Georgia’s Attacks on Queer Activists Jeopardize Its Future With the EU

In the months leading up to this year’s Pride Fest, members of the ruling party, Georgian Dream, continued their attacks on queer residents, taking aim at LGBTQ “propaganda” and young people’s “mixed orientations.”

“This language that dehumanizes people is extremely, extremely dangerous and harmful,” said Erik Illes, head of development cooperation at the Swedish Embassy. “Because it leads to human suffering.” Kvaratskhelia argues that Georgian Dream officials regard queer activists as “foreign influence agents,” a maneuver that echoes the Kremlin’s treatment of LGBTQ protesters.

In a parallel to Russia’s own 2012 law, Georgian Dream considered a bill against “foreign agents” this March. Violent protests quickly forced the party to drop the bill, which would have designated organizations that receive at least 20 percent of their funding from abroad as “agents of foreign influence,” including Tbilisi Pride, which receives donations from the Dutch government, the American National Endowment for Democracy, and the UN Development Programme.

After a safe Pride Week last year, organizers trusted the MIA to protect this year’s events from interference by far-right groups. “We expect that, because of their political calculations, they want to do it and they will do it,” Kvaratskhelia said in the weeks leading up to Pride Fest. But in the days following organizers’ evacuation from the festival grounds, Subeliani felt betrayed by the MIA. “It’s so hard to understand that after these kinds of things they failed us, they lied to us, they planned all this against us.”

Illes considers the cancellation of Pride Fest a violation of constitutional rights and warns of deviating from the EU’s human rights standards for Georgia. “It is clear that this was a failure on behalf of state institutions in protecting the right of assembly and freedom of expression,” Illes said. “The EU was built on the facts and experiences of the Second World War and the experience of horrible violations against human rights,” he added. “The Georgian government needs to recognize that moving towards the approximation requires protection of minorities and human rights.”

In 2021, Tbilisi Pride organizers were also forced to cancel the march after authorities failed to restrain a far-right counterprotest. On the morning of the march, rioters attacked journalists preparing to cover the event. Fifty-three were injured, including a TV cameraman who died a week later. Later that day, rioters broke into Tbilisi Pride offices and terrorized organizers. “We were hunted all day in the streets,” Subeliani said. “As soon as I got to one location, the radicals would follow us, and—10, 15 minutes—they would catch us and throw stuff and sometimes even explode stuff.”

“It was shattering, heartbreaking,” said Tamar Kapanadze, the communications manager for Tbilisi Pride. “You realize your country—I mean your government, but your country does not care for you and you’re not important enough citizens for your rights to be protected.”

The following day, thousands of Tbilisi Pride supporters held a silent rally outside Parliament. Yet few of the rioters from 2021 have been prosecuted for their participation in the violence, and others have had their charges dropped. “There was a shift in how they operated, and what was OK and what was not before,” Tabagari said of the ruling party. “Now what we have is the most regressive group of politicians who are in power.”

By failing to protect LGBTQ rights, Georgian Dream further jeopardizes the country’s future with the European Union, which over 80 percent of Georgians support joining. Before approving Georgia’s application for candidacy status, the EU requires the country to fulfill 12 priorities, including the strengthening of human rights. But, by appealing to Orthodox Christian values, Russian and pro-Russian social media outlets promote the idea that LGBTQ rights threaten Georgia’s national character. “The narratives are spun right across this region because Russia doesn’t want Georgia to join NATO or the EU,” Clayton added. “It wants to keep Georgia in its back pocket, in its backyard, to manipulate it.”

Moreover, Subeliani doubts the role that EU membership would play in safeguarding LGBTQ rights in Georgia. She looks to Hungary, which has implemented sweeping anti-LGBTQ policies since it joined the EU in 2004, including banning same-sex marriage and adoption by same-sex couples. “I see the Hungarian experience. It shows me that being part of the EU is not a guarantee of the progress,” Subeliani said. “The change is something that we ourselves should achieve. We as a society, we need to choose what kind of society we want to be.”

Kvaratskhelia agrees that EU membership will not ensure queer Georgians’ civil rights. “We never say that LGBTQ rights should be protected if we want to be part of the EU,” said Kvaratskhelia. “We want LGBTQ rights to be protected because our citizens should be protected and should live in a dignified environment and an equal environment.”

Until then, Tbilisi Pride organizers must make hard choices to achieve their political goals, a reality that Tabagari sees across former Soviet republics. “Tbilisi Pride and the Eastern European Prides are political, and they are extremely political,” he said. “It’s not about expression necessarily. It’s about survival. It’s about finding your place in the society,” said Kvaratskhelia. “For us, Pride was a protest.”