Remembrance Day for Homosexuals – Victims of the Totalitarian Soviet Regime in Ukraine Date in the current year: December 12, 2025

Following the October Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks immediately abolished all laws in force during the Russian Empire, including those regarding criminal liability for same-sex relations (sodomy). When the first Soviet penal code was adopted in 1922, the article penalizing sodomy was excluded under the pretext of equal rights. However, this does not mean that the Soviet authorities were tolerant of LGBT individuals. The Cheka (secret police) secretly monitored gay salons and prosecuted some patrons as counterrevolutionaries.

The period of relative freedom for LGBT individuals under Soviet rule was short-lived. After Joseph Stalin came to power, homosexuals became one of the groups targeted for repression. In September 1933, Genrikh Yagoda, a high-ranking secret police official, reported to Stalin about a spy network operating under the guise of gay salons in Moscow, Leningrad, and Kharkiv, the then capital of the Ukrainian SSR.

Members of the LGBT community, particularly gay and bisexual men who frequented gay salons, were soon placed on a list of “anti-Soviet elements”. In April 1934, Article 154-a (“Sodomy”) was added to the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. Under this article, voluntary sexual intercourse between two men was punishable by three to five years in prison camps. Similar articles soon appeared in the criminal codes of other Soviet republics.

During the repressions, hundreds of people were arrested for sodomy, and not all of them were actually LGBT individuals: the law was often used to eliminate political dissidents. Although same-sex relationships between women were not criminalized, they were not publicized for fear of condemnation.

Following Stalin’s death, criminal punishment for sodomy was not abolished. Even though the minimum punishment was reduced, enabling courts to issue more lenient sentences, the number of convictions increased by approximately 40 % in the 1960s and 1970s. As during Stalin’s repressions, the article was often used for political purposes.

Additionally, during the Brezhnev era, the forced psychiatric and drug treatment of LGBT individuals, both men and women, became widespread. Along with the infamous punitive psychiatry, other methods of pressure were employed, such as “comrades’ courts”.

During the Soviet era, the law criminalizing sodomy was never repealed. Consensual homosexual relations between men were decriminalized in Ukraine after its independence. On December 12, 1991, Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk signed the relevant law.

In 2006, several Ukrainian LGBT organizations designated December 12 as a day of remembrance for homosexuals who were victims of the totalitarian Soviet regime. The purpose of this day is to honor the memory of LGBT individuals who were persecuted during the Soviet era, and to advocate for continued efforts to achieve equality, safety, and rights for LGBT individuals in Ukraine.