Between Fear and Truth: Watching Russia Erase LGBTQ+ Lives

As many of you know, I applied for political asylum in the United States and am now waiting for my hearing, which will take place next year. As the date approaches, the anxiety naturally grows. I find myself following developments in Russia more closely—especially anything related to LGBTQ+ rights—because it directly concerns my case. I am bisexual, and what is happening there is not an abstract news item to me; it’s a question of safety and survival.

What I’m seeing is a steady and frightening deterioration. Even the simple act of searching for information like this would now be a punishable offense if I were physically in Russia. What follows is only a sketch—a condensation—of the reality unfolding there, and while some of it may echo what I’ve written before, there is also new information that matters.

Today, life for LGBTQ+ people in Russia is exceptionally hard. The state has moved from hostility to open repression, and public expressions of identity or efforts to defend LGBTQ+ rights are criminalized, bringing administrative penalties and, increasingly, criminal prosecution. In 2023, the Russian Supreme Court declared the so-called “international LGBT movement” an extremist organization. That label isn’t just symbolic: public displays of affiliation, support, or even the use of LGBTQ+ symbols can result in fines, arrest, or prison sentences—two to six years for individuals, and six to ten for organizers. In 2025, these designations hardened into reality with new criminal cases and the first lengthy prison terms for “LGBT extremism,” including a six-year sentence. Repeat offenses can place people on the federal extremists list, which means frozen bank accounts and bans on employment and participation in elections.

The net widens further. In December 2022, the president signed a law expanding the ban on so-called “LGBT propaganda,” removing any distinction by age. From books and films to advertising, the internet, and educational and medical materials, any positive or even neutral mention of LGBTQ+ people is forbidden. It is not only platforms and media that can be punished; individuals are vulnerable—for their posts, their actions, even private statements made outside the home. The monitoring apparatus now includes AI-driven online surveillance, and, as of September 2025, you can be fined simply for searching online for content the state has labeled “extremist,” which explicitly includes LGBTQ+ materials.

The repressive turn extends into medicine and family life. Since 2023, legal and medical gender transition has been banned, and transgender people are denied even basic document changes. In November 2024, the state prohibited the adoption of Russian children by citizens of countries where gender transition is legal. Conversion therapy, on the other hand, is not only permitted by law but practiced. Meanwhile, police raids on gay clubs and LGBTQ+ events have multiplied in major cities over the past year, forcing many spaces to shut down or go underground. The state does not keep reliable hate-crime statistics, but human-rights organizations report a rise in threats and group assaults. Access to medical care is increasingly denied, especially to trans people, and refusal of public services is becoming more common.

The social climate reflects this tightening vise. According to human-rights groups, threats against LGBTQ+ people are up—those reporting threats rose from 20% to 25% in a year, and those reporting violence from 30% to 43%. As the pressure intensifies, emigration has surged: since 2023, requests for help with leaving the country—humanitarian visas, asylum, and other pathways—have sharply increased. Many LGBTQ+ organizations have either ceased operations or gone fully anonymous, offering what support they can only online.

Official rhetoric keeps escalating. Under the banner of “traditional values,” authorities aim to erase LGBTQ+ people from public life entirely, framing activism as extremism or even terrorism. By 2025, LGBTQ+ Russians face the real, daily threat of arrest, violence, discrimination, and forced exile for something as basic as self-identification or indirect support. Open activism, supportive publications, and personal self-expression have been effectively equated with extremism, and even a simple online search can be criminalized. Transgender people are outlawed in medicine and, in practice, in law. The message is unmistakable: there is no safe public space left.

And the truth is, this is only one facet of a broader collapse. I see a dictatorship taking root, a totalitarian regime justified and shielded by the noise of war. People are fixated on the front lines and fail to notice what is happening at home. My conclusions don’t come only from reading the internet. They come from people who still live there, people I know, who see it with their own eyes. And yet many simply refuse to see.

Here is one example. A former fellow student of mine—now working in the prosecutor’s office—wrote to me. I shared my thoughts about the situation in Russia, especially around LGBTQ+ issues. His reply, verbatim: “No, Diana. There’s a lot of lying. There’s freedom now for gays and for lesbians. No restrictions at all.” I told my sister about this exchange, and she said that while it used to be common to see LGBTQ+ content in public, now it’s nowhere—neither on the streets nor online. Some people do not want to acknowledge the obvious. Some close their eyes to anything that doesn’t touch them personally. But sooner or later, these changes reach everyone. And by then, it may be too late.