block lemmy.dbzer0.com)
Gold medal in olympic mental gymnastics
Yea it's such a weird gymnastics move
Of course, why did nobody ever think of targetting the President of Homosexual International?! Perhaps a drone strike? I bet he's hiding in a school or hospital somewhere in Ukraine.
It's perfectly reasonable to blow up UN schools if one claims there are gay terrorist tunnels under them...
/s
Extremist movement, not organization. Organization needs to be registered as one, while extremist movement is from amendments to "extremism" laws, that were used to ban Golos movement first.
With everything going on with Russia they still have time for this bullshit!
That's kinda the whole point of this bullshit. Russia's entire history is "things go bad? find an enemy and attack them." This distracts the populace and makes the ruler (at least theoretically) look "strong". This is why "war" is the answer to almost any problem in Russia. For Nicholas II this didn't work out though, when he attacked Japan hoping for a quick victory, but ended up losing and exacerbating problems at home, which then led to the collapse of Russia.
It's a core foundation of Fascism to define "us" and "them" groups, blame the "them" and if in power followup those words with actual actions against said "them".
Sex being the thing which generates the most tension in peoples' minds in present day society - we pretty much all want it and yet we're taught that it's somehow "impure" and interiorize all sorts of boundaries around it and judgements on people who don't obbey said boundaries - it's only natural that people who are a minority in practicing some sexual practices that the majority does not are chosen as "them".
We might have the tech, but socially and psychologically most of humanity are barelly changed from cavemen days and we might have even gone backwards (there was a time when nakedness was far less "frowned upon"), so cross these two of the biggest disfunctions in the psyche of many - sex and tribalism - and you end up with this kind of shit.
How I spent summer. Essay.
In the morning we with my mom went to beach. There we've seen jellyfish(recognized as unwanted organization, included in the list of foreign agents).
Then it rained(recognized as unwanted organization, included in the list of foreign agents). After rain came rainbow(which is element of extremist movement symbolics).
Also mom showed me memorial in city center. Memorial is included in list of foreign agents, its activity in Russia is suspended by the court's decision
First they came for the >!socialists!< democrats, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a >!socialist!< democrats.
Then they came for the >!trade unionists!< journalist, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a >!trade unionist!< journalist.
Then they came for the >!Jews!< Gays, and I did not speak out— Because I was not >!a Jew!< gay.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
They already came for communists.
Udaltsov is a communist only if you think that the Soviet Union was communist. The reason for his constant arrests was his opposition to Putin.
I originally wanted to post recent arrest of communists, but didn't find it in first try. Anyway, no sane communist will support Putin.
EDIT: Interesting... I wanted to say that Putin arrests communists too.
Recent news
All very deep, except the Russians probably arrest or kill anyone who speaks out, so it's not exactly as simple as that.
And the Nazis didn't?
The Nazis didn't kill their own. So no, not initially
You should really brush up on your history. It's estimated that up to 77,000 Germans who were a part of the resistance were executed and an additional 800,000 were arrested. You're right that Nazis didn't kill other Nazis, they killed Germans who resisted Nazism.
https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofge0000unse_i6r5/page/n5/mode/2up
Oh, come on, it was a lawless land ruled by violence. Everybody could find themselves before a firing squad (after a few days of relentless torture, of course) or just be beaten to death, party membership wasn't a guarantee against this. That was pretty intentional. That was the Nazi idea of a proper society - absolute despotism, they were also huge fans of the Middle-Eastern examples of such.
If you spoke out against the regime, you could easily be imprisoned or executed, blonde hair and blue-eyes or not.
The fuck is this bullshit?!.. It's as if some American schoolboy of the dumber kind with a confederate flag on the wall thinking Wehrmacht was "honorable" and didn't know shit wrote this.
Also have you read what the judge said on Remarque's sister's trial, after which she was executed?
Something like "your brother regrettably has evaded us, but you haven't." That was the only reason.
I think you should also read something about courts in Nazi Germany. There wasn't even any pretense at justice.
Are you historically illiterate or a troll?
It's often said "The first country the Nazis subjugated was Germany."
Not even Nazis were safe from Nazis.
*not even Germans were safe from Nazis
Also they to ban Golos movement first
Imagine the constant thinking about gay and transsexual specific activies that's leads somebody to the point of voting to make them illegal.
Regular people don't constantly think about it, so they don't actually care one way or the other.
No wonder that it's extremelly common to discover that the very people who keep raging about homosexuallity were closet homosexuals.
Grow up, embrace whatever you trully are and move on: no need to punish others for your own sexual self-repressions.
Lets see Lemmygrad.ml appology card.
@Stamau123 What were they looking for 👀
People who like getting their shirt off?
They're creating lists of people and looking into their associated social networks. Do you want to be on a list of people your government has suddenly associated with crime and terrorism because your cousin went to a gay bar?
Fuck no let's not do that, I'm looking for a list of people with good fashion and brains to eat, but people to oppress what kind of terrible monster would do such a thing!
@Szymon Unfortunately tactics used in the american south of course.
Oh good, whataboutism! I was hoping someone would think to get into some whataboutism. A Russia-bashing thread is never complete without your whataboutism with regard to the US. It's axiomatic. You can't have one without the other.
People who want to pretend this couldn't happen in America need to realise 2021 Maryland used obscenity laws banning oral sex to raid a gay bookstore and arrest people for having sex in private. That's a somewhat rural part of one of the most progressive states, there are far too many republicans that would love to use some flimsy excuse to criminalize gay people and throw as many in jail as possible.
They took lots of photos to pour over in the evidence room that night
@Stamau123 😉 Exactly
sure Putin asked for copies - just so he could observe how unRuski they are.
The raids follow a decision by Russia’s Supreme Court to label the country’s LGBTQ+ “movement” as an extremist organization.
The loftiest ruler is barely known among those below. Next comes a ruler people love and praise. After that, one they fear, And then one they despise.
How sincere will the Russians remain for this man?
Well, I suppose that one way to get blocked, u/soot
It's one loser making a bunch of accounts and spamming several instances.
If anything this shows the need for better automated mod tools.
Russia bad
Yes, Russia oppressing LGBTQ+ people is bad.
Just distinguish between the government's decision and the people. I don't know if I would demonstrate there at the moment if someone kept falling out of the window, so I don't presume to judge. But the government has moved very far away from human rights.
Russia seems to have a long history of just getting it wrong. There is something inherently russian about it, so it's not just the government.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Russian security forces raided gay clubs and bars across Moscow Friday night, less than 48 hours after the country’s top court banned what it called the “global LGBTQ+ movement” as an extremist organization.
Police searched venues across the Russian capital, including a nightclub, a male sauna, and a bar that hosted LGBTQ+ parties, under the pretext of a drug raid, local media reported.
The ruling, which was made in response to a lawsuit filed by the Justice Ministry, is the latest step in a decadelong crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights under President Vladimir Putin, who has emphasized “traditional family values” during his 24 years in power.
Activists have noted the lawsuit was lodged against a movement that is not an official entity, and that under its broad and vague definition authorities could crack down on any individuals or groups deemed to be part of it.
Before the ruling, leading Russian human rights groups had filed a document with the Supreme Court that called the Justice Ministry lawsuit discriminatory and a violation of Russia’s constitution.
Earlier this month, Russian media quoted Deputy Justice Minister Andrei Loginov as saying that “the rights of LGBT people in Russia are protected” legally.
The original article contains 635 words, the summary contains 197 words. Saved 69%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
For a second I read it as if we invadeed a Russian gay bar and revealed that Russia was ok with gays.
Let’s allow Europe and US deal with their gays, lgbt, the Papa-gay, hermofrodites, lesbians, feminists, gay-lesbians, horses, half-men-half-women, lesbian-gays and other bitter, angry shit. Russia will deal with their men and women on its own.
Bitter angry shit? You talking about yourself there?
Bitter. Angry. Shit.
This is the dumbest take I've seen on anything in a while. Eat shit.
I eat salt and then I grow thorns, tubules and icicles hahaha
Big potato salad 😋
Why do you care about what happens in Russia, though?
Why did we care what was happening in Germany in the 1930's?
Now you have the answer why Russia must fight in Ukraine, and why it'll win.
Huh, I didn't know that Ukraine was trying to take over Russia and that Russia was in danger of not existing anymore.
You didn't know - now you do.
Go home, you're drunk and babbling.