Proposed restrictions on LGBTQ+ rights have proven far harder for politicans at home and abroad to unite against than the government’s “foreign agent” bill.
“No racism, sexism, homophobia or transphobia,” reads a sign in a small vegan café in the center of the Georgian capital, an EU flag pinned across the counter.
“The other day, I was looking at a picture I took in 2013 with my friends who are queer activists, and I realized 90 percent of them have now left for other European countries,” said Atina Bregvadze, a feminist campaigner in Tbilisi, for whom the café is one of just a few remaining welcoming places.
At the same time, outside, thousands of parents, children and priests clad in black robes were gathering in the streets for a rally to celebrate “Family Purity Day,” the public holiday declared by the government to rival Friday’s International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT).
Now, many in Georgia’s LGBTQ+ community fear their small country is running out of space to accommodate both of these very different worlds.
Russia poisons everything.
Conservatism poisons everything.
Russia is conservative, and conservative parties all over the world have noticeably been cozying up to Russia for years now.
its_the_same_picture.meme
Depressing but not surprising, Putins favorite little sycophant in Chechnya, Kadyrov, has been saying, “There’s no gay people in Chechnya” like “There’s no war in Ba Sing Se” while simultaneously throwing thousands of LGBT people into camps for a decade now.
Oh this is the country
A bleak thought, what if the surfacing of the anti-gender rhetoric draws an actual heat map of Russian influence unfolding. Some of it is in mainland Europe (Hungary) and of course a lot more is right in the US. This can be the new cold war, but I am not sure which side the US will be on this time around.
That’s not a huge what if, we already know Russia (and China) have bolstered the far right globally to create the current “culture war” distraction
