Arrogance Month

On the 27th of May 2012, Moscow police dispersed a small crowd protesting the city’s refusal to grant approval for a “gay parade”. About 40 people were arrested, most of whom were LGBT activists. Little did they know that in 13 months, the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses would be updated with Article 6.21, “Propaganda of non-traditional sexual orientations toward minors,” a piece of legislation that has effectively stopped any form of LGBT advocacy in Russia. Since then, no LGBT parades have been organized.

Even though about 47% of Russians support equal rights for gay and lesbian people, the situation is getting worse in some regions. In 2017, Novaya Gazeta made the public aware of mass arrests and homicides of gay people in Chechnya, as well as special gay prisons. Nevertheless, most people are blissfully unaware of these issues, with about 45% of Russians denying any knowledge of violence against LGBT people. The majority of Russian society is not accepting of gay people. Younger generations are more tolerant, but the vast majority of people aged 40+ are not.

Taking all this into account, the recent actions by Western embassies in Moscow feel like a slap to the face. The US, UK and Canadian embassies in Moscow hung rainbow flags on their buildings, and then proudly posted about it on social media. The Kremlin hasn’t issued a statement on this matter yet, and I hardly imagine they will. This hollow gesture does nothing except garner positive press coverage abroad and ridicule at home. The US Ambassador should be acutely aware of how little of a risk he is taking, due to the fact that the US Embassy is all but closed to us common folk. An ironclad fortress flying a hostile flag does nothing to the people on the ground who can’t seek refuge inside its walls.

Similarly pompous gestures can be found outside of Russia as well. This year’s pride parades have not gone without controversy, with left-leaning outlets tripping over themselves to promote kink at pride. “Homogenizing self-expression at Pride will do more harm to our children than good,” writes Lauren Rowello in an op-ed for the Washington Post. To the casual observer, Article 6.21 doesn’t seem like such a bad idea, given that some pride parade attendees are all too willing to showcase their gimp animal outfits to children and onlookers.

As a personal aside, I cannot believe that some people are defending kink at pride. Wearing leather is not something unique to gay people, and certainly not something children with a malleable worldview should see. Pride parades are already teetering on the edge of what most people find acceptable, and without any strict uniform requirements, they descend into showcases of actions that should be performed in the bedroom behind closed doors, not in public. There is no need to turn a pleasant march into an obnoxious open-air orgy.

Unfortunately for the people actually fighting for LGBT rights, Western ideological zealots are all too happy to identify with the image they rejected not even a few decades ago, an image of degeneracy. I can’t remember how discussions I’ve had with some people that most gays just want to be left alone, that they’re not child molesting freaks hellbent on shoving their sexuality down everyone’s throats. I guess most LGBT activists are too determined to poison the well in regards to that discussion to stop and think about what they’re truly advocating for.

Hell, even morally reprehensible characters such as pedophiles are coming out of the woodwork to join the LGBT movement. By manipulating social discourse to be blindly in support of LGBT people, such characters are allowed to freely associate with the LGBT community. Pedos have no place in the gay community, and gay rights activists have spent an enormous amount of time fighting them. Nowadays, by calling out what is clearly an attempt to subvert a legitimate social movement, you are sadly labelled as someone who is being bigoted to and is discriminating against an oppressed social class. The LGBT movement has always been shackled to the political left, and with the downward spiral the mainstream left is currently on, so too will the mainstream LGBT movement go down with the ship.

This arrogance that a lot of Western LGBT activists have fully manifests itself during pride month. It is on display when they deplatform gay people who disagree with them, and it remains transparent when they corrupt the gay movement for their own personal gain. I did not ask these people to speak for me, nor do I want to be their token. I want issues that matter to me, i.e. actual discrimination and hatred back at home, to be resolved. I feel nothing but frustration when these people advocate for unchecked degeneracy, homegrown tyranny, and discrimination against straight and bi people. The way they claim to speak for me is nothing short of maddening, and all of their hollow words and parades undermine the very arguments they want to make.

Pride month is no longer about expressing who you are and helping raise awareness about the oppression gay people face in Russia, the Middle East, and other regions of the world. It is a celebration of degeneracy and lust, and nothing but a humiliation ritual for anyone unlucky enough to be caught in the path of this social movement. Because of this, I have taken to calling pride month “Arrogance Month”, and I hope that, one day, the nincompoops hijacking my social movement will be ejected out of it with the same swiftness Russian gay rights organizations are prosecuted in Russian courts. Feel free to join me in calling out people who damage the already fragile image of the gay movement, or to curse me out as part of the problem. Either way, I hope something changes soon, because the current trajectory of the gay rights movement is definitely not positive.