How and why Belarus differs from the EU in talking about LGBTQ+

Belarus has taken extraordinary steps to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people this year as it finds itself excluded from the democratic world and is taking lessons from its much larger Russian neighbour.

*The author of this text uses a pseudonym due to fear of repercussions in their home country.

In 1994, Belarus decriminalised homosexuality. In 2001, a small gay and lesbian demonstration took place in Minsk, a first in the post-Soviet space. However, these green shoots of LGBTQ+ liberalisation were nipped in the bud and Belarus is now one of the least comfortable European countries for LGBTQ+ people.

In the years since, the Belarus government has successively restricted the space available for the LGBTQ+ community to express itself, but two recent laws mark an escalation and provide legal cover for further repression.

In 2024, the Ministry of Culture adapted its resolution on erotic and sexual education products, putting homosexual and bisexual relations in the same “non-traditional” category as paedophilia and zoophilia.

The same year, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Belarus prepared its draft law on administrative liability for LGBTQ+ propaganda. As of February 2024, the law was going through the approval process but already had the support of President Alexander Lukashenko.

The anti-LGBTQ+ strategy is supported by Belarusian state-controlled media, which constantly reports on negative events affiliated with the LGBTQ+.

They primarily try to demonstrate that in the EU, the United States, and what they call “the collective West”, people fight against LGBTQ+ propaganda while the governments impose their way of thinking on society by force.

As a one-person dictatorship, Belarus has also been unable to escape the influence of its leader on the topic. Throughout his rule, Lukashenko has made many controversial statements regarding LGBTQ+ people, not hesitating to use derogatory and homophobic language.

In 2023, he called gay people “perverts and an abomination”. In the same speech, he said he wished heterosexual people in the government would work as well as homosexuals.

Why is Belarus intensifying its anti-LGBTQ+ policies today?

After Russia banned the ‘international LGBTQ+ movement’ and listed it as an extremist organisation, Belarus found itself under informal pressure to emulate the measures adopted by its dominating neighbour.

Moreover, Belarus is no longer incentivised to balance its policies with the interests of the EU, which considers LGBTQ+ rights protection an important part of its equality and non-discrimination principles. The EU’s economic support in the 2010s helped limit how far Lukashenka would go against LGBTQ+ people.

Thirdly, now that Minsk positions Western countries as enemies, their values are treated likewise, and attacking them can be a form of political point-scoring, said Belarusian analyst Artyom Shraibman.

The Belarusian government justifies its anti-LGBTQ+ positions by invoking demographic problems, which they claim would worsen if same-sex relationships were popularised. The hundreds of thousands of Belarusians who have had to seek political asylum abroad suggest a different cause of Belarus’ population decline.

Similar reasons are invoked when regular Belarusians are canvassed for their views on LGBTQ+ people. In a 2022 survey by Chatham House and the Centre of New Ideas, 32% of Belarusians are neutral about discrimination based on sexual orientation, while 43% consider the problem as unimportant.

For as long as repression is the norm in Belarus, it is to be expected that people will think more about the safety of their families and less about minorities, which makes it difficult to assess the influence of governmental anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda.

The Rainbow Europe Index of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association also measures LGBTQ+ sentiment and found that Belarus is in the top five European countries with the worst human rights situation for LGBTI people.

However, several EU member states are not far behind in the ranking, with neighbouring Poland in eighth place, followed by Ukraine, Romania, and Bulgaria.

The current situation further complicates any thaw in EU-Belarus relations. If one day Minsk returns to democracy, it remains unclear how open Belarusian society will be to embracing LGBTQ+ rights, a likely condition for any future rapprochement with the EU.

That is why it is important to consider how to effectively discuss LGBTQ+ issues with people from countries like Belarus. The EU’s current tools do not seem to work, with strong legal and economic pressure struggling to significantly improve the situation with LGBTQ+ rights even in member states Poland and Hungary.

Finding ways to include the public directly may form the basis of a solution, especially as politicians tend to take their lead from voters. For now, the outlook for LGBTQ+ rights in Belarus remains far from positive.

This article is part of the FREIHEIT media project on Europe’s Neighbourhood, funded by the European Media and Information Fund (EMIF).

[Edited by Alexandra Brzozowski/Chris Powers/Zoran Radosavljevic]

Read more with Euractiv