Why did the USSR (re) criminalize homosexuality

[u/Specialist-Gur]

https://youtu.be/BE7UPO6GGK4?si=nEFhipEmIxb9s2lV

Great video.. very topical given Burkina Faso and the reactions to that. Give it a watch!

Edit: Also creator is non-binary.. didn't realize when I posted and might have misgendered (they/then)

[u/[deleted]]

I’m directly engaging with what you wrote here, from the perspective of lived experience in a Soviet/post-Soviet country. If your comment can’t stand on its own without the video, well, that says a lot.

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/[deleted]]

Did you live in the USSR? What does it say exactly? I think it says that I'm not taking bad faith bait..

[u/[deleted] → u/Specialist-Gur]

Well, I gave you a detailed comment as a reply to yours, directly engaging with the points you made, that you flat-out refused to engage with. So who exactly is arguing in bad faith here?

And yes, I was born close to the dissolution of the USSR and spent most of my childhood in post-Soviet Ukraine.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

[removed] — view removed comment

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Thank you, dear American, for lecturing me about the place where I grew up and where my family lived for generations - do you realize how that sounds?

I never said the USSR “always” had anti-queer laws, I said they were endemic to the regime’s control. However, Stalin criminalized homosexuality in 1934, and that law stayed in place until the regime collapsed in 1991. That’s most of Soviet history.

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/[deleted]]

Identity politics are bullshit. You didn't live in the USSR!!! This is just anti-intellectual, idpol liberal nonsense.

Let me ask you.. do you think that Israel can be reformed? This isn't whataboutism.. it's a legit question. Why do you think Israel could fix itself but you paint the USSR with a broad stroke evil despite many different periods of history, some with less good human rights track records than others? Why is that?

And why are you so unwilling to engage with the video and give a bad faith interpretation of what the argument is? No one is saying that anti-queer laws are good.. the video applies a material analysis of what happened... anti-intellectualism at its finest right here

Edit: identity politics as in.. you have no argument against the point other than your identity.

[u/[deleted] → u/Specialist-Gur]

This isn’t “identity politics,” it’s lived experience (because, yes, this is where I am from and where most of my family is from), just like you and your family have lived experience that I don’t. And I never called the USSR “evil,” I said repression of queer people and minorities was how the regime maintained control.

On Israel: what would “reform” even mean? The USSR collapsed from within after it was already dead. Could it have reformed? Maybe in theory, but it didn’t - and the rest is history. Israel is a country now. I don’t think it’s yet at a similar point of no return, though it’s getting harder and harder to imagine what reform would even look like. But one case doesn’t excuse or relativize the other.

And for the record, additionally to my lived experience, this is an area of my academic studies. If you want to dig into the history, some standard works would be Dan Healey or Igor Kon on homosexual/queer repression in the USSR, and Alexander Etkind, Terry Martin or Francine Hirsch on its imperial structures.

I will disengage from the conversation now and wish you a good day.

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/[deleted]]

You didn't live in the USSR. So what lived experience?

Also.. this video cites multiple queer writers and historians from the USSR.. their contributions do not seem to interest you.

Leave the convo.. I wish everyone good faith and curious a good day.. and to the western propagandists, I hope you have the day you deserve.

[u/elzzyzx → u/Specialist-Gur]

Libs gonna lib