The LGBTQ community in Russia is facing extreme hardships under Russian president Vladimir Putin. In 2013, President Putin established the "gay propaganda law" which would focus on "protecting children from information promoting the denial of traditional family values,” and bans the “promotion of nontraditional sexual relations to minors”. The press, television, radio, and internet would be restrained from promoting news about the LGBTQ community to the youth of Russia.
Human Rights Watch researcher, Kyle Knight says the “blatantly discriminatory” law has had the “complete opposite effect of what the proponents of the law suggested it would have." Knight also states that,“The evidence we have in our new report shows the law actually ruined some children’s lives.”
Russia is promoting homophobia by prohibiting media from showing any homosexuality. The 2019 movie "Rocketman" illustrates the life of musician Elton John. Elton John is a member of the LGBTQ community. Russia censored any scenes that showed the act of homosexuality. Natalia Zviagina, Director of Amnesty International's Representative Office in Russia, states:
“By censoring any expression of affection between two human beings of the same sex, this mutilated version of the film insults and dehumanizes same-sex relationships. The distributors should take immediate steps to restore all deleted scenes of the movie.”
In another case of film censorship, director Larisa Zhuravleva of the film "Outlaw" was fined 50,000 rubles for “promoting non-traditional sexual relationships among minors” because of Russia's "gay propaganda" law. The film was centered on two storylines, one about a general falling in love with a transgender woman and another about a gay teen in high school. Film critic Anton Dolin described his impression of the film:
"It’s a normal youth film, moderately provocative, with several erotic scenes and representation of, let’s say, various sexual practices, including those that are commonly referred to as ’non-traditional’ in Russia. At the same time, there’s nothing that goes beyond festival cinema, as a rule, there’s no trace of any problems getting [it] into Russian distribution.”
The country’s notorious “gay propaganda” law violates the right to freedom of expression. An activist for the LGBTQ community in Russia, Yulia Tsvetkova, is facing charges for violating the "gay propaganda" law. Tsvetkova posted a picture on social media of a drawing she had made which illustrated a same sex couple with children and the caption reading “Family is where love is. Support LGBT+ families!” In an interview with Snob News, Yulia Tsvetkova discusses her drawing:
"It would look like propaganda if I wrote that the real family is only the LGBT family. But I do not think so, because I am against discrimination in any direction. For the same reason, I do not believe that a family must necessarily be traditional. My family, for example, consists of me and my mother and two cats."