Masha Gessen - Gay Propaganda

The only reason my parents don’t know is that they’ve never asked whether I’m seeing anyone. They don’t meddle in my personal affairs. The most important thing to them is that I’m not an alcoholic or a drug addict, and that I don’t live at work. It’s never come up at work either. I never had any kind of traumatic coming-out experience. I’ve told my close friends who need to know. I don’t have many of those, and there was no drama there, either. I told them, they accepted it, and that was that. I remember when we were in college and four of us were renting a two-bedroom. Naturally, it was cramped, but none of my heterosexual roommates ever had a problem with my boyfriend coming over.

A few months after Max and I started dating, one of my close friends invited us to his wedding. It was a very grand, beautiful celebration: the end of the summer, white tents and tables outside. Everyone was invited with their significant others, boyfriends and girlfriends. I brought my boyfriend, too. Max and I went as a couple, and we didn’t hide it, but it didn’t cause even a hint of awkwardness. Both our friends and their parents were happy for us, no one looked at us funny, not even the older folks. Max danced with the mothers of the bride and the groom. Overall, it was a good party, one of the best I can remember.

Gay friends have told me stories about having bad experiences coming out to their families or at work, but nothing of the sort ever happened to me. I think I have more problems from being tall than I do from being gay. I often hit my forehead on door jambs or can’t fit on the bunk on the train. There are plenty of bigger issues in my life than how people treat me because of my sexual orientation. I’m more concerned about the larger meaning of what happens in life and in our society, which is not directly related to my sexual orientation. I’m not just upset by the anti-gay law, I’m upset by all of the laws they are passing. I worry about whether my work is meaningful. I don’t just want to have a career, I want there to be some tangible benefit. I want my work to help people. I think about children. All of this is of greater concern to me than my sexual orientation.

MAX

Really, this is insulting. In principle, I am not against a public dialogue about homosexuality, or honest stories and brave confessions. Perhaps, for some people, it is actually important to say all of this publicly. I wouldn’t argue with that for a second. However, for me personally, talking to a journalist about my private life seems insane. After all, I’m not some celebrity.

In my life, as in the life of any other person, there has been fear, insecurity, and pain. But perhaps the most insulting thing is what I am enduring right now: a journalist asking questions, not about social issues, business, or trends in international cuisine, and not even about the issue of gay marriage, but literally about my private life. What is it like for me to be gay and what kinds of things have happened to me because I am gay? This is insulting not only for me but also for the journalist. And this whole stupid situation was created by the idiots who passed the anti-gay laws.

When a few years ago they were banning gay pride parades in Moscow, my friend, a foreigner, asked me why I didn’t support the gay activists. I told my friend that in our country gay people aren’t the only ones denied their rights: there are also the disabled, orphans, retirees, women, all of them. In the West, gays have won the battle for marriage so they can visit ailing partners in the hospital. Here, I couldn’t even get them to let me visit my own mother in the hospital. The only way I got in was by bribing someone. We have very little by way of civil rights in general. I just didn’t see the point in trying to fight for the specific right of having a gay parade.

The situation is different now. Homophobic laws are being passed in the provinces and the Duma, where gays and lesbians are named in the same breath as pedophiles. The most terrifying thing is that it is not me, a fully-formed person, who will suffer the most from this law, but the children and adolescents for whose safety these laws are ostensibly being created. Now, gay teens will really be made to feel inferior, while homophobes will think they have the moral right. I don’t want to think about how this will all end.

I have a child now. I think about his future all the time. I worry about him, because right now, they’re discussing depriving gay people of their parental rights, not only for adopted children but also for their own biological children. I don’t think it’s possible that this law will be passed. On the one hand, I don’t want to stick my neck out because I don’t want to attract attention to myself. On the other hand, a public figure is probably safer than an unknown. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what we’re supposed to do in this situation.

A version of this interview was originally published in Afisha magazine Issue 339 (February 25, 2013). It was updated by the author and reproduced here by permission of Afisha

Nina, 33, a psychologist and television producer, and Katya, 30, a tax advisor, are both conventionally attractive, long-haired women. The way they talk, hold hands, and look at one another leaves no doubt about the nature of their relationship. They met two years ago under tragic circumstances. At the end of winter, they plan to wed. But in Argentina, where they’ll be traveling to get married, it will be the end of summer. Like many people in love, Katya and Nina dream of having children, but where, how many, and who they will have them with, they’ve yet to resolve .

NINA

We don’t have a romantic story about how we met. It was a tragedy that brought us together in the summer of 2011. A small boat crashed into a large barge on the Moscow River. Over half of the seventeen people on board died. Katya was among the survivors.

KATYA

I was lucky enough to be on the deck, far enough away from the propellers and from where the barge hit to survive. I was rescued. On shore, I met Nina.

NINA

I was with my friends who were related to some of the victims. At first, there was not the slightest thought of romance. I only wanted to support Katya, we’d just become friends. For the first two months, she was in shock, so our relationship was rocky and disjointed. Eventually, the going got smoother and I couldn’t even understand what was going on. Why did I want to see her all the time even though almost everything she said got a rise out of me? It was this mixed feeling.

KATYA

For me, the story with Nina began with a phone conversation that lasted four hours and eleven minutes, with our phones taking turns running out of batteries. This was a couple months after we met, in the autumn.

NINA

We hardly went on any regular dates. It was an automobile affair. We spent a lot of time in the car, driving around and talking. I was going through a lot of mood swings. One minute I was dark, the next bright, and in one of my sunny phases I sent her a text that said: “I want everything with you.” This is my first romantic relationship with a woman, and I really hope that it’s the one I stay in for the rest of my life. I had experimented with girls, but without any kind of romantic feelings. I needed time to figure things out with Katya, to understand what I felt and what I wanted. As soon as I figured things out, I told my husband everything, got my stuff, and moved out. When I met Katya, I was in my second marriage, and it was a messy break-up with lots of drama. I rented an apartment and was living there alone until Katya moved in with me.