On November 17th, the Russian state petitioned the Supreme Court to ban the "international LGBT public movement", due to its purported "extremist activity". In the least unsurprising outcome in a country where what the state wants (and especially the man in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin), it gets, only 13 days later, the Court agreed and outlawed this 'organisation' and its activities.
What does this all mean? Who knows, and that's the point. It can then be used in any circumstance for any reason, and against anyone usually for internal distraction, and given the history of state (and even vigilante) repression and violence against LGBTQ+ people in the country, it likely will. It will chill any societal expression, leaving LGBTQ+ interactions either in private homes or driven underground. A day later, Western media reported that even that wasn't safe, as bars were being raided, however this itself is not anything new. And Russia have gone after LGBTQ+ peoples' visibility ever since a 2013 federal law that banned "propaganda" of "non-traditional sexual relations" in the company of minors.
As a gay dude myself, one of the major comebacks you will get out of the Anglophone gender critical, anti-trans, foot soldiers as to why they're doing what they are, is that they 'have to protect the gays from being transed away'. Do they really believe that, or even understand what they're doing? I don't think so myself. But you will hear this too in the media sphere - not only the originating right-wing outlets, but even in liberal commentariat. That's why it's so effective, right? Because we're this 'welcoming', 'inclusive' country and people. We don't want to see our lovely gays trampled on and erased.
One of the most glaring examples of this is GB News's 'Free Speech Nation', hosted by the 'Good Gay' (and prolific Twitter blocker) Andrew Doyle. I've blogged before about how this show seems to equate 'free speech',, solely with being allowed to delegitimise and denigrate transgender people and their mere existence. The show also rails against the 'woke radical Marxist Left', or whatever the fuck, and how they (we) are trying to end your (the 'silent majority') freedom, over their (our) desire for a better, more fair world.
But this should be right up their street to show they're actually doing anti-trans agitprop, merely to protect the gays existing. The freedom of LGB people existing as themselves is now being restricted to an even greater extent that it was before.
So I took a scan through the four episodes of this show since the state order to the court. And I'm sure you will be shocked to read that in ~6 hours of programming, there was not a single segment that was dedicated to this news. Now it is possible that it was talked about in passing somewhere - as an aside to something - but that would be literally nothing against the hours of content this show has put out against trans people.
So what did they decide was more important than trying to protect gay people?
Well, on the 19th November edition - the first after the petition was filed - they could spare ten minutes to interview a band (Whom By Fire - no, me neither) who were allegedly removed from doing a gig because they appeared on this same show. Then across the 26th November and 3rd December editions, there was almost 25 minutes spent on asking if it really was the 'far right' taking part in the Dublin riots - after anti-immigrant protesters massed following the knife attack targeting children outside a primary school. The gardai would later arrest a 20 year resident, now naturalised citizen of Ireland.
In these episodes, there was the usual anti-trans stuff sprinkled in - although not the near 50% I observed in an earlier episode and documented in the earlier blog - but on the 10th December edition, it was back with a bang. There was almost half an hour of it, including a long drawn out monologue by Doyle, on how transgender criminals should be referred to by their birth sex in any public discussion, alongside 'Keep Prisons Single Sex' director Kate Coleman, then later a salivating over Kemi Badenoch putting trans people in their place in the Commons, alongside Twitter antagoniser Dennis Kavanagh. Oh, and going back to the original point, ten minutes on the Elgin Marbles.
So plenty of time here, but no mention of what they say they're doing this whole concocted hysteria for. Hell, they could just do a segment to say they (Russia) are doing all of this to stop the 'evil transes' or 'radical gender ideology' or 'radical trans activists'. Or even, as some have said, a way to reinvigorate a sliding (native) birth rate. Just anything to make it look like you are as you say you are, the 'moderate' 'common sense' actor in this 'debate'. Because there's also an excuse for siding with right-wing reactionaries.
As I was writing this, I also remembered that in the past month, a second proposed expansion to Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law was initiated, that would expand it from schools to public sector workplaces. This show, channel and right-wing media and commentariat ecosystem loves what Ron DeSantis is doing, and this is not impinging on gay people, but 'stopping the indoctrination of young children'. That was even after the original law of restricting whatever mythical instruction of LGBTQ+ issues in Ktindergarten to 3rd Grade, was extended in May to 8th Grade - something DeSantis himself, famously chastised a reporter what has really going on, then 14 months later went back and did expand it anyway, which was further expanded by his hand-picked Board of Education two weeks later to all children through the end of high school.
But this encroachment by the state - something the Right regularly say they despise (usually by saying everyone in charge is a Leftist), has gone by without a mention.
Why is that? You would think both of these obvious infringements on freedom would be of interest to the audience, so I guess they must just have been bizarrely coincidental slips of the mind.
Or maybe, it's that they actually like all of what is being done, and have been helping it along via the public square all along, so they have to keep the stuff, that even most of the foot-soldiers would have been against five years ago, all hush-hush so as not to spook the masses, until it's all too late to stop.
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