Being gay in kazakhstan
Kazakhstan’s LGBTI community requests urgent support against anti-LGBT petition
Kazakhstan’s LGBTI community is raising urgent alarms over recent actions aimed at curtailing their rights and freedoms in the country. These clampdowns are being carried out by various actors including anti-gender initiatives and the Kazakh government.
First and foremost, communities want support to oppose an anti-LGBT petition currently existence considered by the Ministry of Culture and Knowledge of Kazakhstan. A choice on the petition will be made in first August, so there is little time left to act. In the appeal, Kazakhstan’s LGBTI community makes concrete recommendations and proposals for the support it urgently needs, including writing a complaint to the Kazakh authorities.
How you can help
Anyone, regardless of where they live in the world, can submit a complaint about the petition. Simply write to the Ministry of Culture and Information of Kazakhstan demanding that the petition is rejected. The petition violates the rights and freedoms of LGBTI people in Kazakhstan, contradicting the Constitution and Articles 19 and 26 of the International Covenant on Civil
Inside Kazakhstan’s secret kingly scene
At 11pm, the sun has prolonged set over Kazakhstan’s custom-built capital capital Astana, and the streets are peaceful. After knocking on the door and saying the code word through the intercom, I am ushered inside. At first glance, the club consists of a small dance floor, a bar, a smoking room, a stage, and a dozen cabaret-style tables. Customers swig cocktails, puff on nitrous oxide balloons, listen to Lady Gaga, Beyoncé and Britney Spears, and chat amongst each other. At first, the atmosphere is calm, but by the first flamboyant performance, the crowd are sufficiently uninhibited and cheer loudly.
Aside from the sounds of chatter in Russian, the club could easily be mistaken for a small gay bar in Soho. Camp décor is everywhere – pride flags, disco balls, bowls of condoms in the bathroom, mirrors on the walls. Even the bartenders’ aprons depict a ripped, shirtless chest. The seated customers sip champagne and eat chechil, the Armenian cheese popular in Main Asia. The first performance is an homage to Madonna’s performance of Vogue at the 1990MTV awards, with flamboyant queens in Marie Antoinette-style dresses, drap
Kazakhstan
Since the country gained independence from the former Soviet Union in 1998, its criminal code has not contained any provision outlawing consensual same-sex sexual acts between adults. Trans people can change their legal gender markers on the condition that they undergo invasive medical procedures, including sterilization. Non-consensual medical interventions on intersex children remain legal.
There is widespread and institutionalized prejudice against LGBTIQ people in the country. In 2015, 2018, 2021, and 2024, the parliament advanced bills that would have prohibited “gay propaganda,” but they include been struck down or amended each time. In 2024, a similar effort to advance anti-LGBTIQ lawmaking came in the build of a Union of Parents petition to the Ministry of Culture and Information. While the petition has not spurred recent legislation, President Qasym-Jomart Toqayev and government ministries are on tape condemning so-called LGBT ideology.
In 2019, the Kazakhstan Supreme Court upheld and protected the privacy rights of two women, holding a Facebook user accountable for posting a video of the two women kissing, without their authorization, in violation of privacy
Statement in solidarity with the LGBTI movement in Kazakhstan
ILGA-Europe stands with Kazakhstan’s LGBTI Community amid Russia-style attempts to criminalise LGBTI people and their human rights
ILGA-Europe express solidarity with the LGBTI people in Kazakhstan as they face legislative proposals which will worsen the already exacerbated situation of the LGBTI people in the state. Two concerning anti-LGBTI legislative initiatives that were voiced last week by two separate groups of members of Kazakhstan’s Parliament threaten the fundamental rights and freedoms of LGBTI individuals in Kazakhstan.
The initiative by the Parliament members Aimagambetov and Ashimzhanov (both from Amanat Party) attempt to announce a legal prohibition for mass media to write about “non-traditional sexual orientation”. In the similar week, Parliament members Zhanbyrshin and Musabaev (also from Amanat party) introduced a draft amendment to include so-called “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” in the “discord incitement” provision 174 of the Criminal Code and to prohibit calm assemblies on the same ground.
Such initiatives aim to divert attention from pressing issues like n