In Chechnya, part of Russia, being LGBTQ is practically a death sentence. The country is trying to do a “cleansing” of all LGBTQ people, torturing and murdering them. We knew of at least 100 men who had been captured, tortured, and killed, but now we know they’re coming after lesbians and transgender people as well. Women are already treated like property in the country, and can’t easily escape, making them extremely vulnerable. Even gay men can only escape to Russia. There, being LGBTQ isn’t directly illegal, but it may as well be. Russia has an anti-LGBTQ law that allows them to arrest LGBTQ people without oversight, claiming they simply showed an act of affection in public. That’s enough to get rounded up due to Russia’s anti-LGBTQ “propaganda law.”
However, even those who are able to dodge Putin’s police will find themselves at the mercy of a populace who is becoming less accepting of LGBTQ people. This is reflective of trends we see in the U.S., where acceptance of LGBTQ people has actually dropped since Republicans took the office of president and the senate. Hate trickles down. People look to leaders for guidance, and when those leaders are hateful, they may become hateful as well. It’s happening in Russia, where Putin’s bigotry is seeping into the hearts and minds of his citizens.
Now, gay-hunting websites are becoming more common in the country, where homophobes make a game out of killing and torturing LGBTQ people. A recently murdered lesbian activist in Russia was a likely victim of one such gay-hunting website.
Gay-Hunting Sites
Tinder recently rolled out a feature that warns LGBTQ people when they’re in a country where they could be arrested or harmed for being gay. This helps them avoid a common problem in these areas, where homophobes will use LGBTQ-focused dating apps or profiles to lure in victims.
However, there’s another potential problem. Not everyone who finds out about an LGBTQ person will kill or hurt them personally. Some will instead put a bounty on them on a gay-hunting website.
These websites will take photos and information of people known to be LGBTQ. It may have suggestions on how to find them, or even offer rewards for their beating, torture, rape, or murder. The people posting this information may be family members, interested in honor killings, or who may believe that torture or rape will make their family member straight. Others can be government officials or just random homophobes, looking to hurt as many LGBTQ people as they can.
Every time Russian authorities eventually act and take one of these sites down (often after they’ve been up for a year or more already), they pop right back up. Punishments for anti-LGBTQ violence are rare.
Yelena Grigoryeva
Yelena Grigoryeva. Photo: Dinar Idrisov/Facebook
Yelena Grigoryeva was murdered, found dead in St. Petersburg. She was strangled and stabbed multiple times. Her information was posted on a gay-hunting website just a few days before her death. She had tried to get help and warn others before she was murdered, but, in Russia, LGBTQ people carry little value. They don’t see us as human. Authorities are happier to arrest LGBTQ people for “gay propaganda” than to help them. The joyful police officer restraining Yelena above is the perfect example of that. When Yelena and her lawyer went to Russian authorities before she was murdered, they offered no help.
Now she’s dead.
Better Dox Protection
Yelena was a well-known LGBTQ activist in Russia, but many others have fallen victim to these gay-hunting sites.
It just goes to show that there isn’t enough protection for people using the internet to maintain safety from doxxing, targeting, harassment, and violence. We have credit monitors and alerts for stolen identities, but nothing to help the people bigots target. No doxxing protection. We certainly need it. But like credit monitoring, the damage is often already done. The most you could do is change your phone number, email address, name, and move. All of these would be extremely difficult. However, in countries (not Russia) where all people are considered human beings, authorities could track down the people responsible for doxxing someone and arrest them for harassment.
Currently? We’re mostly powerless to stop this violence spread through pop-up websites online.
Source: Lily Wakefield, PinkNews