Russian Homophobia - Far worse than we imagined

As a slight deviation from my LGBT History Month Project I had to write about the situation in Russia today.

Last night I watched the Channel 4 documentary Hunted.  I say watched - I actually had to switch off eventually because I found the programme too disturbing. The programme is available on catch up on 4OD but be warned this is a very disturbing documentary as you will see from this short trailer.


   

If you have not heard about Hunted, it shows how, as a result of Russia's anti gay laws, gangs of vigilantes are now hunting gay men and subjecting them to humiliation, beatings and torture sometimes resulting severe injury or death. The police provide little or no protection to LGBT people and often add to the harassment. 

The vigilante group shown in the programme is a chapter of 'Occupy Paedophilia' who claim to be targeting paedophiles, yet all their targets are gay men.  Their strategy, called "a safari", is to connect online in gay chat room and dating sites and encourage a gay man to meet them at an apartment.  There the group waits to trap them. torture and humiliate them, and post a video of the event on the internet to "destroy their lives". This is exactly what happened in the documentary and I have to wonder what might have happened to the victim if the incident were not being filmed by journalists. 

Why would they let a journalist film them?  Simple - they have no fear of any repercussions for their acts. They do not try to hide their identities and vigilantes routinely get off even violent attacks with a caution. And it is easy to see why.  Most Russian citizens interviewed think that what they are doing is good and openly a tiny proportion admit to even knowing someone who is gay.  

Then I read an article in Pink News today  headlined  "Russian deputy Prime Minister: Gay athletes should ‘leave the kids alone’  The official line in Russia clearly is that all gay people are paedophiles. Russian President Vladamir Putin had made a similar comment a few weeks ago in arguing that gay athletes at the winter Olympics will be safe.  If I was a gay Olympic athlete, after watching last nights programme, I would be very concerned for my safety.

There is very clear evidence from research connecting homophobia with suppressed homosexuality. Religious organisations have for centuries been at the forefront of anti gay propaganda whilst refusing to address the huge issues of priests sexually abusing young boys.  The Russian Orthodox priest interviewed on Hunted was alarming in his views and I for one would not want to see children anywhere near him.

I know from conversations with counselors dealing with sexual abuse issues that most paedophiles are heterosexual men, often step parents or other members of their victim's family. Most homophobic men on Hunted last night seemed to want to engage in ritual abuse of their victims which, as we saw, often had an uncomfortably sexual slant.

If the Russian leadership continues to promote the view that all gay men are paedophiles it is hardly surprising that the people in Russia are becoming increasingly homophobic. The same messages are being promoted in Africa often heavily supported by American homophobic church missionaries. 

What is happening in Russia is not just a Russian problem. The recent debates in the Common and Lords around the Equal Marriage Bill highlighted that these extreme views still exist especially within religious organisations who managed to negotiate an opt out from the provisions of the Act. The Church of England is prevented by law from officiating in a same sex marriage, even if a particular vicar wanted to perform the ceremony.  

I think that it is time to get serious about exposing this hypocrisy and increasingly bring to public attention the abusive nature of these extreme religious and political fanatics. They seem to be targeting the gay community to hide the fact that often it is they themselves who are the worst paedophiles because they hide behind the cover or high profile respectability - just as Jimmy Saville  managed to do for decades.

Update

I have just come across this short video that shows graphically the kind of problems that are happening to gay people in Russia and wanted to share with you - it is disturbing but shows how fascist propaganda can move people. 88 % of Russians apparently support the change in law and it seems that this is because they have been convinced that Gay people can make their children gay with propaganda.  

  

Magnus Hirschfeld - The First Pioneer of LGBT Rights

The importance of the work of Magnus Hirschfeld is only just coming into general public awareness, mostly because his work was ruthlessly silenced by the rise of the Nazi's in Germany in the 1930's. The more I look at his life, the more impressed I become with this brave and influential man.   

Born on 14th May 1868 to a prominent Jewish family in the German coastal town of Kolberg, now Kolobrzeg Poland, Hirschfeld studied medicine at various universities in Germany before travelling in the USA. In 1896 he moved to Berlin to study sex and sexuality and became an active and prominent Gay Rights campaigner.

He was an openly gay man and active member of Berlin’s gay community where he was known as “Aunt Magnesia.”  Homosexuality had been illegal in German since the 1871 under paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code and this had led to gay men leading double lives to keep their sexuality secret.  Inspired by the death of a gay patient who was unable to cope with this double life, Hirschfeld wrote his first publication in 1896, a pamphlet entitled Sappho and Socrates, on homosexual love arguing that homosexuality was a natural variation of human sexuality and should be decriminalised. 

The following year, on his 31st birthday, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee (Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee, WhK) with the primary aims of lobbying for the repeal of paragraph 175 and campaigning for social recognition of all LGBT men and women (although not then called LGBT). This was the world’s first Gay Rights campaigning organisation.

According to the Magnus Hirschfeld Foundation, “Between 1899 and 1923, Hirschfeld and his staff compiled a 20,000-page anthology. The “Yearbooks For Sexual Intermediaries” were intended to show that between the “full man” and the “full woman” there are an infinite number of gradations and combinations. Hermaphrodites, transvestites, homosexuals are the necessary natural link between the two poles of man and woman. The homosexual is a kind of “third sex”. He founded the “Institute for Sexual Research” in 1919 in order to provide a solid framework for this research.    

That same year, Hirschfeld appeared in a 50 minute silent film about Homosexuality, – the first ever film to openly address the topic. The film “Different from the Others” was banned in 1920 and most copies were destroyed by Nazis in the 1930’s so only fragments remain but enough to understand just how ground breaking the film was.  In the short clip below Hirschfeld plays himself as a sexologist consulted by a gay client. 




Hirschfeld first came to my attention because of his work with Transsexualism which led to me featuring him in my Transgender Awareness Training Workshops. It was he who first coined the term Transvestite in 1910, and later Transsexual, although this latter term was not popular until the 1950's. Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Science (Institut füer Sexualwissenschaft) was the world’s first gender identity clinic and his staff performed the first known transsexual surgeries, the most famous of whom was Danish born Einer Wegener who became Lili Elbe. You can find more about this in the article on my Gender Network site.

Unfortunately in the early 1930s the political climate in Germany was dramatically changing with the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party, and Magnus Hirschfeld and his Institute for Sexual Science was becoming a primary target.  Hirschfeld activities as a gay rights campaigner had made him vulnerable to homophobic behaviour of the far right and he was violently attacked a number of times.  Hitler himself had described Hirschfeld as “the most dangerous Jew in Germany”  

When in May 1933 Police, German students and Hitler Youth began burning un German books, it was Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science that was the first target on 6th May, 4 days before the main book burning event on 10th May.  The image here, which is well known, is believed to be the burning of Hirschfeld’s Library and research, and in the middle of the fire the bust of Hirschfeld himself.

Hirschfeld himself was no longer in Germany at this time.  He had left in 1931 on a global speaking tour and never returned to Germany, He did return to Europe in 1932 and eventually settled in exile in France, first in Paris and later the Nice where he died on his 67th birthday on May 14th 1935 of a heart attack.

I will be writing later this month about both Lili Elbe and The Nazi persecution of LGBT people so don't forget to share this post with your friends and sign up to receive the posts in your email - see the sign up box at the top of the right hand column.  You can easily cancel your registration at anytime. 

Why is LGBT History so Important?

February is LGBT History Month in the UK, and the 9th annual celebration of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender history in the UK started by Sue Sanders in February 2005.  The theme this year is Music.

The inspiration for LGBT history Month came partly from its US equivalent in October each year, but mostly as a result of the work Sue had done through her Schools Out project to raise awareness of LGBT issues in schools and her campaigning for the abolition of Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988.

Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, passed in November 1988, stated that a local authority:

 "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship".

Whilst section 28 did not create a criminal offense and no one was ever prosecuted, what it did was to support the homophobic and transphobic attitudes in many schools, especially faith schools, and many of the more conservative local authorities.  As a result much of the limited support for LGBT projects was withdrawn and little or no education and support for LGBT pupils or children of LGBT parents was available for the next 15 years .  Of course this also meant that LGBT history was largely erased from education. 

The past 10 years since the abolition of Section 28 in 2003 has seen huge changes in equality law in respect of LGBT people, yet still today schools are reluctant to address the issues and sexual orientation and gender identity remain the second highest cause of bullying behind weight.  Worse is that schools have allowed homophobic comment to go unchallenged.  The fact that the expression “OMG! That is so gay” is considered by many to be not offensive is an example of how schools have failed to prevent bullying, harassment and victimisation on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.

But even within institutions there is still a strong undercurrent of negative attitude founded mostly the strongly held homophobic and transphobic beliefs of major religions.  This year in the debate over same sex marriage, attempts were made by mostly Conservative Lords and Bishops to reintroduce regulation giving schools the right to opt out discussing same sex issues.
   
It is that institutional homophobia and transphobia that has been the primary cause, of persecution of LGBT people. I am now starting to create an LGBT History Section on my GenderNetwork Website where I hope to draw together the real history of LGBT people across the world. Some of what you read there will fascinate you, some may shock you and some may even make you angry.

The problem with all history is finding the truth. I recall attending a lecture, when I was studying for my MSc in Gender Research, on using autobiography for research. The lecturer started the session by saying:

“Let’s be clear from the start. All Autobiography is Fiction!”

She proceeded to demonstrate this statement by comparing a number of autobiographies and biographies and historical records. When people write their own history they tell us what they want us to remember. In the past most history was written by mostly male academics, clerics and government officials. Free speech is a relatively new right. Governments throughout history have controlled what is written; religious orders have destroyed records that challenge their beliefs; journalists have lied to create a great story; legends have been created by theatre, poetry and songs that stretch or even invent the truth.

Yet despite all attempts to demonise LGBT people, the truth is still there if we look hard enough. Sometimes we have to make assumptions; sometimes we have to make interpretations based on the evidence; but I hope at least to challenge your thinking, open your minds to some new ideas, throw a new light on what you thought happened in the past and take you on a fascinating journey into a world that is quite literally “Hidden in Plain Sight”.

February is just three weeks away, and a great opportunity for all organisations, not just public sector, to promote a positive attitude to LGBT Issues. Why not organise a LGBT in music event, or an exhibition of local LGBT history, or run some LGBT, Sexual Orientation or Transgender Awareness Training, or sponsor or support a local LGBT support group, or best of all, do something to promote LGBT issues in your local schools.

There are loads of great ideas and resources on the LGBT History Month site.  Remember that the theme this year is Music and there are a huge number of musicians who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender so there is bags of scope for finding a project that you could organise or support.  And if you need a speaker for your event don't hesitate to contact me, Rikki Arundel