Significantly, mental health providers we spoke with said the law interferes with their ability to offer honest, scientifically accurate, and open counseling services, leading some to self-censor themselves or set out explicit disclaimers at the start of sessions to avoid running afoul of the law. But the law’s effects have been much broader: individual mental health professionals have curtailed what they say and what support they give to students, and the law gives the strong imprimatur of the Russian state to the false and discriminatory view that LGBT people are a threat to tradition and the family. The law has been used to shut down websites that provide valuable information and services to teens across Russia and to bar LGBT support groups from working with youth.
The ban includes, but is not limited to, information provided via the press, television, radio, and the internet. And on the international stage, the law helped position Russia as a champion of so-called “traditional values.” The legislation, formally titled the law “aimed at protecting children from information promoting the denial of traditional family values,” bans the “promotion of nontraditional sexual relations to minors”-a reference universally understood to mean a ban on providing children access to information about LGBT people’s lives. When Russian president Vladimir Putin signed the federal law in June 2013, he pandered to a conservative domestic support base. It targets vulnerable sexual and gender minorities for political gain. Russia’s “gay propaganda” law is a classic example of political homophobia.
The law has also had a stifling effect on access to affirming education and support services, with harmful consequences for LGBT youth. In Russia, antipathy towards homosexuality and gender variance is not new-LGBT people there have long faced threats, bullying, abuse inside their families, and discrimination-but the 2013 “gay propaganda” law has increased that social hostility. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth in Russia face formidable barriers to enjoying their fundamental rights to dignity, health, education, information, and association.
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