"Why me?": Queer teenagers about life in Russia
Queer Teens in Russia actually exist outside the law. Since 2013, it is impossible to conduct “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” among minors, since 2016 the site of the project “Children-404” has been blocked, which was engaged in supporting queer, homosexual, bisexual and transgender adolescents, and its creator Elena Klimova - she continued to work in social networks are still attacked with threats and insults.
Teenagers are persecuted on the Internet and on the street, and the state, by encouraging homophobic activists with posts in power, sometimes reminds: there is no place for gays. At the end of March, Roskomnadzor, referring to the decision of the court of the village of Bely Yar of the Republic of Khakassia, entered Gay.ru, which existed in Russia for twenty years, even the “18+” mark did not help the portal to the portal. We talked to queer teenagers who ventured to talk about their lives without hiding their names and faces.
Masha
16 years old, Glazov → Izhevsk → Moscow
When I was about six years old, I inadvertently overheard on the street, as one girl asked a question to her mother: “Can two women have children?” It became interesting to me, and I began to pester my mother with the same question. Then we watched some Russian melodrama, and I asked: "Is it normal that I like girls on TV shows, not men?" I do not remember the answer at all, and my mother too.
A clearer awareness began with my Internet love for one girl. I stumbled upon it on instagram - wow, how beautiful! - and liked the photo. We began to communicate, but then, when I had feelings towards her then incomprehensible, I could not tell about it. I generally like to meet on the Internet. I have a girlfriend from Kiev, with whom we met in the "Storis" group - periodically they posted LGBT stories there, and late in the evening they published a post with the text: "Have a good night, like you". So I found one girl, wrote to her - and the conversation began to turn. We have been communicating for four years already, for a long time we want to meet - I hope it will work out next year, because I will be eighteen.
My girlfriend E. lives far away. Previously, it was about eight hours to get to her - from Izhevsk to Samara. But now I have moved from Izhevsk to Moscow, I study at the college on information technology. We have been together for about two years. When we started dating, I told my friends, "Yes, I like girls." Nobody was surprised - they said that they already knew, everything is fine. After a year of relationships, I decided to tell my mom about it and wrote to her: "Mom, I like E.". She asked: "I mean, how do you like E.?" - "Well, as a girl and as a man." She replied: "Ok." That is just - "Good."
My mother is crazy. After I went to Moscow to attend college, she said: "I will move too, I have nothing to do here." Now we live together, she is very understanding and always helps.
Recently, at a lecture on drugs from the crowd, they were asked: "Why is marijuana legalized in some countries?" The lecturer answered: "Why are same-sex marriages legalized in some countries?" I raised my hand and said that this is a very strange comparison: one thing is love, the other is what kills people. The lecturer began to justify herself - they say, she is not a homophobic, she has “such friends”. Then the head teacher joined in: "This is a deviation, a disease with which we will devote a separate lecture." I started crying, but my friend from college said, "Hammer, it's a scoop." Apart from this case, I have never encountered homophobia as such.
Classmates with whom I am in contact, everyone knows, even periodically interested in how I do with E., when I go to her. Cover up when I'm leaving. I used to be often asked who is a boy in our relationship and who is a girl. This question has always amused me, and I answered in monosyllables: "We have equal rights." Now I have such, thank God, no longer ask.
E. and I always clearly knew that in two years we would get together and everything would be fine, but it takes so much energy! You look at friends who meet, hug, kiss, and you're on your phone. Alone. At some point, I thought it would be easier for me without this relationship, but it turned out to be wrong. Feelings cannot be controlled, and although relationships at a distance are painful and difficult, we know that everything will be fine in the end.
I really want children, E. too. Maybe I would move abroad - I have to do something if I don’t want to raise my children in fear, to walk by the arm with my beloved girl. On the other hand, here is my family, my relatives, and if it were not for this factor, in principle, everything would suit me here. But maybe I like it here only because I have not been anywhere else outside Russia.
Nikita
17 years old, Moscow
When I was five years old, they wrote me down to the pool, and it was interesting to me: wow, there will be other boys there! At eleven, I first wondered: maybe I'm gay? But then he decided: no, everything is fine, why suddenly I am. Full awareness began to arrive at fourteen or sixteen. At first I thought I was bi, but it was such a consolation, they say, I also like girls, it means that everything is in order. Then I realized - I do not like girls.
I didn’t talk about it with my family, except with friends. They reacted positively, just such an emotional boost was immediately. And my parents are homophobes. Once I was going with my girlfriends for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. They said, "Fashion Week? Are you gay?" And father added: "If I find out that you are gay, I will kill you." I thought, "Well, you probably won't know about it." That is, the only aggression I encountered was the aggression of the parents. Mom is calmer: although homophobic, I think she could accept me.
In my old school, I did not hide the fact that I was LGBT. I was super lucky, we had a friendly class, we communicated well, so who knew about me was supported. But then they started to go kukhu: for example, my former classmate, who treated me normally, wrote in a commentary to Vladan Reins's tweet that LGBT is a bio-waste. And recently, in a VK conversation, someone threw off my old photo with the words: "This is Nikita before he pissed him in the head." Well, I didn't miss you very much.
I study in the eleventh grade of lyceum, in oriental studies. Here I met a bunch of great people. I am not afraid to come there with dyed hair and makeup on the face. I have a lipstick, a few shadows, a highlighter. When there were sunny days in February and March, before going to the lyceum (when the parents had already gone to work, because if they saw everything, then) I put shadows on my eyelids. In high school, people usually approach me with the words “oh, how cool” or they don't pay attention. The maximum of homophobia that I came across here is the word "blue", which the curator of our course uses about some historical figures, speaking in a disparaging tone. The older generation - it is.
In general, I got acquainted with "Drag Race" recently. I am interested to watch, but I do not think that I would like to participate. I'd rather go to clubs and just dress up. On the other hand, it would be worth leaving the comfort zone - I'm afraid of the scene from school.
I am subscribed to Matt Dallas, he leads a channel on YouTube with her husband and son, as well as Mark Miller and his boyfriend Ethan from Los Angeles. They take pictures of their lives, and here you look: husband, husband and son live for themselves, everything is great with them. Somehow it becomes calmer at heart - sometime I can live like that too.
I need to do now, find a living in order to quickly move out from my parents. Of course, in the future I would like to conclude a marriage, and a baby. I also want to be a good parent, and not like my own.
I am a promeminist. Subscribed to Nick Wodwood. I like how cheerful she is and how she gives information. Before Niki, I would hardly have called myself a pro-feminist. I remember how, a year and a half ago, I was giggling over memes about feminists and feminites. But then he sat down, read and understood everything.
I really do not like gays who are afraid of femininity: as if there are “normal” gays, but there are “abnormal”, meaning feminine boys. I understand why some may be afraid, stay away from it, but when the conversations begin, "We are normal, we sit at home, and you discredit all gays, behave like men" - this annoys me.
We need to do something with the fact that people are pouring into the heads from the TV: "Gays are our main enemies, and even America." By law, I can't know about gays, but I know all the same. What do I have on my twitter to put "18+"? I myself am not eighteen, what do I do? Parents often say: "What will happen if they beat you because of your colored hair?" But the problem is not in me - the problem is in a man who decides that he can beat me. He should be responsible for this, not me.
Vitalik
16 years old, Moscow → Pereslavl-Zalessky → Moscow
I am quite an ordinary teenager, studying design at the HSE Lyceum, recently opened my own sticker store. A year ago, I realized that I wanted to do web design, but besides that I would like to make clothes and make films.
For the graduation project at the Lyceum, I make a website with a history of movements for equality: for the equality of women, men and non-binary people, that is, feminism, the fight against racism and against homophobia. In addition to the basic principles and positions, I will tell the story of all these movements in Russia, because I believe that these topics need to be discussed, and if nothing is done, then everything will remain so.
First of all, the law “on the prohibition of propaganda” prevents the development of activism in Russia - under it you can fit any action in defense of LGBT people, the same one blocked by gay.ru, where they simply covered cultural events. It sucks when there is a law that becomes a tool of censorship.
From third to fifth grade, they called me gay, but I didn't care. People try to insult you with a word that, in fact, does not bear negative coloring, is not offensive, but simply states the orientation of a person. Then I did not realize my orientation, I communicated with both boys and girls, I just didn’t particularly like football and there was no machismo in me. Perhaps these boys were trying to raise their status by humiliating others, in their attitudes being a man meant “good,” and being a woman or having something in common with a woman was “bad.” Then I moved to another school - I think they calmed down.
Last year, when it became known about the persecution of gays in Chechnya, my former classmates spoke out approvingly about this: "Cool, gays need to be killed." I never thought that a person might want someone to die. I tried to explain to them that they should not react that way, all people are different - in the end, they began to treat me worse.
I was scared when, at eleven, I realized that I seem to like boys. It was clear - now you have to hide a huge part of yourself from others, including from those closest to you. You will be injured both physically and socially and legally, because homophobia is saturated with everything: take the same name-calling related to orientation, or comedic images of gays in comic TV shows that form an extremely negative image. If I once woke up heterosexual, I would be glad - it would be quieter to live.
In a city with a population of thirty thousand people, it’s hard to hide something, and I didn’t know a single local LGBT person. There is no visibility, you think you're crazy, and everything is bad. I didn’t have any sources, I hardly knew English, I thought I was insane, that it was a disease, that I shouldn’t live like that and maybe I should turn to someone to cure it. If I knew about other LGBT people, it would be easier for me. Any demonstrativeness is useful because people find themselves similar and less driven by their singularity.
It seems to me that in giving this interview I am doing a good thing: this material shows that such people exist in Russia, they live and be so normal. Once I stumbled upon a video with the comingouts of Americans in front of their parents. I was fascinated by videos from this channel, and then I even found an open gay channel in Russia - cool, when people are not shy about talking about it. In the Russian-speaking youtube there are not very many open representatives of the LGBT + community. I follow, for example, Kirill Yegor, he is openly gay and sometimes speaks on this topic in his videos. Or Seventeenine, two LGBT + girls who make beautiful videos and talk about their lives - this is someone else’s experience that might be useful to someone. Probably, I would like to see more LGBT bloggers - guys: it’s interesting to know their experience. For them it can be dangerous, but the more of them, the higher the demonstrativeness.
At eleven, I could not imagine that someone would know about my future orientation. For the first time I fell in love last August, seriously, and now my close friends and their parents are happy that I have a boyfriend.
Erika
17 years old, Moscow
I was born in a creative family: my mother is an architect, my father works with books. Since childhood, I was taught: if you are not an interesting versatile person, it is not fun. How many can remember, I always painted. Later, when I wanted to go to a concert and I needed money for a ticket, I painted portraits to order. For two and a half years I went to a music school, but I left when I was given a base, and from the age of fifteen I have been taking pictures. I like the idea of doing performances - I want to find a way to merge everything I do.
I love drag-culture, I like to shock. I love to put on wigs, wear bright colors, wear fiery glasses and go to the subway in this form - there you appear before all sectors of society at once, before different views. I like that people watch, do not understand, but I know that the key to understanding is a habit.
Parents, after watching the news, ask if I am not afraid. Survive, give advice so that nothing happens. In general, they always said: "You can be a lesbian, you can never give birth to our grandchildren. Find yourself a partner with whom you will be fine. Or do not find. The main thing is to live life happily."
I began to think about it at twelve or thirteen. I remember, on Twitter, many of the guys indicated what pronouns to address them - then I realized that I must be a pansexual. Bisexuals like both men and women, and I understand that there are plenty of genders, and when I like a man, I don’t really care what his gender is. Polyamor pansexual is the widest definition that I can imagine.
Pansexuality has never been a problem, but polyamory - yes, there was jealousy. In principle, I do not take relationships seriously: there can be many of them, with any number of people at the same time and with anyone. In Sims there are two scales: friendship and love with other characters. In the process of quarreling with jealous madam, I realized that for me there is only one "golden scale": a relationship with a person either develops on all fronts at once, or does not develop at all. Now I have people I can completely trust. Without the rest, I can easily manage: some will disappear, new ones will come.
I see no point in marriage. Others may conclude it, but I do not see it as a new level of relations. Closing in on one person is unpleasant, you will simply stop in yourself, you will not be able to develop, because meeting new people you form yourself.
If I ever have children, it is only at that age, when I will be sure that I have formed myself and now I can form them. Most likely, by this time I will not be able to give birth, so I will adopt and adopt. If at all I want.
I don’t really understand politics - my whole life was Putin. I understand that, for example, unfair elections - but this did not concern me. And that, in fact, can be done by those who are against it, because most of them are young, schoolchildren. Someday they will grow, but for now they are too young. I am more outraged by the church and this Milon, when, for example, activists disrupt concerts, intervene. But I do not want to leave Russia. I am satisfied with my house in Moscow. I want to move around the world, but I have no desire to escape from here.
Lera
16 years old, Moscow
As a child I loved the wolf rain anime, I read a lot about it, climbed in groups, was in a fan base, drew pictures. At twelve, I had a girlfriend, with whom we took a certain fandom and created our own characters, which we then played. There is a series of games, Assassin's Creed, in the first part of the action takes place in Palestine. Because of the main character, Altair, his friend Malik loses his hand. They have a very close friendship, warm and sensual, but with some kind of pain. We took these images as a basis and played these games, but with a hint of romance.
From twelve to fourteen, I presented myself as a transgender person: it was disgusting to realize that I was a woman, that I had a woman’s body, face, and chest. I talked about myself in the masculine. But at fifteen I realized that I should not identify femininity with something terrible. To think that being a woman is bad and uncomfortable, women are being raped and killed, which means it is better not to be a woman instead of admitting that you can fight it.
I decided to stop being afraid. At first it was difficult, but then in the film school where I played in the production, they gave me a female role. I was worried and doubted, but I still came on the stage in a skirt - and felt an incredible release. This is one of those moments that share life before and after. К весне прошлого года я почти сбросила панцирь, и сейчас я горжусь тем, что я - женщина.
В четырнадцать лет я начала общаться с ребятами, которых до сих пор считаю друзьями, среди них есть открытые бисексуалы и геи. Большую часть времени мы тусили в скайпе, проводили там часы, иногда сутки. Ещё у нас была конференция "ВКонтакте", все из разных мест, но мы виделись в жизни много раз. В этой компании я познакомилась со своей первой девушкой. Она из Минска, куда я теперь езжу достаточно часто. Эти отношения были авантюрой, мне нравилось чувствовать это именно по отношению к девушке, учитывая, что это была моя первая любовь.
Friends perceived our relationship with the banter, primarily because of the age difference. In addition, in principle, they considered the relationship at a distance perishing. With this girl, we are still in contact, though not particularly tight. She opened my eyes to many things, such as veganism or feminism. Before that, ideas that push feminists seemed to me far-fetched, and the feminists themselves were aggressive, hysterical. Then I realized that feminism is cool.
When you find worthwhile ideas, life becomes easier, the world is clearer. I like the activist work of Sasha Hain, they led a cool blog with Rent Cohen, their texts really penetrate, make them feel something. Rent in general was an icon for me in the world of transgenderness, she introduced me to gender theory, this is a person whom I admire.
It is necessary to understand that the older generation is the majority, and these are people of such hardening, who are unlikely to give up their views. They perceive relationships with people of their gender as a sin: how is it like that - a woman with a woman? But I see that over the past five to ten years the attitudes in people's heads are changing - at least I see it in Moscow. I am bisexual and in most cases I am faced with a completely neutral reaction. If you push these ideas as thoughtfully as possible, without aggression and waving your fists, the situation will improve.
"Propaganda of homosexuality" is absurd. As if there was a blue eye propaganda. I have not met in my life a single person who was told that being gay is cool, and he became gay. Orientation is not a hobby, not a cultural bullshit, this is what you have in your genes, in your human gut in terms of biology. Orientation fashion is ridiculous. Why deputies do not understand such obvious things, why not read a book about this? Does not a single dude in authority have a gay friend?