On December 2 (CHECK), Justice Oleg Nefyodov of the Russian Supreme Court, wearing glasses and a surgical mask, read the Court’s decision to “recognize the international social movement LGBT and its structural divisions as extremist and ban their activities in Russia.”
The decision followed a 4-hour trial with no defendant and no press in the room.
No clarification on the what makes up the “LGBT movement“ and what “structural divisions” it might have was given.
In early November, images of an Israeli soldier holding up a rainbow flag in the ruins of the Gaza Strip have spread over social media.
Ukraine has also been uncharacteristically conscious of gender and sexual identity in its war effort:
In 2022, LGBTQ+ soldiers got their own unicorn insignia;
And in 2023, a trans-woman from Las Vegas served as the official English-language spokesperson for the country’s Territorial Defense for a short while.
(She got suspended after announcing a campaign to kill Russian propagandists:
“Next week, the teeth of the Russian devils will gnash ever harder, and their rabid mouths will foam in an uncontrollable frenzy as the world will see a favored Kremlin propagandist pay for their crimes.
And this puppet of Putin is only the first. Russia’s war criminal propagandists will all be hunted down, and justice will be served as we in Ukraine are led on this mission by faith in God, liberty, and complete liberation.”)
Do the wars in Ukraine and Gaza have much to do with homosexuality and trans-identity?
I don’t think so.
Russia’s crackdown on gays is at least ten years old — the infamous “gay propaganda law” was passed in 2013 — but it is not the only social trend the state has tried to criminalize.
As absurd as banning the undefined “LGBT movement” along with its “structural subdivisions” might sound, it should be remembered that the same court earlier banned and branded as terrorist “the international youth movement Columbine, also known as School Shooting.”