2020 Country Page – Russia

Celebrating IDAHOT with St. Petersburg LGBT* Communities

Every year, Russian LGBT communities in St. Petersburg celebrate May 17, the International Day against Homophobia and Trasphobia. For the last 10 years, we’ve organized a street event to provide an opportunity for LGBT* people to proudly come out and speak out in the streets of our city. This year, we are organizing IDAHOT as a series of online events, under the hashtags #радужныйчеллендж (rainbow challenge) and #радужныйфлешмоб (rainbow flashmob), and the international slogan “Breaking the Silence.”

Today, the world is plunged into isolation, and we stand in solidarity with the efforts to protect public health and to support communities suffering from economic hardships that follow. This week, we also want to draw attention to the fact that LGBT communities in Russia are living in isolation for years, hiding their sexual orientation and gender identity. May 17 is the day when homosexuality was excluded by the World Health Organization from the list of mental disorders. It is a good reason to break the silence, free our lives from the isolation that results from our SOGIE, and have a loud conversation about our existence and identity. 

All week, every day, on “Coming Out”’s online resources, we post videos from well-known bloggers (and on the 17^th – well-known stars), various “goodies” for online existence (funny telegram stickers, an Instagram mask, and collections of funny “bingos”-stereotypes), stories of our victories, defeats, discrimination and coming-outs, feature articles from “Coming Out”, and to end the week we will organize a closing Zoom-party for our communities.

We encourage all who want to participate to send their videos, articles or photos with hashtags #радужныйчеллендж (rainbow challenge) and #радужныйфлешмоб (rainbow flashmob). We will continue publishing the best stories sent to us after May 17. 

Join us for “Breaking the Silence” IDAHOT flashmob:

https://www.youtube.com/user/ComingOutSPb

https://vk.com/comingoutspb

https://www.instagram.com/comingoutspb

https://www.facebook.com/comingoutspb

Event: Online flash mob “Unread letters”! Russia. LGBT Public Movement “Revers”
Direction: Online flash mob “Unread letters”!
An online discussion event on May 17 at 19:00.
Date: May 17, 2019
Time: 19 pm
Info: May 17 – International Day Against Homophobia, Bifobia and Transphobia (IDAHOT. And the LGBT Reverse Social Movement launches a flash mob “Unread Letters” ❣
Many of us, for various reasons, cannot open up and tell how difficult and scary they are to come out. And someone does not know how to express gratitude for accepting us as we are.
  The most important words are sometimes hard to say out loud – but you can tell what is important to you in letters to relatives.
Send your email 👉 reversinfo@gmail.com
May 17 at 19:00 Moscow time we will talk a little about the history of IDAHOT (The International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia) and we can share what this day means to us