Rescuing independent LGBT Russian language media

After the beginning of the hot phase of the war (February 24), all independent media were blocked in Russia. By some coincidence, despite the active anti-war agenda, we have not been blocked, but we are going to be the first after the final approval of the law against LGBT propaganda.

Organizations working with LGBTQ+ people are under constant pressure, a great deal of LGBTQ+ activists emigrated at the beginning of the active phase of the war with Ukraine and their organizations closed down. The funding for still operating organizations is constantly decreasing, because, among other things, LGBTQ+ people are afraid to support organizations recognized as foreign agents. As a result, information and support programs for LGBTQ+ people are disastrously curtailed.

In the context of the shrinking information space for the real social agenda and, in particular, LGBTQ+ issues, we consider it important to continue developing our media resource, which is an essential part of community systems.

Since the beginning of the war, our traffic has been constantly growing, which is due to the fact that most independent media either stop their work or write less about LGBT people. Today, we are the most visited LGBT media resource in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. More than 350 thousand unique users read us every month.

However, we keep on working. Thanks to your support, our news specialist continues to work. Over the period, we have posted 85 publications on the site, 32 features and 53 news pieces. As of the time of this report, the site's publications have been viewed by 694,000 unique visitors.

Thank you very much for your support of our work.