Eight Horrific Stories of Being Gay in the New Russia

On January 25, Kremlin-friendly journalist Anton Krasovsky invited a bunch of drag queens on his show on KontrTV, a Kremlin-owned channel. It was his personal protest against a proposed law in the Russian parliament, the Duma, which would ban distributing “gay propaganda” to minors. The law’s broad definition of “propaganda” would prohibit publicly discussing gay relationships, comparing them to heterosexual ones, or calling them “normal.” That is, it would effectively criminalize the process of coming out—so often the driving force for wider social acceptance of gays. Violations would be punishable by hefty fines and, for foreigners, potential imprisonment. Krasovsky had long been a Kremlin shill, but this seemed to break his avid appetite for serving the state. “I’m gay,” he said on the air. “And I’m as much of a person as you, my dear viewers, as President Putin, Prime Minister Medvedev, and the deputies of the Duma.”