Trans-activist Ekaterina Messorosh on the right to work in elections

Yesterday we talked about how the transgender St. Petersburg resident Yekaterina Messorosh asked to be removed from work in the election commission in the upcoming elections. Deputy Vitaly Milonov, who claims that transgender cannot do his job, and activist Timur Bulatov, who believes that the presence of a transgender woman in a polling station at school, will harm children, spoke against Messorosh’s participation in the PEC’s work. Ekaterina Messorosh told us about the sudden media attention, relationships with colleagues and activism.

Catherine Messorosh

trans activist

I now live a little "more fun" than before. I didn’t expect from myself that I would be so calm about cameras, “Life” and their bases - I was suddenly shown the raging Timur Bulatov live on the air, and before that they had broadcast simultaneously with Milonov. This is a good test for exposure. But it is also an important experience that gives some inner confidence in what I am doing.

Yesterday, I was still a little worried about Bulatov’s plans: he wrote many statements to the education department, to the guardianship bodies, to the police, to the electoral commission, to the party “Fair Russia”. He put all these statements on the Internet - this is just a sample of illiteracy, including legal. Well, everyone has the right to write statements, I think, even if they are considered, it will not be critical. I can also write a statement to him, after all, he is a rather viscous person, very ideological, so simply will not lag behind. He wrote, for example, that he was going to find out my address.

This is unpleasant, but, on the other hand, when he came to the school, people behaved very adequately - he was just carefully escorted out of the school. He called the police squad, but the principal also called the police squad, two outfits arrived. As a result, he never wrote a statement to the police, but he tried to agitate the parents, said that there was a terrible and dangerous pervert at the school, who was corrupting the children (that's me), and quite scared of one child. In general, everything is fine - I was upset and left.

As for my colleagues from the PEC, I was very surprised by their calm reaction to my transition - I was expecting some questions and actions, I was ready to answer, I had an argument, but I didn’t have to use it. The problems started because of the city commission - on Friday, Gorbirkom member Dmitry Krasnyansky for some reason said in an interview with Interfax that one of the commissions has a transgender: “I will not give you a name, but, let's say, was a young man Artyom, and became Yekaterina “. Well, of course, I was quickly found, and with this drain everything started.

On the street, they don’t recognize me and calmly perceive me as a woman, and close people are very supportive. It so happened that my life has become much more open than I expected. Honestly, yesterday I had a rather tense state because of all this fallen fame and questions, and today I already figured out the situation with Bulatov, and it became calmer. I took a vacation at my main job, because so far I have no opportunity to work quietly (Ekaterina is an employee of the company MEL Science, which produces chemical kits for children.. - Approx. Ed.). I have been working in the office for two years now, and my entire transition was in front of my colleagues. They are all very adequate, understanding, professional and educated, so no difficulties have arisen. Yes, I have the best job in the world.

I understand that thanks to this situation, I have some political capital, so I go to all these interviews while they are interested in me. Through my publicity, I engage in trans-advocacy, telling that transgender people exist, that they do not conform to the stereotypes that exist in society. I talk about myself and trans people in general, as far as the interview topics allow. I usually engage in non-public activism: I belong to the initiative group “T * -Action”, which provides first of all medical assistance to trans-people - we are developing a base of friendly doctors. This is very important: when trans people need medical help, they often don’t know who to turn to, because it’s hard to go to a doctor who will shout at you and say that he doesn’t know how to treat such aliens and Cheburashek like you.

What is important to understand about trans people: first of all people. They are different, they do different things, they are all sorts, and transgenderness does not make a person somehow wrong or inadequate. Due to the fact that they constantly have to deal with transphobia, trans people can react sharply in response. There are a lot of transgender people, but they are not visible, because the society perceives them with hostility. This is primarily a problem of the society itself.

Photo:Ekaterina Messorosh / Facebook