News
‘Dangerous’ time in Russia
Violence, anti-gay legislation prompt calls for Sochi Olympics boycott
Nikolai Alekseev in 2012 holds a sign in St. Petersburg that reads “homosexuality is not a perversion. Perersion is grass hockey and ice ballet.” He was fined 5,000 rubles ($154) for violating the city’s ban on gay propaganda to minors. (Photo courtesy of GayRussia.ru)
As LGBT rights advance in the United States, gays in Russia are experiencing the opposite trend: an erosion of rights and a violent backlash against those fighting for equality there.
Russian lawmakers on Tuesday approved a bill that would ban the “promotion of homosexuality” to minors, leading some to urge a U.S. boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
The measure passed in the Duma by a 436-0 vote margin with one abstention. Individuals would face fines of between 4,000 and 5,000 rubles ($124-$155,) and government officials would face fines of between 40,000 and 50,000 rubles ($1,241-$1,551.)
Media organizations and other groups would face a fine of up to 1 million rubles ($31,000) or suspension of their activities for up to 90 days. Foreigners could also face up to 15 days in jail and deportation.
Nikolai Alekseev of Gay Russia, an LGBT advocacy group, told the Washington Blade from Moscow on Wednesday he “was expecting” lawmakers would support the measure. He noted programs on Russian television were largely supportive of the measure – and some of its supporters publicly compared homosexuality to pedophilia.
The Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, still needs to approve the bill, but observers expect it will easily pass.
President Vladimir Putin, who announced his divorce from his wife of 30 years last week, is expected to sign it into law.
“I was sure it would be passed,” Alekseev said. “It will now be signed by the president, who is very much using this fight against homosexuals in his campaign to attract voters.”
The State Department in January criticized the passage of the “promotion of homosexuality” bill on its first reading. The United Nations, Amnesty International and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are among those who have also spoken out against the measure.
“Russia is trying very hard to make discrimination look respectable by calling it ‘tradition,’ but whatever term is used in the bill, it remains discrimination and a violation of the basic human rights of LGBT people,” Graeme Reid, LGBT rights program director at Human Rights Watch, said. “To try to exclude LGBT people as ‘non-traditional’ is to try and make them less than human. It is cynical, and it is dangerous.”
“This is a very sad day for the Russian LGBTI community and for Russian democracy,” Martin K. I. Christensen, co-chair of ILGA-Europe’s Executive Board, added.
The measure passed amid growing concerns over anti-LGBT violence and discrimination in the country.
Two men allegedly sodomized Vladislav Tornovoi with empty beer bottles and set his body on fire near Volgograd on May 10 after he reportedly came out to them. Reuters on June 3 reported authorities on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s Far East said three men stabbed and trampled a gay man to death late last month before they set his car on fire with his body inside.
Russian lawmakers are also poised to ban foreign same-sex couples from adopting Russian children.
Alekseev said hundreds of skinheads and other anti-gay demonstrators confronted the few dozen LGBT protesters who kissed outside the Duma before Tuesday’s vote. He noted several of the advocates were attacked; and one of them remains in the hospital.
Alekseev said authorities arrested many of the LGBT activists and “didn’t touch any of the anti-gay protesters.”
“We’re quite used to such hostility and to such arrest,” he told the Blade.
Boycott Sochi Olympics?
HereTV.com host Jim Morrison posted a petition to the White House’s website after Tuesday’s vote that calls for a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics that will take place in the Russian city of Sochi in February.
“For my country to participate in this is outlandish,” he told the Blade.
A Russian appeals court in March 2012 upheld a lower court ruling that blocked a group that sought to disseminate information on the Russian LGBT rights movement during the Sochi games.
Alekseev, who has appealed the decision to the European Court of Human Rights, noted the country will also host the 2018 World Cup.
He said economic sanctions against Russia is one way to pressure the government to improve its record on LGBT rights and other human rights issues. Alekseev added, however, the international community “should think” before it decides to participate in the Sochi Olympics and the World Cup.
“[They are] a very good opportunity to raise particular concerns,” he said. “One of the ways for many countries would be to boycott these international sporting events because they take place in a country which doesn’t respect basic human rights.”
The United States and other countries boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow in response to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan the year before.
Cyd Zeigler, Jr., co-founder of Outsports.com, described the boycott as “the biggest black eye this country has ever self-inflicted.”
“The Olympics are supposed to be apolitical,” he said, noting gay Olympic diver Greg Louganis was unable to compete because then-President Jimmy Carter decided to boycott the games. “To start playing politics by removing an opportunity for these athletes to participate — something they’ve been working for all their lives would be a disgrace.”
Blake Skjellerup, a gay short track speed skater from New Zealand who plans to compete in Sochi, said he would not support a boycott of the games.
“The Olympic games for athletes is something they dream of their whole life and spend their whole life working for,” he told the Blade during an interview on Tuesday night from Calgary where he continues to train. “To have that swept away from underneath you is pretty shocking.”
Gay gymnast Josh Dixon, who finished 13th at the Olympic trials ahead of last summer’s London games, said there would be “nothing more disheartening” than to “discredit the years of work put into accomplishing a goal taken away for political reasons.”
“To have that work taken away, let alone the time it took to reach such a level, would be gut-wrenching,” he told the Blade.
Zeigler and Skjellerup both said they support any athlete who decides to publicly speak out against LGBT rights abuses in Russia.
“I’ll be focusing 110 percent on my competing,” Skjellerup said. “I’m not going to tone down the sort of person that I am just because I’m in a country that has these barbaric laws that exist saying that who I am is wrong.”
The U.S. Olympic Committee did not respond to the Blade’s request for comment.
Netherlands
Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade draws hundreds of thousands
Gay Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten among participants
Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers and Photo Editor Michael Key are on assignment in the Netherlands through Aug. 10.
AMSTERDAM — Hundreds of thousands of people lined Amsterdam’s canals on Saturday for the city’s annual Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade.
Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten, who is openly gay, is among those who participated in the parade that featured more than 80 boats. Participants held signs and posters that, among other things, read “proud to be intersex” and “lesbians love you and a free Palestine.”
The Washington Blade saw at least two attendees holding fans that read “fuck Trump.” One of the boats also compared President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin as “the kissing couple.”
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
The parade took place a week after a terrorist attack at Berlin’s Christopher Street Day left one person dead and more than two dozen others injured.
It passed the Homomonument, a memorial to gays and lesbians who have suffered persecution. The Homomonument has been transformed into a makeshift memorial to the victims of the July 25 terrorist attack in the German capital.
View on Threads
The Canal Parade took place during World Pride, which will end in Amsterdam on Aug. 9.
European Union
Poland’s top court rejects recognition of same-sex marriages from other EU countries
Ruling sets up potential clash with bloc
Poland’s top court this week rejected the recognition of same-sex marriages legally performed in other EU countries.
The EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg last November ruled in favor of a same-sex couple who challenged Poland’s refusal to recognize their German marriage. Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court in March reaffirmed the decision.
The couple, who lives in Poland, brought their case to Polish courts in 2019. The Supreme Administrative Court referred it to the EU Court of Justice.
The Polish government in May announced it will recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in other EU countries. Polish President Karol Nawrocki on July 17 vetoed bills that would have extended rights to same-sex couples.
The Constitutional Tribunal ruling, which it issued on July 28, was unanimous and final. It also sets up a potential clash between it and the EU Court of Justice.
Taiwan
Taiwan’s government has failed to update process to change gender markers on ID documents
Interior Ministry’s 2008 directive remains in place
More than four years after Taiwan began formally studying legislation to overhaul its legal gender recognition system, and despite repeated recommendations from international human rights experts, the government has yet to introduce a bill that would replace decades-old administrative rules governing how transgender people can change the gender marker on official documents.
On May 15, an independent international review committee examining Taiwan’s implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights urged the government to enact legislation governing legal gender recognition. The committee said Taiwan’s continued reliance on an administrative order, despite a 2023 Supreme Administrative Court ruling that mandatory gender-affirming surgery violates constitutional rights, has created legal uncertainty for transgender people, administrative authorities and judges.
In Taiwan, legal gender recognition has long been governed by a 2008 Interior Ministry administrative directive rather than legislation.
Under the directive, applicants seeking to change the gender marker on their national identification documents are generally required to provide diagnoses of gender dysphoria from two psychiatrists and proof that they have undergone gender-affirming surgery. For trans men, this typically involves the removal of the breasts, uterus, and ovaries, while trans women generally must undergo the removal of the penis and testicles. Because these requirements are established through an administrative directive rather than a law enacted by the legislature, trans rights activists and human rights organizations have argued they violate human rights.
Although Taiwanese courts have increasingly allowed trans people to change the gender marker on their official documents without undergoing gender-affirming surgery, the Interior Ministry’s 2008 directive requiring surgery remains in force. As a result, Taiwan’s administrative rules and judicial decisions are no longer fully aligned.
In a landmark ruling in May 2024, the Taipei High Administrative Court ordered a household registration office to approve a trans man’s application to change the gender marker on his household registration without requiring gender-affirming surgery. The court held that the Interior Ministry’s 2008 administrative directive, which requires applicants to submit proof of surgery, cannot be treated as an absolute prerequisite for legal gender recognition. Instead, it found that the applicant had provided sufficient medical evidence of a stable and long-standing gender identity and that denying the application solely because he had not undergone surgery was unlawful.
The Executive Yuan began work on legislation in April 2020, when it decided to commission an academic study examining international legal gender recognition systems rather than immediately drafting a law.
The government subsequently commissioned Shih Hsin University to prepare a report reviewing foreign legal models and developing legislative recommendations, including a bill. Since 2022, the Executive Yuan has held a series of inter-agency meetings involving multiple ministries to consider the study’s recommendations and legislation governing legal gender recognition, though no bill has yet been enacted.
In September 2023, Taiwan’s Supreme Administrative Court set aside a lower court ruling that had upheld the Interior Ministry’s refusal to change a trans person’s legal gender without proof of surgery and ordered the case to be reheard.
The court held that the ministry’s 2008 administrative directive requiring surgery could not be treated as the controlling legal standard because it lacked a clear statutory basis and implicated constitutional protections, including bodily autonomy and personality rights. Rather than treating surgery as an automatic prerequisite, the court instructed the lower court to determine whether the applicant had established a stable gender identity based on the evidence presented.
“From our perspective, the primary goal should be lowering the barriers to legal gender recognition, particularly by abolishing the mandatory surgery requirement,” the Taiwan Tongzhi (LGBTQ+) Hotline Association, a nonprofit LGBTQ advocacy and support organization founded in 1998, said in an email to the Washington Blade.
The Taiwan Tongzhi (LGBTQ+) Hotline Association said several factors have stalled progress toward comprehensive legislation.
The organization told the Blade the complexity of the issue and the lack of constructive dialogue are among the primary obstacles. It said legal gender recognition requires extensive discussion, with views differing even within the trans community itself. The Taiwan Tongzhi (LGBTQ+) Hotline Association added that opinions also vary widely within the legislature and across Taiwanese society, while effective channels for dialogue remain lacking.
The Taiwan Tongzhi (LGBTQ+) Hotline Association also attributed the lack of progress to what it described as a lack of political will and an over reliance on “social consensus.”
According to the organization, the executive branch lacks the political momentum to advance legal gender recognition reforms. The Taiwan Tongzhi (LGBTQ+) Hotline Association said the Interior Ministry and other relevant agencies have often adopted a passive approach in the face of opposition from conservative groups, delaying progress by arguing that there is no social consensus or that further discussion is needed.
The Taiwan Tongzhi (LGBTQ+) Hotline Association also said progress has been hindered by what it described as a backlash following the legalization of same-sex marriage. According to the organization, groups opposed to gender equality and trans rights, including some conservative religious and anti-trans organizations, shifted their focus to trans issues after marriage equality became law. The Taiwan Tongzhi (LGBTQ+) Hotline Association said these groups have promoted fear-based narratives, including concerns about safety in public restrooms, leading many politicians to view trans rights as a politically risky issue and reducing momentum for legislative action.
“The existing system makes changing one’s legal gender marker extremely difficult. Forced surgical removal of reproductive organs imposes a heavy financial burden since it must be paid out-of-pocket, and not every trans person can afford, desires, or is medically advised to undergo organ removal,” the Taiwan Tongzhi (LGBTQ+) Hotline Association said. “Additionally, requiring psychiatric evaluations is problematic because specialized medical resources are scarce and concentrated in major cities. These obstacles severely impact transgender individuals in their daily lives.”
The Taiwan Tongzhi (LGBTQ+) Hotline Association said the continued reliance on an administrative directive rather than legislation has created systemic uncertainty for trans people. The organization said the absence of a statutory framework allows executive agencies to alter requirements without legislative oversight, leaving trans people uncertain whether future policies will become more restrictive or more permissive. The Taiwan Tongzhi (LGBTQ+) Hotline Association added that while several trans people have secured favorable court rulings since 2023, those decisions apply only to the individual cases before the courts and do not guarantee similar outcomes for others. The group also said pursuing litigation requires significant time, financial resources, and emotional investment, making it an inaccessible path for many trans people seeking legal recognition.
The Executive Yuan and the Interior Ministry did not respond to the Blade’s requests for comment.
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