Gay Russian journalist Vadim Vaganov fled his home country in 2024, one year after its Supreme Court declared the so-called “international LGBT movement” an “extremist organization.” Russia’s government now considers him, the media outlet he works for, Parni+, and other LGBTQ+ journalists and activists as “foreign agents” on par with terrorist extremists.
The Russian government is “generous” in giving these designation to independent media outlets and organizations, Vaganov told the European Centre for Press & Media Freedom in an article published on October 16. The government has already opened six administrative cases against him for his social media posts and journalistic articles. As of last May, it placed him on a federal wanted list, leading to authorities visiting his relatives to gather information on him (while falsely reassuring them that he’s in no legal trouble — “Who knows, maybe they’ll even buy me ice cream?” he joked).
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The govcernment’s case files call him a “sociocultural threat to the national security of the Russian Federation” because of his “ideological and psychological influence on citizens through the promotion of a destructive ideology.”
“Today, even the simple fact that you’re openly gay and write about it on your blog can put you at risk of administrative prosecution,” he said. Even a neutral statement about LGBTQ+ people can get an individual fined up to 400,000 Rubles ($4,830.94) and an organization fined up to 5,000,000 Rubles ($60,389.65) for spreading “propaganda.”
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While Vaganov’s media outlet, Parni+, published guides, held webinars, and offered support groups to the Russian LGBTQ+ community, both the outlet and its readers risked prosecution for just engaging with one another or offering financial support.
“There was never anything extremist about that work [at Parni+],” he said, “[But] if LGBTQ+ people talk about themselves, that means [to the Russian government that] they’re ‘promoting visibility.’ If they talk about discrimination, that means they’re ‘positioning themselves against the state.’ If they use inclusive language, that means they’re ‘undermining traditional values.’”
Russia outlawed LGBTQ+ “propaganda” targeting minors in June 2013 (and expanded the law to cover all ages in December 2022). Vaganov publicly came out as gay in 2022 to show that Russia couldn’t silence all of its queer citizens, even as more queer Russians began self-censoring out of fear of persecution.
“You want to make the LGBTQ+ community invisible? Fine, then I’m going to make myself visible on purpose,” he said. “I wanted other queer people to see that and hopefully feel a little less alone.”
The increasingly high-risk atmosphere in recent years has led to nearly every LGBTQ+ media outlet or initiative being blocked by the government or shut down by the state censorship authority, he added. The government’s stance not only demonstrates its willingness to censor, but also the values it holds about the kinds of people, families, love, and heroes that it considers “correct.”
Some Russians say the law mostly just affects people who are most actively and visibly queer, rather than those quietly living their lives in private, Vaganov noted. But he said that the line between “propaganda” and just living one’s own life is unclear, unknowable, and based on bureaucrats’ arbitrary whims that often have nothing to do with activism.
For example, Vaganov was investigated for posting the following RuPaul quote online: “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you gonna love somebody else?” People can also be persecuted for posting messages in dating groups or organizing private parties online.
As a result of his being under government investigation, Vaganov’s uncle was denied jobs because he had a “foreign agent” in his family. Russian authorities at the border aggressively questioned a friend and searched through his belongings and online chats because they found Vaganov’s contact info on his phone.
“It would be funny if it weren´t so sad,” Vaganov said. “Personally, I’ve always treated the ‘foreign agent’ label more like a sign that you must be doing something right. But of course, there’s nothing good about the fact that this system exists in the first place.”
While Vaganov now feels safer working in a foreign country, he can no longer return to his home country. His biggest fear is that fewer queer journalists will continue to work under Russia’s repression. This will lead to more newsrooms and organizations disappearing, professional networks deteriorating, and even greater danger for queer citizens, he cautioned.
“There are actually an incredible number of remarkably brave people in Russia. No matter how hard the authorities try to push everyone underground, queer initiatives still keep emerging and communities keep forming — and not just in Moscow and St. Petersburg,” he said.
“One of our responsibilities as journalists is not to let the state achieve what it ultimately wants: to make these people invisible and convince everyone else that they somehow don’t exist,” he said.
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