Di Cunningham, of Three Lions Pride, an LGBT supporters association, says she has no regrets after travelling to Russia

Waving a pride flag in public in Russia is, normally, as sure a way as any to ensure swift police attention and possible arrest. But a small group of LGBT England fans at the World Cup unveiled a “Three Lions Pride” rainbow banner at England’s first game against Tunisia in Volgograd on Monday, and plan to do the same at the second match in Nizhny Novgorod on Sunday.

Di Cunningham, one of the founders of Three Lions Pride, an LGBT supporters association backed by the FA and set up around two years ago, said it had been a difficult decision to come to Russia but it is not one she regrets.

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Stadium security held her at the entrance for a short period while they determined whether the flag would be allowed in but in the end gave the green light, and the police have been friendly.

It is another sign of how normal Russian rules do not quite apply during World Cup month, down to a combination of gentle pressure from Fifa, a desire to show off an image of a friendly and tolerant Russia to the world, and a genuine desire to welcome the hundreds of thousands of fans who have descended on Russia from abroad.

One Russian fan, whom Cunningham assumed was himself gay, came up to her before the Tunisia game to ask if the rainbow scarf was indeed a gay symbol. “He looked fascinated, you could see him processing it, and thinking this is just totally outside his experience. We set him up with some networking information,” she said.

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There were also fears about the response from sections of the England travelling support. A lot of LGBT people have been “alienated by English nationalism and the hooligan connotations” in the past, she said. At England’s game against Tunisia, one man shouted at her to “get off your soapbox and support the team”, but after Harry Kane had scored the winner, became more friendly.

“You do have that worry with football always, that after a few drinks or with the passion of the game people can become monsters. But on the whole everyone has been positive. One man came up to me and said his son is gay, and thanked me for it.”

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Cunningham is one of a small number of gay England fans who have decided to travel to Russia and not hide their sexuality. Lee Johnson, 25, from Cambridge, planned to arrive in Russia on Friday in time for England’s second game against Panama in Nizhny Novgorod on Sunday. He said the stories of homosexual men being rounded up and tortured in Chechnya had given him pause for thought, but he had decided to come anyway. He plans to wear a Three Lions Pride scarf to the Panama game.

“To an extent you have to respect the country you’re going to, so we’re not going to be in everyone’s faces. But at the same time, I’m not going to hide who I am,” he said.

Russia made “gay propaganda among minors” illegal in 2013, meaning that waving a rainbow flag or airing pro-LGBT-rights sentiments in public is illegal. Authorities have repeatedly cracked down on attempts to hold protests in support of gay rights, often brutally, while last year the local authorities in Chechnya rounded up men suspected of being gay and tortured them.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Di Cunningham at England v Tunisia. Photograph: Di Cunningham

Chechnya’s capital Grozny is a Fifa-approved World Cup training venue, with the Egypt squad based there, despite criticism from rights groups. The region’s Kremlin-appointed leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, posed with Egypt’s Mo Salah for a photo op, and said this week in an interview to the BBC that the anti-gay repressions did not happen because there are no gay men in Chechnya

“We don’t have hemo-, hama-, what was the sexuality you said? We don’t know that word. We have a differnet outlook, a different mentality,” said Kadyrov. “We don’t have a single one of them, it’s all made up. Here, a man is a man, a woman is a woman, an animal is an animal, a dog is a dog.”

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On the opening day of the World Cup, British rights activist Peter Tatchell staged a one-person protest near Red Square, calling on president Vladimir Putin to investigate the torture of gay men in Chechnya. Tatchell was detained by police, with rather more politeness than might have been used if there was not a World Cup on, taken to the nearest police station and released with an administrative charge.

“I don’t think human rights abusing countries like Russia should ever have been granted the World Cup in the first place,” said Tatchell in Moscow, the day before his arrest.

Some LGBT fans, however, have a different opinion. Cunningham said she would rather England finished second than first in their group, because the first-placed team will play their knockout encounter in Rostov-on-Don, a southern Russian city known for its social conservatism. But she also said the majority of Russians have been “so, so, welcoming” and said she hoped their presence in the country might have an effect, even if a small one.

“Things change slowly, and the visibility can help change things in people’s lives. There are lots of reasonable people here. Give it 30 years or hopefully sooner and nobody will be saying that being LGBT is at odds with a Russian lifestyle,” she said.