{"id":939,"date":"2026-05-16T00:49:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T00:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/under-new-extremism-laws-lgbtq-russians-must-fight-to-survive\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T00:49:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T00:49:13","slug":"under-new-extremism-laws-lgbtq-russians-must-fight-to-survive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/under-new-extremism-laws-lgbtq-russians-must-fight-to-survive\/","title":{"rendered":"Under new extremism laws, LGBTQ Russians must fight to survive"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRussian LGBTQ rights groups learn how to work from abroad<\/p>\n

Natalia Soloviova, the chair the Russian LGBT Network, a nonprofit that Putin\u2019s government declared as extremist on April 27. (Photo by Bryan Derballa for Uncloseted Media)<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Uncloseted Media, an LGBTQ-focused investigative news outlet.
\nBy Hope Pisoni
\nNatalia Soloviova always knew she was putting herself at risk. As the chair of the Russian LGBT Network, the largest queer advocacy group in the country, she had spent years preparing detailed security protocols for what she would do if the government came after her.
\nBut it was still a nasty shock when she had to use them. In November 2023, almost two weeks before Russia\u2019s supreme court would designate the \u201cinternational LGBT movement\u201d as an extremist organization, Soloviova\u2019s heart sank when she watched Channel One, a state-funded TV network, air a report about her organization. They flashed her and her colleagues\u2019 names on screen while accusing the organization of \u201cextremist\u201d activities, including spreading propaganda to minors and trying to destroy \u201ctraditional family values.\u201d
\n\u201cIt was so disturbing, and it made me physically sick,\u201d Soloviova told Uncloseted Media.
\nShe knew she had to get out. The following days blurred together as she checked off the steps in her security protocol: She called her lawyers, told her mom and wife she was leaving, and boarded a plane to another country. Over the next few years, she would move between several countries before settling in New York City.
\nIt all happened so fast that she didn\u2019t process her emotions until a month later, when she was scrolling Instagram and saw a video of her hometown, Novosibirsk.
\n\u201cI start just crying \u2026 because my previous life was lost,\u201d she says. \u201cI started to feel anger for the government, for the situation itself, because it was absolutely horrific and absolutely unfair.\u201d
\nWhile U.S. intelligence agencies under the Trump administration have indicated an interest in targeting trans people, Russia\u2019s extremism designation has allowed for a whole other level of persecution. Because the designation targets the entire LGBTQ movement, the court\u2019s ruling allows the government to impose broad crackdowns on the community.
\nAs of June 2025, Human Rights Watch (HRW) had identified 101 people convicted on LGBT extremism charges, with punishments ranging from fines to 12-year prison sentences. Since late last year, the government has also taken eight Russian LGBTQ advocacy organizations to court, aiming to label them as extremist groups.
\nThese cases are ongoing\u2014Soloviova\u2019s organization was just declared as extremist on April 27.
\n\u201cI woke up at home with my wife, and the first thing I saw were messages from our lawyers,\u201d Soloviova says about the news. \u201cHonestly, I was furious. But as usual, there was no time to be angry. My first thought was my colleagues still in Russia. I spent the entire morning in bed, messaging back and forth about emergency evacuations, security measures and our next steps.\u201d
\nPeople have been jailed for posting photos of pride flags in an 11-person Telegram chat and for wearing rainbow-colored earrings. In response, LGBTQ advocates have gone underground, finding new ways to support a terrified community. Despite everything, Soloviova says that \u201cmost organizations\u201d have continued to do their work.
\n\u201cThey can ban us on paper, but they cannot erase us,\u201d Soloviova says. \u201cWe will not abandon our values, because human life, safety and dignity matter more than any repressive labels.\u201d
\nNatalia Soloviova (Bryan Derballa photo courtesy of Uncloseted Media)
\nHow did Russia get here?
\nThe Russian government began targeting the LGBTQ community in 2013, when they passed a law banning the spread of \u201cpropaganda\u201d of \u201cnon-traditional sexual orientation\u201d to minors. The next year, Russia\u2019s military occupied Crimea, leading to condemnation from the U.S. and other world powers.
\nSasha Kazantseva, queer sex educator and author of \u201cThe Conservative Web: Russia\u2019s Worldwide War on LGBTQ+ Rights,\u201d says that in order to combat the backlash, Russian President Vladimir Putin leaned into \u201ctraditional values ideology\u201d to build support among more conservative countries.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Putin says] \u2018Western ideology is about making your kids trans and gay, and we can save your kids and your traditional families,\u2019 \u201d Kazantseva told Uncloseted Media.
\n\u201cLGBTQ people are very important for this traditional-values conservative ideology as an image of some internal enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n

After invading Ukraine in 2022, Putin\u2019s government escalated their attacks on Russia\u2019s LGBTQ community. They expanded their anti-propaganda law to include adults, and in 2023 they banned trans people of all ages from medically transitioning or changing their legal gender. On Nov. 30, 2023, they issued the extremism ruling.
\n\u201c[In] 2022, they see again that people are not happy with the war, and they start to play the same game as 10 years ago,\u201d Kazantseva says. \u201cNobody cared [about trans people], and out of nowhere, Putin starts to mention trans people in every speech.\u201d
\nSince then, things have escalated. Last November, the Justice Ministry began a court case to declare Irida, a small LGBTQ advocacy group, as an extremist organization. Eight advocacy groups, including ComingOut and the Russian LGBT Network, both of which provide services including psychological support and legal consultation to LGBTQ Russians, have had similar cases against them.
\nCrackdowns under the extremism ruling
\nMaks Olenichev, a European Union-based lawyer who supports Russian LGBTQ defendants in court, says there are two types of charges for violating extremism laws.
\nFirst, displaying the symbols of an extremist group\u2014often the rainbow pride flag in this case\u2014is considered an administrative offense. Of the 101 individuals HRW identified, 81 were convicted for displaying symbols. First-time offenders face fines or short jail sentences, while repeat offenders can receive up to four years in prison.
\nSecond, participation in the international LGBT movement is a criminal offense punishable by up to 12 years in prison. HRW identified at least 20 people facing these charges.
\nHeadquarters of Russian book publisher Eksmo (Photo courtesy of Reuters)
\nParticipation in the movement can seemingly include any public activities related to the LGBTQ community. Authorities arrested several employees at Eksmo, Russia\u2019s largest publishing house, for extremism because some of their books contained LGBTQ themes. And last year, a Moscow court posthumously found Andrey Kotov, the leader of a Russian gay travel agency, guilty of extremism after he died in a pretrial detention center.
\n\u201cIf [Kotov] had asked me whether he could do it, I would say, \u2018Yes you could do it, it\u2019s legal.\u2019 And then he goes to jail and dies there,\u201d says Ksenia, who works outside of Russia as legal assistance program coordinator for ComingOut. \u201cI have 20 years\u2019 experience in law. What can we expect from people who are not experienced lawyers?\u201d
\nOlenichev agrees: \u201cThere\u2019s no 100% foolproof way to not being charged with anything.\u201d
\nAlise Sever. (Photo courtesy of Alise Sever)
\nAlise Sever learned this the hard way in 2024, when her Halloween weekend celebrations were interrupted by masked police officers banging down the doors. Sever was partying at Black Clover, an LGBTQ-friendly club she had opened just over a year earlier in Kirov, Russia.
\nAt 2:00 a.m., militarized special forces burst in to raid the club and immediately hauled Sever off to the precinct while they pinned several patrons against the wall, arrested them and confiscated what came out to be roughly 1 million rubles, or 10,000 USD, worth of music equipment, alcohol and other club property\u2014a price so steep that the business would need to shut down.
\n\u201cI knew that something [like this] could happen,\u201d Sever, 28, told Uncloseted Media. \u201cBut I was sad. I was grieving a loss of money, a loss of the time and work that I have put into this.\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nOne of the decorations that got Sever fined for propaganda. (Photo retrieved from police documents and shared by Sever)
\nSever and five other people who were arrested that night\u2014including the club\u2019s co-founder and multiple queer artists\u2014were charged with extremism. As part of the court proceedings, Russian police revealed that they had been monitoring Sever and her girlfriend for almost a year and had amassed thousands of pages of documents containing information about her and her business as well as transcripts of intercepted messages and phone calls.
\n\u201cThey apply these laws very randomly, and they do it not to show that this person is the most brutal criminal you can imagine, they do it to show that anyone can be targeted by this law,\u201d Kazantseva says. \u201cSo you live in permanent tension, in permanent self-censorship. And that\u2019s how they control people.\u201d
\nSasha Kazantseva (Photo courtesy of Le Devoir)
\nLocked out of Russian bank accounts
\nKazantseva, who has published zines, blogs and books about LGBTQ issues, has also experienced this firsthand. Despite having fled the country for Lithuania in 2023 due to crackdowns on anti-war advocacy, Russia\u2019s financial monitoring system added her to their list of \u201cterrorists and extremists\u201d last October. This bans her from accessing Russian bank accounts, essentially locking her out of any financial activities in the country. The federal government has also placed her on their \u201cwanted\u201d list, and a court has ordered \u201carrest in absentia\u201d of Kazantseva, meaning that she will be detained if she enters Russia or one of its allied countries.
\nRussian authorities have also threatened charges to pressure LGBTQ people into enlisting to fight in the war. In 2024, the government issued a new policy allowing defendants to be exempted from criminal liability if they join the army.
\nKsenia, who requested that Uncloseted Media omit her surname for fear of not being allowed to return to the country, says she knew a boy who was part of a group chat for LGBTQ teenagers. When federal authorities discovered the chat, they threatened him with criminal convictions, and after significant pressure, he abandoned his plans to go to university and signed up to fight in Ukraine shortly after his 18th birthday.
\n\u201cI know I should feel outrage at how defenseless he is facing the state machine,\u201d Ksenia says. \u201cBut at this point, [I\u2019m] just numb.\u201d
\nThese legal crackdowns have caused many LGBTQ people to withdraw from public life. In a 2025 study of 1,683 queer women by Olenichev and other Russian scholars, more than half of the respondents said extremism laws had made them afraid to contact law enforcement, 36.5% had gone back into the closet, and many have \u201cseverely restricted their circle of friends.\u201d
\nSometimes, taking these precautions isn\u2019t enough. Sever\u2019s club, which hosted drag performances, only allowed people who had not publicly come out as queer online to perform, and had to issue rules that performers could not touch or interact with the audience or mention the terms \u201cLGBTQ\u201d or \u201cUkraine.\u201d They also had to remove wall paintings of humanoid cats wearing shibari rope and lingerie after getting fined by police in early 2024 under the propaganda law. None of that, though, was enough to save them from being raided.
\nHow are advocates responding?
\nZhenya, a Russian trans emigrant to Canada who asked to use a pseudonym because they still visit their home country, got hands-on experience with the new normal for queer activism when they signed up to volunteer for ComingOut.
\nKsenia says the organization now relies almost entirely on workers outside of Russia like Zhenya. In order to start volunteering for the group, Zhenya had to go through a round of interviews designed to weed out infiltrators. And once they joined, they learned that all their coworkers\u2019 identities would be hidden.
\n\u201cPartially why they do interviews is because it\u2019s known sometimes that police agents will try to insert themselves in the group to get names,\u201d Zhenya told Uncloseted Media. \u201cThey never ask you for your passport info, they don\u2019t ask you for your real name.\u201d
\nKsenia says ComingOut now has its security measures down to a science and \u201calmost nothing\u201d needed to change when they were declared an extremist organization. Because of that, they now offer security consultation to other organizations.
\n See Also<\/p>\n

Another initiative that has needed to adapt to this new reality is Centre T, a trans and nonbinary support organization that will likely be declared an extremist group at an upcoming trial. Sasha, the group\u2019s media coordinator, says volunteers must use a VPN and communicate through encrypted messaging apps. Initially, this would often be Telegram, but with the Russian legislature weighing a ban on the app, they\u2019re considering moving to other platforms like Matrix.
\nEven with these precautions, Centre T had to cut some programs: They no longer host online chats or dating programs, and they\u2019ve mostly had to stop sharing personal stories in order to protect people\u2019s identities. Still, their most crucial programs, which include assisting trans people in leaving the country and connecting them to medical specialists that aid them with transition under the table, are still operating.
\nImage from Centre T website.
\nFleeing the country
\nLike with ComingOut, most of Centre T\u2019s workers and volunteers have left Russia. Olenichev says this is generally the safest option. In many extremism cases, he says lawyers focus less on actually winning and more on fighting for lighter sentences and using stall tactics, like requesting extra documentation, to buy time for defendants to flee.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s impossible to win those cases since [they] usually are political and not legal,\u201d Olenichev says.
\nSever is a success story for this strategy. After her arrest, she spent two months alone in a jail cell, isolated from her friends and family as they were scared that sending her letters would lead the government to target them. After she was released, she spent 11 months on house arrest, trapped at home with her \u201cvery religious\u201d mother who tried to convince her to accept the charges and abandon her pansexuality.
\n\u201cThere were moments when my friends were visiting me while I was on house arrest, and they were later on [interrogated], so that led for them to stop. \u2026 It took a toll on me.\u201d
\nAs Olenichev and other advocates fought to prolong her case, she concocted a scheme to flee the country despite being under house arrest. When she came down with a disease, she was allowed to call an ambulance to the hospital, where her friends were waiting to help smuggle her over the border.
\n\u201cI ended up in a safe place where I\u2019m awaiting a visa to go to Europe, now,\u201d says Sever, who did not reveal her location due to concerns about violence from local anti-LGBTQ groups.
\nCentre T is currently operating a temporary shelter in Armenia for trans people leaving Russia, providing food, housing and psychological and medical support. While they say they\u2019ve recently lost U.S. grants and the ability to fundraise in Russia, the shelter remains open because of crowdfunding through Patreon and Buy Me a Coffee.
\n\u201cWe are funded by our community,\u201d Sasha says. \u201cIt\u2019s been really amazing, honestly \u2026 because it\u2019s very difficult to find funding for direct service projects like a shelter.\u201d
\nHow do queer people continue to live in Russia?
\nZhenya visited St. Petersburg for the first time since the extremism designation in the summer of 2024. Surprisingly, they still managed to find communities of queer people.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything official, it\u2019s all where gay people just go, and you just know,\u201d they say. \u201cI went to one [such] place and that went just fine. I know a couple trans people who still live in St. Petersburg, and there\u2019s still events and things happening, but it\u2019s just way more lowkey.\u201d
\nZhenya says it\u2019s easier to do this in bigger cities where they say people are relatively accepting and less likely to report LGBTQ people to the police.
\nSasha believes that the community\u2019s future lies in whisper networks like those Zhenya describes.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s time for some decentralized, horizontal activities and initiatives,\u201d she says. \u201cBecause it\u2019s more safe right now to make a group only for friends, for people that you know.\u201d
\nSasha says it\u2019s critical that queer Russians take precautions and strongly recommends ensuring no LGBTQ content is saved on your phone in case it gets hacked or confiscated.
\nIn such dangerous conditions, Natalia Soloviova says every step is important. Seemingly simple actions, like opening up about your queer identity to trusted loved ones, covertly spreading information among other queer people, or simply allowing yourself to rest and recover are necessary to make it through.
\n\u201cYou\u2019re keeping community alive,\u201d she says. \u201cIf you\u2019re supporting your friends, even with drinking mimosas on a Sunday after a really hard week, it\u2019s keeping community safe, it\u2019s spreading the words of community. Better to do something than not to do something.\u201d
\nFor herself, life goes on in New York. While she still misses Novosibirsk, she says she will continue to fight from abroad and is grateful that there are still so many queer Russians fighting to live safely.
\n\u201cThis urge of people who want to improve the life of our community can be unstoppable.\u201d
\nUncloseted Media interviewed Maks Olenichev and Alise Sever in Russian via interpretation from Lieb Fischbach of Qaravan, a New York City-based nonprofit providing support for LGBTQ immigrants from post-Soviet countries. Fischbach also provided assistance with other translation needs, and Uncloseted Media is very grateful for his contribution.<\/p>\n\n
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Russian LGBTQ rights groups learn how to work from abroad Natalia Soloviova, the chair the Russian LGBT Network, a nonprofit that Putin\u2019s government declared as extremist on April 27. (Photo by Bryan Derballa for Uncloseted Media) This story was originally published by Uncloseted Media, an LGBTQ-focused investigative news outlet. By Hope Pisoni Natalia Soloviova always …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_3659155457675267_172535249438148":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Under-new-extremism-laws-LGBTQ-Russians-must-fight-to-survive.jpg",1456,1165,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Under-new-extremism-laws-LGBTQ-Russians-must-fight-to-survive-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Under-new-extremism-laws-LGBTQ-Russians-must-fight-to-survive-300x240.jpg",300,240,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Under-new-extremism-laws-LGBTQ-Russians-must-fight-to-survive-768x615.jpg",618,495,true],"large":["https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Under-new-extremism-laws-LGBTQ-Russians-must-fight-to-survive-1024x819.jpg",618,494,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Under-new-extremism-laws-LGBTQ-Russians-must-fight-to-survive.jpg",1456,1165,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Under-new-extremism-laws-LGBTQ-Russians-must-fight-to-survive.jpg",1456,1165,false],"tie-small":["https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Under-new-extremism-laws-LGBTQ-Russians-must-fight-to-survive-110x75.jpg",110,75,true],"tie-medium":["https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Under-new-extremism-laws-LGBTQ-Russians-must-fight-to-survive-310x165.jpg",310,165,true],"tie-large":["https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Under-new-extremism-laws-LGBTQ-Russians-must-fight-to-survive-310x205.jpg",310,205,true],"slider":["https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Under-new-extremism-laws-LGBTQ-Russians-must-fight-to-survive-660x330.jpg",660,330,true],"big-slider":["https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Under-new-extremism-laws-LGBTQ-Russians-must-fight-to-survive-1050x525.jpg",1050,525,true]},"author_info":{"info":["Editor"]},"category_info":"News<\/a>","tag_info":"News","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xavieradioug.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}