Homosexuality

• The arrests are a clear indication of how Russia has come full circle on its persecution of sexual minorities under Vladimir Putin.
• On March 21, the district court of Orenburg city in south-western Russia ordered the arrest of nightclub owner Vyacheslav Khasanov.
• At the end of November 2023, the Russian Supreme Court ruled that the “international LGBT movement” is an “extremist organisation”.
• Read more:
  30 years of LGBTQ+ history in Russia: from decriminalisation in 1993 to 'extremist' status in 2023

Russia’s ‘gay propaganda law’

• In 2013 Russia enacted the so-called “gay propaganda law”.
• In one case, people were fined for holding a banner with the words: “Children have the right to know.
• Homosexuality is natural and normal.” Sharing LGBT-related information on social media or posting photos of people of same-sex kissing were also deemed to be LGBT propaganda and subject to legal sanction.

Homophobia unleashed

• One of the first victims of the newly amended “gay propaganda law” were seven migrant trans women from Central Asia.
• The seven sex workers were fined and then deported in March 2023 under the propaganda laws after they published their profiles on a dating website.
• At around the same time, six different online streaming platforms were penalised for airing movies with LGBTQ-related scenes.
• The supreme court’s decision to label the international LGBT movement as extremist has effectively re-criminalised homosexuality.

What can be done?

• One way would be to support LGBTQ organisations that are still operating in the country.
• These groups need resources to keep providing legal advice and support to those facing arrest and prosecution.
• Another is to write letters of support to people facing imprisonment for their “extremism” as members of the LGBT community.

Sergey Katsuba does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• On the surface, All of Us Strangers, directed by Andrew Haigh, is a dark and twisty love story.
• Underneath, there is the often-present storyline seen in queer cinema: that of trauma and tragedy.
• All of Us Strangers follows lonely middle-aged gay man Adam (Andrew Scott), struggling to come to terms with his tragic past and sexuality.

Queer representation

• Queer representation in mainstream media has historically been marred by negative stereotypes, tokenistic representation and death.
• In my recent interactive documentary, Queer Representation Matters, queer media scholars and queer screen storytellers share how queer characters are often relegated to roles characterised by tragedy or trauma, perpetuating harmful tropes like “bury your gays”.

• Online queer news site, Autostraddle, have compiled a list of the 230+ dead queer female TV characters, which continues to be updated with each death.
• Essentially, for queer people, it starts to feel like you can’t have queer representation without someone dying tragically at the end.
• Read more:
  We studied two decades of queer representation on Australian TV, and found some interesting trends

We need diverse stories

• Tropes will always exist in storytelling, but by having more diverse queer filmmakers telling more diverse queer stories, audiences will have a more balanced narrative about queer life (and life expectancy).
• We need to see stories that challenge the narrative that being queer ultimately leads to pain, trauma and tragedy.
• We need to see we can also live long and happy lives, so we can believe we can have the happy ever after.
• Read more:
  All of Us Strangers: heartbreaking film speaks to real experiences of gay men in UK and Ireland

Natalie Krikowa does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• In the past century, there have been three waves of opposition to transgender health care.
• In 1933, when the Nazis rose to power, they cracked down on transgender medical research and clinical practice in Europe.
• In 1979, a research report critical of transgender medicine led to the closure of the most well-respected clinics in the United States.

The 1930s − eugenics and sexology collide

• In the field of sexology – the study of human sexuality, founded in 19th century Europe – scientists were excited about research on animals demonstrating that removing or transplanting gonads could effectively change an organism’s sex.
• Several trans women also received care at the institute, including orchiectomies that halted the production of testosterone in their bodies.

• Nazi ideology was based on another prominent field of science of that time: eugenics, the belief that certain superior populations should survive while inferior populations must be exterminated.
• In fact, Hirschfeld’s sexology and Nazi race science had common roots in the Enlightenment-era effort to classify and categorize the world’s life forms.
• But in the late 19th century, many scientists went a step further and developed a hierarchy of human types based on race, gender and sexuality.

The 1970s − making model citizens

• In 1966, Johns Hopkins became the first university hospital in the world to offer trans health care.
• By the 1970s, trans medicine went mainstream.
• Nearly two dozen university hospitals were operating gender identity clinics and treating thousands of transgender Americans.
• Jon Meyer, a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins, was skeptical of whether medical interventions really helped transgender people.

• Meyer and Reter believed that gender-affirming surgeries were successful only if they made model citizens out of transgender people: straight, married and law-abiding.
• In their results, the authors found no negative effects from surgery, and no patients expressed regret.
• They concluded that “sex reassignment surgery confers no objective advantage in terms of social rehabilitation,” but it is “subjectively satisfying” to the patients themselves.

The 2020s − distrust in science

• Legislators have removed books with LGBTQ content from libraries and disparaged them as “filth.” A recent law in Florida threatens trans people with arrest for using public restrooms.
• Donald Trump’s campaign platform calls for a nationwide ban on trans health care for minors and severe restrictions for adults.
• But widespread distrust in science and medicine in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected how Americans perceive trans health care.

• Instead, many trans activists today call for diminishing the role of medical authority altogether in gatekeeping access to trans health care.
• Medical gatekeeping occurs through stringent guidelines that govern access to trans health care, including mandated psychiatric evaluations and extended waiting periods that limit and control patient choice.
• For now, trans health care remains a question dominated by medical experts on one hand and people who question science on the other.

G. Samantha Rosenthal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• KANSAS CITY, Mo., Dec. 13, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Catholic Reporter (NCR), the nation's premier independent Catholic news organization, named Loretto Sr. Jeannine Gramick as its 2023 Newsmaker of the Year in an editorial published December 14 .
• NCR cites a confluence of events changing the way the Catholic Church ministers to its LGBTQ members.
• Spotlighting Gramick, NCR notes that "over the past five decades of American Catholic experience, perhaps no single person has had the kind of impact for our LGBTQ community members as Loretto Sr. Jeannine Gramick.
• The National Catholic Reporter is an independent Catholic news source.