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Read, Debate: Engage.
| topic: | LGBT Rights |
|---|---|
| located: | Russia |
| editor: | Andrew Getto |
About 30 years ago, the World Health Organization stopped considering homosexuality and bisexuality psychological diseases. However, according to the United Nations, the practice of attempting to change a person’s sexual identity with pseudoscientific methods is still in place in over 60 countries. Russia - where homophobia is an unofficial state policy - is one of them.
Methods of the so-called conversion therapy in Russia take different forms; in the muslim-majority Northern Caucasus, where gay people are subject to a state-run campaign of torture and murder, it often comes hand in hand with religion. Rituals of exorcism, are widespread, with mullahs - members of the clergy - trying to expel genies that carry the sin of homosexuality out of a person’s body. Luisa, a Chechen woman and victim of this treatment, described the process as a “ large room with a lot of men. Huge speakers playing the Quran. Eardrums are ripping apart… And [the priest]... is walking around and can hit you with a stick at any moment.”
Christians are no strangers to LGBTQ+ conversion either. Rehab facilities that offer to change the lives not only of alcoholics and drug addicts, but also of sexual minorities can be found all across Russia. The common way of “curing” homosexuals is by depriving them of all contact with the outside world and forcing them to perform difficult manual labour. For those unwilling to change, there are dedicated “motivators” - muscular men who deliver the victims to the rehab centres and will not tolerate any resistance.
You would expect certified therapists to be of help for LGBTQ+ people struggling with their identity in a hostile society. It’s increasingly so with the spread of Gestalt psychology and other humanistic schools. But many licenced specialists prefer to cling to the decades-old fallacies, long disavowed by mainstream science. Of the eighteen psychotherapists and sexologists contacted by the newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, only two declined to cure the non-existent sexuality disorders
Some proponents of gay conversion therapy openly advertise themselves. The most famous of them is Yan Goland, an 84-year-old psychotherapist from Nizhny Novgorod, who boasts to have “cured” more than 80 homosexuals. For Goland and his likes, this pseudotreatment is a source of income; but even some free government clinics continually diagnose patients with “homosexual orientation,” such as one clinic in Simferopol, Crimea did in 2020.
Promising to cure a disease that can’t be found in the International Classification of Diseases is a gross violation of law, which can in theory bring a lot of easy cases to Russian courts. In practice, however, state agencies would do anything to distance themselves from protecting LGBTQ+ rights. In 2020, the Interior Ministry declined to launch an investigation after a Chechen woman, Aminat Lorsanova, underwent abuse and forced psychiatric treatment because of her orientation.
Marginalising LGBTQ+ people is a state-approved course of action, as showcased by the 2013 “Gay propaganda” law. As long as this hateful, outdated policy remains in place, the LGBTQ community of Russia will continue to face abuse in every domain: at home, at school, at work, and even at the doctor’s office.
