National
Obama urged to ban Russians behind LGBT crackdown from U.S.
18 officials’ assets frozen, denied visas under 2012 law
Activists continue to urge the Obama administration to add Russians directly behind their country’s LGBT rights crackdown to the 2012 Magnitsky Act. (Washington Blade photo by Damien Salas)
A growing number of Kremlin critics are urging the Obama administration to use a 2012 law that freezes the assets of Russian citizens and officials directly responsible for human rights violations and bans them from entering the U.S. to punish those behind the country’s ongoing anti-gay crackdown.
Gay journalist Jamie Kirchick and András Simonyi, the former Hungarian Ambassador to the U.S. who is the managing director of Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Transatlantic Relations in D.C., on Dec. 4 urged the White House to use the Magnitsky Act named in honor of the eponymous Russian lawyer who died in a Moscow prison in 2009 after authorities arrested him following his investigation into a $230 million tax fraud scheme. The two men specifically called for the Obama administration to add Yelena Mizulina, the Russian lawmaker who sponsored a bill that bans gay propaganda to minors that President Vladimir Putin signed into law in June, to the list of 18 Russian nationals and officials against whom the Magnitsky Act is already applied.
Kirchick and Simonyi also urged the White House to add Vitaly Milonov, sponsor of St. Petersburg’s 2012 gay propaganda ban, Alexei Trifonov of the Center for Combating Extremism in Nizhny Novgorod and Maxim Martsinkevich of the “Occupy Pedophilia” vigilante group to the list of those banned from entering the United States under the 2012 law.
The deadline to submit the four additional names to the administration was Dec. 14. The White House is expected to announce shortly whether it would add them to the Magnitsky Act.
“Activists in the West have been right to raise alarm bells about the Russian government’s inhumane policies, yet their response to the problem has thus far been scattershot and ineffective,” wrote Kirchick and Simonyi in their Dec. 4 brief. “For those hoping to put a swift end to this ignominious crusade targeting a vulnerable minority, the Magnitsky Act shows a way forward.”
Kirchick and Simonyi further discussed expanding the Magnitsky Act during a panel on Russia’s LGBT rights record that took place at Johns Hopkins University in Northwest Washington on Dec. 6.
Kirchick, who challenged Russia’s LGBT rights record during an interview on the pro-Kremlin television station RT in August before producers took him off the air, discussed calls to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics that will take place in Sochi, Russia, in February. He questioned those who called for a boycott of Stoli and other Russian vodka brands over the summer.
“There have been very well-intentioned, but in my opinion totally ineffective protests,” said Kirchick. “There already exists a law on the books that is very effective that we can use.”
U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who sponsored the Magnitsky Act, backs efforts to expand the list to include Russian officials and individuals directly responsible for the country’s ongoing LGBT rights crackdown.
“The Magnitsky Act can be used against those who violate the human rights of LGBT Russians or anyone else for that matter,” Cardin told the Washington Blade on Tuesday. “The law was written to be inclusive and not limited. We continue to seek ways that it can be broadened further.”
Larry Poltavtsev of Spectrum Human Rights, an organization that promotes global LGBT rights, also supports adding Milonov and others to the Magnitsky Act list. A petition his group launched on Change.org earlier this year in support of the move has more than 12,000 signatures.
“The Magnitsky Law must be applied more liberally to all human rights violators, including LGBT rights violators,” Poltavtsev told the Blade on Tuesday. “It’s the only instrument that we have if we really want to change the situation in Russia.”
Lesbian Russian journalist Masha Gessen noted during Human Rights First’s annual summit in D.C. on Dec. 5 that the Kremlin banned U.S. citizens from adopting Russian children less than a week after Obama signed the Magnitsky Act into law.
“It had a huge psychological and symbolic impact on people in Russia, including LGBT organizations,” she said.
Gessen added Russian LGBT advocacy organizations are “probably not going to speak out in support” of any effort to add additional officials to the Magnitsky Act list. She nevertheless said she supports the proposed travel ban and asset freeze of those behind Russia’s ongoing gay crackdown.
“It needs to be done,” said Gessen. “It also needs to be done because it’s the right thing to do. It’s the right thing to do to send a message to these Russian officials.”
U.S. Federal Courts
Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has struck down guidelines by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission designed to protect against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
The EEOC in April 2024 updated its guidelines to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which determined that discrimination against transgender people constituted sex-based discrimination as proscribed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
To ensure compliance with the law, the agency recommended that employers honor their employees’ preferred pronouns while granting them access to bathrooms and allowing them to wear dress code-compliant clothing that aligns with their gender identities.
While the the guidelines are not legally binding, Kacsmaryk ruled that their issuance created “mandatory standards” exceeding the EEOC’s statutory authority that were “inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of Title VII and recent Supreme Court precedent.”
“Title VII does not require employers or courts to blind themselves to the biological differences between men and women,” he wrote in the opinion.
The case, which was brought by the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, presents the greatest setback for LGBTQ inclusive workplace protections since President Donald Trump’s issuance of an executive order on the first day of his second term directing U.S. federal agencies to recognize only two genders as determined by birth sex.
Last month, top Democrats from both chambers of Congress reintroduced the Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ-inclusive protections against discrimination into federal law, covering employment as well as areas like housing and jury service.
The White House
Trump travels to Middle East countries with death penalty for homosexuality
President traveled to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates
Homosexuality remains punishable by death in two of the three Middle East countries that President Donald Trump visited last week.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the handful of countries in which anyone found guilty of engaging in consensual same-sex sexual relations could face the death penalty.
Trump was in Saudi Arabia from May 13-14. He traveled to Qatar on May 14.
“The law prohibited consensual same-sex sexual conduct between men but did not explicitly prohibit same-sex sexual relations between women,” notes the State Department’s 2023 human rights report, referring specifically to Qatar’s criminalization law. “The law was not systematically enforced. A man convicted of having consensual same-sex sexual relations could receive a sentence of seven years in prison. Under sharia, homosexuality was punishable by death; there were no reports of executions for this reason.”
Trump on May 15 arrived in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
The State Department’s 2023 human rights report notes the “penalty for individuals who engaged in ‘consensual sodomy with a man'” in the country “was a minimum prison sentence of six months if the individual’s partner or guardian filed a complaint.”
“There were no known reports of arrests or prosecutions for consensual same-sex sexual conduct. LGBTQI+ identity, real or perceived, could be deemed an act against ‘decency or public morality,’ but there were no reports during the year of persons prosecuted under these provisions,” reads the report.
The report notes Emirati law also criminalizes “men who dressed as women or entered a place designated for women while ‘disguised’ as a woman.” Anyone found guilty could face up to a year in prison and a fine of up to 10,000 dirhams ($2,722.60.)
Trump returned to the U.S. on May 16.
The White House notes Trump during the trip secured more than $2 trillion “in investment agreements with Middle Eastern nations ($200 billion with the United Arab Emirates, $600 billion with Saudi Arabia, and $1.2 trillion with Qatar) for a more safe and prosperous future.”
Former President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2022.
Saudi Arabia is scheduled to host the 2034 World Cup. The 2022 World Cup took place in Qatar.
State Department
Rubio mum on Hungary’s Pride ban
Lawmakers on April 30 urged secretary of state to condemn anti-LGBTQ bill, constitutional amendment
More than 20 members of Congress have urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio to publicly condemn a Hungarian law that bans Pride events.
California Congressman Mark Takano, a Democrat who co-chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, and U.S. Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.), who is the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Europe Subcommittee, spearheaded the letter that lawmakers sent to Rubio on April 30.
Hungarian lawmakers in March passed a bill that bans Pride events and allow authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify those who participate in them. MPs last month amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
“As a NATO ally which hosts U.S. service members, we expect the Hungarian government to abide by certain values which underpin the historic U.S.-Hungary bilateral relationship,” reads the letter. “Unfortunately, this new legislation and constitutional amendment disproportionately and arbitrarily target sexual and gender minorities.”
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government over the last decade has moved to curtail LGBTQ and intersex rights in Hungary.
A law that bans legal recognition of transgender and intersex people took effect in 2020. Hungarian MPs that year also effectively banned same-sex couples from adopting children and defined marriage in the constitution as between a man and a woman.
An anti-LGBTQ propaganda law took effect in 2021. The European Commission sued Hungary, which is a member of the European Union, over it.
MPs in 2023 approved the “snitch on your gay neighbor” bill that would have allowed Hungarians to anonymously report same-sex couples who are raising children. The Budapest Metropolitan Government Office in 2023 fined Lira Konyv, the country’s second-largest bookstore chain, 12 million forints ($33,733.67), for selling copies of British author Alice Oseman’s “Heartstopper.”
Former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, who is gay, participated in the Budapest Pride march in 2024 and 2023. Pressman was also a vocal critic of Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
“Along with years of democratic backsliding in Hungary, it flies in the face of those values and the passage of this legislation deserves quick and decisive criticism and action in response by the Department of State,” reads the letter, referring to the Pride ban and constitutional amendment against public LGBTQ events. “Therefore, we strongly urge you to publicly condemn this legislation and constitutional change which targets the LGBTQ community and undermines the rights of Hungarians to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.”
U.S. Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Sarah McBride (D-Del.), Jim Costa (D-Calif.), James McGovern (D-Mass.), Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), Summer Lee (D-Pa.), Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Julie Johnson (D-Texas), Ami Bera (D-Calif.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Becca Balint (D-Vt.), Gabe Amo (D-R.I.), Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), Dina Titus (D-Nev.), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) signed the letter alongside Takano and Keating.
A State Department spokesperson on Wednesday declined to comment.
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Calendar: May 16-22
