Eisenstein.

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The article makes the unreferenced statement that Sergei Eisenstein was homosexual. Such a fact is not mentioned on the Eisenstein page and the few references found on google talk about a fictional representation of him in a 2014 movie. Shouldn't such an unfounded statement be removed? 80.245.166.10 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 12:46, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Referencing.

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This article almost fully contradicts the Russian version: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/История_ЛГБТ-движения_в_России СЛУЖБА (talk) 19:37, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There's no requirement that Wikipedia articles be consistent across different language-Wikipedias. It's likely (inevitable, in fact) that the English and Russian Wikipedia articles on this subject will be written from different points of view. If on the other hand, there are factual disputes between them, that's more concerning; but it doesn't necessarily mean we have a problem here. The important thing is to make sure this article conforms with our policies (particularly WP:V and WP:NPOV); if Russian Wikipedia wants to write something different, that's up to them. Robofish (talk) 00:33, 26 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Pre-Christian Russia

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How about information on pre-Christian Russia? I know Genghis Khan decreed the death penalty for homosexuals, but between that and the founding of the Muscovy principate I can't find anything. Without knowing if pre-Christian Muscovy (or Kiev) persecuted homosexuals, there's no way to have any perspective on the influence of the Orthodox Church, or for that matter whether the Church was influenced by culture.

Dismalscholar (talk) 04:40, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Lenin

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An IP has recently changed a lot of the sourced information about the relationship between the Soviet Union under Lenin and homosexuality. We need to avoid the attempts to paint Lenin as some kind of activist for homosexuality, because it simply isn't true. What the Bolsheviks did was abolish the entire Criminal Code of the Russian Empire, including sections 995 and 996 (which dealt with homosexuality) along with it.

Pre-revolution the issue of homosexuality was primarily a concern for Kadets and anarchists, rather than Bolsheviks. The Soviet Health Ministry's reports on homosexuality under Lenin's rule still viewed homosexuality as a negative trait but regarded them as suffering from a mental illness rather than criminals.

This isn't even a Trotsky-Stalin thing, because Trotsky never spoke on the issue of homosexuality either. Anti-communists have tried to link Bolsheviks to homosexuality and in the West since the 1960s the bourgeois student left has presumed of Lenin that he would have supported homosexuality generally (without evidence). Claíomh Solais (talk) 15:40, 16 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I apologise if my attempts at edits on the section have been taken in a negative way (I made the edits). I want to be clear that I am not attempting to vandalise the page.
I made these changes for two reasons - 1. The current section on the 1920a was unreadable and unclear - often bringing in stray lines of unrelated thought (such as Inessa Armand) and not stating facts or developments on homosexual issues in the Soviet Union, in the 1920s, in a clear npov way. 2. The current section was not presenting an npov on Bolshevik policy about homosexuality. Instead of presenting that policy, which was contradictory and often fluctuated between support for homosexual rights after 1917 and hostile state repression (i.e. the post-1924 official reclassification of homosexuality as a 'mental disorder'), the current section presents the whole Bolshevik policy overly in the negative - which is not correct.
It is also incorrect to state (as the previous version does) that homosexuality was decriminalised in 1922. It was decriminalised in 1917. That decriminalisation was confirmed in 1922 - when the legal code was reviewed.
I agree that Bolshevik policy about homosexuality and homosexual rights was mixed at best - but I was attempting to rewrite the section to reflect that.
Yes prior to the revolution the issue of homosexual rights was primarily one for the kadets and the anarchists, but there were some Bolshevik campaigners for homosexual rights - particularly ones who had contact with the German SPD in the 1890s. But that is neither here or there regarding Russian/Soviet state and social views on homosexuality.
The point is that the Bolsheviks (after 1917) and the early Soviet Republic (after 1917) had a mixed policy about homosexuality - this should be reflected in the section, both for the positives and negatives, not just the negatives.
The health ministry was often split on the issue of homosexuality - especially previous to 1925. Hence why one faction of the ministry supported homosexual rights, gender realignment surgery and support for transsexuals, national and international conferences in support of homosexual rights, providing Magnus Hirschfeld and the German sexual institute with support, and why another was negative and eventually managed to classify homosexuality as a mental disorder in the USSR. To classify the ministry as purely negative on the issue is unfair - and unfair to those state officials and doctors who worked in the 1920s to see a more enlightened policy about the issue, who went on to pay the price for their commitment to human decency when many were purged in the later 1920s/1930s repressions under Stalin.
The health ministry's reports on homosexuality were also split - yes you do see such Soviet reports classifying homosexuality as 'a mental disorder' in even the early 1920s. But you also see some which state the opposite - which favour homosexual rights.
I agree that Lenin's position on homosexual rights was often ambivalent. But he did decriminalise it as an objective fact of history and he did stop the ban on homosexuals having both civil and political rights (i.e. the ban on homosexuals holding political/civil office). There is also no statement from Lenin that he was opposed to homosexual rights - but then there is nothing in the positive either besides his decriminalisations of homosexuality in 1917 and in 1922 and some other reforms relating to homosexual civil/political rights. Usually people take this as a point of Lenin's ambivalence on sexual matters on his part - that he was not much concerned with homosexual issues beyond simple legal and civil rights (as Tamás Krausz has argued in his recent intellectual biography of Lenin) and not with wider social equality or social toleration. He, like many on the Left at the time, did not pay enough attention to it at the time - which was a mistake. He should also not have surrendered the issue about homosexual legality to the conservative factions in the Central Asian Republics - which was a further mistake. Whatever the matter there is nothing to suggest Lenin was opposed to homosexual freedom. Having the picture of Lenin with a caption that he had homosexuality classified as 'a mental disorder' is clearly not npov - nor is it correct, as Lenin had no control over that later matter of classification. The Soviet classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder only officially occurred in the late 1920s - after Lenin's death in 1924. (I am aware of the earlier attempts in the mid-1920s but it was not until the late 1920s in which such repression became state policy.) Like Soviet policy in this period we can only suggest that Lenin's personal position was ambivalent - but it was not negative and it was positive by the wider standards of the time.
One could also argue that Lenin's personal position on homosexuality is irrelevant for this page - considering that this page is about the history of the Russian state's treatment of homosexuality, not Lenin's.
Of course I agree that we should not overly aggrandise Lenin and the Bolsheviks as clear-cut fighters for homosexual rights in general - when they clearly were not. What we can say from the historical record is that the Bolsheviks often had a contradictory policy about the issue - some factions favoured extension of rights for homosexuals (i.e. Kollantai, legal reformers, the legal commission of 1922/1923 on marriage, homosexual rights, gender etc., sections of the health and state apparatus), while others were ambivalent (Lenin) or openly hostile (Stalin, the Party/State factions in the Central Asian republics) about homosexuals and homosexual rights. What we can also say is that they often had a mixed policy about the issue after 1917 which often fluctuated in the 1920s. The way the current version reads is as if Bolshevik policy about the issue was openly hostile and that the decriminalisation in 1917 was merely an afterthought - which is unfair and untrue.
What should be attempted in this section is a statement of the difficult facts (i.e. that the Bolsheviks decriminalised homosexuality in 1917, that their wider policy about homosexual rights was mixed and fluctuated throughout the 1920s) - without editorialising about Bolshevik motives (which were often mixed and contradictory between different sections of the Party) and without editorialising a point of view of history which is written in retrospect without appreciating that there were some positive social advances from the Bolsheviks on this issue (i.e. that they decriminalised homosexuality and that some sections of the Party and State were supportive of further homosexual rights).
I agree that there has often been an attempt to claim Lenin and the Bolshevik Party as great champions for homosexual rights - when the reality was often mixed. But it was mixed between the positive and the negative on the issue - mixed between attempts at social progress on the matter and the backlashes of the mid and late 1920s. One can argue that Bolshevik policy was inadequate or contradictory on homosexual rights - but that is to ignore the historical nuance (i.e. wider conditions for homosexuals prior to 1917 or wider conditions for homosexuals outside Russia at the time) and that some progress was attempted by them. By the standards of the time and what subsequently happened to homosexual rights in the USSR the early Bolshevik policy was positive enough. It could (and should) have been better - but it was the best at the time and subsequently for a long time.
I hope we can agree on at least some of these issues. I do want to contribute to this entry in a positive way. I am not here to try and overly defend the Bolsheviks and ignore their flaws on this issue. I just think it is important to recognise that they were the first to make this important leap of homosexual rights by decriminalising it and for other attempts at expanding on such rights. It is important to keep historical context in mind - which (I think) puts the Bolsheviks in a better light given the backward views of many of them and their country at the time, and the world in general in the period. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8003:255B:6700:7C91:9F00:61AF:11F0 (talk) 01:08, 17 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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An empty reference

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Reference [2] simply cites "Louis Crompton".--Adûnâi (talk) 10:09, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Article title is dishonest

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There is no discussion of transgender issues at all, except for a claim that Tsar-era anti-transgender legislation was removed, which is quite possibly a spurious claim, as it feels unlikely that this would have impacted on Russian society enough at the time for such legislation to even have been written. I would suggest the article either be renamed to note that it only covers LGB (not T) history, or have a major re-write, which would I expect require considerable research. Rhialto (talk) 09:21, 21 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've added some information on a propaganda law from St. Petersburg that included transgender people. Mkarpa (talk) 23:44, 14 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There is no mention of homosexuality in Notes on Muscovite Affairs

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Article may be misleading, because the only mentioning of that Sigismund von Herberstein has noted the prevalence of homosexuality among all social classes is made in this article referring two decently modern LGBT-specific sources. I didn't find any mention of LGBT in Sigismund's work, and would greatly appreciate if either you could cite me the piece of the original work or comment that this mention is likely a myth, rather than truth. 2A00:CC47:21FC:5401:0:0:0:3062 (talk) 10:30, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I concur and I haven't found anything either. Both references pointing to it are written by the same person. 2604:4080:1035:9C90:551A:BF62:C27:CA30 (talk) 01:47, 19 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

February 2023

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Moved from User talk:M.Bitton
 – M.Bitton (talk) 18:25, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Article may be misleading, because the only mentioning of that Sigismund von Herberstein has noted the prevalence of homosexuality among all social classes is made in this article referring two decently modern LGBT-specific sources. I didn't find any mention of LGBT in Sigismund's work, and would greatly appreciate if either you could cite me the piece of the original work or comment that this mention is likely a myth, rather than truth. 2A00:CC47:21FC:5401:0:0:0:3062 (talk) 10:30, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Also Adam Olearius did not write about rampant homosexuality in Russia. His book "Travels of the Ambassadors sent by Frederic, Duke of Holstein, to the Great Duke of Muscovy and the King of Persia, London, 1662; and 1669)" does not mention this at all. You use incorrect and unverified sources and create myths. 178.205.51.70 (talk) 18:07, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Since I didn't add the content that you are attributing to me and at least one of the sources that you removed does indeed support the material, I moved your comment here so that the others can chime in. M.Bitton (talk) 18:25, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Splitting proposal

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SPLIT
The last comment was three months ago, so it seems like a good time to close this. Only one person who looks like they are opposed, and four people are in favor. The side in favor also has good policy arguments. I therefore see a clear consensus to split. QuicoleJR (talk) 21:04, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I propose splitting the section “Soviet Union” into a separate article LGBT history in the Soviet Union.

 —Michael Z. 18:13, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support per nom. HappyWith (talk) 18:26, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I should also note that LGBT rights in the post-Soviet states has a bunch of content that duplicates this article's coverage of the Soviet period which should probably be merged into the new article too. HappyWith (talk) 18:35, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Although not directly related, people interested in this discussion might also have opinions on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/LGBT rights in the post-Soviet states‎. --DanielRigal (talk) 14:36, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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