From Grok:
The Bolshevik decriminalization of homosexuality (1917–1933) had a very significant practical effect, but it was limited almost entirely to private, consensual behaviour between adults. It did not mean public displays, same-sex marriage, pride parades, or any kind of protected public gay subculture. Here’s what actually changed on the ground:
What decriminalization actually meant (1917–1933)
- No arrests or imprisonment simply for being gay or having consensual same-sex relations in private.
- Police could no longer raid private homes, blackmail people, or use “sodomy” as a catch-all charge (as they routinely did under the Tsars).
- Gay men (and to a lesser extent lesbians) who were careful and discreet faced almost no legal risk from the state for their private sexual lives. This was a huge improvement over the Tsarist period, when thousands had been prosecuted or exiled to Siberia.
- Courts and doctors in the 1920s sometimes released people caught in same-sex acts with a simple warning or medical referral instead of prison.
What it did not protect or encourage
- Public displays of any kind (kissing, holding hands, cross-dressing in public, etc.) remained socially taboo and could still get you arrested under other articles: “hooliganism” (статья хулиганство), “disturbing public order,” or “debauchery.”
- There were no gay bars, clubs, or openly gay organizations. The few pre-revolutionary “circles” in Moscow and Petrograd largely disappeared or went deep underground after the Civil War.
- Same-sex marriage or any legal recognition of partnerships was never on the table.
- Openly effeminate men or masculine women still faced massive social ostracism, workplace discrimination, and sometimes Komsomol/Party expulsion if they were members.
Reversal under Stalin (1933–1934)
- March 1934: male homosexuality was re-criminalized (Article 121, up to 5 years prison).
- Transgender medical care was suppressed, and legal gender changes became impossible.
- Official rhetoric shifted to labeling homosexuality a “degenerate bourgeois vice” or fascist perversion.
Note: "Transgender medical care" was basically one documented patient and some limited collaboration with Magnus Hirschfeld. The stuff about gender ID etc., I think is mostly speculative fumes picked up from activists. It doesn't surprise me that they're looking into dysphoria and potential treatments since it's a new field.
Like a lot of the early policies of the USSR, this actually makes a great deal of sense. It is a practical approach, and a balanced one. Tolerance, not encouragement. That is the correct approach here. Homosexuality is not a culture, it is a quirk. Not a crime, but, definitely not a great virtue either!
Very practical thinking in terms of blackmail.
Indeed.
I guess I don't follow. If you legalize something how is that useful for blackmail? If you wanted a lot of blackmail potential you would make something illegal so you can catch them and hold it over their head.
They're trying to eliminate blackmail and corruption.
Purge the unclean.
So, go purge yourself, no one's stopping you.
Ew, it replied to me. Gross.
Pot/Kettle.
Fucking brit mussie too ay?