Visualizing the Emergence of Political Homophobia: Anti-LGBTQ+ and Anti-Ukrainian Sentiment in Russian Public Opinion

Abstract

On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, escalating a conflict that began in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea. Before the annexation, Russia’s anti-gay propaganda legislation set a precedent for homophobic laws worldwide. Over the past decade, Russia implemented numerous anti-LGBTQ+ laws, including the recent ban on gender reassignment. Through state-controlled media, Russian leadership portrayed both of these efforts as defending the nation against Western influence. So, I ask: Did it work? In this visualization, we see that before the introduction of anti-gay propaganda legislation and the Ukrainian conflict, public opinion data showed no statistically significant correlation between attitudes on the two issues. However, following these events, a positive association emerged between support for anti-gay views and anti-Ukrainian sentiment. These findings shed light on the growth of political homophobia within the Russian context, where gender and sexuality issues have become intertwined with a national security narrative.

Background

Over the last decade, Russia has implemented a series of repressive actions against LGBTQ+ rights. This trend began with the 2013 “anti-gay propaganda” law, significantly impacting anti-LGBTQ+ rights politics worldwide (IGLA 2016). In 2023, Russia further intensified its stance by outlawing gender-reassignment surgery and hormone therapy for gender transition. Subsequently, the Russian Supreme Court labeled the “LGBT Movement” as an “extremist organization,” effectively criminalizing not only LGBTQ+ community activities but also any public support for LGBTQ+ rights (MacFarquhar 2023). Backed by the Russian Orthodox Church, the Kremlin has been using the guise of “traditional values” to legitimize its increasingly harsh anti-LGBTQ+ policies (Edenborg 2017).

While the Russian state may endorse what they promote as religious-based intolerance, some interpret this as a manifestation of political homophobia. Political homophobia is a deliberate strategy employed by state actors to use sociopolitical discourse and state apparatus to promote anti-LGBTQ+ attitudes and policies. This approach is typically aimed at reinforcing nationalist sentiments, consolidating authority, and differentiating local sociopolitical norms from Western liberal norms (Weiss and Bosia 2013). Hence, in this case, homophobia is strategically used to achieve national political goals).

The same year as Russia launched the anti-gay propaganda campaign, Ukraine went through a pivotal historical moment—the Revolution of Dignity. In November 2013, Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Victor Yanukovych, rejected the European Union Association Agreement in favor of closer ties with Russia, sparking mass protests. By February 2014, these protests had ousted Yanukovych from office and prompted a call for a new presidential election. Russia, concerned about a potential shift in Ukraine’s geopolitical alignment toward the West and the European Union, interpreted these events as a threat to its national interests (Turchyn, Sukhorolskyi, and Sukhorolska 2020). Shortly after this revolution, in February 2014, Russia started a war in Ukraine that led to the annexation of Crimea and the creation of two contested territories—the Donetsk and Lugansk republics (Menon and Rumer 2015). In response to the annexation of Crimea, the European Union and the United States imposed sanctions against Russia. In 2022, Russia embarked on a full-scale war in Ukraine, justifying this action through widespread propaganda claiming that “the West aimed to use Ukraine as a springboard to invade and destroy Russia” (Fisher 2022)

While the connection between anti-gender campaigns and anti-Ukrainian sentiments might not be immediately evident to external observers, both were framed as endeavors to protect Russian sovereignty and its “traditional values” against Western influence. This portrayal aimed to unify the Russian population around a shared gender-based national identity. Given the government’s control over all national television networks, radio and print outlets, and a significant portion of the media advertising market (Freedom House, 2023), I ask: To what extent have these efforts succeeded? To answer this question, I analyzed two nationally representative surveys conducted by the Levada Center in 2010 and 2016, both before and after the implementation of the anti-LGBT legislation in 2012 and the anti-Ukrainian campaign in 2014, asking about people’s attitudes toward homosexuality and Ukraine.

Data and Methods

The Levada Center, an independent polling and sociological research organization in Russia, is highly esteemed for its methodological rigor and impartiality, with its data being valued by top researchers in the field (Frye et al. 2017; Gerber and Zaviska, 2015; Greene 2014). Similar to NORC, Levada Center conducts monthly omnibus surveys across the country, encompassing urban and rural areas with participants aged 18 and above. The surveys consist of a representative sample of 1,600 individuals from 137 cities in 50 regions of the country. The surveys conducted have a statistical error rate of no more than 3.4 percent, and the sampling methodology employed follows a nationwide, multistage, stratified, and probability-based approach to ensure an accurate representation of the Russian adult population (Levada-Center 2023). All analyses use sample weights constructed to match the known demographic characteristics of the Russian adult population.

Coincidentally, the Levada Center conducted surveys with two identical questions that measured attitudes toward Ukraine and gay rights. These surveys were run before and after the Ukraine war in 2014 and before and after the anti-gay propaganda legislation in 2013, providing a unique opportunity to trace the difference in the relationship between those two issues. For my analysis, I create a linear regression model with three variables: year (2010 or 2016), attitudes toward Ukraine, and attitudes toward gay rights. Both questionnaires (August 2010 and September 2016) included identical questions about two issues relevant to this analysis.

Dependent Variable

Attitudes toward gay rights were measured by the following question: “Should gays and lesbians have the same rights as other citizens in Russia?” The options ranged from “completely agree” to “completely disagree” (i.e., extreme homophobia; n = 800).

Independent Variable

Attitudes toward Ukraine were measured by the following question: “What are your attitudes towards Ukraine?” The answers ranged from “very good,” coded as 1, to “very bad,” coded as 4 (extreme hostility toward Ukraine; n = 1,600).

Later, the answers were reverse-coded so that they ranged from the most positive attitudes to the most negative. Then, I conducted a regression analysis to examine whether attitudes toward Ukraine are predictive of attitudes toward homosexuality.

Results

Table 1, and the visualization in Figure 1 accompanying it, show that in 2010, those who held positive attitudes toward Ukraine (closer to 1) were slightly more likely to have negative attitudes toward gay rights (closer to 4; β = −0.13). The p-value associated with this coefficient is .0633, which suggests that the relationship between attitudes toward Ukraine and toward gay rights was not statistically significant.

Table 1.

Linear Regression Model Predicting Support for Gay Rights as a Function of Attitudes toward Ukraine, the Year of the Survey, and the Interaction between the Two.

Variable	Estimate	SE t Value	t Value	Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept)	2.81803	0.19145	14.719	< 2e-16***
ukraine	−0.1254	0.06745	−1.859	0.0633
year2016	−1.03228	0.23041	−4.48	8.18e-06***
ukraine:year2016	0.33791	0.08441	4.003	6.64e-05***

Note: R² = .02536. Number of observations: 1,178.

***

p < 0.001.

Figure 1.

The relationship between attitudes toward Ukraine and attitudes toward homosexuality in 2010 and 2016.

In 2016, there was a notable increase in anti-gay sentiments compared to 2010. Importantly, the interaction between the year and attitudes toward Ukraine significantly intensified, with a coefficient B = 0.34 (p < .001). To simplify, in 2016, the influence of attitudes toward Ukraine on attitudes toward gay rights became significantly stronger than in 2010, likely due to propaganda. This finding suggests that the state’s efforts to promote anti-Western politics through political homophobia and anti-Ukrainian politics were effective, leading to increased public support for these ideas and stronger negative views on both homosexuality and Ukraine.

Why Does It Matter?

This research highlights the strategic use of homophobia by the state within a broader nationalist agenda, challenging the conventional understanding that attributes state-sponsored homophobia primarily to traditionalist or religious resistance. By reanalyzing public opinion data from the Levada Center’s 2010 and 2016 surveys, the study reveals a significant shift in Russian public sentiment whereby attitudes toward LGBTQI+ rights and Ukraine become aligned after 2016, reflecting a state-driven campaign that framed both issues as resistance to Western hegemony. This shift suggests that the new wave of homophobia not only in Russian public opinion but also globally is not necessarily reflective of religious resistance to liberalization but just as often is driven by authoritarian state interest to promote an anti-Western agenda to shore up its domestic legitimacy and global influence. The findings provide new evidence for interpreting political homophobia as part of nationalist ideology, offering insights into the relationship between gender, sexuality, and international political alliance structures in various illiberal contexts.