REGIONAL REPORT BASED ON THE RESULTS OF MONITORING OF DISCRIMINATION BASED ON SEXUAL ORIENTATION AND GENDER IDENTITY IN SAINT-PETERSBURG

YEAR 2008

Thanks

Introduction

1. Discrimination and violation of LGBT rights in Saint-Petersburg

1.1.    Overall performance

1.2.    Infringement on life, violence and other treatment, humiliating human dignity

1.3.    Infringement of right to self-expression and freedom of information search and spreading

1.4.    Inaccessibility of fair assize and law machinery’s lawlessness

1.5.    The freedom’s of peace meetings and associations infringement

1.6.    Discrimination on the labor market and at the working places

1.7.    Other instances of discrimination and infringement of rights

2. The main factors affecting the level of homophobia (transphobia) and discrimination

2.1.    The position of local authorities

2.2.    Public opinion

2.3.    The position of regional public and religious organizations

2.4.    Mass-media

Conclusion

Thanks

We thank the Russian LGBT Network and the Moscow Helsinki Group, made this monitoring feasible; everybody who spared no time to fill in our questionnaires; all our interviewees for your courage. And we thank all participants of our Organization, who took part in monitoring.

Introduction

Monitoring of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in Saint-Petersburg, which was hold in a year 2008, is a part of all-Russian monitoring, organized by the Russian LGBT Network and the Moscow Helsinki Group.

Eight volunteers who are the participants of public organization “Coming Out” were involved in research in Saint-Petersburg. The main functions of volunteers were the following: spreading of information concerning monitoring, carrying out the surveys and questionnaires’ collection, interviewing, looking for participants of research, mass-media monitoring.

Initial hypothesis about the difficulty of heterosexuals’ control sample’s involvement wasn’t confirmed. Actually, heterosexuals were taking part in the given monitoring enthusiastically, which reflected necessary control sample was reached. At the same time, the problem of attraction of LGBT-representatives to participate in questionnaires and interviewing rose. The fact was that a good few LGBT-persons regretted to take part in any monitoring forms. Volunteers noted some cases, when respondents in column “sexual orientation” wrote “heterosexuality”, although volunteers knew for certain about homosexual relations of these respondents. Transgender community, which is the most closed and exclusive group in LGBT-community, was the most problem for involvement in monitoring. The ways of involvement in monitoring were the following: personal contacts through friends, colleagues, neighbors and acquaintances, spread of information at “Coming Out” organization’s events and in Internet.

1. Discrimination and violation of LGBT rights in Saint-Petersburg

1.1. Overall performance

There is no united LGBT-community in Saint-Petersburg. People prefer to unite either in same-sex groups (gays only or lesbians only), or in groups with the same interests in cultural/recreational sphere (admirers of the creations of certain musicians, poets, writers, fans of certain kinds of sports, etc.). Night clubs, which are the place of association with similar people and free self-expression, play particular role in LGBT-community life. However, not all community’s representatives are involved in night clubs’ life.

The main place of communication for most LGBT representatives is Internet (various introductions’ sites and other “social nets”, like as Live Journal, vKontakte etc). LGBT-community is scarcely presented in the city life and articulation of its presence in mass-media is carried out hardly rare, without any system, often in the form of moral panic forcing and reproduction of negative stereotypes.

On the whole, the main problems of Saint-Petersburg LGBT-community are the following: scarcity of places for meetings and self-expression, alternative to night clubs; absence of systematic enlightenment on issues concerning LGBT rights, gender and sexual culture; low level of sense of justice and civil position, gender and sexual culture of LGBT; internal homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and other forms of xenophobia; complexity of social adaptation of both LGBT and their relatives.

Under age and senior LGBT experience particular problems. These groups are virtually “invisible” in LGBT-community because of special needs characterizing given age groups and ageism which is widespread in both community and society. LGBT having particular needs (handicapped persons) and HIV+ LGBT face specific problems as well. Both groups mentioned are extremely closed and isolated. Each problem touched requires additional investigation and search of the ways of solution most adequate in the current situation.

Several successful actions, which received media coverage, have been organized by Saint-Petersburg LGBT-community during the monitoring. In particular, on March Russian LGBT Network and Service “Nuntiare et Recreare” carried out “Week against homophobia”, on May 3rd these organizations and Youth initiative LGBT-group conducted the “Day of Silence”, on May 17th the “Mini-fest”, devoted to the International Day against homophobia, was held. Events went off contributed to activation of Saint-Petersburg LGBT-community. The Youth initiative LGBT-group has been formed as the result of the Week against homophobia. Afterwards it has been transformed into organization “Coming Out”, by the forces of which volunteers given monitoring has been carried out.

During September and October the photo exhibition of Swedish painters Anna Viola Halberg and Annika Karlsson Rickson named “The state of consciousness” has being held at RossFoto. The exhibition was devoted to Saint-Petersburg LGBT-community’s life. In spite of authority’s active counteraction, the 1st LGBT International Film Festival “Side by Side”, which attracted not only Saint-Petersburg inhabitants’ but also citizens’ of other towns attention, went off on October, 2008. Creative recitals of famous in LGBT-community music groups, poets, authors and performers are regularly held in town. “Festival of women amorous poetry in art song” took place on November. So, the conclusion is that the Saint-Petersburg community became more active in autumn 2008.

The questionnaire carried out during monitoring allowed to understand the correlation between the level of discrimination and sexual orientation/gender identity. Approximately equal percentage of respondents among heterosexuals and LGBT-community representatives questioned experience the discrimination based on nationality and religion (4% and 4% in case of nationality, 4% and 15% in case of religion). At the same time, the percentage of LGBT-community representatives experiencing discrimination based on sexual orientation/gender identity is far higher than the percentage among heterosexuals (42% in relation to 4% among heterosexuals) (please see Table 1).

Table 1. Do you relate the discrimination you experience
	heterosexuals	LGBT
With nationality
Yes	4%	4%
I have never experienced this, I don’t remember	96%	96%
With religion
Yes	4%	15%
I have never experienced this, I don’t remember	96%	85%
With sexual orientation/gender identity
Yes	4%	42%
I have never experienced this, I don’t remember	96%	58%

1.2. Infringement on life, violence and other treatment, humiliating human dignity

30% of heterosexuals and 35% of LGBT answered “Yes, it occurred one or two times” on question “Have you ever physically abused after your 16th birthday?” (please see Table 2). 40% of heterosexuals and 31% of LGBT answered “Yes, it occurred one or two times” on question “Have you ever been threatened, blackmailed, psychologically pressured by others after your 16th birthday (by neighbors, colleagues etc.)?”, and 18% and 19%  correspondingly answered “Yes, more than once” (please see Table 3). This allows to speak about unfavorable situation with protection of life, honor and respect of citizens and prevention of violence and other treatment, humiliating human dignity in Saint-Petersburg.

Table 2. Have you ever physically abused after your 16th birthday?
	heterosexuals	LGBT
Yes, more than once	6%	4%
Yes, it occurred one or two times	30%	35%
I have never experienced this, I don’t remember	64%	61%

Table 3. Have you ever been threatened, blackmailed, psychologically pressured by others after your 16th birthday (by neighbors, colleagues etc.)?
	heterosexuals	LGBT
Yes, more than once	18%	19%
Yes, it occurred one or two times	40%	31%
I have never experienced this, I don’t remember	42%	50%

The answers of an informant (20, female, lesbian) on interview questions are significant:

“Question: Have you ever been insulted and humiliated based on your sexual orientation?

Answer: I am constantly endured insults since I have “typical” appearance. One of the most impressive incidents - once I was walking along the street and listening to a player, two guys passed me, I saw them whispering something and looking askance at me. Then they left me behind, one of them turned and shouted in my face: “Bitch!”

Question: Have you ever been under the threat of physical abuse based on your sexual orientation?

Answer: Yes, youth groups yell out “Ehh…there she goes, let’s bash her up!” quite often. When communicating via the Internet many people, especially those of eastern origin, do not hide their aggression and threaten me with beating, rape or killing.

Question: Have you ever been physically abused or/and had your property damaged based on your sexual orientation?

Answer: I fought. It is difficult to estimate just now - there were quite a lot of episodes, but I have never been brought to hospital as a result of them, and bruises get off fast.

<…>

Everything begins in a usual way - it’s evening, a company of drunken guys begin harassing, it turns out that I’m lesbian (or somebody comes to such a conclusion, or I tell them about it), we are getting involved in high words… it’s impossible just to go away - it can obviously lead to more aggression, otherwise there is a chance to avoid. I try not to fight now, because I can manage two attackers (one blow goes to balls, the other is for luck!), three is a real deal, I am not afraid of death, I am afraid of being raped, though I don’t concentrate much on that as other girls do, and I’m not going to hang myself anyway. My girlfriend and I always have a knife in a bag, I don’t find comfort in the hope that I’ll be able to defend, but at least I want to be sure to be well-paid for my life, and I am glad thinking about that. By the way, it just occurred to me that I take all these things for granted… Actually friends of mine don’t act like this.

When I was 16, I used to fight quite often, about three times a week, now it happens seldom, once per 2-3 months…”

The participants of Russian LGBT Network and organization “Coming Out” directly faced violence as well: on May 3rd, 2008 after holding of the action “Day of Silence” the Head of Russian LGBT Network I. Petrov, Executive Director of organization “Coming Out” V. Sozaev and I. Fialkovskiy, acted as press secretary of LGBT-film festival “Side by Side”, were assailed by three unknown persons. As the result, I. Petrov and I. Fialkovskiy got many injuries and scratches.

1.3. Infringement of right to self-expression and freedom of information search and spreading

Right to self-expression (including expression of one’s sexual orientation/gender identity) is one of the most frequently infringed rights, breach of that is hardly realized by LGBT-community’s representatives themselves. In particular, it became apparent in the comments given by some unaccomplished respondents when they found out the subject of monitoring. In general, their reaction may be boiled down to the following: “Nobody discriminates me. And no will be others, if they don’t blazon their orientation”, and then they refused to answer the questions. It is quite common point of view, which is also corroborated by the following “arguments”: “I don’t want my colleagues at work know about my sexual orientation”, “I don’t need to let my neighbors into my sexual life”, “There are clubs where we can meet each other, and that’s enough” and all. Given situation allows to speak of significant part’s of Saint-Petersburg LGBT-community lack of self-consciousness development and dignity. In this connection both gathering of information concerning real situation in LGBT-community and work on advocacy of community representatives’ interests are seemed to be difficulty.

As monitoring of mass-media shows, presentation of LGBT-problematic in Saint-Petersburg mass-media is not enough and not objective, and it considerably complicates the realization of right for information’s uptake. The main source of information for Saint-Petersburg LGBT-community is Internet, because there are no any local periodic prints for LGBT. However, it should be taken into account that even in Saint-Petersburg not all LGBT-representatives have Internet access (it is related, in particular, to senior LGBT, who find themselves in information vacuum).

Yung LGBT, who are just experiencing the period of understanding of their sexual orientation/gender identity are the most vulnerable in terms of realization of right for information search. Absence of sexual education at schools, large amount of low-standard, easily accessible publications, spreading stereotypes of LGBT, complicate given period of young LGBT’s life, contributing to internal homophobia and dipping into “internal closet”.

Existing Internet-projects, aimed to LGBT, contribute, on the one side, to the more successful socialization. On the other side, they lead to hettoization of LGBT-community. Besides that, Internet-communication at LGBT-sites causes and has all problems specific for virtual communication.

LGBT-organizations’ and individual activists’ attempts to introduce publicly their point of view concerning the situation face resistance, including authority resistance.

On January, 2008 initiative group announced of the intention to carry out the international film festival, devoted to the problematic of sexual and gender minorities, in Saint-Petersburg. According to organizers, competitive program included the exhibition of theatrical, feature length, documentary and featurette films, as well as experimental and alternative creations, won the recognition throughout the world.

1.4. Inaccessibility of fair assize and law machinery’s lawlessness

No significant difference between experimental and control groups in relation to such right’s infringement hasn’t been identified. 11% of LGBT and 12% of heterosexuals repeatedly faced constraint and administrative lawlessness by power representatives (workers of law machinery, authorities). One or two times it occurred with 31% and 40% of respondents correspondingly (please see Table 4).

Table 4. Have you ever faced constraint and administrative lawlessness by power representatives (workers of law machinery, authorities)?
	heterosexuals	LGBT
Yes, more than once	12%	11%
Yes, it occurred one or two times	40%	31%
I have never experienced this, I don’t remember	48%	58%

Infringement of the right for fair assize, as well as for law machinery’s lawlessness, is related, not in last turn, to the general lack of confidence in efficiency of Russian judicial system and in protection from law machinery’s lawlessness. The answers of an informant (20, female, lesbian) on interview questions are significant:

“Question: Have you ever applied to the police, prosecutor’s office or other state structures and nongovernmental organizations in relation to accidents occurred?

Answer: Neither we, nor our friends have ever applied - we wait for help from nobody and have no confidence in anybody”.

Such state of affairs satisfy the law machine itself, as far as even in cases of appeal to it with concrete application and indication of fact of infringement of the law only runarounds come from executive instances. For example, in case mentioned above of assault on LGBT-activists on May 3rd, 2008 the refusal to begin prosecution was received from 78th police department in Central district of Saint-Petersburg.

Repressive attitude to homosexuality leads to repeatedly reproduction of violence and lawlessness in relation to geys and lesbians from the side of law machinery. On the pretext of carrying out of operational-investigatory measures illegal detentions (both individual and mass) based on people’s true or imaginary homosexuality are performed, as well as interference in their private life and personal data collection.

On September 8th, 2008 about 8.30 p.m. the officers from the Department on Struggle against Organized Crimes in Moscovskiy district of Saint-Petersburg bursted into gay-club “Bunker”. During the “investigation and search operation” officers forced club’s doors and lattices without any need, using the metal armature and other ammunition, then did the material harm to the club’s property, insulted with unprintable words the personnel and the guests, didn’t represent themselves and show the service certificates, but tried to establish the personalities of the club’s guests in rough and insulting manner, requiring the documents. The officers from the Department on Struggle against Organized Crimes delivered the club’s personnel and guests without any explanation to the Department of Interior Affairs in Moscovskiy district of Saint-Petersburg, which disposes on address 95 Moscovskiy prospect, where during the night time they were conducting the “investigation and search operations” with regard to detainee.

All described above and other facts, confirming the excess of the official powers, are expounded in club’s personnel applications in name of its director.

In the given applications it is said about the facts of psychological pressure, humiliation, threats and other facts, which can obviously confirm the excess of the official powers of the officers from the Department on Struggle against Organized Crimes in Moscovskiy district. During stock-taking in club’s bar and warehouse, which has been conducted on the following day, the lack of the alcoholic drinks has been identified. The police officers removed 4 system units and recorder of the video surveillance as well.

According to the owner of the club, the arrival of the officers from the “dead division” of Department of Interior Affairs in Moscovskiy district was related to the inquiry of the homicide, which had happened on August 19th, 2008. The dead man had visited “Bunker” from time to time.

In the night from 16th to 17th of September the police suddenly arrived to the Petersburg gay-club “The Central station”, where it detained all the visitors and delivered them to the State Department of Interior Affairs in Moscovskiy district. According to the witness, it has been detained about 60 persons who have been taken away in the close bus. One of the policemen recorded an event on a camera.

In police department the arrested persons were asked for their sexual orientation. Two arrested persons were released after they declared that they were heterosexuals. Also two pairs which proved that they were married were released.

The policemen did not stint homophobia insults and threats in relation to the remained persons, especially those who had piercing and the dyed hair. “There were no violence, but we were treated like cattle or slaves. Policemen entered the room every five minutes and asked questions. They were interested, who was homosexual, and who was straight. They even dared to ask a question concerning who loved “above”, and who “below”, - said the witness, who preferred not to call his name. Policemen tried to blackmail the arrested persons, threatening to tell their families, the chefs or rectors about their visiting that club.

About 6 a.m. after photographing and signing the papers about “further rendering assistance to investigation” everyone was released. In spite of the fact that the reasons of detention have not been explained, the director and the co-owner of “The Central station” Ilya Abaturov has explained, that spot-check has been hold in сonnection with investigation of murder of the citizen of Ukraine [1]. According to the information obtained, the body of the killed person, which photo was shown to the arrested persons, was so spoiled, that it was difficult even to define, whether it belonged to the human.

Another arrested person who has left the message on a site xs.gay.ru under the nickname Domingos, has told, that they talked about the murder less than a minute, the inspector was more interested in details of private life:

“I also was among the arrested persons and I consider that the reason to detain all those people was not an identification of killed person and disclosing of any murder of the gay in Saint-Petersburg… It was a provocation to intimidate people.. because when I was on interrogation, they asked about the murder less than 10-15 seconds. I was shown a photo and was asked a question, whether I know this person, and after that the questions which are not concerning the case of the murder began… Who you are living with, who you are sleeping with, how often you have relations with boys and so on… They took my mobile and began to watch sms and photos. They asked why I have so many photos with boys and why I correspond almost only with guys!? I answered like not to interfere in my private life. After several more questions I was released. And others, as I know, remained there till 9 a.m.”

1.5. The freedom’s of peace meetings and associations infringement

The public activity of Saint-Petersburg LGBT-community leaved much to be desired until recently. At the moment the increase of LGBT-community’s activity takes place, not in the last turn due to the activity of the organization “Coming Out”. In this relation the systematic infringements of the right to hold peace meetings, rallies and associations begin to be observed.

In particular, the disagreement of the administration of Central district of Saint-Petersburg for the “Day of Silence” carrying out, which was planned on May 3rd, may be considered as the direct infringement of the citizens’ right for public expression of personal opinion. The “Day of Silence” is the rally which is dedicated to the problems of intolerance and violence based on sexual orientation/gender identity. As the response for the first notification letter another place was offered to the organizers. After the consent to carry out the rally at the another place and the second notification letter’s application, the oral assurance, that there will be no problems for concurrence for rally’s holding, has been obtained from the administration’s of Central district representatives. However, on the next day the organizers of the rally obtained the refusal, because the operative works of the nearest police department are supposedly planned for the same time at the same place. As the result of such demarche from the side of the administration’s of Central district representatives, the organizers of rally decided to change its form and carry out the series of lonely pickets, which don’t require concurrence of anybody.

1.6. Discrimination on the labor market and at the working places

The levels of labor discrimination in relation to representatives of experimental and control samples are roughly equal: in one form or another, discrimination on the labor market touched 47% of heterosexuals and 46% of LGBT (please see Table 5). It is significant, that 23% of LGBT (compared with 4% of heterosexuals) had to give incomplete information about them in order to receive the job. This demonstrates the level of stand-off of LGBT-community’s representatives, and this is the indirect evidence of infringement of the right for self-expression’s freedom. Insignificant amount of LGBT (4%), who were refused to be hired, is evidence not of the problem’s absence, but of the avoidance of it: many LGBT consciously don’t try to find the job in places where they are likely to be refused. The percentage of both heterosexuals (27%) and LGBT (15%), who had to leave their jobs or were dismissed on reasons, which weren’t directly related to fulfillment by them of their professional obligations. This tells that the level of citizens’ protection in the sphere of discrimination on the labor market is not in very developed state.

Table 5. Have you personally had any difficulties (obstacles) in relations with employers, which weren’t directly related to your business (professional) qualities?
	heterosexuals	LGBT
I was dismissed (had to leave the job)	27%	15%
I was refused to be hired	11%	4%
I experienced difficulties with promotion	5%	4%
I had to give incomplete information about myself in order to receive the job	4%	23%
I have never experienced this, I don’t remember	53%	54%

1.7. Other instances of discrimination and infringement of rights

One of the types of discrimination which rarely comes to anyone’s attention is the discrimination of students at schools and colleges. As we mentioned before, youth LGBT are a group particularly at risk since they have almost no chance to oppose the infringement of their rights because of their age, lack of knowledge and often lack of support from their families.

An informant (f., 20 yrs, lesbian):

“I was a student at a teacher’s training college, and my girlfriend studied there too, only she was a year younger. Her mother knew everything about her daughter, and when I had to come out (involuntarily) she went to the principal of the college and said three things: that I seduced her little girl, turned her to drink and drugs (which was, of course, a lie). Alex and I got called to the dean’s office every day for long «educating» talks: we were told we should get therapy and try to reform ourselves, or at least to bury our desires deep inside. Later we also were made to talk to the college psychologist; three times a week he tried to «change» us, explaining to me that I was not a real lesbian because he had seen the “real” ones, that I was just following a fashion and listening to TaTu (by the way, I’ve never listened to that group), and its singers were actually straight. Most of other students in our years stopped talking to us, there was a lot of pointing fingers and laughing. All the lecturers except for two started finding faults with us and announcing that unless we “recant” they will not let us pass pretests. It was all so tiring that it started getting on our nerves, we barely managed to get through our courses and kept getting on the lists of candidates for being expelled soon.

In the end I was told that either I was to be expelled (even though I cleared almost all my academic arrears) or I had to go to the district children’s outpatient psychiatric clinic (I was 17 at the time). I chose the second option. An apathetic psychiatrist gave me nothing at all except for prescriptions for phenazepam and some other rubbish (I can’t remember what it was because I never even tried to buy it: what did I need it for?). I was diagnosed with suicidal syndrome and they started a file on me (mind you, I never even thought about suicide, but because of all the stress Alex and I started hurting ourselves by cutting the skin on our arms).

They gave me certificates at the clinic, and I regularly brought them to the dean’s office; they stopped paying so much attention to me there, but because of the accumulated academic arrears I had to take a year out, even though I kept visiting Alex at the college.

Next year I came back to her year but it was impossible to keep studying; we barely managed to get permission for extra-mural study, which officially did not exist (thanks to my mother’s connections). Meanwhile I turned 18 and they switched me to the psychiatric clinic for adults where the doctors were OK, they had taken me off their lists and I never went there again.

We studied that way for a year, and then we started teacher’s practice at schools (teaching Russian language and literature). After I went through “a course of therapy” and had not changed my orientation they offered me three choices: to start liking men, to leave the college on my own or to be expelled.

I am not a person to capitulate easily and I tried to stay there in spite of everything. I did not want to lose three years - I was already in my third year of study. But then some of the lecturers started picking on me all the time, saying that I do not match the “image of the Russian teacher”, that I should wear skirts (even though it apparently did not apply to my other colleagues), makeup and long hair (I wonder if I was supposed to wear a wig? It’s impossible to grow your hair out quickly even if you want to - and I didn’t even shave my head, I had hair about 5 cm. long) and not to smoke (not just before lessons - not to smoke at all, even though I wasn’t the only one among the students who smoked) and more stuff like that. Our supervisor did not allow us to do practice lessons and then used the fact that we did too few of those not to let us get credits for teacher’s practice. My mother, seeing our problems, used her connections again and got us transferred to an evening school for working youth; we never went there - they let us pass all the exams and gave us specialized secondary education diplomas».

Other instances of discrimination were also noted. For example, our informant (f., 20 years, lesbian) says: «Once I called the “Russian Radio” station, managed to get through and wanted to wish my girlfriend happy birthday, but they refused to put me on air, just put the phone down. And at the door of Aymak, a café unofficially known as a hangout for lesbians, they hung an A4 sheet at the door with an announcement “We do not serve girls with short haircuts”.

So we can certify the existence of a wide spectrum of existing practices of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in Saint Petersburg.

2. The main factors affecting the level of homophobia (transphobia) and discrimination

2.1. The position of local authorities

Saint-Petersburg official powers prefer to abstain from formal expression in relation to sexual and gender minorities. The only case of public expression of some position was the comments of Nikolay Burov, who is the former head of Committee on Culture, in relation to LGBT-film festival “Side by Side”, declared that city’s government will neither prevent nor contribute to carrying out the event.

2.2. Public opinion

As the results of the survey “Saint-Petersburg population’s perception of sexual minorities”, undertaken by Agency of Social Information against the order of the Russian LGBT Network on March, 2008, shows, the citizens have a large potential of tolerance in relation to this question.

Although only 8.6% of respondents expressed their attitude to homosexual relations, practicing by others, as admissible [2], 80% agreed that gays and lesbians have the same right for personal respect as other citizens. And 82% of respondents suppose the government to prosecute those who call to violence against gays and lesbians and/or their isolation.

However, when talking about the realization by gays and lesbians their rights, the picture changes. For example, only 38.6% of respondents declared themselves for gays and lesbians to have the right openly conduct their events, and 53.2% voted against the realization of given right. 42.4% declared themselves for the publications about sexual minorities in mass-media, against - 51.6%. A bit more than half of respondents (51.2%) voted for the right of gays and lesbians to work at child educational institutions, against - 41.8%. The same picture may be watched on question of the realization of gays’ and lesbians’ right for adoption: 38% of respondents - for, 49.4% - against.

As experts, undertook the research, note, “only 23% of respondents personally know gays and/or lesbians. Consequently, other 77% of respondents receive information about sexual minorities “at second hand”. It has to be taken into account during consideration of data obtained”. Given fact tells in the first turn about the absence of necessary willingness for openness among the representatives of LGBT-community, which is directly related to the realization of the right for self-expression, as we have said above.

2.3. The position of regional public and religious organizations

Overwhelming majority of Saint-Petersburg religious organizations is not friendly in relation to LGBT-persons and LGBT-community. However, open confrontation between Saint-Petersburg religious- and LGBT-communities is not observed. Clerics, authorized to appear for their religious confessions, prefer not to express their opinion publicly on questions related to LGBT. The exception is the statements of film actor Nicolay Burlyaev, who is the Head of International association of cinematographers of Slavonic and Orthodox people, made by him in relation to possible holding of LGBT-film festival “Side by Side” in Saint-Petersburg. He sharply criticized even the possibility of carrying out such film festival.

2.4. Mass-media

There is no any adequate information concerning LGBT-persons, LGBT-community, homo/bi/transphobia in Saint-Petersburg mass-media. Major amount of publications for the considering period contain stereotypes based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity. The lack of competence of journalists in LGBT-problematic takes place, which become apparent the most obviously in cases of quite ignorant using of terminology. Some mass-media materials have the signs of hostile language, moral panics’ forcing and propaganda of homophobia.

Conclusion

Thereby as the result of the monitoring of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, carried out on January-July 2008 in Saint-Petersburg, the conclusion about the high discrimination background in the town and systematic infringements of the citizens’ rights on signs mentioned may be drawn. Given situation takes place with the tacit consent of city authorities, who don’t make enough efforts to change it. Mass-media don’t contribute to improvement of the situation as well, constantly participating in moral panic forcing around LGBT. Comparative passiveness of the LGBT-community itself, hettoization, and unwillingness for openness contribute to the increase of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity as well.

In this situation the following recommendations are considered to be appropriate:

- it is necessary to carry out the subsequent monitoring of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity with changed methodology;

- LGBT-community itself needs to consolidate and learn to protect its interests;

- the educational trainings and workshops for journalists, increasing their competence in the sphere of sexual and gender diversity, are needed;

- it is necessary to articulate the presence of LGBT-community in the city life more actively, in mass-media as well;

- it is necessary to develop special programs targeted to the prevention of LGBT discrimination at educational institutions;

- it is necessary to involve the city administration’s representatives in open dialogue on problems of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

© The Russian LGBT Network

© Moscow Helsinki Group

© ANO “LGBT Organization Coming Out”

© The text is prepared by Valery Sozaev and Igor Petrov

[1] http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=27163

[2] Respondents were offered to choose between five forms of behavior in sexual sphere the most admissible. “Sexual relations were found to be the most admissible (77.4%), and sexual relations with the human of another race were admissible as well (64.0%). To have several sexual partners and to have sexual relations out of wedlock, while being in wedlock, were admissible for 30.6% and 27.8% of respondents respectively”.