In January 2016, same-sex couples in Estonia were given recognition in the form of cohabitation agreements that gave the same legal protections available to opposite-sex couples. In June 2023, Estonia became the first former Soviet state to legalize same-sex marriage and joint adoption for gay couples.
In June 2022, Latvia introduced similar cohabitation agreements (without marriage and adoption). In January 2019, the Supreme Court of Lithuania ruled that same-sex spouses must be granted residence permits, while cohabitation agreements are pending.
The Soviet Government of the Russian Soviet Republic decriminalised homosexuality in December 1917, following the October Revolution and the discarding of the Legal Code of Tsarist Russia.[1]
Through the abolishment of the Tsarist legal code in 1917, the Russian Communist Party effectively legalised homosexuality. The initial Russian Soviet criminal code contained no criminalisation of homosexuality as the subject was omitted.[2]
Yet, the abrogation of the Tsarist law, was part of an overall rejection of the laws of the Russian empire, and the Soviets never undertook any campaign to reduce prejudice against homosexuality.[3]
The legalisation of private, adult and consensual homosexual relations only applied to the Russian SSR and the Ukrainian SSR. Homosexuality or sodomy remained a crime in Azerbaijan (officially criminalised in 1923), as well as in the Transcaucasian and Central Asian Soviet Republics throughout the 1920s.[4] Similar criminal laws were enacted in Uzbekistan in 1926 and in Turkmenistan the following year.[5]
Despite decriminalising homosexuality in 1917 wider Soviet social policy on the matter of wider homosexual rights and the treatment of homosexual people in the 1920s was often mixed. Official Soviet policy, in both the RSFSR and the wider USSR, in the 1920s, on homosexuality, fluctuated between toleration and support, attempts at legal equality and social rights for homosexual people, to open examples of state hostility against homosexuals and state attempts to classify homosexuality as 'a mental disorder to be cured'.[5][6] In the Communist Party itself during this period of the 1920s such divergences of opinion and policy on Soviet treatment of homosexuality was also common - ranging from positive, to negative, to ambivalent, over views about homosexuals and homosexual rights.[1] Some sections and factions of the Bolshevik Government attempted to improve rights and social conditions for homosexuals based on further legal reforms in 1922 and 1923, while others opposed such moves. Commissar of Health Nikolai Semashko, in the early 1920s, for example, was sympathetic [7] to homosexual emancipation 'as part of the [sexual] revolution' and attempted such reforms for homosexual rights in the area of civil and medical areas.[8] According to Wayne R. Dynes, some sections of the Bolsheviks of the 1920s actively considered homosexuality a "[social] illness to be cured" or an example of "bourgeois degeneracy", while other Bolsheviks believed it should be legally/socially tolerated and legally/socially respected in the new socialist society.[9]
The Bolsheviks also rescinded Tzarist legal bans on homosexual civil and political rights - especially in the area of state employment. In 1918 Georgy Chicherin, an openly homosexual man, was appointed as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR. In 1923 Chicherin was also appointed People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, a position he held until 1930.
In the early 1920s the Soviet government and scientific community took a great deal of interest in sexual research, sexual emancipation and homosexual emancipation. In the 1920s the Soviet Union sent delegates from the Commissariat of Health, led by Commissar of Health Semashko, in January 1923,[10] to the German Institute for Sexual Research, as well as to some international conferences on human sexuality between 1921 and 1930, where they expressed support for the legalisation of adult, private, and consensual homosexual relations, and the improvement of homosexual rights in all nations.[1][10] In both 1923 and 1925 Dr Grigorii Batkis, director of the Institute for Social Hygiene in Moscow, published a report, The Sexual Revolution in Russia, which stated that homosexuality was 'perfectly natural' and should be legally and socially respected.[11][10] In the Soviet Union itself the 1920s saw developments in serious Soviet research on sexuality in general, sometimes in support of the progressive idea of homosexuality as a natural part of human sexuality - such as the work of Dr Batkis prior to 1928.[12][8] Such delegations and research were sent, and authorised, and supported by the People's Commissariat for Health under Commissar Semashko.[1][8]
However, in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Soviet policy and attitudes on homosexuality and homosexual rights changed, alongside wider social backlashes against homosexual rights in general in the USSR. Along with increased repression of political dissidents and non-Russian nationalities[citation needed] under Stalin, LGBT themes and issues faced increasing official government censorship, and a uniformly harsher policy across the entire Soviet Union. Homosexuality was officially labelled a disease and a mental disorder in the late 1920s (specifically over a period from 1927 to 1930).[13] In this climate Commissar Semashko reduced his support for homosexual rights and Dr Batkis and other sexual researchers repudiated (in 1928) their own earlier scientific reports of homosexuality as a natural human sexuality.[14] This followed earlier Soviet tendencies in sections of the medical and health communities, even in the early 1920s, to classify homosexuality, if not as a crime, then as an example of mental or physical illness. Earlier examples of this type of hardening Soviet attitude towards homosexuality include the 1923 report from the People's Commissariat for Health entitled The Sexual Life of Contemporary Youth, authored by Izrail Gel'man, which stated that "Science has now established, with precision that excludes all doubt, that homosexuality is not ill will or crime but sickness. The world of a female or male homosexual is perverted, it is alien to the normal sexual attraction that exists in a normal person."[15]:358 The official stance from the late 1920s could be summarised in an article of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia of 1930 written by medical expert Sereisky (based on a report written in the 1920s):
Soviet legislation does not recognise so-called crimes against morality. Our laws proceed from the principle of protection of society and therefore countenance punishment only in those instances when juveniles and minors are the objects of homosexual interest ... while recognizing the incorrectness of homosexual development ... our society combines prophylactic and other therapeutic measures with all the necessary conditions for making the conflicts that afflict homosexuals as painless as possible and for resolving their typical estrangement from society within the collective
—Sereisky, Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 1930, p. 593
Stalin: 1933–1953
In 1933 the Soviet government, under Joseph Stalin, recriminalised homosexuality. On March 7, 1934, Article 121 was added to the criminal code, for the entire Soviet Union, that expressly prohibited only male homosexuality, with up to five years of hard labor in prison. There were no criminal statutes regarding lesbianism. During the Soviet regime, Western observers believed that between 800 and 1,000 men were imprisoned each year under Article 121.[16] The precise reason for the new law is still in some dispute.[citation needed]
Some historians have noted that it was during this time that Soviet propaganda began to depict homosexuality as a sign of fascism,[3] and that Article 121 may have a simple political tool to use against dissidents, irrespective of their true sexual orientation, and to solidify Soviet opposition to Nazi Germany, who had broken its treaty with the USSR.[15]:362
More recently, a third possible reason for the anti-gay law has emerged from declassified Soviet documents and transcripts. Beyond expressed fears of a vast "counterrevolutionary" or fascist homosexual conspiracy, there were several high-profile arrests of Russian men accused of being pederasts.[17] In 1933, 130 men "were accused of being 'pederasts' – adult males who have sex with boys. Since no records of men having sex with boys at that time are available, it is possible this term was used broadly and crudely to label homosexuality."[17] Whatever the precise reason, homosexuality remained a serious criminal offense until it was repealed in 1993.[17]
The Soviet government itself said very little publicly about the change in the law, and few people seemed to be aware that it existed. In 1934, the British Communist Harry Whyte wrote a long letter to Stalin condemning the law, and its prejudicial motivations. He laid out a Marxist position against the oppression of homosexuals, as a social minority, and compared homophobia to racism, xenophobia and sexism.[18] The letter was not formally replied to.
A few years later, 1936, Justice Commissar Nikolai Krylenko publicly stated that the anti-gay criminal law was correctly aimed at the decadent and effete old ruling classes, thus further linking homosexuality to a right-wing conspiracy, i.e. tsarist aristocracy and German fascists.[17]
De-Stalinization and onwards: 1953–1991
When Stalin came to power, homosexuality became a topic unfit for public depiction, defense or discussion. Homosexual or bisexual Soviets who wanted a position within the Communist Party were expected to marry a person of the opposite sex, regardless of their actual sexual orientation. A notable example was the Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein, who despite his homosexuality managed to survive by leading a double life, having affairs with men while married to a woman, producing films that were politically pleasing to Stalin.
After Stalin died in 1953, he was replaced by Nikita Khrushchev, who proceeded to liberalize the Stalin era laws regarding marriage, divorce, and abortion, but the anti-gay criminal law remained. The Khrushchev government believed that absent of a criminal law against homosexuality, the sex between men that occurred in the prison environment would spread into the general population as they released many Stalin-era prisoners. Whereas the Stalin government conflated homosexuality with pedophilia, the Khrushchev government conflated homosexuality with the situational, sometimes forced, sex acts between male prisoners.[19]
In 1958, the Interior Ministry sent a secret memo to law enforcement ordering them to step up enforcement of the anti-gay criminal law. Yet, during the late 1950s - early 1960s, Aline Mosby, a foreign reporter in Russia at the time, attributed to the more liberal attitude of the Khrushchev government to the fact that she did see some gay couples in public and that it was not uncommon to see men waiting outside of certain theaters looking for dates with male performers.[20]
A 1964 Soviet sex manual instructed: "With all the tricks at their disposal, homosexuals seek out and win the confidence of youngsters. Then they proceed to act. Do not under any circumstances allow them to touch you. Such people should be immediately reported to the administrative organs so that they can be removed from society."[21]
Despite these rare examples, thousands of people were imprisoned for homosexuality and government censorship of homosexuality and gay rights did not begin to slowly relax until the early 1970s, allowing for brief statements. Kozlovsky was permitted to include a brief interior monologue about homosexuality in Moscow to the End of the Line (1973). Perhaps the first public endorsement of gay rights since Stalin was a brief statement, critical of Article 121 and calling for its repeal, made in the Textbook of Soviet Criminal Law (1973).[15]:362
These references were characterized as being brief statements in a novel or textbook and were made by heterosexuals. Vicktor Sosnora was allowed to write about witnessing an elderly gay actor being brutally murdered in a Leningrad bar in The Flying Dutchman (1979), but the book was only allowed to be published in East Germany. When the author was gay and, in particular, if they were seen as supporting gay rights, the censors tended to be much harsher.
Russian gay author Yevgeny Kharitonov illegally circulated some gay fiction before he died of heart failure in 1981. Author Gennady Trifonov served four years of hard labor for circulating his gay poems and, upon his release, was allowed to write and publish only if he avoided depicting or making reference to homosexuality.[15]:363
In 1984, a group of Russian gay men met and attempted to organize an official gay rights organization, only to be quickly shut down by the KGB. It was not until later in the Glasnost period that public discussion was permitted about re-legalizing private, consensual adult homosexual relations.
A poll conducted in 1989 reported that homosexuals were the most hated group in Russian society and that 30 percent of those polled felt that homosexuals should be liquidated.[16] In a 1991 public opinion poll conducted in Chelyabinsk 30 percent of the respondents aged 16 to 30 years old felt that homosexuals should be "isolated from society," 5 percent felt they should be "liquidated," 60 percent had a "negative" attitude toward gay people and 5 percent labeled their sexual orientation "unfortunate."[21]
In 1989–1990 a Moscow gay rights organization led by Yevgeniya Debryanskaya was permitted to exist, with Roman Kalinin given permission to publish a gay newspaper, "Tema".[22]
The precise number of persons prosecuted under Article 121 is unknown, with the first official information was released only in 1988, but it is believed to be about 1000 prosecuted a year. According to official data, the number of men convicted under Article 121 had been steadily decreasing during the Glasnost period. In 1987, 831 men were sentenced under Article 121; in 1989, 539; in 1990, 497; and in 1991, 462.[23]
Summary table
LGBT rights in:
Same-sex sexual activity
Recognition of same-sex unions
Same-sex marriage
Adoption by same-sex couples
LGB allowed to serve openly in military?
Anti-discrimination laws concerning sexual orientation
Societal attitudes toward homosexuality vary greatly across different cultures and historical periods, as do attitudes toward sexual desire, activity and relationships in general. All cultures have their own values regarding appropriate and inappropriate sexuality; some sanction same-sex love and sexuality, while others may disapprove of such activities in part. As with heterosexual behaviour, different sets of prescriptions and proscriptions may be given to individuals according to their gender, age, social status or social class.
This is a list of notable events in the history of LGBT rights that took place in the 20th century before 1949.
LGBTQ history dates back to the first recorded instances of same-sex love, diverse gender identities, and sexualities in ancient civilizations, involving the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) peoples and cultures around the world. What survives after many centuries of persecution—resulting in shame, suppression, and secrecy—has only in more recent decades been pursued and interwoven into more mainstream historical narratives.
The connection between left-leaning ideologies and LGBTQ rights struggles has a long and mixed history. The status of LGBTQ people in socialist states have varied throughout history.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in Jamaica face legal and social issues not experienced by heterosexual and gender-conforming people. Consensual sexual intercourse between same-sex partners is legally punishable by up to 10 years of imprisonment in the country.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in Russia face severe legal and social challenges not experienced by non-LGBTQ residents. Although sexual activity between consenting adults of the same sex is legal, homosexuality is disapproved of by most of the population and pro-LGBTQ advocacy groups are deemed "extremist" and banned. It is illegal for individuals to "promote homosexuality" and same-sex couples and households headed by same-sex couples are ineligible for the legal protections available to opposite-sex couples. Russia provides no anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people and does not have a designation for hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Transgender people are not allowed to change their legal gender and all gender-affirming care is banned. There are currently no laws prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity or expression, and recent laws could be used to discriminate against transgender residents.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Armenia face legal and social challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents, due in part to the lack of laws prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity and in part to prevailing negative attitudes about LGBT persons throughout society.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Azerbaijan face significant challenges not experienced by non-LGBTQ residents. Same-sex sexual activity has been legal in Azerbaijan since 1 September 2000. Nonetheless, discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity are not banned in the country and same-sex marriage is not recognized.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in Georgia face severe challenges not experienced by non-LGBTQ residents. However, Georgia is one of the few post-Soviet states that directly prohibits discrimination against all LGBTQ people in legislation, labor-related or otherwise. Since 2012, Georgian law has considered crimes committed on the grounds of one's sexual orientation or gender identity an aggravating factor in prosecution.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Kazakhstan face significant challenges not experienced by non-LGBTQ residents. Both male and female kinds of same-sex sexual activity are legal in Kazakhstan, but same-sex couples and households headed by same-sex couples are not eligible for the same legal protections available to opposite-sex married couples.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people face widespread prosecution in Uzbekistan. Same-sex sexual activity between men is illegal in Uzbekistan. The punishment is up to 3 years in prison. Uzbekistan is one of just 2 post-Soviet states in which male homosexual activity remains criminalized, along with Turkmenistan.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Turkmenistan face active discrimination and stigmatization compared to non-LGBT residents. Turkmenistan is one of the only two post-Soviet states where male homosexual activity remains criminalized, along with Uzbekistan.
Although life in modern Russia allows many more liberties for gay men and lesbians than it did before the fall of communism, unofficial discrimination and fear are still rampant. "It would be foolish to interpret some new freedoms as tolerance," said Igor Kon, a sociologist who is Russia's best-known expert on sexual practices, and author of The Sexual Revolution in Russia. Gay life in Russia is less open than in Western countries. With more quickly growing acceptance, major cities like Moscow and St Petersburg now have LGBTQ clubs and venues.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in Mongolia face legal and social challenges not experienced by non-LGBTQ people, though there have been substantial improvements since the 1990s. Homosexuality was criminalised in Mongolia in 1961 through its Criminal Code. Following the Mongolian Revolution of 1990 and the peaceful transition to a democracy, homosexuality was legalised and awareness about LGBTQ people has become more prevalent. Hate crimes on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity result in additional legal penalties. Hate speech based on these two categories has been outlawed in the country since 1 July 2017. Households headed by same-sex couples are, however, not eligible for the same legal protections available to opposite-sex couples.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Kyrgyzstan face significant challenges not experienced by non-LGBTQ residents. Both male and female same-sex sexual activities are legal in Kyrgyzstan, but same-sex couples and households headed by same-sex couples are ineligible for the same legal protections available to opposite-sex married couples.
Communist attitudes towards LGBTQ rights have evolved radically in the 21st century. In the 19th and 20th century, communist parties and Marxist–Leninist states varied on LGBTQ rights; some Western and Eastern parties were among the first political parties to support LGBTQ rights, while others, especially the Soviet Union, some of its Eastern Bloc members, and the Communist East Asian nations harshly persecuted people of the LGBTQ community.
The history of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people (LGBT) in Russia and its historical antecedents has largely been influenced by the political leanings of its rulers. Medieval Catholic-Protestant Europe had the largest influence on Russian attitude towards homosexuality. Russian LGBT history was influenced by the ambivalent attitude of the Russian Orthodox religiosity regarding sexuality.
Decriminalization of homosexuality is the repeal of laws criminalizing same-sex acts between multiple men or multiple women. It has taken place in most of the world, except much of Africa and the Muslim world.
Capital punishment as a criminal punishment for homosexuality has been implemented by a number of countries in their history. It is a legal punishment in several countries and regions, all of which have sharia-based criminal laws, except for Uganda.
LGBTQ history in the Soviet Union covers the development, contributions and struggles of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in the history of the Soviet Union, which existed from 1922 to 1991. Homosexual relations remained criminalized during that time period.
References
1 2 3 4 [Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime. E.H. Carr. 1994]
1 2 Encyclopedia of Homosexuality, Volume 2 - Marxism
↑ Healey, Dan (2001). "Masculine Purity and 'Gentlemen's Mischief': Sexual Exchange and Prostitution between Russian Men, 1861-1941". Slavic Review. 60 (2): 233–265. doi:10.2307/2697270. JSTOR2697270. PMID18170950. S2CID42687288.
1 2 Healey, Dan (2002). "Homosexual Existence and Existing Socialism: New Light on the Repression of Male Homosexuality in Stalin's Russia". GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 8 (3): 349–378. doi:10.1215/10642684-8-3-349. S2CID143578469.
↑ The Construction of Homosexuality. David Greenburg. University of Chicago Press. 1988. p. 440
↑ Russian Masculinities in History and Culture. edited by B. Clements, R. Friedman, D. Healey. Springer, 2001. p.170, see note 52
1 2 3 [Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia. Healey. 132-133]
↑ [Dynes, Encyclopedia of Homosexuality, 2016, p. 1137]
↑ [Die Sexualrevolution in Russland, Berlin: 1925 Girgorri Batkis]
↑ ["Sexual Relations and the Class Struggle," Alexandra Kollontai, Selected Writings of Alexandra Kollontai, trans. Alix Holt (London: Allison & Busby, 1977), 241.]
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