Russia has spent more than a year creating an electronic database of its LGBTQ+ citizens, independent Russian media has reported.
The country’s top court declared the international LGBTQ+ rights movement ‘extremist’ in November 2023.
In the months since, law enforcement officials have been building a register to track ‘extremist’ LGBTQ+ Russians, insiders told Meduza.
The officials, members of Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, are creating the list using police records of LGBTQ+ people arrested in recent raids.
Moscow views LGBTQ+ people as a shadowy cabal of ‘paramilitary groups’ calling for an ‘open gender war’ and engaging in ‘devil worship’, they said.
Citing ministry insiders, people making the watch list include the dozens of LGBTQ+ club-goers and venue owners detained in recent months under Russia’s ‘gay propaganda’ ban.
The law, which prohibits describing LGBTQ+ lives as normal, has led to even My Little Pony conventions being targeted by police.
One queer bar owner told Meduza that during a raid, ‘security forces copied the entire database from the computer where we keep track of reservations’.
Dmitry Chukreev, of the pro-Kremlin political party United Russia, confirmed to Meduza that ‘records have been kept since the Supreme Court ruling came into force’.
‘Everyone is being recorded and put on record,’ he added.
However, ministry sources said funds and employee numbers are too scarce to establish the database properly amid the Ukraine war.
‘There is only one district police officer left for every six districts,’ they said.
‘They’re not going to go knocking on people’s doors and say, “So, you f*****s, are you going to check in?”‘
Attempts to monitor LGBTQ+ activity in Russia are also happening along the border, human rights campaigners said.
Officers from Russia’s Federal Security Service, or the FSB, are reportedly asking people going into Russia whether they are ‘affiliated with the LGBTQ+ community’ or have ‘plans to change gender’.
These interrogations can last up to five hours, claimed Evelina Chaika, the founder of EQUAL PostOst who said their group has been approached by the FSB and the Ministry of Defence.
Trans people who have since fled from Russia have had the doors of their old homes knocked by officers, added activist Yael Demedetskaya.
‘In February 2024, a man from Vladivostok came to us, he is a trans man and as soon as he and his wife crossed the [American] border, a local police officer came to his home,’ Demedetskaya said.
‘He asked where he was now and whether he had really changed his documents.’
