Valery Sozaev, member of the Russian LGBT network, Director of ComingOut LGBT organization, coordinator of Nuntiare et Recreare

Russian mass media rarely features publications focusing not on social problems per se, but on those who are actually trying to do something about them. As a consequence, the society is not adequately informed about grass root and activism movements: what discussions they engage in, what kind of people they are, what motivates them and with what concepts of life and social reality do they participate in the work of civil associations, social movements, grass roots groups. The public attention is usually focused on ‘theater-carnival’ scandalous sort of events or conflicts, whereas internal activity, everyday life, the essence of talks and doubts are pretty much left behind the scenes. As a result, it is rather difficult to form any sort of general view of goings-on, catch the tendencies behind variety of newslines. The LGBT movement (movement for the rights of gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people) in this sense, is no different, it is actually one of the media, which remains a black box for many, despite informational openness and the Internet activity.

www.dvizh.org thanks Valery valer-q Sozaev, member of the Russian LGBT network, Director of ComingOut LGBT organization, coordinator of Nuntiare et Recreare for his willingness to discuss the issues of development of LGBT community. Interview by Artem marchenk Marchenkov.

Let’s start with the most general, observation question. What is the LGBT community in todays’ Russia? I mean, it’s obvious, that there are some gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender folks, that they have their private lives, they go to work, have relationships…. But do they… to some extent realize themselves as a community? How ready are they to engage in joint actions to solve their common problems?

It is my belief, that there is no such a thing as LGBT community in Russia. Well, almost none. And that, the absence of a collective LGBT identity, or its lack of form and structure, is, in my opinion, one of the main factors making the community work, advocacy and lobbying of LGBT a very difficult task. People prefer to unite according to some single factor: either by sex: only L, only G, only T, or by some sort of preference: clubs, fans, athletes, etc. Hence, there is practical lack of preparedness for joint actions…

Do I understand correctly that this situation could run for years without being radically changed or challenged? If there is no agenda or any sense of priorities, and no cross-communication, leading to joint actions, and if there is a large distance between those who want to change something and ready to invest his or her time and energy into everyday work, and those who would rather prefer to get used to status quo, then…. What can be done in this situation? Because, it is my understanding that you are not satisfied with the current state of affairs. So, what’s there to be done? To wait for some events, which could accelerate? Wait until people would want something more? Stimulate people’s imaginations with information of LGBT achievements abroad?

Yes, this situation could last for years. But the main agenda is starting to form little by little. On the national scale, an enormous amount of work is being done by the Russian LGBT network, in St. Petersburg this work is done by Coming Out. The community needs to be gathered, to begin with. St. Petersburg needs an alternative to club space, available for meetings and variety of communication; in the regions LGBT needs to get at least some space and presence of its own.

Only by gathering can LGBT community really become a community, in a true sense of this word. It needs to watch movies together, do sports, go hiking, cross-stitch, and do whatever, in a public space, not in a privacy of an apartment, as LGBT presently does. Clearly, the organization of this is an everyday tedious task, and not everyone should participate. A few crazy activists would suffice. There are such people in St. Petersburg, and there are some in the regions. It is vital that the activists feel each other’s support. And the support of the world’s LGBT movement.

And then, certainly, things need to be explained in the community. Many things, often very simple ones need to be explained. Because the very community is not very well educated even on the level of very basic issues; we are full of fears and prejudices. So we need to work with those, as well.

So this conceptually existing LGBT community, which, thanks to some activists’ groups entered the public space from the beginning of the 90s, is still in its embryonic state? And that, despite the fact that rather wide infrastructure has been created including clubs, specialized editions, a number of supporting legal professionals, journalists, artists… So, it looks like you hadn’t much luck in tying the diverse interests, needs, ideas of “what is required”, so that these, in sum would make visible changes in public opinion, so that we could speak not only of revising unspoken social conventions, discriminating LGBT but also step by step legislatively confirm the equality in civil rights? You are speaking with optimism, you call for patient work, for get-togethers…. Do you still believe that the quantity will sooner or later turn into quality, and the key to that transformation is the increased number of those who vocally support LGBT organizations and participates in LGBT networks everyday work?

Yes, LGBT community is at its very early stage. I don’t like to put people down, but I really have a problem with first generation LGBT activists. However, I prefer not to judge, but do my work, and do my best to do it well, do it honestly.

You know, when I think sometimes of the level at which our movement and the country overall is at this time, on the issue of LGBT emancipation, I find myself agreeing with those who say that Russia is now where the West used t be in the 70s of the 20th century. 70s in the West was a period of very vocal manifestations, mass activity, victories, etc. And that came from a society which was aware of who they were. They have already formed the collective identity by that time. In Russia, we still have a long way to go to reach that point.

According to my estimates, we are now where the West was approximately in 10-20s or perhaps 50s of the 20-th century: the first research of homosexuality, active educational work and Homophile movement. The latter did a lot for popularization of the idea of coming out. In Russia, for many of LGBT people coming out is not an option, they consider it unnecessary and repeat homophobic arguments stating that sexual orientation is a private business and there is no need to advertise it. These people do not understand that in our society personal equals political, and it has been for a while now.

I believe that the popularization of the idea of coming out and the increasing number of open LGBT could affect the overall situation. Until then, when LGBT people remain LGBT only within the space of their own rooms, the social change is not possible. But there aren’t that many open LGBT people in Russia. People are afraid. And who can blame them. This is where our work as activists starts: creating a foundation, the ground on which people could come out and feel safe.

As for the infrastructure, it is purely entertainment. There are clubs, yes, but only in big cities. Publications? There is Queer for boys, but none of gays I know reads it, and then there is Pinx and Ostrov for girls, but again, none of my lesbian friends reads it very often. So, three publications for the entire country of Russia. And, not a single serious socio-political LGBT publication.

As for the “rest», that is open for discussion, but the question is: how open are “our” journalists, artists, etc. They are not open at all! If they are, they still live in their small private worlds, and do not want to come out of them. Our artists (in a broad meaning of this word) are aspiring to reach the ideal of “pure art”, and so the activism is foreign to them. The phenomenon of an LGBT-active artist is extremely rare, whereas in the West practically every artist considers himself an activist and values his or her role in the social movement.

Could you then outline some key issues, on which we should concentrate today? You have already named coming up with public initiatives (organizations, clubs, festivals, etc.) which could potentially become the point of crystallization of self-awareness for LGBT and coming out. What else is included in the task of creating a foundation? Just name them, without much explication.

Consolidation of community. Popularization of coming out. Education on a wide range of topics (gender education, legal education, psychological education). Education and support of activists, if we are speaking strictly of the community. Actually, all this in detail has been already written in LGBT movement strategy, which is now being revised, but we have the latest version here.

What role of the Internet, and, in particular, blogs, do you see in all this? The LJ has lots of communities dedicated to LGBT issues, queer research, etc. … For instance, ru_antidogma is one of the national largest (over 1200 people): it discusses the current news, comments of mass media publications and events, organized by LGBT organizations… Do you have a feeling that the deployment of this scene, and the use of modern communication technologies would lead to quantitative changes?

Yes, Internet is a fantastic bonus we have, something which previous generations of civil rights activists could not enjoy. Internet allows us to momentarily exchange information, which considerably lightens our load and shortens the work cycles. This concerns communication between already engaged activists. Besides, the Internet allows to unite the efforts of the entire nations’ activists rather than sitting in groups of 3-5 people in regions. And this unification I see as an important passionary impact for our activity. Besides, the Internet allows to engage new people, and they can find out where to go for help, or how to utilize the ideas they liked, locally.

As for blogs and forums, I wouldn’t be too optimistic about them. As my experience tells me, Internet discussions remain on the Internet, and rarely do they bring forth something of essence. Of course, sometimes we could convert a homophobic person, or a few of these people, and that’s good. But speaking of the interaction inside the community, the majority of those who write in blogs, in actuality do very little (if anything) and those who really work, often have no time left for participating in threads.

However, ru_antidogma, in my opinion, has an entirely different status among blogs and in general in the LGBT community. Actually, the 1200-subscriber antidogma has replaced that analytical, socio-political LGBT publication, which the society so lacks in real life. In this, I see a great success of the policy carried out by this community administration (emmy_l, kandinskiy, llynden, rj_karter, s0ularis) and, in particular, Ruslan Porshnev. Basically, ru_antidogma is almost the only place, where from time to time you can see and hear a considerable number of LGBT activists, and the discussions there are real life discussions.

If we were to compare as to how active and represented are the other social movements in the blog, the success of LGBT community is really impressive. For comparison, the largest human rights advocacy blog presence - humanrights_ru - has 185 bloggers. This figure contrasts with a considerable number of human rights advocacy organizations registered in the country. I do not know what to make of it, and what conclusions to draw…

Unfortunately, I cannot see this entirely as a success. The virtuality of LGBT community is one of the sore points. As I already said, many find it much easier to sit glued to the Internet and “have an opinion” rather than come and have it in real life. On the other hand, there is an issue of absent in reality locations for meetings, discussion place for LGBT community. And, as I have said, too, gay clubs exist in large cities, and there are no other alternatives in the majority of them. So, this is why we have this picture: I have an opinion, I post to LJ, and there is an illusion of being engaged in an activity. But this virtual activity is a simulacrum. And there is small wonder that a considerable number of virtual debaters very soon get disappointed in activism. The activist must see at least some results of his or her work, whereas on the Internet, given the specifics of that space, it is often invisible.

And, comparing to human rights advocacy groups, they do not have a similar problem: most human rights groups have their offices, they regularly hold forums, round tables, real life discussions. This is why the human rights don’t see vesting too much time into active virtual debates - when they can work in real life.

Now, let’s get to the next to last, and perhaps the most pressing issue: in which spheres do you see most serious, emotionally and intellectually charged conflicts in LGBT community? It is well-known that a problem is a source of growth, and well founded mutual claims, contradictions between activists on the evaluation of certain events and the common strategy could lad to some negative consequences (such as lack of solidarity, mistrust, etc. ) or they could, on the opposite, become a source of renewable energy.

I don’t like talking about conflicts. Primarily, because when they get in the hands of our opponents, these could be used against the community, movement and activists. My position is this: I might feel disapproval of what this or that activist or a group is doing, but I do not want to publicly criticize their activities. This does not mean that I do not have a position. This means that if I did not vote for it and do not participate in it, then I see this particular thing contradicting either my principles or my view of the movement development. However, any work is to be respected.

The only exception I could take here is when I see that certain activity could definitely harm the community, and then I would vocally express my opinion.

We are not speaking of personal dislikes, but of which strategic issues provoke most controversies in LGBT movement.

Yes, I understood that. But now it is difficult to speak of disagreements in the movement. There are rather disagreements in the community.

In the aforementioned ru_antidogma - which topics bring the most lively and contradictory response?

Well, every spring many traditionally have a Moscow gay pride relapse. And, if before there were discussions of whether or not we need one, now they are discussing as to how to better hold one. Although I think that these LJ discussions are not viable, because the very organizers of the Moscow pride do not participate in them. Also, quite representative are the discussions on the possibility to collaborate with politicians, parties, and the state. The latest topics, which were actively discussed, were the themes of neighboring L, G, B and T. For some, the T are rather uncomfortable and undesirable, because some LGB are as it turns out, trans-phobic. The other topic is the status of B in LGBT; in the West there are still some problems of identity construction. The Russian B haven’t gone this all the way either, and the issue of bi-phobia is actually quite alive in the community, too.

And the last question - on finding allies and partners. Which activists’ media, communities, organizations do you see as strategic partners? Which problems do LGBT organizations face here? Could you say that LGBT movement today is set in the structure of relations within the voluntary sector, and that there are some stable, formalized relations with the classical civil society?

This last question is the most complicated one. It is complicated because the very LGBT movement is far from homogenous, and so there will be no homogeneity in allies, which the activists and groups are to find. Human rights advocacy groups could become our unconditional partners (which, some of them, like MHG, Agora, Human Rights Resource Center already are). Although, among the human rights groups there are still discussions on the possibility of collaborating with us: which shows the life experience of many human rights activists in the Soviet Union.

Besides the human rights advocacy groups, there could be women/feminist organizations, but today’s Russia does not have a strong women/feminist movement. Ditto, green movement.

There is a number of organizations working in the sphere of promoting the ideas of tolerance, but often they construe tolerance exclusively as ethnical tolerance (at least in St. Petersburg). The organizations engaged in prevention of AIDS and STDs are also our potential partners.

This is why we cannot say, that at this time the movement is already set in the structure of voluntary sector relations. These relations are in the process of forming, and for many groups it is premature to speak of formalizing these relations, because often times they themselves haven’t gone through the process of internal formalization.

Valery Sozaev personal blog - http://valer-q.livejournal.com.

glb_friendly - psychotherapy for lesbians, gays and bisexuals

feministki - feminism, gender and women’s rights

queerstudies_ru - academic queer research

For the list of musical and ad video against homophobia and supporting LGBT, click here.