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Homosexuality in Central Asia: Stories of Hardship and Hope by Ryan Schweitzer

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Homosexuality in Central Asia: Stories of Hardship and Hope by Ryan Schweitzer

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Homosexuality in Central Asia: Stories of Hardship and Hope:|Paperback

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For the LGBTQ community in Central Asia, life is unimaginably difficult. The personal narratives within this book showcase the daily struggles members of the LGBTQ community face under hostile regimes and from their fellow citizens. Caught in an oppressive bind, they are forced to either conceal...

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Foucault in Warsaw by Remiguisz Ryzinski (Polish)

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Foucault in Warsaw by Remiguisz Ryzinski (Polish)

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https://www.openletterbooks.org/products/foucault-in-warsaw

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In 1958, Michel Foucault arrived in Poland to work on his thesis-a work that eventually came to be published as The History of Madness. While he was there, he became involved with a number of members of the gay community, including a certain "Jurek," who eventually led the secret police directly to Foucault's hotel room, causing his subsequent exit from Poland. That boy's motivations and true identity were hidden among secret police documents for decades, until Remigiusz Ryziński stumbled upon the right report and uncovered the truth about the whole situation.

Nominated for the Nike Literary Award, Foucault in Warsaw reconstructs a vibrant, engaging picture of gay life in Poland under communism-from the joys found in secret nightclubs, to the fears of not knowing who was a secret informant.

About the Author: Remigiusz Ryziński is a philosopher, cultural critic, writer, and academic lecturer who works on gender and queer theory; he has published three academic books. He is a graduate of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków and has also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. He has received grants from the French government, the Robert Schuman Polish Foundation, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland, and the city of Warsaw. Foucault in Warsaw is his literary nonfiction debut.

About the Translator: Sean Gasper Bye is a translator of Polish fiction, reportage, and drama. He has published translations of Watercolours by Lidia Ostałowska, History of a Disappearance by Filip Springer, The King of Warsaw by Szczepan Twardoch, and Ellis Island: A People's History by Małgorzata Szejnert. He is a winner of the 2016 Asymptote Close Approximations Prize, a 2019 National Endowment for the Arts translation fellow, and former Literature and Humanities Curator at the Polish Cultural Institute New York.
Praise for Foucault in Warsaw:
"A fascinating look both at a specific period of Polish history and at a formative experience in Foucault's life, told with assurance and complexity."
-Tobias Carroll, Words Without Borders

"The admirably taut translation by Bye brings the hunt through Warsaw's archives to life. Readers will welcome this vivid and empathetic excavation of an historical footnote."
-Publishers Weekly

"Combining the techniques of literary reportage with the analytical tools of Foucault's archaeology of knowledge, Ryziński has unearthed secret police dossiers and trawled through hundreds of pages of reports filed by undercover cops and snitches. . . . Sean Gasper Bye's nuanced translation beautifully captures all the language registers, from dry officialese to the flamboyant flourishes in the snitches' reports and eyewitness accounts."
-Julia Sherwood, Asymptote Journal

"There is a type of history that is created by the records of the surveillance state and there is a different type of history that is created when you share a few cups of tea with a stranger telling you about their youth. Ryziński is able to put those two types of history in conversation to produce something that is fascinating in large and small scales."
-Josh Cook, Porter Square Books

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The previously untold story of the plot to kick Michel Foucault out of Poland in the 1950s

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Verka Serduchka - Dancing Lasha Tumbai (Ukraine) 2007 Eurovision Song Contest (Ukrainian) 

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Verka Serduchka - Dancing Lasha Tumbai (Ukraine) 2007 Eurovision Song Contest (Ukrainian) 

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfjHJneVonE

Supplemental article: https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/9675/being-lgbtq-verka-serduchka-drag-queens-post-soviet-pop-culture

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Verka Serduchka - Dancing Lasha Tumbai (LIVE) | Ukraine 🇺🇦 | Grand Final | Eurovision 2007

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Pioneer Summer: A Novel  by Elena Malisova and Katerina Silvanova (Russian)

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Pioneer Summer: A Novel  by Elena Malisova and Katerina Silvanova (Russian)

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This star-crossed gay romance is a #1 bestselling TikTok sensation that took readers by storm, made international news, and catalyzed one of Russia’s largest-ever crackdowns on LGBTQ representation. Cowritten by a Ukrainian–Russian duo, Pioneer Summer reached such heights of popularity that Putin stepped in to ban it.

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Guide to LGBTQ+ in Eastern Europe (University College London)

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Guide to LGBTQ+ in Eastern Europe (University College London)

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https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/research/research-guides/guide-lgbtq-eastern-europe

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UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES)

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Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in sources of academic research engaging with the topics of queer histories, queer culture, geographies of sexualities, gender identity, homophobia, LGBTQ+ citizenship, migration and asylum. Our guide to resources on LGBTQ+ in Eastern Europe h as been developed as an integral part of the UCL European Institute's Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence Programme. The content is curated by UCL SSEES Library specialist staff and developed with the help of UCL SSEES PhD students.

This guide covers a wide range of resources, including recent publications, academic repositories, reports, periodicals, oral histories archives, news portals, audio and video resources, as well as organisations and other reliable resources evaluated by the Library's specialist staff.

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Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in sources of academic research engaging with the topics of queer histories, queer culture, geographies of sexualities, gender identity, homophobia, LGBTQ+ citizenship, migration and asylum. Our guide to resources on LGBTQ+ in Eastern Europe h as been developed as an integral part of the UCL European Institute's Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence Programme.

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Q*ASEEES (Queer Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies)

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Q*ASEEES (Queer Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies)

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https://qaseees.org/

While Q*ASEEES is geared towards those in higher-ed, their website offer sample syllabi, resources, and a list of scholars who have an ongoing interest in LGBTQ+ studies in our regions.

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Crossing: A Novel By Pajtim Statovci (Albanian)

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Crossing: A Novel By Pajtim Statovci (Albanian)

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https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/568166/crossing-by-pajtim-statovci/#:~:text=Steeped%20in%20a%20rich%20heritage,and%20of%20his%20own%20family.

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"Statovci's writing . . . has an affecting lyricism. . . . [Containing] at its best, longing and rage compressed in a single sentence at once sweepingly plangent and rooted in granular detail. . . . Crossing, in its rejection of fixed notions of identity, has a kind of kinship with recent books by other young queer writers, among them Andrea Lawlor's Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl . . . and Akwaeke Emezi's Freshwater. . . . Crossing arrives at a moment when many of us have grown suspicious of monolithic categories . . . and have begun to recognize how inadequate such labels are to encompass the reality of individual lives. The novel memorably portrays the pain those labels can cause."
-Garth Greenwell, The New Yorker

"The work of an accomplished novelist. . . . The book is alive with . . . wonderful gothic scenes, a visceral sense of alienation and desire. With considerable literary panache, Statovci treads a line between raw tragedy (the boys' tormented bodies and hearts are a microcosm of a collective agony) and a more formal aesthetic of abjection bordering on existential horror, in the best European literary-philosophical tradition from Camus to Kafka, Kadare to Kristeva. The sensitivity and poetry of David Hackston's translation match the original. . . . The brutal beauty of Crossing comes from its almost cellular understanding of belonging and exclusion, love and cruelty. It is a powerful phoenix of a book that rises from the ashes of the previous century.""A challenging and brilliant work of fiction." -Michael Nava, New York Journal of Books"There are novels that you read because they entertain you, and there are novels that you read because the prose commands you to do so. Pajtim Statovci's sophomore novel Crossing falls in the latter category. . . . A gritty, gut-wrenching and heartbreaking read."
-Tommy Sanders, The Post and Courier (Charleston)

"[A] story told with great sensitivity and empathy, highlighting Statovci's development as a leading voice in modern European literature."
-Kirkus Reviews"An excellent and evocative novel about the intersection of migration and gender."
"Shocking. . . The matter-of-fact depiction of numerous traumas intensifies the impact.""Poignant. . . . Powerful. . . . [A] searching tale of a young Albanian whose struggle to understand his sexual orientation and gender identity is interwoven with his struggle to survive in foreign lands."

" Crossing will devour you; this is some fierce, dazzling, and heartbreaking shit."
-NoViolet Bulawayo, author of We Need New Names

"Anyone who has ever known what it's like to leave home in pursuit of happiness and belonging will most likely love this tender, beautiful novel as much as I did."
-Imbolo Mbue, author of Behold the Dreamers

"Reading Pajtim Statovci's fiction is like entering a lucid dream: life and death intertwines in an intimate dance; the nostalgia for the past is akin to the nostalgia for the future. Crossing is a novel that dazzles and mesmerizes, and the reader, upon finishing, may have the extraordinary sensation that his or her own dreams have been scattered along the journey, beckoning for rereading."
-Yiyun Li, author of Where Reasons End

"Everything, and I mean everything, is threatened with devastation and loss, but Pajtim Statovci's prose, the quality of his seeing and remembering, promises to save an invaluable part for all of us."
-Amitava Kumar, author of Immigrant, Montana

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Crossing by Pajtim Statovci: 9780525563013 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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"Statovci's writing . . . has an affecting lyricism. . . . [Containing] at its best, longing and rage compressed in a single sentence at once sweepingly plangent and rooted in granular detail. . . .

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Manizha - Russian Woman - Russia 🇷🇺 - Official Video - Eurovision 2021 (Tajik-Russian)

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Manizha - Russian Woman - Russia 🇷🇺 - Official Video - Eurovision 2021 (Tajik-Russian)

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l01wa2ChX64

Supplemental articles: https://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/12588/eurovision-russia-manizha-singer-russian-tajik-russian-woman-feminist-rotterdam

https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/11739/manizha-russian-tajik-musician-identity-russia-z

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Manizha - Russian Woman - Russia 🇷🇺 - Official Video - Eurovision 2021

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On the Moscow Metro and Being Gay by Dmitry Kuzmin (Russian)

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On the Moscow Metro and Being Gay by Dmitry Kuzmin (Russian)

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Provided by Words Without Borders Campus

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In the catalogue of sins in his Divine Comedy, which is as random as it is insanely detailed, Dante found room for the sin that "dared not speak its name" long before Oscar Wilde's trial-one of which Dante's beloved guardian and tutor Brunetto Latini was also guilty. (He placed such sinners in the Seventh Circle of Hell, near the suicides and usurers, but above thieves and bribe-takers.) I always wished that Dante had added another sin, one which probably couldn't have even occurred to the great Florentine. In my opinion, a separate circle, or at least a special place in the very last circle next to the traitors, should be reserved for those who hurt others for sheer pleasure, without deriving any tangible benefit for themselves.

This thought comes to mind every time I take the metro late at night, returning home from a poetry reading. To get to my not-so-distant suburb, I need to make an unusual transfer for Moscow, crossing a platform to the opposite track. There, a short shuttle train awaits arriving passengers. In nine out of ten cases, the doors of the shuttle close the moment my train comes to a stop, cleverly timing the shuttle's departure to let arriving passengers kick a car as it pulls away. I don't for a second believe that the shuttle has a schedule so tight that it's coordinated with ten-second precision. The problem is that nine out of ten conductors rejoice at the thought that they momentarily hold the fate of a few dozen countrymen in their hands. The best way they know to use their power is to make the lives of others more difficult, even if only a little.

It is the same metro station that is mentioned in a ditty by the excellent Russian poet Nina Iskrenko:

The train is moving speedily
To the Kashirshkaya platform
Don't you dare cling to me
You filthy passenger scum

In contemporary Russian poetry (including my own work) the metro is often featured as a perfect place of communication. How people who accidentally find themselves side by side interact with one another is indicative of the state of human interaction in society at large. As a writer, I tend to focus on strictly private lyrical emotions, and for me it is a place of possibilities of communication. (It stands to reason, then, that twenty-two years ago, having exchanged fleeting glances, I met there the man with whom I have been living happily ever since.) For Iskrenko, on the other hand, since all her poetry is, in one way or another, a social commentary, the metro is a space where no communication is possible. The metro turns human beings into passengers who are engaged in never-ending warfare of all against all.

In its Soviet and post-Soviet form, such warfare doesn't allow for a winning outcome, at least not a meaningful one. It owes nothing to the relentless competition of capitalism but is patterned instead on the struggle among thugs at a prison camp, based on the notorious principle of the underworld: "You die today if I can live to tomorrow." The role of prisons and prison camps in shaping the post-Soviet mentality is enormous and not fully understood. For example, for many decades one of the most beloved genres of popular music in Russia has been the so-called "Russian chanson," cynical or maudlin ballads, always sung in a hoarse guttural voice, relating the lives of thieves or gangsters. It is sad to admit that this half-witted genre has its roots in the work of the honest and talented balladeer Alexander Galich, who wanted to give a voice to the innocent victims of Stalin's purges. How did this mutation occur? Perhaps it can be explained by calling to mind Varlam Shalamov, the greatest of those who wrote about Stalin's labor camps, who was always overshadowed by the much flatter and more pompous Solzhenitzyn and who never got the audience he deserved either in Russia or abroad. Shalamov thought that nothing of value could come of the prison camp experience and that everything that comes out of a prison camp is inherently negative.

The social model of a Stalinist and post-Stalinist prison camp is based on a caste system. However, its strictest taboo does not relate to interactions between inmates and guards. On the contrary, in the official Soviet worldview, thieves and gangsters were classified as workers' allies in the class struggle, whereas the commanding officer at the camp was known in criminal slang as "the cousin." At male camps, the role of untouchables was reserved for those the slang described as opushchennye, "the low ones," i.e., those who, because of some character weakness, the type of crime they committed (not necessarily homosexuality, for which convictions were actually rare), or some fatal confluence of events, were reduced to the position of sexual slaves. They were so isolated from the rest of the prison population that anyone who entered into any form of interaction with them that was not sanctioned by the unwritten prison code (for instance, accidentally using the same towel) automatically joined the ranks of their lowly caste. Can there be any doubt that the camps' administration relished this kind of caste divisions? And not only because it released the convicts' overpowering sexual energy. More importantly, it was a way to channel hatred and disdain. Those who themselves were treated as nothings by the system of state-sanctioned violence suddenly had an opportunity to treat as nothings others who stood below them on the social ladder.

Today, our current All-Russian "cousin" and his entourage suddenly came to feel that the level of hatred and disdain in society has risen too high and that they are risking a social revolt. Is it any surprise that the small fry of the ruling party, who could never be accused of acting independently, suddenly proposed to find a channel for this hatred and disdain? The seeds fall on fertile ground. A cursory review of readers' comments to news items describing how some obscure elected official in yet another Russian region has hit upon the original idea of banning "propaganda of homosexuality" reveals a near-unanimous response, namely "our shitty government for once has done something right." Regardless of how such laws are justified-be it to protect the kids (against the backdrop of the state's systematic dismantling of the remnants of primary and secondary education), to raise birth rates (even though few young couples can afford to get home mortgages), or to promote the spirit of Orthodox Christianity (even as time and again church officials become embroiled in scandals by erecting country palaces for themselves and kissing the ass of the authorities)-they are really based on a simple sociopsychological principle: citizens are presented with an opportunity to look down upon another person and gratuitously make that person's life miserable.

The gay rights movement around the world has promoted a basic idea: we want to show society that we are human beings like everyone else. The problem is that the train driver at the Kashirskaya train station doesn't necessarily think that those few dozen passengers in whose face he closes the doors are a priori inferior and deserve such treatment. He feels that he becomes superior to them by means of using his power over them. This sense of superiority can be trumped only by some higher superiority.

I used to know a wonderful woman, the late Maya Dukarevich. Born into the family of a prominent Soviet military commander several months after her father had been executed by Stalin, she grew up in orphanages and became a psychologist, founding the first support group for attempted suicides in the Soviet Union. She also inspired the early Soviet and post-Soviet movement for the rights of lesbian women. Many of those who stood at its foundation in the early 1990s were her younger friends. She once said something to me which I have been thinking of again and again: Russia lacks the concept of respect for another person simply because he or she is another person, a unique, independent individual. It is therefore useless to say here: "I'm gay and I have rights." What you can say instead is "I'm a well-known writer and, besides, I'm gay and I have rights." Or "I'm a prominent scientist, and, besides, I'm gay and I have rights." Or else, "I'm a famous athlete, and, besides, I'm gay and I have rights," and so on.

During the 1990s, when I was an active participant in Russia's LGBT movement, as well as in the 2000s, when I began to feel that the forms and methods it had adopted no longer made any sense, I was always surprised by how few people there were who were willing to come out and say something like that-not just inside the movement but in Russian society in general. I remember meeting a highly respected philosopher, who in his old age obtained a transfer for a very good-looking graduate student from a provincial teachers' college to his department at the Academy of Sciences. (Once his mentor was dead, the graduate student immediately surrounded himself with a bevy of undergraduate female admirers.) A casual lover of mine was once courted by another respected elder, a highly acclaimed St. Petersburg theater actor. And one of my poet friends had a short-lived but splendid love affair with a brilliant composer (before the latter became a worldwide sensation following a controversial staging of his opera at the Bolshoi). I often wonder what keeps those men from ending the charade-since their close associates are all in the know, anyway-and declaring openly: "I'm gay. I'm gay, and every attempt by the authorities, the press, and society to denigrate gays is directed not at some exotic prancing queer, whose image has been drubbed into mass consciousness by the skillful splicing of footage from Western Pride Parades, and not at some browbeaten 'low one' at a prison camp, but at me personally." What are they risking? Would the philosophy professor lose his chair, or the actor his roles? Would the audiences stop going to the composer's concerts? I do not ask a long-serving member of the Moscow City Council with whom in our student days some twenty years ago I used to chat casually at Moscow's early gay clubs that so much resembled village Houses of Culture why he doesn't raise his voice against the law banning the mythical "propaganda of homosexuality" in the capital after similar municipal laws have been passed in St. Petersburg, Archangel, and Ryazan. Because if he ever did, his party, Russia's program-free ruling party of power, would toss him out like a useless pawn from a chess board. But why do men whose achievements are beyond doubt, and depend, in the final analysis, on them alone continue living the lie?

An excuse or a justification can always be found. In any case, any public action can have private consequences. When I published my first book, my mother, who had long known everything about me, was torn between the desire to brag about me to her friends and fear that they might open the volume at some particularly explicit poem. Finally, one night, after several days of acute torment, she had a revelation. She cut the particularly compromising pages from the book. Then, in the morning, realizing what she had done, she called me to ask for a new copy. I was probably more touched than upset, even though I wasn't deaf to the special pathos of this scene, either. Nevertheless, preserving the peaceful sleep of one's elderly mother and her friends must not be the main driving force for the actions or inaction of a Russian intellectual. On the other hand, what would one's elderly mother find it easier to say: "My son is gay" or "My son has just published a book in the best Russian poetry series and it includes many poems about him being gay?" Who knows, perhaps in a different conversation about some other gay man, a kind elderly friend of my mother might say one day: "Well, you know, Mrs. Kuzmin's son is also gay, and yet he is a famous author, he has just published a book of poetry."

Of course the prestige of poetry and the respect for it in today's Russia is by no means overwhelming, so that my own personal openness means very little in the context of the country. But at least in a certain segment of Russian literary circles, among some readers, anti-gay rhetoric has now become unthinkable-in the public domain, in any event. Everybody understands which specific individuals will become targets of such rhetoric. On the other hand, the opposite is also true. Those who want to attack me always have an additional argument at their disposal. Some time ago, a certain panel comprised of respected literary elders refused to include Air, the poetry journal I founded, in the consolidated electronic library of Russian literary journals. They did not, of course, favor me with any official explanation for their decision, but I have been told in confidence what provoked their indignation: at a poetry reading, I had once dared to allow my lover to read his work. I'm very sorry none of them had the courage to say this to my face. I would have dearly liked to ask them what they thought of Nikolai Klyuev, who was instrumental in attaining recognition for Sergei Yesenin's poetry; John Cage, who wrote ballets for Merce Cunningham; Benjamin Britten, who wrote operas for Peter Pears; Jean Cocteau, who cast Jean Marais in his films, etc.

I always mention this story, along with several equally awkward ones, when I'm asked what kind of discrimination I have experienced as a gay man. But if among Moscow intellectuals and in bohemian literary circles discrimination is felt mostly in such innocuous forms, it doesn't mean that outside the capital, or in more traditionalist social groups, or among teenagers or, on the contrary, among older people there is no real, far more damaging mistreatment. For me, the anti-gay hysteria that is being currently revived and fanned in my country has strong personal implications. It forces me to cling to my gay identity. As long as the image of the enemy is being concocted out of gays, I must make all my public statements exclusively as a gay man. My small reputation thus protects a section, however small, of the battlefield in this war that has been imposed upon me against my will. But sooner or later this war will be won-perhaps when today's boys and girls grow up, get smarter, acquire a reputation and are able to demand their rights from a position of strength. (They have already shown readiness to go to the barricades for their convictions, but they have not yet learned that convictions must be defended by different means.) When this happens, I will gladly set aside the classification system which divides people into gay and straight and will fall in love with a beautiful man (or sometimes, for the sake of variety, with a beautiful woman) not because we are gay (i.e., belong to a certain category of people) but because of what brings two (or three, or four) people personally and immediately together. In our attraction for each other gender shouldn't matter. I once read in an Edmund White interview, that "in the future . . . maybe it would be a mistake to embrace a gay or straight identity. I think it would be more amusing and mysterious and interesting and coquettish and seductive to leave everything kind of vague." I hope that this future is not very far. It will surely be followed by some other kind of future, when today's heated arguments about who can and who can't sleep with whom will come to seem incomprehensible nonsense, the way we now regard Medieval disputes on how many devils can fit on the tip of a needle. But for now I simply want to live to see the time when I can smile at someone beautiful in a metro car without having to think of the gender of that individual.
© Dmitry Kuzmin. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2013 by Alexei Bayer. All rights reserved.

Related Reading

A reflection on gay life and homophobia in China.

Also from Russia, this humorous first-person story "Hello?" describes a man's thoughts as he rides a city bus.

An interview with the wife of a former prisoner who may have been one of the "low ones" Kuzmin mentions at the beginning of his essay.

Read more literature from Russia.

About

Nonfiction by Dmitry Kuzmin

Translated from the Russian by Alexei Bayer

Why would a metro conductor purposely close the door on passengers? Dmitry Kuzmin explores this question in a far-ranging essay on prison culture, human rights, and homophobia.

Published in Words Without Borders' June 2013 Issue: The Queer Issue IV.

Bios

for On the Moscow Metro and Being Gay
https://wwb-campus.org/literature/on-the-moscow-metro-and-being-gay

Dmitry Kuzmin

Dmitry Kuzmin (b.1968) graduated from Moscow State Pedagogical University. In 1989 he founded the Vavilon Union of Young Poets, an organizational hub for Moscow's experimental poetry scene. He has been the head of ARGO-RISK Publishers since 1993, editor of the Vavilon Internet project (www.vavilon.ru) since 1996, and editor in chief of the quarterly poetry magazine Vozdukh [Air] since 2006. From 1996 to 2002 he ran Risk, the first Russian magazine for gay writing. He won the 2002 Andrei Bely Prize for Merit in Literature, and his selected poems and translations, Horosho byt' zhivym (It's fine to be alive) won the Moskovsky Schet [Moscow Count] award for the best debut poetry collection. His poems have been published in England, France, Poland, China, Italy, Estonia, and Slovenia, and in the United States in A Public Space, St. Petersburg Review, Habitus, Aufgabe, and Fulcrum. His other publications include Russian translation of works by Auden, Cummings, Stevens, and Ashbery, as well as French and Ukrainian poets. He has taught literature and worked as assistant professor of foreign literatures and literary translation, and in 2014, he was as a visiting professor at Princeton University. He lives in Latvia.

Alexei Bayer (translator)

Alexei Bayer was born in Moscow. In 1974 he immigrated to the United States, where he works as an economist and writer. His works of fiction have been published in various US literary journals, including the Kenyon Review and New England Review. Bayer and Andrei Gelasimov have cooperated in translating each other's works, and a collection of Bayer's short stories, Eurotrash, was translated by Gelasimov and published in Moscow in 2004. He has published two detective novels set in Moscow in the 1960s, Latchkey Murders and Murder at the Dacha. He currently writes for The Globalist.

Context

Links available online only

Listen to pronunciations of the Russian names and places from this story, read aloud by Dmitry Kurbanov.

(Listen on SoundCloud

Read what Julia Trubikhina writes about this story in the Russia introduction:

In "On the Moscow Metro and Being Gay," Dmitry Kuzmin, an openly gay writer, translator, and literary curator, founder of the Argo-Risk Publishers and editor of the legendary Vavilon Internet project, raises his voice in defense of gay rights in Russia and speaks extensively about his identity as a gay man-and about love. The central image and metaphor of the piece, which also gave it its title, is the metro that the author had to take to get home to a suburb from downtown Moscow. The metro can be seen both as a locus of love and of "possibilities of communication," and as a "space where no communication is possible," where passengers "are engaged in a never-ending warfare of all against all." With the Stalinist past dovetailing into the present in Putin's Russia, its infamous antigay laws become simply one of the ways to perpetuate "the system of state-sponsored violence," to find yet another channel for hatred. As Kuzmin considers making public statements as an openly gay man his personal responsibility while antigay hysteria in Russia reigns supreme, he nonetheless also envisions a future-and this is a vision of love, a kind of "I have a dream" moment. This not-so-distant future is the time when sexual identity will be fluid, when all classification systems dividing people into categories (straight, gay, or any other) will be replaced by the freedom to fall in love just because of the mutual attraction of free individuals, when one will be able to "smile at someone beautiful in a metro car without having to think of the gender of that individual."

Read more in the introduction.

Then, watch Dr. Trubikhina's discussion of teaching "On the Moscow Metro and Being Gay," in a webinar sponsored by the National Humanities Center.

(Watch on YouTube.)

Find out "What it is like to be young and gay in Russia today" in these first-person stories from Dazed Digital and a photo essay from Buzzbeed.

Women marchers at a Pride parade, St. Petersburg, Russia, 2014. Photo by Maria Komarova.

To see the Moscow Metro for yourself, look through a photo essay from The Atlantic.

"Anti-Gay Hysteria"

Find out more about the "anti-gay hysteria" Kuzmin mentions in this essay, and elaborates on in his interview in Sampsonia Way magazine.

Read the law in "plain English," summarized by a Human Rights First staffer.

Then, watch comedian John Oliver's summary:

( Watch on Comedy Central)

To find out about the law's effects in Russia, read these pieces from the BBC and Al Jazeera.

Or, watch this BBC video profiling Russian-American author Masha Gessen in the wake of the first wave of legislation.

Masha Gessen left Russia after new laws were passed allowing the government to separate gay parents from their children. Read her essay on that decision in The Guardian.

To find out about the effects of Russia's anti-gay policies on neighboring countries, read this Human Rights First report.

For Europe's response, read the article " European Court blasts Russia 'gay propaganda'", from the BBC.

Just how much "hysteria" is there? Read about a Russian politician's (ultimately unsuccessful) campaign against the Disney cartoon Beauty and the Beast in the New York Times and the BBC.

"[F]eel private, act public"---Hear more of Kuzmin's thoughts on civil rights in a Q & A with Princeton students.

Then, find out why he has immigrated to Latvia in this POLITICO interview: Russia's dissident poet's society.

Translator Alexei Bayer learned English after immigrating to the U.S. from the Soviet Union. Find out what his first English word was, and read his thoughts on translation, in an autobiographical essay published in Words Without Borders.

Or, read a very short interview with him: "I Can't Play The Harpsichord: A Micro-Interview With Alexei Bayer," from the Kenyon Review.

Why does the essay refer to Putin as "our current all-Russian cousin"? The translator, Alexei Bayer, explains that cousin is a translation of the Russian word kum. This word can be used to describe the relationship between godparents. In Soviet prison camp slang, however, kum refers to the secret police officer in charge of ideology, who runs informants and doles out punishment.

Playlist

Links available online only

If you're from a small town and you have questions about your sexual orientation, Moscow and St. Petersburg are the places you escape to. . . But at the same time, this whole anti-gay thing was started by a politician who is from St. Petersburg.

Hear more from documentary photographer Misha Friedman, and look at his photographs telling the story of a relationship between two Russian women, in Roads and Kingdoms and the New Republic.

Then, read an excerpt from the memoir " A Different Childhood," about growing up gay in Russia, published in Open Democracy (includes some expletives.) The memoir is translated by Arch Tait, who also translated " Pears from Gudauty," another work on the theme of Leaving Home in the WWB Campus collection of Russian literature.

Finally, take a look at a collection of contemporary Russian love stories, entitled Gay Propaganda, collected by journalists Masha Gessen and Joseph Huff-Hannon.

"LGBT activists are just people. Why must they live as if they were invisible or criminals?" Author and artist Victoria Lomosko asks that question in her series on a besieged LBGTQ film festival in Moscow, "Side by Side: Homosexuals and Homophobes."

Image of Lomasko taken by Mozamaniac.

The series was published in The Russian Reader and also appears in Lomosko's collection Other Russias.

Kuzmin's essay mentions that metro stations are being spiffed up for the 2018 World Cup; read an article about the possibility of anti-gay violence at the Cup.

Then, see Moscow metro stations emptied of all humans, and find out about their role as instruments of propaganda, in this feature from the art magazine Hyperallergic.

Kuzmin writes: "The role of prisons and prison camps in shaping the post-Soviet mentality is enormous and not fully understood."

Read the oral history " The Wondrous Deer of the Eternal Hunt," which describes how prison shaped one man in the Soviet era.

Then, enter a virtual Gulag. (You will need to download a web player.)

Finally, read about a prison survivor who has opened a "Gulag Museum" in Moscow).

Kuzmin describes the Russian chanson as "cynical or maudlin ballads, always sung in a hoarse guttural voice, relating the lives of thieves or gangsters."

Listen to a related form, the Mexican narcocorrido , or ballad celebrating drug culture.

(Watch the video on YouTube.)

Mis Tres Animales (My Three Animals) by Los Tucanes De Tijuana.

(Watch the video on YouTube.)

Read about the cultural role of narcocorridos like these in the essay, " The Mystery of Parakeet, the Rooster, and the Nanny Goat."

Then, read Carmen Boullosa's poem lamenting the drug wars, written as she listened to narcocorridos. (See the interview in the Context tab for details.)

Kuzmin writes that clubs in early-90's Moscow "resembled village Houses of Culture." To get a sense of what that means, view this video, part of an art installation that aims to tell the story of the Houses of Culture from the Soviet era to today. (At the beginning of the video, the girl on stage shouts, "Let's go!")

(View on Vimeo, where you can also read about the project).

Kuzmin mentions "the wonderful woman, the late Maya Dukarevich," a noted psychologist and gay rights activist whose long-ago comment helps him understand the current state of government-sponsored homophobia in Russia. Read about Dukarevich's own battle with sex-phobic officials in Genders 22: Postcommunism and the body polity.

Look at photographs of the Post-Soviet world--- a skater jumping from a dock, a couple kissing, a white supremacist, and others: " Post-Soviet Visions," featured in a Guardian article.

Russia is far from being the only part of the world where the rights of gays and lesbians are under attack.

Take a look at this PDF map of countries that criminalize homosexuality, published by the Human Rights Campaign. Russia and some European countries with "anti-gay propaganda laws" are highlighted in green.

Then, view videos, reports, and news from around the world on the LGBT Rights page of Human Rights Watch.

Finally, get reading recommendations from LitHub's list of " 8 Great Books By Lgbtq Authors From Places Where It's Illegal To Be Gay."

A man holds up a sign: "My boyfriend thinks I'm gay." Bangalore, India. Taken by Nick Johnson.

To find out more about the queer literary scene in Russia, and about the role which Dmitry Kuzmin, "the scene's forerunner," plays in it, read Language Under House Arrest, from The New Inquiry.

Kuzmin's Other Projects

Read about the beginnings of what scholar Julia Trubikhina calls "the legendary Vavilon Internet project", in:

Then, see the project for yourself on the Vavilon website. (The Russian text at the top of the page says: " Vavilon, what is it?/ Journals, newspapers, book series/Texts and authors/ Literary life in Moscow/ Authors' projects/ The faces of Russian literature.")

You can also view photos of Moscow authors and literary institutions on another project in which Kuzmin is involved, litkarka, or A Literary Map of Russia. (Danila Davydov, the creator of litkarta, also has work on WWB Campus: a poem entitled " Fragments from the Dollmaker's Life.")

Read more work from Kuzmin, and other contemporary poets, in Crossing Centuries: The New Generation of Russian Poetry.

Read more work from translator Alexei Bayer:

More thought-provoking writing

Other thought-provoking nonfiction, all from the "Taboo Topics" section of the Chinese literature collection:

Or, try this novel about growing up gay in contemporary Russia: Playing a Part by Daria Wilke

Finally, from a classic master of provocation, mentioned in this essay, the aphorisms of Oscar Wilde.

More Wilde

Oscar Wilde, taken by Napoleon Sarony.

Why does Oscar Wilde remain culturally relevant more than a hundred years after his death?

First, he was a brilliant writer: see for yourself by reading some of his aphorisms. Then, read one of his most celebrated poems, "The Ballad of Reading Gaol," about the execution of a man who'd killed his wife.

Second, his dramatic life story continues to draw attention. Wilde wrote "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" while he was in prison for the "crime" of homosexuality. Of that time, he wrote:

When first I was put into prison some people advised me to try and forget who I was. It was ruinous advice. It is only by realising what I am that I have found comfort of any kind.

For more about the widely publicized trial, and prison's impact on Wilde, read the blog post "The Love That Dared Not Speak Its Name."

Or, take a look at the remarkable book-length letter he wrote in prison, De Profundis, or "Out of the Depths."

More Public Transportation-inspired Work

Try listening to a playlist of songs of public transit, from Russia and elsewhere, assembled by the WWB Campus team. In the first song, " Ah Nadia, Nadenka," the narrator stares through the window of a trolleybus and remembers a woman: "Ah, Nadia, Nadenka-if only, for twenty kopeks, I could ride down any side of your soul." Lyrics for these songs can be found on Google, azlyrics.com, and, sometimes, on genius.com.

Literature from WWB & WWB Campus:

Also from Russia, the humorous first-person story, "Hello?" which takes place on a city bus (See TI 3)

The Japanese graphic memoir "A Drifting Life," in which a boy daydreams about his future in comics on a train

The Japanese poem "Riverwilt"(see the lines about the escalator).

"The Minibus," a graphic story from Turkey, depicting a young woman's experiences

Classic literature:

More Stories of Scapegoating

On WWB Campus:

Other texts; the first few are especially relevant:

Kolyma Tales, short stories by Varlam Shalomov, whom Kuzmin calls "the greatest of those who wrote about Stalin's labor camp." An essay in the Guardian provides an introduction to Shalomov's work.

" I Have a Dream," a speech by Martin Luther King (Julia Trubikhina compares this essay to King's speech in her introduction to the collection of Russian literature.) Video of speech is on YouTube and embedded in the Playlist.

Oscar Wilde's De Profundis, a book-length letter written in prison, in which he reflects on his "crime" and quotes this passages from Iasiah 53:3: "He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and we hid our faces from him." A essay on De Profundis appeared in the Paris Review in 2015: " Suffering is One Long Moment". (Kuzmin references Wilde's sentencing in the first paragraph of his essay.)

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (free edition), a novel by Mark Twain (See the treatment of Jim.)

"Trial of the Century: Revisiting the Dreyfus Affair," an article by Adam Gopnik, published in the New Yorker.

S. Ansky's nonfiction chronicle of pogroms, The Enemy at His Pleasure.

"The Metamorphosis", a short story by Franz Kafka.

Animal Farm, a novel by George Orwell (See the story of Snowball).

Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz.

Night, a memoir of the Holocaust by Elie Wiesel.

Lord of the Flies, a novel by William Golding.

To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel by Harper Lee.

Teaching Ideas

Note to K-12 teachers

Key Points

1. Verbal Provocation: Substance and Style

2. Public Transportation as Inspiration

3. "The Low Ones": Scapegoating

To access these Teaching Ideas, please register or login to WWB-Campus.

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Read the full text, along with biographies, multimedia contextual resources, teaching ideas, and suggestions for further exploration.

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Comprehensive* List of LGBTQ+ Related Vocabulary Definitions

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Comprehensive* List of LGBTQ+ Related Vocabulary Definitions

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https://thesafezoneproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Vocabulary-Extravaganza.pdf

Scroll to page 3 for beginning of list.

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Coming Out of Communism: The Emergence of LGBT Activism in Eastern Europe by Conor O'Dwyer

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Coming Out of Communism: The Emergence of LGBT Activism in Eastern Europe by Conor O'Dwyer

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https://nyupress.org/9781479851485/coming-out-of-communism/

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How homophobic backlash unexpectedly strengthened mobilization for LGBT political rights in post-communist Europe While LGBT activism has increased worldwide…

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Violent Affections: Queer sexuality, techniques of power, and law in Russia by Alexander Sasha Kondakov

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Violent Affections: Queer sexuality, techniques of power, and law in Russia by Alexander Sasha Kondakov

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https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/192307

Free open source book, but as Dr. Gleissner mentioned, this is a difficult read and if anything should really serve as a resource for yourself.

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Violent Affections uncovers techniques of power that work to translate emotions into violence against queer people. Based on analysis of over 300 criminal cases of anti-queer violence in Russia before and after the introduction of 'gay propaganda' law, the book shows how violent acts are framed in emotional language by perpetrators during their criminal trials. It then utilises an original methodology of studying 'legal memes' and argues that these individual affective states are directly connected to the political violence aimed at queer lives more generally.

The main aim of Violent Affections is to explore the social mechanisms and techniques that impact anti-queer violence evidenced in the reviewed cases. Alexander Sasha Kondakov expands upon two sets of interdisciplinary literature - queer theory and affect theory - in order to conceptualise what is referred to as neo-disciplinary power. Taking the empirical observations from Russia as a starting point, he develops an original explanation of how contemporary power relations are changing from those of late modernity as envisioned by Foucault's Panopticon to neo-disciplinary power relations of a much more fragmented, fluid and unstructured kind - the Memeticon.
The book traces how exactly affections circulate from body to body as a kind of virus and eventually invade the body that responds with violence. In this analytic effort, it draws on the arguments from memetics - the theory of how pieces of information pass on from one body to another as they thrive to survive by continuing to resonate. This work makes the argument truly interdisciplinary.
Praise for Violent Affections
' Violent Affections strongly contributes to queer criminology and the evolution of discourse in contemporary society.'
Journal of Homosexuality

'Can a book save lives? This book may well do so... With this new, open-access book Kondakov consolidates his extensive investigation into homophobic and transphobic hate crime against Russians, with a fresh and ambitious analysis that makes important advances for Russian queer studies.'
The Russian Review

'Kondakov shows how the anti-gay rhetoric of the state seeps into violent affections in ways that are highly de-centralized. In this way, Kondakov updates Michel Foucault's Panoptican with the mimeticon, giving us a way to think not just about violence against LGBTQ populations in Russia, but how to think about state power and our deepest, darkest emotions more generally'
Laurie Essig, Professor, Director of the Program in Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, Middlebury College, USA

'a very engaging read that contributes to a better understanding of the essence and dynamics of Russian socio-political pushback against non-heteronormative practices and identities.'
Contemporary Sociology

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Violent Affections uncovers techniques of power that work to translate emotions into violence against queer people. Based on analysis of over 300 criminal cases of anti-queer violence in Russia before and after the introduction of 'gay propaganda' law, the book shows how violent acts are framed in emotional language by

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Russian Homophobia from Stalin to Sochi by Dan Healey 

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Russian Homophobia from Stalin to Sochi by Dan Healey 

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https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/russian-homophobia-from-stalin-to-sochi-9781350000797/

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Contemporary Queer Plays by Russian Playwrights edited/translated by Tatiana Klepikova

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Contemporary Queer Plays by Russian Playwrights edited/translated by Tatiana Klepikova

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https://bookshop.org/p/books/contemporary-queer-plays-by-russian-playwrights-satellites-and-comets-summer-lightning-a-little-hero-a-child-for-olya-the-pillow-s-soul-every-sh-tatia/15885033?ean=9781350203761

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Contemporary Queer Plays by Russian Playwrights: Satellites and Comets; Summer Lightning; A Little Hero; A Child for Olya; The Pillow’s Soul; Every Sh a book by Tatiana Klepikova

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Contemporary Queer Plays by Russian Playwrights is the first anthology of LGBTQ-themed plays written by Russian queer authors and straight allies in the 21st century. The book features plays by established and emergent playwrights of the Russian drama scene, including Roman Kozyrchikov, Andrey Rodionov and Ekaterina Troepolskaya, Valery Pecheykin, Natalya Milanteva, Olzhas Zhanaydarov, Vladimir Zaytsev, and Elizaveta Letter. Writing for children, teenagers, and adults, these authors explore gay, lesbian, trans, and other queer lives in prose and in verse. From a confession-style solo play to poetic satire on contemporary Russia; from a play for children to love dramas that have been staged for adult-only audiences in Moscow and other cities, this important anthology features work that was written around or after 2013-the year when the law on the prohibition of “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations among minors” was passed by the Russian government. These plays are universal stories of humanity that spread a message of tolerance, acceptance, and love and make clear that a queer scenario does not necessarily have to end in a tragedy just because it was imagined and set in Russia. They show that breathing, growing old, falling in love, falling out of love, and falling in love again can be just as challenging and rewarding in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia as it can be in New York, Tokyo, Johannesburg, or Buenos Aires.

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The Calvert Journal  has a wealth of articles, book recommendations, and more on both historical and contemporary LGBTQ+ community in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. I do want to note that since the start of the war in Ukraine they have ceased publishing, but their website is still up and running.

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https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/9505/being-lgbtq-activism

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Queer zines: making art from eastern Europe’s secret LGBTQ archives

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Queer zines: making art from eastern Europe’s secret LGBTQ archives

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https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/9560/being-lgbtq-queer-archives-institute-karol-radziszewski

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Sealed with a kiss: from t.A.T.u. to Trump, do Western portrayals of ‘gay’ Russia miss the point?

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Sealed with a kiss: from t.A.T.u. to Trump, do Western portrayals of ‘gay’ Russia miss the point?

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https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/9619/being-lgbtq-sealed-with-a-kiss-putin-trump-vrubel

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Kontrola: the LGBTQ TV show breaking into Poland’s mainstream via YouTube

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Kontrola: the LGBTQ TV show breaking into Poland’s mainstream via YouTube

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https://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/11895/kontrola-poland-lgbtq-web-series-youtube

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https://www.makingqueerhistory.com/articles/2017/4/3/sophia-parnok-russias-sappho

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"From ultimate loneliness
With a farewell plea, - not a prophecy
I call to you, young people and friends:
There is only one precept for a poet
In the east and in the west,
Up north and down south -
Do not
kow-tow
to your times,
But be
the brow of
your times, -
Be a human being."

- Sophia Parnok (translation by Diana Burgin)

A woman known throughout Russia as one of their first openly lesbian poets, Sophia Parnok was a Jewish poet born in Russia in 1885. Though her work is not widespread, it remains impactful throughout the Russian queer community as well as the global queer community.

Sophia Parnok is referred to by many as "Russia's Sappho." A title she would likely have adored as she was very public about her admiration of the fellow queer poetess, and the comparison isn't unfounded. Like Sappho, much of what is known about Parnok comes from her work, but unlike Sappho, there are reliable details outside of Parnok's work that tell about her life.

It is known that Parnok was born in Taganrog and began writing at six, the same year her mother died. After her mother's death, things became tense in Parnok's household, with her father remarrying soon after. Though Parnok only begins to explicitly discuss her sexuality in her work when she was sixteen, there is evidence that her family knew that she was a lesbian sooner. That fact only heightened the conflict in her home.

She later wrote, "In the eyes of my father I am a wild slip of a girl and nothing more. My way of thinking and my tastes offend his patriarchal values, and he condescends me." (the Russian word for tastes is often used to describe desire that isn't heterosexual and is used in this quote for that meaning). Because of this conflict between daughter and father, another similarity appears between Sophia and Sappho, a marriage that is not as it seems.

Where with Sappho, the marriage people believe her to have is based on the Suda, an encyclopedia written hundreds of years after her death; Sophia's marriage existed but was transparently one of convenience. Her husband was well aware of this, as he was a friend of hers who was a poet as well; she was clear with him from the beginning that they were marrying to get her out of her father's sphere and to St. Petersburg.

Parnok had tried to get away from her father multiple times and had to return each time after financial burdens became too heavy, so to her, this marriage was a way to combine income and finally be free. Her husband seemed fine with this arrangement, and he worked to help her escape her family and arrive in St. Petersburg, where she could fully immerse herself in the art scene there. Though queerness was not accepted by most of society, actual queer people were just as common then as they are today. Parnok, finally able to find others like her in St. Petersburg, began building friendships and romantic relationships. Like Sappho's marriage, unfortunately, it had to end, though where Sappho's marriage was ended by basic fact-checking, Sophia went with the more traditional divorce route.

Sophia had found her marriage stifling and wanted to try again to live independently in Moscow, where she managed to make a modest living. At the beginning of World War One, Parnok had her most famous romantic relationship with a poetess named Marina Tsvetaeva. The two had a passionate relationship that would go on to influence each of their work heavily. Shortly before the eventual breakup, Parnok's first book of poetry was released, which contained what is described as "the first, revolutionarily nondecadent, lesbian desiring subject ever to be heard in a book of Russian poetry," by Diana Burgin, a woman who studied Parnok's work extensively.

After that point, Sophia relocated again with a new lover to Crimea, where she wrote not only poetry but also music for an opera. It was in Crimea that her health took a turn for the worse. Since birth, she had suffered from Graves disease, but it was after her time in Crimea that the chronic illness would take an even larger toll on the woman.

Even when she left Crimea, these two aspects of her continued to contrast as her health deteriorated and her work flourished. She found herself inspired by the tenth great muse Sappho, writing two more books of poetry and published them on her return to Moscow. It was then that Parnok would meet the woman she would spend the rest of her life with, Olga Tsuberbiller, who was a mathematician at Moscow University.

Her career growth was cut short in 1928 when Soviet censorship made Parnok unable to publish any more of her work. Though she continued to write, the only works that were released were her translations. Her personal work was kept in a "secret drawer," only to be published again in 1930. Regardless of outside approval, Parnok continued to live and write as an open lesbian for the rest of her life, even finding another lover in her later years and writing what some regard to be her greatest work.

In 1933, this all ended when Parnok died of a heart attack in a city outside of Moscow. It was not unexpected, and she was lucky enough that she was surrounded by three of the women she had been in relationships with on her deathbed. Some of whom had travelled far to be able to say goodbye to her. After she had died, her body was led to Moscow by a procession of people who had come from different parts of Russia, including her friends, lovers, and fans of her work.

Sophia suffered much in her life, censorship, chronic illness, poverty, heartbreak, and even a period of homelessness, but it can never be said she was not loved. Romantic and platonic, Parnok lived a life surrounded by people who she loved and loved her, and in the end, her death mirrored that beautifully.

While in her childhood, she had to live with her father's disapproval; the rest of her life was filled with a chosen family's support. Even now, long after all of her friends and family have also died, there are still so many who love her and her work. Some of them show this love by creating art inspired by her poems. The group Kitka is one more clear example of this, but others, whether directly or indirectly, have taken comfort and been motivated by her work. And it is there, in her death, we see the most strong connection between Sophia and Sappho.

Sophia Parnok spent much of her life admiring the Greek poetess who had come before her, even writing a book of poems to her, and this came full circle. While the two had different lives, much of their legacy remains the same. Their names are used to inspire creation, and through their work, they were able to stand on the same ground. Though these two people have never met, they have been and forever will be connected by their art, and where Sophia had an entire book, Sappho only had a small verse:

"You may forget but
let me tell you
this: someone in
some future time
will think of us,"

A prophecy that Sophia fulfilled.
Eric J. (June 11, 2014) Kitka sings hidden poems of Sophia Parnok, "Russia's Sappho" Retrieved March 30, 2017 http://kalw.org/post/kitka-sings-hidden-poems-sophia-parnok-russias-sappho CBC (February 7, 2014) Gay and lesbian Russian writers you should know: Sophia Parnok Retrieved March 30, 2017 http://www.cbc.ca/books/2014/02/gay-and-lesbian-russian-writers-you-should-know-sophia-parnok.html Diana B. (March 30, 2017) Sophia Parnok and the Writing of a Lesbian Poet's
Life Retrieved March 30, 2017 http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.macewan.ca/stable/pdf/2499528.pdf Diana B. (1995) Parnok, Sophia (1885-1933) Retrieved March 30, 2017 http://content.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.macewan.ca/ContentServer.asp?EbscoContent=dGJyMNLe80Seqa44y9fwOLCmr0%2Bep7ZSsK24SbOWxWXS&ContentCustomer=dGJyMPGqt0uyrLVRuePfgeyx43zx1%2B6B&T=P&P=AN&S=R&D=qth&K=70639890 Laura M. (March 4, 2016) Sappho, the Poetess Retrieved April 3, 2017 Queercult (December 6, 2010) Sophia Parnok Retrieved March 30, 2017 https://queercult.com/2010/12/06/sophia-parnok/ https://www.makingqueerhistory.com/articles/sappho

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For our last article in this year's women's history month celebration, we focus on a woman known throughout Russia as one of their first openly lesbian poets.

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War Spurs Ukrainian Efforts to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage

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War Spurs Ukrainian Efforts to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage

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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/02/world/europe/ukraine-gay-marriage.html?searchResultPosition=7

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War Spurs Ukrainian Efforts to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage (Published 2022)

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The role of gay soldiers, the lack of legal rights for their partners, and the threat of Russia imposing anti-L.G.B.T. policies have turned the war into a catalyst for change in Ukraine.

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Putin Signs Law Banning Expressions of L.G.B.T.Q. Identity in Russia

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Putin Signs Law Banning Expressions of L.G.B.T.Q. Identity in Russia

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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/05/world/europe/russia-ban-lgbtq-propaganda.html?searchResultPosition=1

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Putin Signs Law Banning Expressions of L.G.B.T.Q. Identity in Russia (Published 2022)

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The law makes it illegal to spread “propaganda” about “nontraditional sexual relations” in all media, including social, advertising and movies.

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‘I’m Afraid for My Future’: Proposed Laws Threaten Gay Life in Russia

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‘I’m Afraid for My Future’: Proposed Laws Threaten Gay Life in Russia

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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/world/europe/russia-lgbt-gays.html?searchResultPosition=6

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‘I’m Afraid for My Future’: Proposed Laws Threaten Gay Life in Russia (Published 2022)

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The laws, all but assured of enactment, would intensify a crackdown on L.G.B.T.Q. freedom in Russia, which Vladimir V. Putin has cast as a corrosive Western influence.

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The Sky is Turning (Award-winning documentary on Kosovo’s LGBTQ community)

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The Sky is Turning (Award-winning documentary on Kosovo’s LGBTQ community)

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https://kosovotwopointzero.com/en/the-sky-is-turning/

Supplemental article: https://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/10735/watch-this-award-winning-documentary-on-kosovos-lgbtq-community

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Yesterday, (Oct. 10) Kosovo celebrated its second ever pride parade, as Mother Teresa boulevard became a sea of rainbow flags. Last year, K2.0 met a number of the people that made this possible, in the creation of the documentary, "the Sky is Turning."

The series of films look at the compelling realities of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons in Kosovo. It offers a unique insight into the personal stories of acceptance and rejection, and the struggles and aspirations of activism in the days before Kosovo's first ever Pride parade, held last year, also on Oct. 10.

The documentary was filmed over a period of four months by director Matko Bulent, together with journalist Venera Cocaj, and was edited by More Raca. On October 4, it won the Human Rights Journalism Prize for best journalistic piece on TV, print or online media, which was organized by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network Kosovo (BIRN), in cooperation with The Advocacy Center for Democratic Culture (ACDC).

Check it out below.
Episode 1: Stories Episode 2: Activism Episode 3: Love Episode 4: Pride

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A look into the lives of LGBTI activists.

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Outlaw: Behind the scenes of Russia's upcoming controversial LGBTQ drama 

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Outlaw: Behind the scenes of Russia's upcoming controversial LGBTQ drama 

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https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/10785/outlaw-behind-the-scenes-of-russias-controversial-upcoming-lgbtq-drama1

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Secret histories: LGBTQ life in pre-revolutionary Russia

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Secret histories: LGBTQ life in pre-revolutionary Russia

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https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/9567/being-lgbtq-secret-histories-lgbtq-life-in-pre-revolutionary-russia

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Gay Propaganda: Russian Love Stories Edited by Masha Gessen and Joseph Huff-Hannon

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Gay Propaganda: Russian Love Stories Edited by Masha Gessen and Joseph Huff-Hannon

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https://www.orbooks.com/catalog/gay-propaganda/

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about the book about

Gay Propaganda brings together original stories, interviews and testimonial, presented in both English and Russian, to capture the lives and loves of LGBT Russians living both in Russia and in exile today. Available in February 2014, in time for the Winter Olympics in Sochi, the book is a provocative riposte to Russia's recently passed and ill-defined ban on "homosexual propaganda."

As part of a strategy to consolidate political control in Russia following massive pro-democracy protests that shook the government, President Putin's ruling party decided it needed an enemy to unite the country. Hoping to manipulate backward but widely-held prejudices, it opted to demonize gays and lesbians. As a result, in June 2013, Putin signed a bill banning any and all "propaganda" of so-called non-traditional relationships. Quite predictably, in the months that followed, attacks, firings, and hate crimes have spiked across Russia, and the state-sanctioned campaign shows no sign of abating. The Russian Duma is now debating a law to take children away from gay and lesbian parents.

As the world's media turns its attention to the host country of the Winter Olympics, the stories gathered in Gay Propaganda offer a timely and intimate window into the hardships faced by Russians on the receiving end of state-sanctioned homophobia. Here are tales of men and women in long-term committed relationships as well as those still looking for love; of those trying to raise kids or taking care of parents; of those facing the challenges of continuing to live in Russia or joining an exodus that is rapidly becoming a flood.

"The most potent weapon in the fight against anti-LGBT prejudice is the reality of who we are instead of the caricatures presented by our opponents. The bigots who seek to censor our reality by banning 'gay propaganda' understand this. So do Masha Gessen and Joseph Huff-Hannon. Projects like theirs are the most potent weapon in the fight against anti-LGBT prejudice, putting the reality of who we are against the caricatures presented by our prejudiced opponents."

-Barney Frank

"Following in the proud tradition of 'samizdat' writers such as Václav Havel, Masha Gessen and Joseph Huff-Hannon's new book Gay Propaganda seeks to do the same for the current, life-or-death struggle confronting gay people in Russia today. By shining a much-needed light on the common humanity of those brave gay men and lesbians seeking to go about their daily lives in Russia, or those who have made the difficult choice to leave, this book puts the lie to the malicious stereotypes currently being spewed by the Russian government."

-Roberta Kaplan, lead counsel in United States v. Windsor, the Supreme Court case which overturned the Defense of Marriage Act

"Hundreds of straight athletes from around the world have joined the effort to advance LGBT respect and equality. Every one of them will appreciate the importance of this project. This book is much needed and couldn't come at a better time."

-Hudson Taylor and Lia Parifax, founders, Athlete Ally

About The Author / Editor

Masha Gessen is an award-winning journalist and author of many books, most recently Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot (Riverhead, February 2014). She is a lesbian mother who is abandoning her home in Russia because of the anti-gay laws.

Joseph Huff-Hannon is a celebrated campaigner and writer who has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, Salon, and elsewhere. He works with the international advocacy group Avaaz.org. He is one of the founding campaigners of global LGBT rights group, All Out.

Read An Excerpt

from ANYA AND NATA
Anya lives with her parents, who often go abroad. Their trips provide her and Natasha with the opportunity to live together for short bursts. Anya's mother is suspicious of the fact that she doesn't introduce any of her suitors to her parents. However, she refuses to come to terms with the fact that she will never have a son-in-law. Natasha lives with her grandmother, who is kind to Anya but does not suspect that she and her granddaughter are more than just friends. Anya and Natasha met through a fan fiction community on Livejournal. They used to work together at a children's café, and they're in the process of making a book together, but their most important project is partner dancing, with a specialty in "West Coast Swing."
NATA

... Anya and I met at a Surganova concert, seven years ago. I was part of a dance collective and I invited Anya to join. That's where it all went down.

ANYA

Once we'd settled into our relationship, we decided to take up partner dancing.

NATA

We saw these two girls dancing together at a party and got really excited about it.

ANYA

Once, we were walking by the Frunzensky Bridge, where every day they play music for anyone who wants to dance. We got next to these people who were doing "Swing Hustle" and started dancing along. Then we found a dance studio for women where they were enrolling new students. We danced there as a couple for a whole year.

NATA

We got into the dance community, where no one cares who you are, where you're from, or whom you're sleeping with. They only care that you're on the same wavelength as they are, that you're dancing.

ANYA

They taught us to dance about everything. You can dance about love or about the weather. Whatever you want to dance about, you can do it. It's a free world. This studio was open for another three years, but then there were problems with the space, and enrollment, and then with the law about whatever propaganda, since this was partner dancing for women.

We switched from "Swing Hustle" to "West Coast Swing." It's very fluid, like the sea. It stretches out like a wave.

about the book about

Gay Propaganda brings together original stories, interviews and testimonial, presented in both English and Russian, to capture the lives and loves of LGBT Russians living both in Russia and in exile today. Available in February 2014, in time for the Winter Olympics in Sochi, the book is a provocative riposte to Russia's recently passed and ill-defined ban on "homosexual propaganda."

As part of a strategy to consolidate political control in Russia following massive pro-democracy protests that shook the government, President Putin's ruling party decided it needed an enemy to unite the country. Hoping to manipulate backward but widely-held prejudices, it opted to demonize gays and lesbians. As a result, in June 2013, Putin signed a bill banning any and all "propaganda" of so-called non-traditional relationships. Quite predictably, in the months that followed, attacks, firings, and hate crimes have spiked across Russia, and the state-sanctioned campaign shows no sign of abating. The Russian Duma is now debating a law to take children away from gay and lesbian parents.

As the world's media turns its attention to the host country of the Winter Olympics, the stories gathered in Gay Propaganda offer a timely and intimate window into the hardships faced by Russians on the receiving end of state-sanctioned homophobia. Here are tales of men and women in long-term committed relationships as well as those still looking for love; of those trying to raise kids or taking care of parents; of those facing the challenges of continuing to live in Russia or joining an exodus that is rapidly becoming a flood.

"The most potent weapon in the fight against anti-LGBT prejudice is the reality of who we are instead of the caricatures presented by our opponents. The bigots who seek to censor our reality by banning 'gay propaganda' understand this. So do Masha Gessen and Joseph Huff-Hannon. Projects like theirs are the most potent weapon in the fight against anti-LGBT prejudice, putting the reality of who we are against the caricatures presented by our prejudiced opponents."

-Barney Frank

"Following in the proud tradition of 'samizdat' writers such as Václav Havel, Masha Gessen and Joseph Huff-Hannon's new book Gay Propaganda seeks to do the same for the current, life-or-death struggle confronting gay people in Russia today. By shining a much-needed light on the common humanity of those brave gay men and lesbians seeking to go about their daily lives in Russia, or those who have made the difficult choice to leave, this book puts the lie to the malicious stereotypes currently being spewed by the Russian government."

-Roberta Kaplan, lead counsel in United States v. Windsor, the Supreme Court case which overturned the Defense of Marriage Act

"Hundreds of straight athletes from around the world have joined the effort to advance LGBT respect and equality. Every one of them will appreciate the importance of this project. This book is much needed and couldn't come at a better time."

-Hudson Taylor and Lia Parifax, founders, Athlete Ally

About The Author / Editor

Masha Gessen is an award-winning journalist and author of many books, most recently Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot (Riverhead, February 2014). She is a lesbian mother who is abandoning her home in Russia because of the anti-gay laws.

Joseph Huff-Hannon is a celebrated campaigner and writer who has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, Salon, and elsewhere. He works with the international advocacy group Avaaz.org. He is one of the founding campaigners of global LGBT rights group, All Out.

Read An Excerpt

from ANYA AND NATA
Anya lives with her parents, who often go abroad. Their trips provide her and Natasha with the opportunity to live together for short bursts. Anya's mother is suspicious of the fact that she doesn't introduce any of her suitors to her parents. However, she refuses to come to terms with the fact that she will never have a son-in-law. Natasha lives with her grandmother, who is kind to Anya but does not suspect that she and her granddaughter are more than just friends. Anya and Natasha met through a fan fiction community on Livejournal. They used to work together at a children's café, and they're in the process of making a book together, but their most important project is partner dancing, with a specialty in "West Coast Swing."
NATA

... Anya and I met at a Surganova concert, seven years ago. I was part of a dance collective and I invited Anya to join. That's where it all went down.

ANYA

Once we'd settled into our relationship, we decided to take up partner dancing.

NATA

We saw these two girls dancing together at a party and got really excited about it.

ANYA

Once, we were walking by the Frunzensky Bridge, where every day they play music for anyone who wants to dance. We got next to these people who were doing "Swing Hustle" and started dancing along. Then we found a dance studio for women where they were enrolling new students. We danced there as a couple for a whole year.

NATA

We got into the dance community, where no one cares who you are, where you're from, or whom you're sleeping with. They only care that you're on the same wavelength as they are, that you're dancing.

ANYA

They taught us to dance about everything. You can dance about love or about the weather. Whatever you want to dance about, you can do it. It's a free world. This studio was open for another three years, but then there were problems with the space, and enrollment, and then with the law about whatever propaganda, since this was partner dancing for women.

We switched from "Swing Hustle" to "West Coast Swing." It's very fluid, like the sea. It stretches out like a wave.

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Gay Propaganda brings together original stories, interviews and testimonial, presented in both English and Russian, to capture the lives and loves of LGBT Russians living both in Russia and in exile today. Available in February 2014, in time for the Winter Olympics in Sochi, the book is a provocative riposte to Russia's recently passed and ill-defined ban on "homosexual propaganda".

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This Is Gay Propaganda: LGBT Rights & the War in Ukraine

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This Is Gay Propaganda: LGBT Rights & the War in Ukraine

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https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5116432/

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This Is Gay Propaganda: LGBT Rights & the War in Ukraine (2015) ⭐ 8.1 | Documentary

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https://www.facebook.com/children.404/

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Works by Sophia Parnok Translated by Diana Lewis Burgin (Russian)

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Works by Sophia Parnok Translated by Diana Lewis Burgin (Russian)

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http://www.dianaburgin.com/P-Poem-Other.html

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Translated by Diana Lewis Burgin

That evening was dimly-smoldering, -
But for me it was a fiery one.
On that evening, as you had been hankering,
We went out to the Union.

Oh, the unconquerable heaviness
Of these waters silenced
Behind centuries-old dams!

Oh Lord! It's still the same, it's hard for me
With my heart full to overflowing,
And a muse who's un-talkative.

The greedy saline soil had eaten everything.
I rooted out the twisted, writhen roots of
The vines that curled here once upon a time -
The earth was nubbly, desiccated, scabby,
Like a feverish sick woman's lips...
Beneath its lacerated sole my foot
Grew calloused from leaning on the shovel,
My hands were swelling with a painful fire,
As iron would collide with buried skulls.
She put up quite a fight against me with
A kind of atavistic vengefulness, but I
Went at her with my pick - like so, like so,
I will out-stubborn your stubbornness!
Here sprightly peas will soon begin to curl,
The corn will raise its thick stalks skyward,
An elephantine pumpkin, big with child,
Will loose her serpent tresses like the Gorgon.
Ah! Neither crocuses nor snowdrops smell
In spring so satisfyingly of spring as
The garden bed's first-blooming cucumber!...
The sharp fang of my pick shone in the sun,
Around me, clumps of earth bobbed up and crumbled,
A sea breeze blew, the sweat ran down my back
And cooled, congealing as a cold slender snake, -
And never had the rapture of possession
Burned through me with such cloudless
Completeness and such piercing pride...

And in the valley there, the almonds fade
And in their place the peach trees start to bloom.

So Hagar sits in obloquy
And gushing piteously
The spring pours out a threnody:
Be-er la-chai ro-yi.

Enormous city. Wind. Evening.
Lights flicker in the dark,
And you, madman, are off in search of
A soul mate in each passerby.
Calm down, stop acting crazy, poet,
Resign yourself to orphan-hood
And do not pester with your cries
The people there who pass you by.

Hey, you there, who're passing by!
Not happy and not sorrowful,
Obsessed, where are you rushing to,
A fugitive from your own self?
I don't care if you do not like me,
Inside, deep down inside your soul,
Respond, as if you hear my voice!

We're deafened by a thunderous sound,
And in this whole enormous city,
More piercing and more dire than thunder
For us is brief tranquility.
You're just not traveling our road,
Your dreams confuse and rankle us,
Your talk of summits makes us fret,
Your talk of quiet will hobble us.
What even from ourselves we hide,
You dare to utter loud and clear.
You lay claim to equality
With your demented century,
But you are not the present's peer:
For other days your other songs.
It's not the time, a time like this,
To use your yearning to bewitch!

What sorrow, blow or mutilation
Must strike you in the here and now,
In order for a human word
To penetrate your understanding?
Well, young people, have your say,
Nurture your complacency...
But you, there, hiding in the shade,
But you, extend a hand to me!

.............................................................

Don't you know me? Poet? You're my brother!

I don't know you.

I have no time.

No reason to.

Come back, come back!

What for? To moan and groan together,
Make noise and lead a dog's life?
Enough! I'm going to grin and bear it.
"What the hell's your soul to me?"

The sky is torn to tatters,
And impenetrable dark...
And the sky is also mute,
And everything's gone mad!
Don't come closer, evil shadows,
Retreat, repulsive hue and cry!
One last time I scream, I whisper:
"Understand..."

Kneeling on the hard window sill
And thrust out the window - a gaping fish mouth!
A breath...a breath of air...Like a living corpse
Who sucks life from a gray oxygen bag,
And whose heart thumps: time to go! time to go!
And sky's heavy arch weighs on the earth,
And the whitish night is as gray
As the gray balloon of oxygen...

But I am not dying. I am still
Holding on. I can think. And once again
The ardently demanding word
Casts its spell over my life.
I thrust my head out the window
And look up - at the starry attire,
The reddish ring around the moon -
And I speak, to no one, into space:

"Like a bathhouse the world's got so damn stuffy
From the vapors of dirty bodies, impending dark thoughts,
Rotten secrets, irreparable deeds,
That even if you open the window wide,
There's no air for a despairing soul to breathe!..
Isn't it strange? We treat all diseases:
Sarcoma, and sclerosis, and old age... But
The world still has no clinics where people
Can be cured of the streptococci of evil.
That's why I would crawl on my hands and knees
Over highway potholes, over crushed stone
On wilderness roads - where? God knows where!
To some forsaken monastery deep in the woods,
And I'd beg forgiveness and intercession -
I'd entreat with tears and prayer... If only
I knew where they were, the protectors, Zosimas,
And if the eternal flame still burns.."

It's getting light. At dawn the buildings are
Denuded and so pensive. Above the roof tops
Faintly glimmer the cupola and cross
Of the Church of the Burning Bush...
And somewhere in the West, in Paris,
In Turin, in Hamburg - does it matter where? Someone
Like me, her head thrust out a stuffy window,
Breathing the same poisonous swill,
And using all her strength just to take a breath,
Someone stands, and thinks, and weeps,
Not a white, and not a red, and not a black,
Not a citizen, but simply a human being,
Like me, perhaps, too un-adroitly
And sadly living out her life.

As a shade with three dimensions, brother,
It isn't easy to drag out one's fate!
Moscow's madhouse now is overcrowded,
And the cemetery also has no space
For your dust in roomy crypts or coffins, -
Now you're buried in a metal saucepan.

Seems the world's no longer so enormous.
Both in width and height it's atrophied..
Do you wish to die? - Just step behind the
Screen and disincarnate quietly,
Modestly, without disturbing others,
Please, it's not a time for fuss and bother!

And you'll die while hereabouts, unyielding,
Once again "young life will frisk and play":
Belching, drunk, a mother will remember,
As hoarse primus stoves hiss night and day..
So! Behind the screen our neighbor lived, lived and left us,
He wasn't killed, - and that we count a blessing!

To Maria Petrovna Maksakova

People cut a hole through
The dark-blue thickness of ice:
An air vent for big fish and little,
Water for water hoistings,
A way out for a weary woman
If in the end life turned out
Not to be traveling her road,
If she had nowhere to go!

What is the meaning of seventh heaven?
Is it a circle deep into the heights?
Like the gallery in a theater,
An outer limit for enthusiasts?

Ah, but it's dull to love under heaven,
Even more dull, perhaps, under seventh.

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Translated by Diana Lewis Burgin That evening was dimly-smoldering, - But for me it was a fiery one. On that evening, as you had been hankering, We went out to the Union. Oh, the unconquerable heaviness Of these waters silenced Behind centuries-old dams! Oh Lord!

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https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8963708/

Available on Amazon Prime

Supplemental article: https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/11306/film-drama-reinvents-traditional-georgian-dance-as-a-thrillingly-contemporary-queer-love-story

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The Trans Space Octopus Congregation by Bogi Takács (Hungarian)

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The Trans Space Octopus Congregation by Bogi Takács (Hungarian)

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https://www.lethepressbooks.com/store/p561/The_Trans_Space_Octopus_Congregation.html#/

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With an introduction by Charlie Jane Anders

Lethe Press is excited to be releasing the debut short story collection by Bogi Takács. Takács may be known more for their recent editorial efforts, Takács is a talented storyteller and poet. An uplifted octopus finds a strange capsule in the water and wonders if one of the long-vanished humans might be found inside; a team of scientists perform some reverse-engineering on a space station and shapeshifting becomes political; and other tales of AI, hybrids, and the far future. A finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Best Transgender Fiction!

Paperback, 326 pages

"Takács uses magic, technology, and the otherworldliness of space to explore the horrors of humans' worst impulses...people and societies surviving at great cost to themselves in the face of war, apocalypse, and death." - Publishers Weekly

"From uplifted octopuses on far flung planets to intensely topical explorations of authoritarianism and tightening borders here on Earth, this collection reveals a dazzling (and sometimes shattering) breadth of speculative fiction. It treats openly with a universe dominated by distance and space but made beautiful by the diverse people and connections that exist in the fleeting light of stars and in the shadows left behind when war and time ravage and ruin. Challenging and formally daring, the stories act as a prod and provocation for readers to engage more deeply with the world around them, to challenge their perspectives by putting them into minds both alien and achingly familiar, seeking empathy beyond what can be easily recognized or understood." - Charles Payseur, Quick Sip Reviews

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Lethe Press is an independent publishing house specializing in speculative fiction, books of gay interest, poetry, spirituality, as well as classic works of the occult & supernatural. Named after the Greek river of memory and forgetfulness (and prono

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Kazakhstan’s first LGBTQ magazine is committed to creating a community against the odds

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Kazakhstan’s first LGBTQ magazine is committed to creating a community against the odds

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https://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/11312/kazakhstans-first-lgbtq-magazine-is-committed-to-creating-a-community-against-the-odds

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Total Solidarity: Listen to the electronic mixtape supporting LGBTQ rights in Poland

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Total Solidarity: Listen to the electronic mixtape supporting LGBTQ rights in Poland

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https://oramicspl.bandcamp.com/album/total-solidarity

Supplemental article: https://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/11322/total-solidarity-get-the-electronic-mixtape-supporting-lgbtq-rights-in-poland

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TOTAL SOLIDARITY
a benefit compilation for grassroots LGBTQIA+ organizations in Poland

Instead of total hatred, we give you TOTAL SOLIDARITY. We present you with the compilation created thanks to the cooperation of Oramics collective and the person behind New York Haunted label - Drvg Cvltvre. All proceeds from the digital sales will support Polish queer organizations: Kampania Przeciw Homofobii and Miłość Nie Wyklucza, who monitor homophobia, provide all kind of support for queer people and have agreed to help us redistribute the proceeds throughout LGBTQIA+ organizations in smaller cities and towns of Poland, who need them the most.

Among the supporters of our action, you will find international headliners, underground stars, beginners, heroes from our local scene in Poland and music from the members of Oramics collective.

In recent years, we have observed an evolving campaign of homophobia run by the right-wing Polish government, spread by the government media and fueled by the Catholic Church. We have heard that the LGBTQIA+ community is a plague, a dangerous ideology, a threat to morality and Polish culture and should be fought with fire. These words caused an eruption of violence, e.g. recent pogrom-like attacks on a Pride march in Białystok and targeting queer people on the streets as well as their allies wearing rainbow symbols. This atmosphere of disrespect, violence and hate leads many Polish queer people to depression, migration or even suicide.
The electronic music scene in Poland has recently taken a stand and many initiatives, festivals, collectives and clubs declared their solidarity and support. We want to take it further and do what we do best: share our passion for music and creating spaces where we can all feel free and at home. Music, art and the club scene are all parts of culture which is not and cannot be indifferent to historical and social turmoils or political oppression. Quite the contrary, it has always been the voice of resistance. Club culture is something more than hedonistic sounds letting you forget about your everyday life, it is something more than a way to make money - it is a tool that can help other people. Apart from the fundraiser party at Jasna 1 on August 9th 2019, we present you with the compilation "TOTAL SOLIDARITY" created thanks to the cooperation of Oramics collective and the person behind New York Haunted label - Drvg Cvltvre. All proceeds from the digital sales will support Polish queer organizations: Kampania Przeciw Homofobii and Miłość Nie Wyklucza, who monitor homophobia, provide all kind of support for queer people and have agreed to help us redistribute the proceeds throughout LGBTQIA+ organizations in smaller cities and towns of Poland, who need them the most. It took us less than a week to collect more than 100 tracks from all kinds of electronic music genres, from various different producers from far and near who wish to support the queer community in Poland. Once again we want to pay respect to the roots of club culture in queer, people of color, anti-gentrification, anti-state oppression struggle. We want to say, sing and bang it out loud: Queer rights are human rights. We're in this together.

The fight for equality in Poland is an ongoing battle, so the compilation has an open formula - whoever wants to contribute after the release, please contact us.

Big thanks to Berlin-based Uferlos Studios, especially Rey KM Domurat for their hard work mastering the whole material. We cannot express how important this work was for us!

released August 17, 2019

compilation: Oramics
artwork: Avtomat Design
mastering: Rey KM Domurat / Uferlos Studio

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Total Solidarity by Oramics, released 17 August 2019 1. Adre'N'Alin - You are the best 2. Air Max '97 - Myokymia 3. Akwizgram - Arsen 4. Anatol - wrongdoing 5. Andres Komatsu - Bialystok² 6. Astma - They will never go back 7. Atilla The Hvn - Chrono 8.

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Queer homes: a glimpse into the domestic lives of Russia’s LGBTQ+ community

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Queer homes: a glimpse into the domestic lives of Russia’s LGBTQ+ community

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https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/12270/queer-homes-russia-z

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Freedom fighters: have Russia’s dissidents past and present neglected LGBTQ struggles?

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Freedom fighters: have Russia’s dissidents past and present neglected LGBTQ struggles?

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/9722/being-lgbtq-freedom-fighters-russia-dissidents-sakharov-nemtsov

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Every Story Deserves a Beautiful Happy Ending: A Review of Contemporary Queer Plays by Russian Playwrights, Edited and Translated by Tatiana Klepikova, by Dante Matero

# data[].attributes.subject
Every Story Deserves a Beautiful Happy Ending: A Review of Contemporary Queer Plays by Russian Playwrights, Edited and Translated by Tatiana Klepikova, by Dante Matero

# data[].attributes.body
https://puncturedlines.wordpress.com/2022/12/09/every-story-deserves-a-beautiful-happy-ending-a-review-of-contemporary-queer-plays-by-russian-playwrights-edited-and-translated-by-tatiana-klepikova-by-dante-matero/

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Queer Budapest: new book celebrates the LGBTQ+ history that the Hungarian government wants to erase

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Queer Budapest: new book celebrates the LGBTQ+ history that the Hungarian government wants to erase

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https://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/12744/queer-budapest-book-anita-kurimay-lgbtq-history

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In Croatia and Serbia, a new wave of drag queens is kicking against the pricks 

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In Croatia and Serbia, a new wave of drag queens is kicking against the pricks 

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https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/11086/croatia-serbia-drag-queens-house-of-flamingo-efermerne-konfesije

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My coming out story: watch the stories of Russia’s LGBTQ youth and the families who embrace them

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My coming out story: watch the stories of Russia’s LGBTQ youth and the families who embrace them

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https://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/11487/lgbtq-russia-coming-out-stories-family-o-zine-video

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In Poland, an L.G.B.T.Q. Migration As Homophobia Deepens

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In Poland, an L.G.B.T.Q. Migration As Homophobia Deepens

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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/24/world/europe/poland-lgbtq-gay-migration.html?searchResultPosition=2

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In Poland, an L.G.B.T.Q. Migration As Homophobia Deepens (Published 2021)

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An escalation in verbal attacks by the Polish government, with the support of the Roman Catholic Church, as well as the threat of physical violence on the streets of many cities, has triggered an exodus of gay people.

# data[].attributes.headline
‘We don’t have a hero yet’: the LGBTQ and feminist activists fighting for liberation in the Caucasus

# data[].attributes.subject
‘We don’t have a hero yet’: the LGBTQ and feminist activists fighting for liberation in the Caucasus

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/11923/lgbtq-feminist-activists-bloggers-caucasus-russia-georgia-armenia-azerbaijan

# data[].attributes.headline
Queer Screen: the hidden LGBTQ icons in Russian and Soviet cinema

# data[].attributes.subject
Queer Screen: the hidden LGBTQ icons in Russian and Soviet cinema

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/11903/queer-screen-russian-soviet-film-cinema-lgbtq-representation

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14315584/

Available on Netflix

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN6zHlNhupk

Subtitles are unavailable at this moment.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Фильм ВЕСЕЛЬЧАКИ Феликса Михайлова  / Jolly Fellows Movie by Felix Mikhaylov

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1784575/

Available on Amazon Prime

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2650642/?ref_=fn_al_tt_3

Available on Amazon Prime

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
In the Name Of (2013) ⭐ 6.6 | Drama, Thriller

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1284526/

Available on Amazon Prime

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Country Teacher (2008) ⭐ 6.9 | Drama, Romance

# data[].attributes.headline
Queer Poland: how the country’s first virtual LGBTQIA museum is defying conservative times

# data[].attributes.subject
Queer Poland: how the country’s first virtual LGBTQIA museum is defying conservative times

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/10610/virtual-lgbtq-museum-poland

# data[].attributes.headline
Human Rights Campaign (HRC) LGBTQ+ Youth Resources

# data[].attributes.subject
Human Rights Campaign (HRC) LGBTQ+ Youth Resources

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.hrc.org/resources/lgbtq-youth

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In 2022, nearly 13,000 LGBTQ+ youth, from all 50 states and Washington, DC, participated in the 2022 Youth Survey, reporting on their health, well-being, and experiences across all aspects of daily life.

# data[].attributes.headline
Sansara – We will become better (Russian)

# data[].attributes.subject
Sansara – We will become better (Russian)

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENYwwbcn4V0

Supplemental article: https://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/12917/sansara-russia-lgbtq-queer-music-video

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2jNN9Tu0TU

Supplemental article: https://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/12748/superhero-matvey-cherry-music-video

# data[].attributes.body
https://vimeo.com/408480841?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=105177805

Supplemental Article: https://www.calvertjournal.com/video/show/11773/augustine-russian-queer-pop-music-russia-z

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Августин — Папа Север / Augustine — Papa Sever

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Director/DOP: Artem Emelianov
Styling: Valeria Pekarskaya
Make-up: Masha Vorslav
Hair: Fariza Rodriguez
Producer: Dmitry Kozachenko 
Producer assistant: Maria Naum
Location: Qweex.Campus

Special thanks: OMUT Jewelry, WOS (Walk Of Shame), Roma Uvarov Design, Red September, Avgvst Jewelry, Alisa Kuzembaeva, Polyhedron

# data[].attributes.headline
Celebrating the gay Russian celebrities history books tried to erase 

# data[].attributes.subject
Celebrating the gay Russian celebrities history books tried to erase 

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/11872/lgbt-russian-cultural-figures-russia-z

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvguQOSvm_0

Supplemental article: https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/13206/sabine-moore-waterflower-latvian-electronic-pop

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Waterflower - Find It! (Official Music Video)

# data[].attributes.headline
Queer Languages of Eastern Europe: Speak Inclusively

# data[].attributes.subject
Queer Languages of Eastern Europe: Speak Inclusively

# data[].attributes.body
http://qaseees.org/resources/queer-languages-of-eastern-europe-speak-inclusively/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Resources on this page serve as a first stepping stone to the newest developments in the languages of Eastern Europe, where people have increasingly embraced diverse and inclusive modalities of grammar and vocabulary. They are directed at folks who are curious about queer modes of communication in this region, teachers looking for resources to share with their students, and students, eager to diversify their language skills. Most information is dedicated to non-binary uses of the languages in Eastern Europe, which have become commonplace among younger people in particular in the second decade of the 21st century.

This page will be constantly updated, so keep returning! If you have resources that you think should be added to this list, email the site admin Tatiana Klepikova at tatiana[dot]klepikova1[at]gmail[dot]com. We welcome input on the languages presented on the page and ones that are still missing.

INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY

An ACTR webinar on Gender-Inclusive Language and Practices for Teaching - YouTube

CZECH

YouTube channel of a non-binary Czech living in the United States who explains non-binary challenges from the perspectives of both English and Czech (videos come with subtitles!) Intro video featured below, go to Person Who's channel to watch other videos ( Person Who - YouTube)

A brief dictionary of LGBTQ+ terms by Prague Pride:
JAK PSÁT O PRAGUE PRIDE A LGBT TÉMATECH (praguepride.cz; PDF)
ESTONIAN

Reflections on gendered languages and gender-neutral Estonian:
Being Non-Binary in a Language Without Gendered Pronouns - Estonian - Deep Baltic
HUNGARIAN

A brief introduction to the gender-neutral Hungarian language:
When It Comes to Gender Pronouns, Hungary is the Most Progressive Country in the World - Francis Berger
POLISH

An overview of opportunities to express non-binary genders in Polish:
An overview of Polish nonbinary pronouns * zaimki.pl
A rich text corpus with a variety of examples of non-binary pronouns use in contemporary Polish literature
Niebinarna polszczyzna w tekstach kultury * zaimki.pl
A dictionary of LGBTQ+ terms / recommendations of queer-friendly language use in Polish:
Jak mówić i pisać o osobach LGBT - Etyka języka (etykajezyka.pl)
ROMANIAN

On the constraints of a Romance language for non-binary folks:
Romanian: The constraints of a binary language (meridian-magazine.com)
RUSSIAN

A guide to using non-binary pronoun "oni" in Russian by Wonderzine:
Гид по местоимению "они": Как его используют небинарные люди - Wonderzine
A dictionary of LGBTQ+ terms in Russian by the LGBT center in Kazan':
Словарь гендерных и ЛГБТ+ терминов - Принятие (accept.center)
A short overview of feminitives in Russian:
"Как называются женщины": 7 главных споров о феминитивах - Wonderzine
Reflections on the matronymic, or "matchestvo":
Когда матчество заменяет отчество * Arzamas "Марьевна - и точка!" Почему женщины меняют отчество на матроним - РИА Новости
Moscow News reports on challenges of using non-binary language:
Lost for Words: Non-Binary Russians Fight the Limits of Their Language (themoscowtimes.com)
A US graduate student speaks about the experience of navigating the pronouns in Russian language:
Can You Be Nonbinary in Russian? | SEEJ (osu.edu)
SLOVAK

An article on obsolete queerphobic and current queer-friendly terms in Slovak:

Teplý, gej, lesba, bi... Ako hovoriť s LGBT ľuďmi bez toho, aby sme ich urazili (dennikn.sk)

SLOVENIAN

In Slovenian

A dictionary of LGBTQ+ terms in Slovenian
LGBTIQ Slovar - Legebitra
UKRAINIAN

In Ukrainian

On feminitives in Ukrainian:
"Навіщо підкреслювати стать?": 5 відповідей на поширені питання про фемінітиви - Wonderzine
A manual for journalists on how to write about LGBTQ+ people:
on-line_kurs_ukr_web.pdf (insight-ukraine.org)
LGBTQ+ vocabulary list in Ukrainian:
ЛГБТК(ІА+): терміни, які потрібно знати у 2020 році | Platfor.ma
A Ukrainian-language overview of queer theory (contains a wealth of Queer and Gender Studies vocabulary used in context):
Між дискурсом і матерією: переосмислення тіла у квір-дослідженнях - Тілесність (genderindetail.org.ua)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Queer Languages of Eastern Europe: Speak Inclusively

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Resources on this page serve as a first stepping stone to the newest developments in the languages of Eastern Europe, where people have increasingly embraced diverse and inclusive modalities of grammar and vocabulary. They are directed at folks who are curious about queer modes of communication in this region, teachers looking for resources to share with their students, and students, eager to diversify their language skills.

# data[].attributes.headline
Gender-Inclusive Language and Practices for Teaching: ACTR webinar

# data[].attributes.subject
Gender-Inclusive Language and Practices for Teaching: ACTR webinar

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=p4sTdYVEXg0&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2UroPxAXF3b7pZ__RgeMUjXc2S3iVrLtHsvsQb2SGPlZXbrzl1v0xySLQ

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Gender-Inclusive Language and Practices for Teaching: ACTR webinar

# data[].attributes.headline
 An overview of Polish nonbinary pronouns

# data[].attributes.subject
 An overview of Polish nonbinary pronouns

# data[].attributes.body
https://zaimki.pl/english

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kompendium wiedzy o języku niebinarnym i neutralnym płciowo.

# data[].attributes.body
https://u.osu.edu/seej/2018/10/25/can-you-be-nonbinary-in-russian/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Current Issue About SEEJ Past Issues Book Reviews Editorial Board Advertising Copyright Permissions

# data[].attributes.headline
Lost for Words: Non-Binary Russians Fight the Limits of Their Language

# data[].attributes.subject
Lost for Words: Non-Binary Russians Fight the Limits of Their Language

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2018/08/24/lost-for-words-non-binary-russians-fight-the-limits-of-their-language-a62650

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Some Russians who do not identify as male or female say it's time to reinvent their mother tongue.

Vkontakte

Growing up in a small town in the Tula region south of Moscow, Valeria didn't think much about gender. Valeria looked like a girl and was raised a girl, so it seemed obvious to use feminine grammar structures, too, like "she" and "her."

Then, around the age of 12, Valeria joined an online chat forum. Here, behind a screen, specifying a gender wasn't necessary. The freedom was captivating.

"Up to that point, I had only really ever talked to people in person who could tell what my gender was anyway, so it never occurred to me to hide it with language," Valeria told The Moscow Times. "But on that forum, I suddenly could."

With closely cropped blond hair and a love for men's button-down shirts and waistcoats, Valeria, now 22, does not prescribe to a male or female gender.

The global non-binary community has become increasingly visible in recent years, helped by online communities and local activism. Tellingly, media like the Washington Post and the Associated Press are adopting the gender neutral "they" instead of "he" or "she" to refer to members of the community.

But for the small, yet growing number of non-binary Russians who interact in their thousands on social media site Vkontakte, their language does not provide a similarly simple way of expressing gender fluidity.

"In Russian, every word, with the possible exception of adverbs, has a grammatical gender," explained Alex Pershai, associate professor of Slavic linguistics at the Center for Gender Studies of the European Humanities University in Vilnius. "It cannot be removed or neutralized."

Refusing to be limited by grammar, however, non-binary Russians are inventing their own language forms.

A linguistic revolution

Russian nouns have one of three genders: masculine (on), feminine (ona) or neuter (ono), which almost never refers to people or living things. The adjectives and verbs used with the three types of nouns also indicate gender.

"There's a sexist element there that people know about but don't often mention," Pershai added. "Slavic languages have their own way of reinforcing gender, which is definitely tied into a social system as well."

While granting it would be better if an entirely new gender-neutral pronoun were introduced to the Russian lexicon, Valeria uses the male and female pronouns "on" and "ona" interchangeably as a temporary fix.

"It's actually exciting to be called 'he' sometimes and it makes me happy because it shows somebody can't tell what sex I am," Valeria said.

Sasha, a non-binary student from Moscow, also alternates between "on" and "ona." A 17-year-old with floppy black hair and bold traced-on eyebrows, Sasha wears tracksuits along with ripped tights and a long silver chain necklace.

"I use whichever pronouns are most comfortable for me at any given time," Sasha said.

Other non-binary Russians have adopted the neuter gender pronoun "ono," even though it flouts grammar rules.

But for people like trans activist Seroye Fioletovoye or "Gray Violet," an adopted name, the neuter form was the obvious choice.

Seroye Fioletovoye / Vkontakte

"'Ono' was the most neutral option," Seroye Fioletovoye said in a vegetarian cafe in Moscow, brushing long brown hair over one shoulder. The two adjectives that make up Seroye Fioletovoye's name, gray and violet, are also declined as neuter.

Language trends

Like Seroye Fioletovoye, So*ni chose their own gender-neutral name and insists on it being spelled with an asterix.

So*ni, who lives in the Moscow region, was assigned male at birth but began rebelling against the label at an early age.

"I first realized that I didn't fit into society's idea of men when I was in school," So*ni recalled. "A few years later, around 2010, I first encountered the terms 'gender' and 'gender role' and realized that I did not conform to them."

In the years that followed, So*ni experimented with almost every language variant imaginable, but found that nothing seemed to fit.

Then, in 2016, So*ni joined a project called the "Language Neutralization Laboratory." Organized by Russian LGBTQ+ group Magma, the project held weekly workshops that looked for ways to make the Russian language more inclusive. It inspired So*ni to invent an entirely new and elaborate gender-neutral version of Russian.

In Russian, a verb in the past tense is conjugated with three possible endings to match the grammatical gender of the noun, "on," "ona" or "ono." So*ni instead ends all verbs in the past with "-khshi," a completely different variation that negates any reference to gender.

Take the phrase "I was reading." In Russia, a man would say "ya chital" while a woman would say "ya chitala." So*ni, however, would say "ya chitakhshi."

Listening to So*ni speak this version of Russian can feel alienating at first. But despite the initial confusion, So*ni finds that people eventually adjust.

"I often feel awkward when I use this new language system with someone for the first time," So*ni said. "But I try to overcome it, because I feel uncomfortable when I'm forced to use gendered language forms."

Still, linguists like Pershai say that lasting change will require convincing Russian speakers outside the community, too.

"As an activist, I fully support any democratic change and any innovation. But as a linguist, I'm well aware that some of the changes don't work," Pershai said. "It might be fashionable for a while but it's not going to stick."

Hindered by language

As abstract as the proposals might seem, attempts to change Russian have emotions running high.

"I once asked a person I was very close to, to use the neuter gender when referring to me. They were outraged and even insulted me," So*ni recalled. "It was really painful."

And the use of the neuter pronoun "ono," which might seem like the obvious solution, is controversial even within the community, with some arguing it is offensive.

"Addressing a human being using the neuter is strange at best and insulting at worst," explained Polina Ravlyuk, who runs a blog on the Russian language for the LGBTQ+ community.

"In my opinion, language will be far from the greatest concern for the LGBTQ+ movement in Russia as long as there is also rejection, hatred and a desire in society to 'make these people normal,'" Ravlyuk added.

"Language is important, but it's the wider culture that should be tackled," agreed Seroye Fioletovoye.

For that fight, however, Russia's non-binary community needs to find the right words, says So*ni.

"Inventing new pronouns and gender categories does not automatically solve the problem of inequality. But it does make it harder and harder to use unequal language."

... we have a small favor to ask. As you may have heard, The Moscow Times, an independent news source for over 30 years, has been unjustly branded as a "foreign agent" by the Russian government. This blatant attempt to silence our voice is a direct assault on the integrity of journalism and the values we hold dear.

We, the journalists of The Moscow Times, refuse to be silenced. Our commitment to providing accurate and unbiased reporting on Russia remains unshaken. But we need your help to continue our critical mission.

Your support, no matter how small, makes a world of difference. If you can, please support us monthly starting from just $2. It's quick to set up, and you can be confident that you're making a significant impact every month by supporting open, independent journalism. Thank you.

Not ready to support today? Remind me later.

Remind me next month

Thank you! Your reminder is set.

We will send you one reminder email a month from now. For details on the personal data we collect and how it is used, please see our Privacy Policy.

Some Russians who do not identify as male or female say it's time to reinvent their mother tongue.

Vkontakte

Growing up in a small town in the Tula region south of Moscow, Valeria didn't think much about gender. Valeria looked like a girl and was raised a girl, so it seemed obvious to use feminine grammar structures, too, like "she" and "her."

Then, around the age of 12, Valeria joined an online chat forum. Here, behind a screen, specifying a gender wasn't necessary. The freedom was captivating.

"Up to that point, I had only really ever talked to people in person who could tell what my gender was anyway, so it never occurred to me to hide it with language," Valeria told The Moscow Times. "But on that forum, I suddenly could."

With closely cropped blond hair and a love for men's button-down shirts and waistcoats, Valeria, now 22, does not prescribe to a male or female gender.

The global non-binary community has become increasingly visible in recent years, helped by online communities and local activism. Tellingly, media like the Washington Post and the Associated Press are adopting the gender neutral "they" instead of "he" or "she" to refer to members of the community.

But for the small, yet growing number of non-binary Russians who interact in their thousands on social media site Vkontakte, their language does not provide a similarly simple way of expressing gender fluidity.

"In Russian, every word, with the possible exception of adverbs, has a grammatical gender," explained Alex Pershai, associate professor of Slavic linguistics at the Center for Gender Studies of the European Humanities University in Vilnius. "It cannot be removed or neutralized."

Refusing to be limited by grammar, however, non-binary Russians are inventing their own language forms.

A linguistic revolution

Russian nouns have one of three genders: masculine (on), feminine (ona) or neuter (ono), which almost never refers to people or living things. The adjectives and verbs used with the three types of nouns also indicate gender.

"There's a sexist element there that people know about but don't often mention," Pershai added. "Slavic languages have their own way of reinforcing gender, which is definitely tied into a social system as well."

While granting it would be better if an entirely new gender-neutral pronoun were introduced to the Russian lexicon, Valeria uses the male and female pronouns "on" and "ona" interchangeably as a temporary fix.

"It's actually exciting to be called 'he' sometimes and it makes me happy because it shows somebody can't tell what sex I am," Valeria said.

Sasha, a non-binary student from Moscow, also alternates between "on" and "ona." A 17-year-old with floppy black hair and bold traced-on eyebrows, Sasha wears tracksuits along with ripped tights and a long silver chain necklace.

"I use whichever pronouns are most comfortable for me at any given time," Sasha said.

Other non-binary Russians have adopted the neuter gender pronoun "ono," even though it flouts grammar rules.

But for people like trans activist Seroye Fioletovoye or "Gray Violet," an adopted name, the neuter form was the obvious choice.

Seroye Fioletovoye / Vkontakte

"'Ono' was the most neutral option," Seroye Fioletovoye said in a vegetarian cafe in Moscow, brushing long brown hair over one shoulder. The two adjectives that make up Seroye Fioletovoye's name, gray and violet, are also declined as neuter.

Language trends

Like Seroye Fioletovoye, So*ni chose their own gender-neutral name and insists on it being spelled with an asterix.

So*ni, who lives in the Moscow region, was assigned male at birth but began rebelling against the label at an early age.

"I first realized that I didn't fit into society's idea of men when I was in school," So*ni recalled. "A few years later, around 2010, I first encountered the terms 'gender' and 'gender role' and realized that I did not conform to them."

In the years that followed, So*ni experimented with almost every language variant imaginable, but found that nothing seemed to fit.

Then, in 2016, So*ni joined a project called the "Language Neutralization Laboratory." Organized by Russian LGBTQ+ group Magma, the project held weekly workshops that looked for ways to make the Russian language more inclusive. It inspired So*ni to invent an entirely new and elaborate gender-neutral version of Russian.

In Russian, a verb in the past tense is conjugated with three possible endings to match the grammatical gender of the noun, "on," "ona" or "ono." So*ni instead ends all verbs in the past with "-khshi," a completely different variation that negates any reference to gender.

Take the phrase "I was reading." In Russia, a man would say "ya chital" while a woman would say "ya chitala." So*ni, however, would say "ya chitakhshi."

Listening to So*ni speak this version of Russian can feel alienating at first. But despite the initial confusion, So*ni finds that people eventually adjust.

"I often feel awkward when I use this new language system with someone for the first time," So*ni said. "But I try to overcome it, because I feel uncomfortable when I'm forced to use gendered language forms."

Still, linguists like Pershai say that lasting change will require convincing Russian speakers outside the community, too.

"As an activist, I fully support any democratic change and any innovation. But as a linguist, I'm well aware that some of the changes don't work," Pershai said. "It might be fashionable for a while but it's not going to stick."

Hindered by language

As abstract as the proposals might seem, attempts to change Russian have emotions running high.

"I once asked a person I was very close to, to use the neuter gender when referring to me. They were outraged and even insulted me," So*ni recalled. "It was really painful."

And the use of the neuter pronoun "ono," which might seem like the obvious solution, is controversial even within the community, with some arguing it is offensive.

"Addressing a human being using the neuter is strange at best and insulting at worst," explained Polina Ravlyuk, who runs a blog on the Russian language for the LGBTQ+ community.

"In my opinion, language will be far from the greatest concern for the LGBTQ+ movement in Russia as long as there is also rejection, hatred and a desire in society to 'make these people normal,'" Ravlyuk added.

"Language is important, but it's the wider culture that should be tackled," agreed Seroye Fioletovoye.

For that fight, however, Russia's non-binary community needs to find the right words, says So*ni.

"Inventing new pronouns and gender categories does not automatically solve the problem of inequality. But it does make it harder and harder to use unequal language."

... we have a small favor to ask. As you may have heard, The Moscow Times, an independent news source for over 30 years, has been unjustly branded as a "foreign agent" by the Russian government. This blatant attempt to silence our voice is a direct assault on the integrity of journalism and the values we hold dear.

We, the journalists of The Moscow Times, refuse to be silenced. Our commitment to providing accurate and unbiased reporting on Russia remains unshaken. But we need your help to continue our critical mission.

Your support, no matter how small, makes a world of difference. If you can, please support us monthly starting from just $2. It's quick to set up, and you can be confident that you're making a significant impact every month by supporting open, independent journalism. Thank you.

Not ready to support today? Remind me later.

Remind me next month

Thank you! Your reminder is set.

We will send you one reminder email a month from now. For details on the personal data we collect and how it is used, please see our Privacy Policy.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Lost for Words: Non-Binary Russians Fight the Limits of Their Language

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Growing up in a small town in the Tula region south of Moscow, Valeria didn't think much about gender.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.amazon.com/Hesperus-Modern-Voices-Mikhail-Kuzmin/dp/184391431X/ref=sr_1_1?gclid=Cj0KCQiA4uCcBhDdARIsAH5jyUkDGBx1CW4u2xIzAYFUK_ldLrqa4GMScB6vNtEK0QgaBBUI3LCS-f8aApSJEALw_wcB&hvadid=327375294448&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9014969&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=332786601959998417&hvtargid=kwd-317888388155&hydadcr=22560_9636788&keywords=wings+mikhail+kuzmin&qid=1670962875&sr=8-1

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
was published in 1906 to the scandalized reaction of contemporary society and the generations which followed. Its central theme of aestheticized sensuality has drawn comparisons with the work of contemporaries Oscar Wilde and André Gide. The young Vanya Smurov is deeply attached to his mentor, Dr. Larion Stroop, and to the world of Renaissance art which the latter reveals to him. Initially appalled by the sudden discovery of Stroop's homosexual leanings, Vanya abandons him to pursue a "normal" heterosexual existence. In turn disgusted by ensuing encounters, he returns to Dr. Stroop and accompanies him to Italy where he begins his real education-both in the world of art, and that of hedonism.
A key text in the history of gay literature, Wings

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Amazon.com: Wings (Hesperus Modern Voices): 9781843914310: Kuzmin, Mikhail, Aplin, Hugh, Bailey, Paul: Books

# data[].attributes.headline
Other Russias by Victoria Lomasko (Russian)

# data[].attributes.subject
Other Russias by Victoria Lomasko (Russian)

# data[].attributes.body
https://shop.nplusonemag.com/products/other-russias-by-victoria-lomasko

Chapter “Side by Side: Homosexuals and Homophobes”

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"Victoria Lomasko's gritty, street-level view of the great Russian people masterfully intertwines quiet desperation with open defiance." -Joe Sacco

# data[].attributes.headline
Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia: The Regulation of Sexual and Gender Dissent by Dan Healey

# data[].attributes.subject
Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia: The Regulation of Sexual and Gender Dissent by Dan Healey

# data[].attributes.body
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo3629624.html

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The first full-length study of same-sex love in any period of Russian or Soviet history, Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia investigates the private worlds of sexual dissidents during the pivotal decades before and after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Using records and archives available to researchers only since the fall of Communism, Dan Healey revisits the rich homosexual subcultures of St. Petersburg and Moscow, illustrating the ambiguous attitude of the late Tsarist regime and revolutionary rulers toward gay men and lesbians. Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia reveals a world of ordinary Russians who lived extraordinary lives and records the voices of a long-silenced minority.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia

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The first full-length study of same-sex love in any period of Russian or Soviet history, Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia investigates the private worlds of sexual dissidents during the pivotal decades before and after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Using records and archives available to researchers only since the fall of Communism, Dan Healey revisits the rich homosexual subcultures of St.

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LGBTQ Local and National Resources (from The Women's Place at OSU)

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LGBTQ Local and National Resources (from The Women's Place at OSU)

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https://womensplace.osu.edu/lgbtq-staff-faculty-resources/lgbtq-local-national-resources

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Local Resources

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) provides HIV testing as well as comprehensive healthcare to persons living with HlV/AIDS through their Columbus healthcare center and pharmacy.

Buckeye Region Anti-Violence Organization (BRAVO) provides comprehensive individual and community programs for survivor advocacy and support to LGBTQI survivors of hate and bias violence, discrimination, intimate partner violence, stalking, and/or sexual assault.

Columbus Public Health LGBTQ Health Initiative connects community partners through the Greater
Columbus LGBTQ Health Coalition, offers LGBTQ training to healthcare professionals and other providers,
and addresses health disparities with programs geared toward LGBTQ communities.

Equality Ohio is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that advocates for full legislative equality for the
LGBTQ community in Ohio.

Equitas Health is a not-for-profit community-based healthcare system in Columbus that specializes in working with the LGBTQ community and people living with HIV/AIDS.

The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN Columbus) works to ensure safe schools for ALL students, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Greater Columbus Empowerment Center (GCMC) is a community center that offers HIV/STD testing, social events and counseling for same-gender-loving men of color and their allies.

Helping Us Emerge (HUE), works to empower LGBTQ people of color by developing leaders who possess the skills, political consciousness, and sense of self-worth necessary to be effective agents of change and builders of community.

Kaleidoscope Youth Center (KYC) works in partnership with young people ages 12-20 in Central Ohio to create safe and empowering environments for LGBTQ youth through advocacy, education and support.

Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) Columbus is committed to advancing equality through its mission of support, education, and advocacy. Meetings times are listed on their website.

Queer Behavior works to unite the Columbus queer community by creating fun, interesting, and educational queer programming and community events.

Stonewall is Central Ohio's LGBT Community Center. Programming includes social groups, therapeutic and
support groups, counseling, HIV/STI testing, and the annual Columbus Pride Parade.

TransOhio serves the Ohio transgender and ally communities by providing services, education, support and
advocacy, which promotes and improves the health, safety and life experience of Ohio transgender
individuals and community.

National Resources

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) LGBT Project strives to protect the rights of LGBT individuals through legal advocacy, including protecting rights of LGBTQ youth at school, advocating for non-discrimination laws, advancing LGBT access to healthcare, and protecting the rights of LGBTQ parents and families.

The Center for Black Equity 's mission is to promote a multinational LGBT network dedicated to improving health and wellness opportunities, economic empowerment, and equal rights. The organization offers programming geared toward LGBT people of color and their allies.

Human Rights Campaign (HRC) advocates on behalf of LGBT Americans, mobilizes grassroots actions in diverse communities, invests strategically to elect fair-minded individuats to office, and educates the public about LGBT issues.

The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) is a non-profit social justice organization dedicated to advancing the equality of transgender people through advocacy, collaboration, and empowerment.

The Trevor Project is the country's leading voice on LGBTQ youth suicide prevention. They offer a free 24-hour crisis prevention hotline for LGBTQ youth and educational programming for youth and educators around bullying and crisis prevention.

Additional Resources
Websites for Learning More About Gender, Sexuality & Social Justice Full List of LGBTQIA+ Terms
Asexual Visibility and Education Network - "The world's largest online asexual community as well as a large archive of resources on asexuality."

Bisexual.org - "A voice to the bisexual community, share accurate information, answer questions, and provide resources for further learning."

Everyday Feminism - "Learn how to heal from and stand up to everyday violence, discrimination, and marginalization," with plenty of articles about class, gender, LGBTQIA issues, and race.

Get Real - "Comprehensive Sex Education That Works."

It's Pronounced Metrosexual - An online resource educating on issues of identity, sexuality, gender, privilege, and oppression, but in a fun, approachable way (by Safe Zone Project co-creator, Sam Killermann).

Soul Force - Family that travels and does speaking events, have a ton of materials on their site, and do an "equality ride" (super cool), all from a Christian perspective.

TransWhat? - "A Guide Towards [Trans] Allyship"

Transgender Victims of Sexual Assault - "Statistics documenting transgender people's experience of sexual violence..."

We Are The Youth - "Sharing stories of LGBTQ youth in the United States."
Organizations Doing Good Consider these organizations and projects to have the SZP-check-mark-of-approval. We strongly encourage you give them your support - whether that's in time, donations, or just spreading awareness.
Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLADD) - "GLAAD works with print, broadcast and online news sources to bring people powerful stories from the LGBT community that build support for equality."

Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) - "Every day GLSEN works to ensure that LGBT students are able to learn and grow in a school environment free from bullying and harassment."

Family Acceptance Project - "Research, intervention, education and policy initiative that works to prevent health and mental health risks for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) children and youth, including suicide, homelessness and HIV - in the context of their families."

It Gets Better Project - "The It Gets Better Project's mission is to communicate to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth around the world that it gets better, and to create and inspire the changes needed to make it better for them."

National Gay and Lesbian Task Force - "The mission of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is to build the power of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community from the ground up." They also run Creating Change the "largest annual gathering of LGBTQ activists, organizers, and leaders within the LGBT movement" in the US.

Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) National is committed to advancing equality through its mission of support, education, and advocacy. Meetings times are listed on their website.

The "Not All Like That" (NALT) Project - Videos of (awesome) Christians (mostly families) explaining how they fully support LGBTQ people and that being Christian shouldn't mean being anti-gay.

The Religious institute - Religious Institute is a multifaith organization dedicated to advocating for sexual health, education, and justice in faith communities and society.

Transgender Law Center - "Transgender Law Center works to change law, policy, and attitudes so that all people can live safely, authentically, and free from discrimination regardless of their gender identity or expression."

The Trevor Project - "Crisis intervention and suicide prevention for LGBTQ youth."
Want even more resources?
Head to The Safe Zone Project resources to find more!
Thanks to Columbus State Community College's Global Diversity and Inclusion Center for compiling these resources.

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LGBTQ Local and National Resources | Ohio State University

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This collection of resources includes local and national organizations that offer support geared towards the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning community and website links for

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Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) Educator Resources 

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Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) Educator Resources 

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https://www.glsen.org/resources/educator-resources

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Supportive educators save students' lives. Having just one visibly supportive educator in a school can ensure that LGBTQ students feel safe, welcomed, and encouraged to learn.

Show your support by displaying a Safe Space sticker and poster in your classroom. Learn how to discuss bullying, gender roles, or family diversity with elementary-aged students. Include positive representation of LGBTQ people in your curriculum. Inspire your students of all ages and all identities to be kind, support others, and speak up when they see bullying.

GLSEN's education team has created educator guides for each of our days of action, along with other resources for increasing LGBTQ visibility and affirmation in any curriculum. While GLSEN celebrates these days of action nationally at specific times during the year, all of our lessons, resources, and activities found here can be implemented at any time.

Check out the resources in the sections below for specific guides and tools related to GLSEN programs, days of action and more!

Join the thousands of educators who are helping GLSEN change schools across the country.

As a member of the GLSEN Educator Network, you'll receive emails that highlight GLSEN's resources and provide up-to-date information on GLSEN research. You will also receive current information on LGBTQ events and celebrations to help you plan for and implement a more inclusive curriculum, including direct information and new resources for GLSEN days of action like Solidarity Week.

Register to receive free GSA & school resources.

Join a national movement creating inclusive schools for all.

Educator Guides

Looking for ways to support Solidarity Week or the Day of Silence? Interested in finding ways to bring LGBTQ-visibility into your curriculum? You've come to the right place!

GLSEN's education team has created educator guides for each of our Days of Action, along with other resources for increasing LGBTQ visibility and affirmation into any curriculum. While GLSEN celebrates these Days of Action nationally at specific times throughout the year, the lessons, resources, and activities found here can be implemented at any time.

Check out the resources below for specific guides and tool related to GLSEN programs, days of action and more! Ready to supplement your curriculum? Explore our LGBTQ-Inclusive and Bullying, Bias & Diversity lesson plans.

Educator Guides and Resources

Policy and Advocacy Resources

Lesson Plans

Implementing GLSEN's free lesson plans and resources can help students develop the skills to interact in our diverse world with greater respect, empathy, and understanding.

Incorporate our lessons, found below, to:

Foster respect and understanding

Promote LGBTQ visibility and affirmation

Improve school climate

Build leadership

Encourage ally behavior

Ready for LGBTQ-specific lessons? Explore GLSEN's LGBTQ-inclusive curricular resources.

Teachers can be that figure you look up to. And when they are accepting of you, it means the world to you. To know that you're ok and that they are there for you. - Ximena, 9th grade

When educators are visibly supportive of LGBTQ students, everyone benefits. Through our Chapter-based Professional Development program, GLSEN offers tools and resources to thousands of educators who seek to make their classrooms and schools a safe place for all students. Based on 25+ years of experience and research, GLSEN boasts a robust educator training program with a series of modules curated to cover an array of topics suitable for a diverse range of audiences.

GLSEN research shows that the presence of supportive educators can have a significant positive impact on LGBTQ students' academic achievement, as well as on their psychological well-being and long-term educational aspirations. GLSEN Professional Development aims to empower educators to act in allyship with LGBTQ students.

Our Professional Development Workshops will assist educators in building the following skills:

Knowledge of LGBTQ student experiences in school

Understanding what allyship can provide for LGBTQ students

Awareness of the prevalence of anti-LGBTQ language and behavior in schools

Willingness and ability to intervene when anti-LGBTQ name-calling and bullying occurs

Willingness and ability to utilize curriculum inclusive of LGBTQ people, history and themes

Willingness to advocate for the rights of LGBTQ students and ensure safe schools for all

Access to resources and referral

NOTE: For GLSEN Professional Development Workshops, the term "educator" includes, but is not limited to: Current or future K-12 Teachers, Administrators, Counselors, Paraprofessionals, Librarians, Nurses, Bus Drivers, District Staff, School Resource Officers, Cafeteria Workers, etc
To bring GLSEN Professional Development to your school, please fill out the following form.

Safe Space Kit

Educators like you can make a big difference for LGBTQ students. Just one gesture can change a student's life for the better: Put up a Safe Space Sticker in your classroom to start a conversation about acceptance and affirming LGBTQ identity.

GLSEN's Safe Space Kit provides you with practical ways to transform your school into a safer space for everyone, particularly LGBTQ students, by supporting and educating students, sharing your knowledge with other educators and advocating for school-wide changes. The Safe Space Kit not only guides you through making an assessment of your school's climate and recommends affirming policies and best practices, but also outlines strategies that you may use to advocate for change, including posting a Safe Space Sticker or Safe Space Poster in your classroom or office. You can purchase them in the GLSEN Shop, or download digital copies for free here.

GLSEN Chapters also offer professional development opportunities that include our Safe Space Kit and support educators in creating safer and more affirming learning environments.

Rainbow Library

The Rainbow Library is a GLSEN program that sends LGBTQ+ affirming text sets to schools across the country - for free.

Any full-time staff member at a K-12 school in a participating state or county is welcome to request a Rainbow Library. All types of K-12 schools are eligible: district, magnet, charter, and independent. Each school that applies will be eligible for one Rainbow Library text set, and sets are provided on a first-come, first served basis.

Founded 25 years ago, GLSEN is the leading national education organization focused on ensuring safe and affirming schools for LGBTQ students. GLSEN has volunteer-run chapters in 31 states.

School Year Calendar

The school year is full of opportunities to participate in GLSEN events, address LGBTQ and social justice issues, learn about diverse communities, and take action to create safer and more affirming schools for all.

Use this calendar to schedule your GSA meetings, lesson plans, student events, and staff development workshops, and as part of your ongoing diversity, equity, and LGBTQ-inclusion efforts. Follow us @GLSEN on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram where we'll be sharing related resources and lesson plans for these events throughout the year.

Misgendering, Gender Terminology & Pronouns

Misgendering hurts. Support educators by teaching students how to respect each others' pronouns and bringing awareness to a wider range of gender terminology.

As a class and in small groups, students watch a video about pronouns, have a conversation about pronouns, and discuss misgendering. As a class, students discuss ways to combat misgendering and how they can make sure the gender pronouns of all students are respected.

For all of us, learning an LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum can help us better understand our world and our differences. For LGBTQ students in particular, it can mean feeling safer at school and hearing homophobic and transphobic remarks less frequently, according to GLSEN research. Looking back at history is the easiest way to get LGBTQ-inclusivity into any curriculum. That's why we're sharing our resources below, which include an interactive timeline and coloring book as well as many other classroom resources suitable for a range of students ages K-12.

Recognizing these benefits, former GLSEN Chapter leader Rodney Wilson, with the support of GLSEN's founder Kevin Jennings and many others, founded LGBTQ History Month in October 1994. While you can use these resources every October, they're perfect for use all year, so that students see the benefits year round.

A great resource you can use to learn and teach about LGBTQ history is Making Gay History, the critically acclaimed and award-winning podcast that brings LGBTQ history to life through the voices of the people who lived it. Listen to the podcasts below to hear about the lives and legacies of Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, who were participants in the New York Stonewall riots in 1969.

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Supportive educators save students' lives. Having just one visibly supportive educator in a school can ensure that LGBTQ students feel safe, welcomed, and encouraged to learn. Show your support by displaying a Safe Space sticker and poster in your classroom. Learn how to discuss bullying, gender roles, or family diversity with elementary-aged students.

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https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300118063/diary/

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by Witold Gombrowicz

Translated by Lillian Vallee

800 Pages, 6.00 x 7.75 x 2.00 in

Paperback

9780300118063

Published: Tuesday, 19 Jun 2012

$23.00

Out of Stock

eBook

9780300183399

Published: Tuesday, 19 Jun 2012

$23.00

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A single-volume edition of Diary, Gombrowicz's acclaimed masterpiece, now with previously unpublished pages restored Just before the outbreak of World W...

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https://bookshop.org/p/books/rudolf-translated-marian-pankowski/10241663

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Rudolf (Translated) a book by Marian Pankowski, Elizabeth Maslen, and John Maslen

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This novel, set in the 1970s, tells the story of the “author,” a middle-aged Polish professor who lives abroad but who earlier survived the Nazi concentration camps, and Rudolf, an old man. Told in stream of consciousness as well as through a triangular correspondence among Rudolf, the author, and the author’s mother, the story emerges as a tale of subversion and liberation that echoes Gombrowicz in its exploration of transgressive desire. It will be of great interest to those interested in Polish literature and to readers of gay and lesbian literature.

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The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller (Romanian)

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The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller (Romanian)

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https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250032089/thehungerangel

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We Are The Youth — "Sharing stories of LGBTQ youth in the United States."

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We Are The Youth — "Sharing stories of LGBTQ youth in the United States."

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http://wearetheyouth.org/

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We Are the Youth - Chronicling the stories of LGBTQ youth in America

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We Are the Youth is a photographic journalism project chronicling the individual stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth in the United States.

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From Florida to Poland, We Must March for the Right to Exist

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From Florida to Poland, We Must March for the Right to Exist

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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/opinion/lgbt-pride-ukraine-war.html?searchResultPosition=12

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Poland’s Populists Pick a New Top Enemy: Gay People

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Poland’s Populists Pick a New Top Enemy: Gay People

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/07/world/europe/poland-gay-rights.html

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Poland’s Populists Pick a New Top Enemy: Gay People (Published 2019)

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With public concern about migration on the wane, the governing Law and Justice party is making opposition to gay rights a cornerstone of its campaigning.