In poems Marina pictured roundly the story of her love for the woman. So, now we not only read over the cyclus “Girlfriend”, but also appeal to this fact proving our “normality”: “If Tsvetaeva herself was…” (and Tchaikovsky was as well…). Actually, the example of non-heterosexual famous persons, who are talented and respected and who has truly established themselves as personalities, inspires and convinces even the most inveterate skeptics.

The heated discussion began after the film. The agenda “Coming-out of famous LGBT persons both in Russia and abroad” has been discussed with the participation of experts and guests. It has been stressed that in Russia there are virtually no famous persons confessed publicly to their non-heterosexuality. According to Igor Petrov, who is the President of Russian LGBT-net, homophobia is a method and a means of power distribution in Russia. Undoubtedly, these facts don’t add an optimism.

Presentations of “Coming Out” participants Polina Savchenko, who is the coordinator of international projects and Americanist, and Alexey Gorin, who is Western Europe specialist, have shown that we should grow and grow to catch up with the West. For example, the video tape showing the public coming-out of famous person has been demonstrated.

Suppression of sexual orientation, which is a Russian reality nowadays, “occurred” in America and Western Europe 30-40 years ago. The most courageous “pioneers” of western show business dared to confess publicly in their love for the people of the same gender in the late 80’s - early 90’s. The following famous persons were among them: K.D. Lang (Canadian pop-singer), Melissa Etheridge (American rock-singer, having won Oscar and Grammy) and Ellen DeGeneres (the famous Hollywood actress, anchorwoman of many talk shows). This has led the famous person’s public coming-out to be an ordinary thing. It doesn’t horrify or antagonize anybody, and homophobia is considered to be a shibboleth.

In Russia such coming-outs are isolated cases. In this connection Valeriy Sozaev, who is the director of ANO “LGBT-Organization ComingOut”, raised a question why our “rainbow” politicians and stars don’t feel like promulgating their non-heterosexuality? He supposed, the reason is that LGBT-communities themselves are too close and bad-integrated in society to be able to encourage these famous persons.

Formerly the lack of support was the most reason for “silence”. The poet, writer and singer Olga Krauze described how difficult were to open non-heterosexuality in USSR. Actually, in 90’s she became homeless due to hostility of homophobious neighbors. And only owing to the help of her friends from LGBT-community Olga Krauze managed to achieve her dreams. She not only concertize freely, but also has published a book.

However, the level of homophobia in Russia is still high. Does it mean that there are reasons for concern and keep mum? As Igor Petrov said, the best counter-evidence to this argument has been given by Andrew Cherkizov, the journalist of “Moscow’s Echo”. He was the first who confessed publicly that he was a gay. His words were the following: “If you want to be the most free and protected, you have to be open absolutely”.

According to the last surveys, 11% of Russians are personally acquainted with gays/lesbians. This is the most tolerant part of society, filling like to consider the sexual minorities absolutely equal in rights.

In conclusion, Alexey Gorin stressed that everyone who has managed to open their non-heterosexuality to their relatives, friends and colleagues has made the huge step towards open and honest dialogue between society and sexual minorities.

Evolution of norms occurs through the individuals. And everyone palms the future of these norms…

The discussion will be continued at ComingOutInfo (InfoVyhod) named “Russia’s LGBT-community of the 19th and early 20th century: characteristics of the epoch and outstanding personalities” on Saturday, February 7, 2009.

We will glad to see everyone interested in his own future in order to work with it, changing for the better.

See you later, friends!

By Uliko Kolomma