‘Gay Conversion Therapy’ Alive and Well in Putin’s Russia, ‘Novaya Gazeta’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 4 – Gay conversion therapy, something human rights groups and the United Nations has described as a form of torture, is alive and well in Putin’s Russia given the Kremlin’s anti-LGBT campaign and the fact that polls show that one Russian in four believes that gay people are “sick” and in need of medical treatment.

            According to a survey conducted last year, there are at least 12 LGBT “rehabilitation centers” in various parts of the Russian Federation where inmates are kept in isolation, “forced to undergo ‘spiritual rehabilitation,’ take medications, undergo hypnosis, and even be subjected to violence,” Novaya Gazeta says (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/12/04/a-cure-for-wellness-en).

            Officials at the Initiative for the Prohibition of Conversion Therapy in Russia (https://bctir.org/) say that there are some 16 other such institutions on their list and that the total number of such places in the Russian Federation today “is likely to exceed 30,” a number that reflects the support they have from the Putin regime. 

            The total number of victims of this unethical and immoral process in Russia is unknown, but it is certainly in the hundreds if not more, and the existence of these “hospitals” not only tortures those who are confined to them but casts a dark shadow over all LGBT people in that country because of the threat that officials can send such people to them.