Involvement of gay and bisexual men in LGBT activism in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Ukraine

BACKGROUND: LGBT activism of gays and bisexual men (hereinafter MSM) has shown to foster community mobilization and to increase advocacy potential of this group. Moreover, MSM cooperating with human rights activists tend to be easier to engage in social programs. The study explored how much MSM in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia countries engage with NGOs, publically support LGBT rights, and perform other manifestations of LGBT activism.

METHODS: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted in 2017 by Eurasian Coalition on Male Health. The total sample engaged 5775 MSM-respondents from 10 countries. The study suggested a number of actions as manifestations of LGBT activism and asked respondents how often they had been involved in such actions during the last twelve months. LGBT activism index (AI) was calculated for each country, employing a scale from 0 to 16, by assigning one point for a one-time participation in one activity, and two points for each instance of multiple participation.

RESULTS: Signing petitions and helping victims of discrimination or violence have shown to be the most widespread activities in the overall sample. The AI of the studied countries ranged from 0,6 to 2,4. Nine countries could be divided into three groups: those with relatively low activism scores (Russia, Belarus), those with intermediate scores (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine), and those with relatively high scores (Georgia, Armenia, Lithuania/Estonia).

CONCLUSIONS: The study demonstrated that despite significant variance of the AI across countries, the overall involvement of MSM in activism is very low. The lowest involvement was evident in countries with the least favorable legal environment in regards to LGBT issues and freedom of activism (Russia, Belarus). The variance of the AI between the two remaining country-groups points at a probable influence of public opinion on MSM involvement in activism, in addition to the legal factors.

CO-AUTHORS: Shestakovskyi Oleksii; Kasianchuk, Maksym; Djuma Vitaly; Howell, Sean