May 17 is an International Day againsat Transphobia and Homophobia

Despite a long history of LGBT(Q)I people’s fight for recognition of their pride, it is still a challenge in Georgia to guarantee LGBT(Q)I person’s security and real protection of their rights, and there still is a challenge of social homophobia that gravely affects LGBT(Q)I persons’ every day life in public or private spheres.

Dramatic events of the past 10 years, related to recognition and protection of political rights are a demonstration of the heaviest experience of obvious neglect, political homophobia and tolerance towards violence.

It is obvious that such a policy used to be and still is strongly damaging the chance of developing a democratic, peaceful and pluralistic society, and creates not one social crisis. It has been years that the government, political parties, the church and other actors try to instrumentalize queers and queer issues. Domination of such policies have often become reasons for depriving LGBT(Q)I people of life, pride and future.

During the past years the state undertook some positive changes related to the anti-discrimination legislation and improvement of the equality mechanism, development of the state policies to fight hate crimes and eradication of discrimination in school textbooks. Nonetheless, equality policies remain fragmental, and difficulties of the state of Georgia to recognize LGBT(Q)I people’s rights, and even more, political homophobia, make it impossible to substantially improve LGBT(Q)I person’s rights situation.

Despite fostering policies tackling homophobia, lately, the ruling party actively resorts to political instrumentalization of homophobia. If in the past years their support was obvious towards the anti- LGBT(Q)I movements, and there was a clear loyalty towards radical violent groups, in the current year the open use of homophobic rhetoric becomes noticeable, next to the state’s strong conservative turn.

Events of March this year deserve particular attention, state representatives made not one homophobic statement to discredit protest actions. At the backdrop of protesting youth being demonized by the high ranking officials, state propaganda is vicious against one of the protesters – Lazare Griogoriadis, when detaining him. The chairman of Georgian Dream party called Grigoriadis “a person with a mixed orientation” due to his atypical look. While the leader of the ruling party accused the opposition and the civil society of ‘LGBT propaganda’ and of abusing the reputation of the church. We must also mention here that in this May the prime minister took part in a conservative homophobic conference, where, next to other populist leaders, he gave a speech full of anti-democratic and homophobic content.

It needs to be highlighted that the belated National Human Rights Strategy 2022-2030 adopted in Mach, does not contain the issues of sexual minorities, the document fully omits the LGBT(Q)I rights, while gender related issues speak of only women’s rights.

This strong wave of political homophobia hinders the process of Euro-integration of Georgia, on the one hand and on the other hand, it creates substantial risks for physical safety of LGBT(Q)I persons. Especially when the protection of the rights of vulnerable groups and promotion of gender equality is among the 12 recommendations developed by the EU Commission that Georgia must fulfill for attaining the EU candidacy status.

It's interesting to mention that during the past 10 years on the one hand, in the context of uncovered brutal chain of violence towards LGBT(Q)I persons, there is a positive tendency in our society that homophobia is decreasing, especially among the youth and women groups. According to the recent study of the Women’s Initiative Support Group (WISG), the number of people who partially or fully support the restriction of the right to freedom of assembly and manifestation to LGBT(Q)I persons has decreased by 25%. There is also a positive dynamic in terms of the overall disposition and attitudes towards the LGBT(Q)I community. Despite this, more than a half of the population maintains strictly conservative opinion about LGBT(Q)I persons, and they demonstrate lack of knowledge about the topic of sexual orientation. In the context in which the government does not make any essential moves towards tackling homophobia, it is expected that the above mentioned positive tendencies are going to be reversed in the future.

Violence, still, is the major challenge for LGBT(Q)I persons[1]. Despite the positive changes described above, that started taking place at MIA and within the Prosecution system in 2018, the state still has not developed a united prevention and action strategy on hate-crimes, which must entail a coordinated work among law enforcement, social, education and punitive spheres and provide a systemic guarantee for the protection of LGBT(Q)I persons’ safety and pride. Getting adequate psycho-social and healthcare service is critically restricted for the victims of violence, who find themselves in the most vulnerable position, lacking home and family support, and for whom services are necessary to address their real needs. For example, the state still has no policy on providing the victims of violence with adequate housing. The short-term services of crisis centers, cannot provide for the long term safety and support of LGBT(Q)I persons.[2]

LGBT(Q)I persons’ realization of their right to freedom of assembly and expression is increasingly connected to risks. Since 2012 in Georgia LGBT(Q)I persons are not given the chance to realize their right to freedom of assembly safely and in dignity. We must note that since the events unfolded on May 17 IDAHOT in 2013, the victims are still not assigned the status of a victim. It is obvious that the state shows neglect demonstratively with respect to real protection of the right to freedom of assembly of LGBT(Q)I persons and it does not take adequate preventive measures against the threats coming from clerical and ultraconservative groups and for eradicating violence. What is more, government’s loyalty towards anti-LGBT(Q)I movements and rhetoric is often very obvious.

2021 July 5-6 events were particularly critical in these terms, when the counterdemonstration of the extremist ultra-right groups made it impossible to hold Tbilisi Pride and when there were attacks on the local media representatives. Despite the fact that the police was informed about the risks of violence coming from the organizers and participants of this violent gathering, the police did not take preventive measures for deterring violence and additionally, for realizing the LGBT(Q)I persons’ right to assembly. Moreover, anti-constitutional statements made by the Prime Minister about the rights of the majority, did encourage the homophobic mass violence.

In these conditions, the overall situation is made worse, by the fact that until now the organizers of the violence haven’t been held accountable, which deepens the distrust towards the state while on the other hand creates terrifying tendency for deepening homophobia and instigating violence. We must also consider that the state ensured the punishment of only a few people connected to the violence of July 5-6, but the punishment was not adequate to crimes of defendants. Up until now that state has also not enacted its policies for tackling violent extremism, which in itself, next to legal actions, entails a wide range of preventive and social work.

Following the above-mentioned we call the state to:

• Say no to normalizing homophobia and to the tendency of worsening the LGBT(Q)I persons rights on the legislative and institutional levels, and to acknowledge a direct influence of the discursive violence on the physical security of LGBT(Q)I persons;
• Develop a systemic policy towards tackling homo/bi/transphobia, which entails introduction of education and informational policies at schools, at universities, civil service and more widely in society;
• Strengthen policies to fight hate crime and grow its efforts for prevention and victim protection;
• Respect LGBT(Q)I persons’ right to assembly and freedom of expression and take all measures for a safe and dignified public space for them;
• Develop an effective policy for tackling extremist violent groups;
• Develop a systemic policy for LGBT(Q)I persons to tackle social exclusion and enshrine it in the human rights policy documents.

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