The Situation of Sexual Minorities in Belarus

In the USSR the male homosexuality was persecuted by the criminal law. When Belarus became an independent country, this criminal article was abolished, but the authorities didn’t stop to suppress the LGBT community in a more subtle way - by concealment and disinformation („Lesbians and Gays, the Way to Understanding“, Minsk 2008).

There are no grounds to suppose that people in Belarus unanimously hate gays and lesbians. At the same time, one can observe that the public opinion is inclined to segregate sexual minorities. The heterosexual majority belives that they have to stay “invisible”. Thus, hiding your sexual orientation if you have a non-traditional one, is imposed by the pressure from the society and is practically compulsory there, that brings down your life quality and makes you feel socially inferior. Both state-owned and “independent” media tend to the sluggish, but stable defamation of the homosexuals (deliberately false information is systematecally translated, outraging gays’ and lesbians’ human dignity). The absence of the legislation on the norm-making provisions of responsibility for insulting and humiliating persons on the basis of their sexual orientation, as well as poor understanding of the principles of the professional ethics in the journalists’ milieu are conductive for such situation. Internal homophobia also has serious impact on the health and on the self-esteem of the LGBT people. The anxiety about the “abnormality” of one’s behaviour, the uncertainty about the future bring down the subjective value of his/her own life (Belarusian Social Forum: materials, sections, results, pp. 83-85, Minsk 2008).

The criminal law in Belarus doesn’t include the sexual orientation to the index of the forbidden cases of discrimination. This is one of the reasons of the widespread inactivity of the law machinery in case of violence and violent offences connected with the sexual orientation.

Transgender people, whose biological sex doesn’t match their psychosocial gender identity and who often need surgical correction and hormonal therapy for valuable socializaton and self-realisation, are not accepted by the society in Belarus.

Actually, the solidary LGBT-community in Belarus is to be fostered, only in recent years, starting from 2008 the organized forces appeared, who are engaged in successive and constructive activism.

Homophobia as an Ideology of Hatred

Homophobia presents not a banal everyday issue. It is the ideology of hatred, as fascism, xenophobia, racism, anti-semitism and sexism. It is dangerous, because it justifies violence and discrimination on the mark of one’s sexual orientation. It is used by the conservatives and the Nazis in order to create the image of the enemy – the group of the people which are in charge for all the disasters and unjustices in the society, and to stir up against this group another groups of population.The participants and organizers of the LGBT public events and parties are often beaten by the Nazis and lumpen youth in Belarus. The public actions of the LGBT movement are forbidden by the state. The discrimination and violence are the results of the homophobic ideology which dominates in Belarus.The homophobia presents one of the greates problems in the country, that is proven by sociologic survey by Kristina Bondarava “The life priorities of the homosexuals and the peculiarities of the perception of these priorities by the heterosexuals in Belarus”. She examined the attitude of the heterosexuals to the homosexuals. 237 people took part in the survey, in general students and workers from Polack, Nawapolack, Minsk and Wicebsk. The results of the survey are very depressive, while 64 % of the heterosexuals have a negative attitude towards the homoparenting, 53 % deny the right to same-sex marrige, 78 % are negative towards the work of the gays and lesbians in the educational system, and 70 % don’t encourge their expression of feelings at public. The most of the questioned homosexuals admitted, that there is no necessary work on the rights of the gays and lesbians, and 52 % endured violence because of their orientation. This data contradicts with the internationally promoted image of the Belarusians as generally tolerant people. It should be mentioned that the International Health Organization has eliminated homosexuality from the list of the psychic diseases in 1990. In the Republic of Belarus the homosexual relations were de-criminalised in 1994.There is the only one registered LGBT organisation in Belarus, “Wstrecha”, it’s main profile is the profilactics of HIV and AIDS among gays and bisexual men. They don’t work, unfortunately, with lesbians and bisexual women, that may expose the hidden sexism of the LGBT community in Belarus.

Are Lesbians Women as well?

Lesbians and bisexual women are marginalized in Belarus – they are not visible in the public sphere. Allmost all LGBT organizations and initiatives function there beyond the bounds of law. „Jana“ – was the only one registered organization which positioned itself as an organization of lesbians, was closed by the authorities. The new promising organization of the young lesbians – „Labrys“ (http://www.labrys.by/) has zero chances for the official registaration. It acts in order to integrate the lesbian community and provides the psychological counselling. There are nowadays two developments in the LGBT movement – one is more or less balanced in the terms of gender equality (“The Belarusian Initiative for the Sexual and Gender Equality”), and the second one (“GayBelarus”) which is dominated by the gays. The financial capital for organizing the events and creating the infrastructure is concentrated mainly in the gays’ communities, since the role of women in Belarus is patriarchal and hence the financial possbilities are limited.The history of the LGBTs as a subculture and political movement started in Belarus in the 90s and was presented by the generation of active people, who, notwithstanding the economic dislocation in the country and great risks for the personal security, used the opportune historical moment and created the infrastructure, consisting of several LGBT magazines, gay-clubs and meeting points, nonformal groups and stunning travesty-shows. The first gay-pride in the CIS countries took place in Minsk, in September 2001.Unfortunately, in result of the state repressions and aggravation of the Lukashenka’s dictatorship, the most active figures of that generation had to immigrate. For instance, the Belarusian League for Sexual Equality „Lambda“, founded in June 1998, which was the first civic initiative in Belarus, openly setting as the priority of ist activity lobbying of the interests of sexual minorities, don’t exist anymore, while all the members have immigrated.

The most influencial LGBT websites in Belarus nowadays are Alexandr Poluyan’s blog in Russian www.gay.by and Sergey Androsenko’s blog in Belarusian http://www.gaybelarus.by/.

According to the recent survey, 42 % of the Minsk residents approve the public actions of the sexual minorities, at the same time as 57,7% of Minsk residents and 61,9 % of the residents of Belarus have refused the right of the sexual minorities for the peaceful public events.

The President of Belarus Lukashenka, well-known for his anti-semitic hate speech and approval of Hitler’s politics, has publicly called homosexuality a “western disease”.

Homophobia is wide-spread issue in the NGOs; and in the women and feminist NGOs as well – and it is a scandalous fact, of course. For instance, only one women organization took part in the LGBT conference in 2009, it is Women’s Crisis Centre “Radislawa” from Minsk, which was attacked by the representatives of the NGOs afterwards. It was blamed “for supporting the perverses”.

One of the women organizations, “Mothers against Drugs”, from the town Slonim, has officially compared the standing of the homosexuals for their rights with the nazi ideology (sic!) and accused homosexuals in the spreading the HIV-infection (sic!). According to their open letter, “the gays are permanent leaders in the spread of HIV-infection and venereal diseases, and even pass ahead the drug-addicts and the prostitutes” – this documents the conservatism and patriarchal character of the organization, notwithstanding the fact, that they are quasi women organization. Their article deliberately continued false data concerning the connection between homosexual lifestyle and HIV. There are officially over 100.000 people infected with HIV in Belarus - this data varies in different sources, and sometimes runs up to 300.000. Anyway, this amount is terrific, it is over 1 % of the population. And only 20 persons with HIV in Belarus identify themselves as homosexuals. It is the result of the homophobic propaganda of hate against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders, spread by the representatives of the Orthodox church, which is dominant in the country. The second one important religion, Catholicism, is also intrinsically homophobic and sexist.

Homophobia tooks place in the trade unions as well. The Federation of the trade unions of Belarus, which is controlled by the government, has published the letter of homophobic character which denunciated the independent trade union for their work with gays – by implementing this arguments in order to discredit the independent trade union, the state one trade union has disposed its homophobia.

The legal situation with LGBT rights in Belrus is shocking. The representatives of the LGBT-community there regulary face abuse from the authorities and the police (“milicia”). In November 2009 in Grodno the LGBT activists and web-journalists underwent the police violence and illegal arrests, when local gay activists were accused in spreading child pornography through their web-site. This accusation appeared to be untrue.

In December 2009 in Minsk took place the court examination on the case of the arrested participants of the picket supporting the condemned to death sentence gays in Iran. Three activists of the radical LGBT organization “GayBelarus” were charged with the organization of the unsanctioned picket and condemned to the fine. During the picket was arrested a journalist of the nationalistic newspaper “Nasha Niwa”.

On May 15, 2010 the Slavic pride took place in Minsk, in spite of the official ban. The argument of the Minsk authorities was that the ininerary of the march was too close to the pedestrian crossings and the undeground stations. The organizers subbmited a request concerning the planned event in early March 2010. But the official reply with a flat refusal appeared only a week before the planned date, leaving niether alternative proposals nor time for the negotiations.

In spite of this ban, directed not only against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders, but, more likely, infringing the freedom of assembly and freedom of expression, guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus, over 50 activists from Russia and Belarus walked along the streets of the city holding rainbow banners and slogans. The action got a broad support from the media - over 30 journalists and 10 TV operators attained it. The pride didn't run long, while it was harshly surpressed by the special forces of police, several activists were arrested.

This police violence was mirroring the attack from the Nazis, who blocked the LGBT-activists in the hotel "Crown Plaza" in the previous evening, on May 14. Late at night, after the group from 30 to 50 Nazis left, someone anonimously called to the hotel, and told, that it was bomb there.

So, the level of homophobia in Belarus is so high, that it often leads to crime. But there is no antidiscrimination legislature in the country. The Article 64 of the Criminal code which describes the aggravating circumstances doesn’t consider sexual orientation or gender identity as a circumstance which aggravates the guilt while commiting crime.

The arising problem in Belarus is also the double discrimination of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders of the African and Asian origin. These people are affected both from the homophobia and racism. Marat, young gay and talented dancer of Belarusian-African origin from Minsk, after the dreadful episode of compulsory psychiatrisation, has been unemployed for a long time and lives on an age of survuval.

Luis-Jorge Tan, the president of the organization the International Day Against Homophobia “IDAHO” was not welcomed in Minsk because of his being black. It was impossible to rent a flat for him for a couple of days during his visit to Minsk in 2009, where he took part at the 5th Belarusian LGBT Conference.

Compulsory Psychiatrisation of Gays and Lesbians

Compulsory psychiatrisation is a part of the state politics of handling with homosexuals. For instance, I know one person, who was treated for homosexuality in the late 80-s with electroshock and hard psychopharmaceuticals, unseccessfully, of course. He was one of the editors of the first gay magazine in Belarus. Activist of the radical organization “GayBelarus” was psychiatrised and treated for homosexuality with psychiatric drugs in Minsk in 2008. The history of the homosexuality in the USSR is not written yet. It will be possible only when the archives of the KGB and the psychiatrical clinics will be accessible for all.

The nationalistic-conservative party “The Youth Front” (“Malady Front”) aggressively reacted to the joining of the LGBTs the Assembly of the Non-Governmental-orgnizations. They are well-known right-wing populists who, in accordance with their Middle Age religios superstitions, insist on criminalizing the homosexuality, paralleling legalisation of the homosexual relations with legalisation of pedophilia. They limit in that way the rights of the numerous people, who live in Belarus, to the freedom of choise and self-expression.

Not only the ruling regime of Lukashenka, most of the opposition politicians as well declined to support the LGBT community and Slavic gay pride. Only the social-democrates and the Belarusian greens support the rights of the gays and lesbians in full measures, as it is accepted in the countries of the European Union.The history of the movement fort he rights of the gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders in Belarus has a lot of the evidences of the fact, that the LGBT community in the moments which are connected with radical transformations in the society, appears to be the group which is one of the most unprotected against the aggression, and which is moreover could be used by the propaganda as one of the „scapegoats“, in order to justify all the mistakes of the corrupt government. The situation with discrimination and deprivation of rights of the LGBTs in Belarus could be solved only be the radical movement for the rights of the gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders and by the creation of the networks of solidarity.