19-year-old Valery matured with Belarusian society. erstwhile after Lukashenko's rigged election In 2020, Belarusians and Belarusians went out and went out on the street, he already knew who he was. “I started identifying myself as a queer person, utilizing his/her pronouns,” he says.
Today, Valery is among thousands of people, who in fresh weeks and months – 4 years after the large wave of post-election repression 2020 – left Belarus to avoid imprisonment and imprisonment. For what? For his sexual orientation and sex identification.
I am talking about the persecution of LGBTQ+ communities by the Lukashenko government with people representing Belarusian organisations operating in exile – TG House, Prismatica and Journalists for Tolerance – and with activists acting individually.
It was never good, but...
The first announcements of the current wave of repression can be sought in March 2024, although the caesura of 2020 besides applies to LGBTQ+ environments.
Walery says: – Queer people were never full safe in Belarus, but our situation was not much different from another east European countries.
Independently active activist who helped in Belarus among others. in LGBTQ+ contacts with queer-friendly doctors, he lists acts of homophobia, including most likely the loudest one, or execution on Mikhail Piszczewski.
Piszczewski was assaulted and beaten in 2014, lost a 5th of his brain, went into coma and died following injuries suffered in 2015. His torturer was sentenced to 2 years and 8 months in prison and a $12,000 fine, and in 2015 he was placed under amnesty. The power has never considered beating a hatred crime, and to date attacks on LGBTQ+ people are not considered attacks on minorities.
Valery besides mentions the sweeping of dating applications and provocations towards LGBTQ+ people, but points out that these were utmost cases of homophobia in society and in the services themselves, not part of the top-down run by the regime.
In a akin tone, Sandro (one/one), a individual from Prismatica, speaks.
– Our organization was founded in Mohylów, a town just off the border with Russia and, consequently, 1 of the most homophobic cities in Belarus, explains Sandro.
– Nevertheless, we acted all the time, allowing ourselves, for example, to produce adhesives with the rainbow logo of the local newspaper, in which homophobic articles appeared.
Sandro mentions that despite the unfriendly environment, she has never encountered more unpleasantness, e.g. while outing.
After 2020, Prismatica operated underground, as the government officially liquidated all independently operating organizations. “But it wasn’t until September of this year that we had to urgently evacuate people working in the organization to save them from detention,” says the individual from Prismatika.
Master Class of Hate
To realize what is happening in Belarus today, we request to go back to the 2020 protests, after Lukashenko's falsified presidential elections, and look at the calendar.
Next year, the dictator of Belarus will most likely win the elections again.
In 2020, the streets of the Belarusian cities were primarily protested under white-red-white flags, but another colours appeared in the crowd – for example rainbows.
At that time, the sexual orientation and recognition of the sex government utilized against the protesters, hitting individuals as well as the full manifestations.
Stops in Belarus were accompanied and inactive accompanied by recording short films in which the GUBOP, OMON or KGB show the “truth” of the opponents of Lukashenko. Beats, tortures and forced to confess are being stopped – I was preparing an assassination, I am a terrorist, I am being paid by the West.
In the case of LGBTQ+ people, they were forced to disclose their orientation or sex recognition as appropriate – I am a pervert, I am sick, I am sorry, I will not be anymore.
Recordings were colored with, for example, intimate photographs, if specified were found during a search, or depiction of erotic gadgets, sometimes dropped off. In order to give the recordings an appropriate political context – repentant citizens were put on their heads a hat in white and red and white, opposition colors.
Aleh Razhkou of Journalists for Tolerance reveals that in 2020 the Belarusian authorities supported the Kremlin propaganda.
– They arrived and conducted a real master class program – she estimates.
Protests against dictatorship, according to the recommendations of teachers from Russia, have thus begun to be brought to the hooligan pranks of the margin. And the margin – alongside drunkards, criminals and sex workers, includes “homosexuals and transvestites”.
– That's how the image of the interior enemy, of course sponsored by the West, was created, says Razhkou.
But what is important, at the time there were no detentions for sexual orientation and sex recognition – only those facts from the life detained were utilized to fight the widely understood opposition.
Stop propaganda LGBTQ+, halt pornography and...
It is only now a bill prepared against LGBTQ+ propaganda that will be a direct blow to this community.
The grim irony is that the bill is simply a mirror reflection of the regulations in force in Russia and adopted to any degree under the dictatorship of the Church. And this 1 in Belarus does not have as much impact on society and politics as on a powerful neighbour.
Even before the fraudulent 2020 elections, in March, from the Belarusian pro-life and church circles, there was an appeal to Lukashenko – under which more than 50,000 signatures were collected – to adopt rights prohibiting the appearance and promoting homosexuality and deviance of minors. A fight for conventional values was demanded, banning the LGBTQ+ cultural festival contact or ban on putting a rainbow flag on the UK embassy building.
Did that voice have any effect on the authorities? Alisa Sarmant from TG home has quite a few doubts. He argues that no 1 has seen or knows what happened to them.
It is besides worth noting that this homophobic appeal did not defend 1 of its signatories from repression after the 2020 election. He called for the preservation of conventional values in Belarus among others. Archbishop of the Catholic Church, Tadeusz Kondruszewicz, whose Lukashenko government for over six months refused to let into the country from Poland.
From exile Kondrusewicz could return at the beginning of 2021, erstwhile he had already resigned, officially due to the retirement age achieved.
However, before this spiritual Russian bill is adopted, and that it will be adopted, no of my interlocutors have any doubt, the government has hit the LGBTQ+ community under the extended definition of pornography. The Ministry of Culture has added to the existing definition the presentation of "non-traditional relations and sexual behaviour". What does this mean in practice?
Aleh Razhkou explains: "Two years ago I posted a photograph on my social media with my boyfriend, on whom we include. present it is pornography. And since the image is inactive online, according to this fresh definition, I'm constantly spreading pornography. In Belarus, they endanger me for 4 years.
It's not just a threat. There are now at least 2 criminal cases involving the dissemination of pornography. 1 to the individual who posted a photograph in her social media in her underwear, signing that she was a transsexual person, and the another to the individual who held her girlfriend's hand in the photo.
We besides know of at least 30–40 people detained for alleged days, i.e. with detention for 10 or 14 days under administrative penalties.
LGBTQ+ detainees are accompanied by violence, insults and recording and publishing degrading videos. 2 trans women were threatened with rape. These repressions affect communities like the waves spreading.
Walery explains: – In September of this year my friends were abruptly detained, as I learned from the activist group from Lithuania and Poland. We're on the same groups online, we share photos in social media, so the service could track me down quickly. I decided to leave Belarus – first to Georgia, to Tbilisi to wait there and see what would happen next.
– While I was in Tbilisi, I was told I was wanted. So I couldn't come back due to the fact that I know quite a few activists myself. I was afraid I'd spend them in torture during interrogation.
– I arrived in Warsaw a fewer days ago. I did not have a visa, due to the fact that now you wait a long time – so many Belarusians leave. So I landed at the airport in Warsaw and asked for global protection, says Walery.
...and the transit stop?
– Trans people are peculiarly susceptible to repression due to the fact that they are listed in medical records. It's easier to track them, halt them, catch them – warns Valery.
Although the government does not formally plan to ban transit, in practice it begins to throw trans logs at people's feet.
Alisa Sarmant of TG home recalls the alleged Constitutional referendum of February 2022. As analysed by the Institute of Central Europe: "The vote ran in the shadow of anti-war protests, organised by representatives of the Belarusian opposition who opposed Russian troops' attacks carried out from Belarus, including rocket fire".
"In the face of an unprecedented invasion of the Russian referendum, it was an effort to confirm the alleged social legitimacy of the Lukashenko government and to make a number of changes to the fundamental law beneficial to the Belarusian authorities and the interests of the Russian troops stationed in the territory of Belarus".
Sarmant points out that the referendum besides pushed the evidence that matrimony is simply a biological relation between a female and a man. So, de facto, matrimony rights have been taken from trans people, although being a trans individual in Belarus is legal – and this has been for 25 years.
Since the 4th of a century there has been a law that allows for sex adjustments in the country. By 2020 there were no major problems. The procedure, yes, was difficult, included among others. stay in a intellectual institution for observation, and last respective years.
– But before 2022, negative decisions were issued about 5-10 percent. After 2022 even 70–80 percent," says Alisa Sarmant.
– The Commission meets twice a year to make decisions. For a year, the individual performs commissioned tests and becomes on the committee for a second time – then he can get referrals for surgery and hormonal therapy.
– But the more negative decisions, the more appeals and so the process slows down," explains Alisa.
Most frequently people who have a very good passing – that is, a look consistent with sex identification. These are people who could have gotten hormones before, and hormones are either very costly (from the West) or questionable (from Russia).
What's all this for?
– This may be revenge,” wonders Alisa Sarmant of TG House, the organization that was the first of queer media to be on the list of extremist media in March 2024.
TG House more than 31,000 signatures were collected against the LGBT propaganda ban, the organization besides alerted global organizations – the run started in July, and the first detentions took place in July.
TG House’s global run against the LGBT propaganda ban in Belarus has been nominated for the 2024 Belarusian Human Rights Community Award.https://t.co/Y5AnckqAPI
— Tg home (@tghousebelarus) November 25, 2024
Valery argues that the LGBTQ+ community is seen by power as a threat. “We think differently,” he says. "And we may not all have protested in 2020, but we do not support the regime. And there will be fresh elections in 2025, so the government is trying to clear the public of people who think differently and who have acted in non-governmental structures.
The fresh election of the opposition is called "choiceless", as he spoke of them late in the program The Eye for the World Paul Easy. 1 of the leaders of the Belarusian opposition in exile puts the thesis that the ruling Lukashenko has had a trauma of 2020 and is simply afraid of reruns from the revolutionary upheaval. That's why the manhunt is on the another side.
– Power clears its territory, hits the most active groups to intimidate them. It besides builds divisions in society so that people, alternatively of uniting against the regime, will jump at each other's throats," says Aleh Razhkou.
Consequences may be serious
None of my callers have any illusions: in 2025 nothing will happen. No 1 will mass out on the streets and Lukashenko will break another evidence of support, possibly adding more percent than Putin himself in 2024 – let's remember as many as 87.28 percent of the vote.
So I am asking about the scale of homophobia and transphobia in Belarusian society in order to realize the impact on moods and the situation of the community may have on the current hound and gust.
Alisa of TG home submits that Belarusians and Belarusians are kindly indifferent and indifferent to LGBTQ+ people.
– They say, “Let them love each another as much as they want, as long as they don’t flaunt it. The parades of pride are not to be said, but the hard homophobia is unlikely. Cases of beating is simply a margin, and persecution of the community suffers at the hands of authorities, not citizens.
In turn, Aleh Razhkou, who monitors cases of hatred speech in the media, observes: – all second publication on LGBTQ+ community contains elements of hatred speech. We monitor both state media and independent media and our observations show that all information about LGBTQ+ people in state media is saturated with hatred speech.
– Prohibition of LGBTQ+ propaganda in practice will mean that no affirmative or even neutral information about the LGBTQ community will appear in the media – that is, we will not read anything real about us.
– There will be 1 communicative – perverts who want to destruct the country from Western inspiration. We know from past what specified a run ends – he says and points to Germany in the 1930s or Rwanda in the 1990s.
Razhkou is besides worried that Western organizations are losing contact with the community.
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After 2020, most organizations operated underground, among trusted individuals. So it was hard to get to a gathering to find support if you didn't have queer friends, if you weren't openly out.
Today, in a country where it is even more hard to get cognition and information from the authorities' point of view of the profile on Instagram.
– Safe ignorance – explains Sandro's endurance strategy at this hard time from Prismatika and advises the unrefining of all queer and activist media.
And in fact, the organizations evidence the inheritance of the watchers.
Echoes from the East and the West
The regulations and current repression are a mirror reflection of what is happening in Putinian Russia. But in what the Lukashenko government says about LGBTQ+ people, there is simply a distant echo of declarations flowing from across the ocean. Donald Trump has already announced the withdrawal of state support for trans people and declared war on non-binar pronouns.
– It is actually akin echoes, although evidently it is not the same level – comments Aleh Razhkou. "But yes, we see a turn in U.S. policy, which has so far been considered a liberal country and safe for the LGBTQ+ community. It's just proof that we're not given rights erstwhile and for all.
A Sandro of Prismatika complements: – Already today, from the US, we have information about cuts in grants, due to the fact that Republicans took everything.
Without grants, it will be very hard for Belarusian queer organisations to act.
And it will be very hard to aid those persecuted by the Lukashenko regime.
