After Georgia’s president Salome Zourabichvili refused to sign anti-LGBTQ+ legislation recently the parliament signed it into law anyway. According to LGBTQ Nation, Georgia’s Georgian Dream party modeled the legislation after Russia’s recent vehemently hateful anti-LGBTQ+ laws. The new laws imposes “draconian curbs on LGBTQ+ rights and provides a legal basis for Georgian authorities to outlaw Pride events, the rainbow flag, and public displays of affection, and also to impose censorship of film and books.”
Furthermore, the law also re-certifies the existing ban on same-sex marriage attained abroad and gender-affirming surgeries, bans LGBTQ+ people from adopting or changing their gender on official identification documents, and outlaws public gatherings that encourage same-sex relationships and ‘LGBT propaganda’ in education. The law was drawn up in the conservative party’s efforts to protect Georgia from “degenerate moral influences exported from the West,” LGBTQ Nation reports.
Despite Zourabichvili’s refusal to sign the bill into law, she did not veto it, meaning it was sent back to Parliament to be passed by speaker Shalva Papuashvili.
Papuashvili, who is a member of the Georgia Dream Party, spoke of the bill saying its goal was a “strengthening mechanism for the protection of minors and family values that are based on the union of a woman and a man.” Other leaders of the party have spoken in favor of the law, claiming it aligns with the values of the country’s conservative Orthodox Church.
The new law alligns the country with Russia in the severity of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation despite recent efforts by Georgia to official join the European Union. The Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2023 found that the LGBTQ+ community in Georgia still continues to face harassment, discrimination, and violence, seeing terrible crimes inflicted upon LGBTQ+ citizens, particularly transgender women.
