Autoethnography. Entry 11 — My fears of Russia/Russians as a lesbian from Russia

Recently I realised that I am still not feeling comfortable opening up about my sexual orientation and identity to my Russian friends/acquaintances. It is pretty silly — I am proud to be a lesbian, but it seems that this pride exists predominantly in this English speaking world, where I am unconditionally accepted. I am well aware of the general attitudes towards LGBT+ people in Russia, and I don’t feel that I can be safely open about my sexual orientation and identity. In a way, I am still a bit ashamed of it, but specifically in the Russian environment. As if the fact that many Russians perceived homosexuality as shameful somehow makes it shameful in reality. Weird to say, but that is how I feel. For example, there is a friend of mine who was my groupmate when I was studying for my Masters back in Russia, but I never came out to her, although she knew I was living with a female ‘flatmate’ (my partner). So, I always felt uneasy with this friend of mine about any topics regarding family life but could not imagine how even to start an open conversation with her. When I moved to New Zealand, we started to follow each other on Instagram. She got married and gave birth to a child, which has been documented on her Instagram account. Meanwhile, I was never brave enough to post some open stuff about myself on Instagram, primarily because of my reluctance to be seen as a lesbian by this friend of mine and some other acquaintances from Russia who also follow me on the social medium. But several days ago, I decided that it was way too stupid of me. If somebody would like to drift apart after my opening statement regarding my homosexuality — so be it, I don’t really want to have this sort of people in my life anyway. So I wrote a post where I openly stated the fact that I am a lesbian and explained my position on political homophobia in Russia. And I received a ‘like’ from this friend of mine. I can only assume she already knew or is more open-minded than I thought of her. Anyway, I am happy I wrote this post.

Actually, I think I need to explain why and how I was inspired to write it. A day before I did it, my partner and I participated in a small Zoom event organised by a Russian LGBT NGO where we were asked to share the story of our relationships. It was the very first time when we told it in public. And it felt great. The participants liked it and thanked us for sharing it, so it seemed that the story helped somebody feel better too, to feel connected, not so alone and excluded. After that, I decided that I needed and wanted to be open. It doesn’t mean that I am no longer worried about potential consequences of it, it just means that I believe that potential benefits for myself and other people outweigh potential drawbacks.

Also, I have realised another reason why I am a bit afraid of being open in terms of my sexuality on social media. This is a fear of Russian authorities who potentially can do whatever they want with no regard to the law, which is, as they say in Russia, can be turned in any direction, i.e. one (somebody powerful such as police, judges, FSB, MPs, etc.) can use it according to one’s wishes. And I have nearly zero confidence that I would not be charged for whatever reason if somebody comes up with the idea that I present harm to the state or display dissident views. I am aware of the situations when people were arrested or fined for posts or even ‘likes’ in social media, so I don’t actually feel comfortable posting something that potentially could be considered, let’s say, ‘propaganda of non-traditional relations to minors’, and this could be pretty much any mention of homosexuality in a positive or neutral light. That is perhaps why I don’t normally write in Russian in my social media accounts, mainly in English. Only once I wrote a post in Russian to support a flash mob arranged by the Russian LGBT Network against the law on propaganda.

Additionally, I am currently feeling very uneasy about even going to Russia for a vacation sometime in the future. More precisely, I feel scared of customs officers, police, and any people holding any authority or power because it is not rare when power is unaccountably abused in the country. I remember a situation when, back in Russia, we were sitting in my partner’s car (it was when we just started seeing each other and I was still legally married to a man), and two police officers came to the car and asked us for our passports. They did not provide any proper explanation for why they were checking them (we obviously were not doing anything illegal, just sitting in the car and talking). The officers joked about our homosexual relations (somehow, they sensed that) and asked me whether my husband knew about that (there is info in Russian passports about one’s marital status). They asked me about my address and said they would go there and tell everything to my husband. I was terrified. In general, they behaved very unethically and clearly abused their power. They required us to allow them to sit in my partner’s car and ordered her to drive to the nearest police station. I got really nervous and frightened. I could not understand what was happening. Eventually, they just got off the car and left us with peace. After that, my partner said it was just a bravado from their side, they were just entertaining themselves. But to me, it was not funny at all.

I also remember another time when I got scared of a public official in Russia. When we were leaving the country after we went there for a holiday three years ago, a customs officer at the airport asked me about my purpose of going to New Zealand. I automatically replied that I lived there (my first automatic response is always to tell the truth). She instantly got strained and even more serious than before and started to ask me questions about what and why I was doing in NZ, where I worked, in what position, when I was going to be back, etc. These were perhaps one of the longest five minutes of my life. Eventually, she let me go, but I was so scared that she would not allow me to do that. I did not see any legal reason for not letting me go, but I am well aware that anything is possible in Russia. And I could not even ask my partner for help as our partnership status is not valid in Russia and could attract even more (bad) attention from the customs officer. By the way, my partner said to another customs officer that her purpose of travel was tourism which, as it seems, sounds much more innocent. Being honest and open indeed can be perilous in Russia.