LGBT Rights Organizations Hold Protest

By Sergey Chernov

The St. Petersburg Times

Published: April 3, 2013 (Issue # 1753)

LGBT activists will send photographs of fascist graffiti in St. Petersburg to Governor Georgy Poltavchenko during the Week Against Homophobia and Transphobia, the annual series of events aimed at drawing attention to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity that is being held in the city this week.

According to the Russian LGBT Network’s local chair Igor Kochetkov, the activists will take pictures of neo-Nazi graffiti covering the walls of St. Petersburg and send them to Poltavchenko, who signed the local law banning the “promotion of homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality and transgenderism … to minors” last year.

“We want to draw his attention to the fact that the promotion of things that are punishable by the criminal code openly exists in the city, rather than the mythical ‘promotion of homosexuality,’” Kochetkov said to The St. Petersburg Times by phone this week.

Postcards will be also sent to the local politicians who supported the anti-gay law, celebrating the opening of the Week Against Homophobia and Transphobia, Kochetkov added.

This year, the motto for the forum is “It’s High Time to Speak Out!”

“Each of the events urges participants and onlookers to mediate on the consequences of homophobia and transphobia, and to speak out,” the organizers say.

Coordinated by the Russian LGBT Network, the festival began yesterday with a seminar called “LGBT Discrimination: What, How and Why?” and will continue with the political debates “Attitudes Toward LGBT: A Test for the Democratic Opposition” on Thursday and the seminar “Promotion of Transgenderism: Daily Practices of Identity and Political Expression” on Saturday.

The point of Thursday’s debate, according to the organizers at the Coming Out LGBT rights group and Straights for LGBT Equality is the fact that the attitude to the LGBT community frequently inspires arguments from many organizations.

Representatives of democratic political groups are expected to take part to discuss why the issue arises so frequently and what grounds the opposing sides occupy. The debates will be held at Andy Bar at 50 Ligovsky Prospekt (Korpus 13).

The screening of a short documentary film, “The Same as You…” (Takoi Zhe, Kak Ty…), dealing with the problems that LGBT teenagers face and how they internalize discrimination, is scheduled for Friday. The teenagers who appear in the film will take part in a discussion afterwards alongside invited guests.

The screening is tentatively scheduled to be held at Tsiferblat Anti-Cafe at 81 Nevsky Prospekt at 7 p.m.

The “Promotion of Transgenderism” seminar is due to take place at Ligovsky 87 (office 300) at 7 p.m. Saturday. All events are free.

According to the organizers, the week’s events will come to a close with a “Day of Silence,” scheduled for Sunday.

Instead of a silent public protest against the discrimination LGBT people face, the event will take the form of a public service announcement video that will be posted online on Sunday, according to Coming Out’s Olga Lenkova.

Lenkova said no public protests were planned this year.

Updates are available from www.lgbtnet.ru and www.comingout.spb.ru