Russian security forces raided gay clubs and bars across Moscow Friday night, less than 48 hours after the country’s top court banned what it called the “global LGBTQ+ movement” as an extremist organization.
Police searched venues across the Russian capital, including a nightclub, a male sauna, and a bar that hosted LGBTQ+ parties, under the pretext of a drug raid, local media reported.
Eyewitnesses told journalists that clubgoers’ documents were checked and photographed by the security services. They also said that managers had been able to warn patrons before police arrived.
Actual quotes from Hexbears that I got when discussing Russia with them:
“Those reactionary shitstains [the Russian government] has little to be proud of.”
“Russia is extremly Reactionary […] thats why Russia has a Real Problem with “White Supremacy” , [and] no problems with hunting down LGBTQ+ […]”
Now I don’t exactly see anybody on Hexbear presently discussing this particular bit of news about crackdowns on LGBT+, but I’ll go post about this news on Hexbear and see how the people there react. I have a feeling it’s going to be consistent with my previous experiences discussing Russia with Hexbears, which is also going to be the reaction that I’d expect from an instance that skews heavily LGBT+.
My experience has been exactly the opposite. They go out of their way to defend Russia and China and will hardly utter a word of criticism against either.
Which is why they said it’s not being discussed much over there.
They don’t want to defend it, but they can’t bring themselves to be critical of Russia either, so they just don’t speak up.
My thread on Hexbear
https://hexbear.net/post/1232126
Here’s the thread I made on Hexbear.
https://hexbear.net/post/1232126
Four comments as of me writing this comment:
So yeah, if you’re looking for Hexbears criticizing Russia, then there you go.
I’m confused. Don’t they want to leave Nato countries? Why not go to the next best thing to them, China?
I can only assume it’s for reasons such as:
Language: there is a very large Russian/FSU diaspora in Germany, while there is only a very small Russian community in China; and LGBT+ Russians are more likely to be proficient in English than in Chinese. It then follows that integrating into society and accessing services would be easier in Germany than in China, since Germany has a high English proficiency, and a large enough Russian population for many services to be provided in that language, or for Russophones to be able to find community on the basis of shared first language. German itself, of course, is also more similar to English and Russian than it is to Chinese.
The state of LGBT+ rights: rights for LGBT+ people are better in Germany than in China. This is not to erase the strides that China has made in terms of LGBT+ rights, nor the difficulties that LGBT+ people face in Germany and the very real possibility of regression as right-wing sentiment grows in Germany; but it’s also just a fact that LGBT+ Hexbears obviously acknowledge, that it’s in many ways just easier to be LGBT+ in the core than in the periphery or semi-periphery. It sucks, but that’s the way it is, for now.
Ease of applying for asylum: becoming a refugee in China is more difficult than becoming a refugee in Germany. Last I checked, China does not officially grant asylum, and has all refugees living in the country processed by the UNHCR. Germany, on the other hand, does grant asylum. While it’s obviously a good thing that people can flee from dangerous situations and seek asylum in another country, and China really should grant official asylum to refugees; one should be aware that systemically, the imperial core’s policy towards refugees is a form of economic domination over the imperial periphery, meant to provide themselves with cheap labor and drain the capital of the periphery.
China does not need more communists: it’s not like it’s a bad thing to move to China by any means — there’s a lot of good that can be done there — but it’s also not a bad thing to move to the imperial core in order to fight the good fight “in the heart of the enemy”. That’s more people to do activism, more people to join and contribute to organizations, and so forth: if we want to build socialism around the whole world, obviously we’ll want to live around the whole world.
I dunno, these are just some of my thoughts on potential reasons why an LGBT+ Russian socialist might prefer to take refuge in Germany rather than China… Like, it could’ve also just been that Kaplya just stated the name of the first country Kaplya thought of, and the comment wasn’t meant to be read into to this extent, but either way it’s a good writing exercise.
Seems like they are mostly concerned with connecting “Russia bad” to liberalism, the ideology which is actually doing the most for LGBT rights. So even in contrition, they push misinformation and information warfare.
Just so that you’re aware: liberalism here refers to the belief in market economies and the right to private property. There is a bit more to liberalism, naturally, but that’s the main point. So whenever you see Hexbears talk about “libs” or “liberals”, rather than applying whatever American definition or preconception of the word “liberalism” that you may have, instead think, “someone who supports the free market and private property”… And indeed, the liberal parties in Russia are right-wing and deeply conservative: “liberal” non est “progressive”. Decouple those terms in your mind. You can have liberal progressives and liberal conservatives alike if you’re not using “liberal” as a synonym of “progressive”, like Americans tend to do.
Furthermore, LGBT+ criticisms of capitalism have a history stretching back even before Stonewall. Harry Whyte’s letter to Stalin in 1934, which criticizes the regress of gay rights in the USSR while also analyzing the position of gays in capitalism at the time, stands out. Leslie Feinberg (1949-2014) is another important figure in the history of LGBT+ communism. You might find Feinberg’s Lavender and Red to be particularly interesting, as it lays out a history of the intersection of LGBT+ rights movements and leftism.
Just so you’re aware: liberalism is the European enlightenment philosophy which holds that individual liberty and civil freedom is foundational to the curation of political agency and democratic self determination. This ML reduction to “liberalism is everything I don’t like” is factually incorrect and, like I said, intentional misinformation. Or more realistically, just bad political science, which is what most of us have come to expect from hexbears.
Russian oligarchy is in no way, shape, or form related to the belief that democracy is sacred, and political agency is a necessary condition thereof.
As opposed to you reducing liberalism to everything you do like, of course. How’s that “sacred democracy and political agency” working out in practice? How are you enjoying your “individual liberty”?