Under Russia’s controversial and widely criticized ‘gay propaganda’ laws, the consequences LGBT people for sharing their stories can include legal and physical threats. Consequently, the romantic or even mundane stories of Russia’s gay people remain unheard. It was this that inspired Masha Geesen and Joseph Huff-Hannon to edit ‘Gay Propaganda’, a book that includes love stories written by queer Russians in their own words.
“If you are an artist or a filmmaker or writer in Russia, you can’t include any gay people in any of your stories,” Huff-Hannon said.“And so we wanted to defy that and have simple to the point contemporary love stories of people talking about how and where and under what circumstances they met their partner and how they fell in love.”
Geseen experienced Russia’s LGBT oppression firsthand, living in the country with her wife and children. The media reportedly compared gays to the antichrist, and Geseen appeared on television and distributed thousands of pink triangles in an effort to visibly support the queer community. However, as anti-gay laws and violence grew ever stronger, she sold her car and moved with her family to New York.
The book includes the story of Alexander and Mikhail, a married gay couple who were harrassed by the FSB (a modern equivalent of the KGB).
“They kept wanting to bribe them, blackmail one of them into working in the embassy of another country, to basically be a spy,” Huff-Hanson said. “Then, they kidnapped his partner, basically beat him up, basically threatened him that way.”
In publishing ‘Gay Propaganda’, Huff-Hansen and Geseen hope to provide a voice for Russia’s LGBT community and bring a more nuanced view to the conversation surrounding sexuality in Russia. Over 10,000 copies of the Russian version have reportedly been downloaded.
More information about the book is available here.
Sophie Joske
