Sergei Diaghilev! Day 6 of our Celebration of Russian LGBTQ Pride: An Olympic Counter-Programming Event #OlympicShame #RussianPride #CheersToSochi

 A portrait of Sergei Diaghilev by Valentin Serov, found here.

Considered the founder of modern Ballet, Sergei Diaghilev was Russian and Gay.

He was considered an impresario - someone whose main talent was to bring out the best in - and promote - other artists.

In 1890 he settled in St. Petersburg and co-founded a cultural organization and a journal, both called Mir Iskusstva (World of Art) with the idea of creating a new movement that would combine all the arts.

In 1909, he formed the Ballets Russes (Russian Ballets) and with them he toured Western Europe - revolutionizing dance staging, creating collaborative teams of artists to work on the productions, and ultimately scandalizing - and dazzling - audiences!

Sergei had a number of romances with other men, including Dmitry Filosofov, whom he was with for fifteen years. They worked together on World of Art.

About Sergei it was said:

"He never worried much about what other might think: he once made a point of walking arm-in-arm down a crowded street with the then disgraced Oscar Wilde."

Sergei later had a celebrated romance with Vaslav Nijinsky, the star male ballet dancer in his Ballets Russes.

Léon Bakst, Russian, 1866–1924, Costume design for Vaslav Nijinsky as the Faun from The Afternoon of a Faun, 1912, as seen here.

Diaghilev lived with him [Nijinsky], took him everywhere, to picture galleries, museums, saw to his reading, his diet and well-being. ...Of this historic relationship it has been said, 'their union could produce no children, but it would give birth to masterpieces - and change the history of the dance, of music and of painting throughout the world.'

Vaslav was at the top of his career - he'd even started to choreograph to great acclaim and everything seemed great... until, on a trip without Sergei, Vaslav married the Hungarian countess, Romola de Pulsky in 1913.

What happened then?

Click by tomorrow, to find out.

If you can't wait, you can learn out more about Sergei Diaghilev here at biography.com. The top quote above is from pg. 183 of "Completely Queer: The Gay and Lesbian Encyclopedia" by Steve Hogan and Lee Hudson, and the bottom quote is from pg. 143 of "Homosexuals in History" by A.L. Rowse.

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Add To The Celebration:

Who are the Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Trans and Queer Russians you'd like to celebrate? Tell me your favorites in comments, or by twitter, and on the final day of the Olympics, I'll run a rainbow variety-pack post with everyone's suggestions!

Please Note: Given the situation in Russia, I'm thinking we should keep it to either people who are no longer living in Russia or are historical. I'd hate to create a list that then would be used against people by a repressive, anti-LGBTQ regime.

Having said that, there is a lot of Queer Russian heritage to explore and so many LGBTQ Russians we can celebrate!

***

Bonus:

Check out this just-over three minute video with highlights - and some archival footage of the Ballets Russes! - from the 2010 exhibition on Diaghilev at London's Victoria and Albert Museum:



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Take Action:

Spread the word, that dance - modern dance - as it exists today, owes much to a Gay Russian man - Sergei Diaghilev.

Definitely something to celebrate!

Sergei Eisenstein! Day 5 of our Celebration of Russian LGBTQ Pride: An Olympic Counter-Programming Event #OlympicShame #russianPride

Sergei Eisenstein, Filmmaking Legend

Sergei Eisenstein inspecting a film strip, ca. 1927, featured image on the Stanford University Film Studies Library webpage

Sergei Eisenstein was, as the Gene Siskel Film Center puts it, "one of the giants of film history."

Sergei came up with the idea of the montage, he was Russian - at the time Russia was called the Soviet Union (or USSR), so he was considered "Soviet," - and he was a gay.

Here's a clip from one of his most famous films, "Battleship Potemkin" (Bronenosets Potyomkin)



Even 89 years later, it's a remarkable piece of filmmaking that grabs me and doesn't let me go. (And it was a silent movie!)

Here's the section on Sergei from pg. 361 in the chapter, "Russia's Gay Literature and Culture: The Impact of the October Revolution" by Simon Karlinsky in "Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past" edited by Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus and George Chauncey, Jr.

Another major figure whom the Soviet authorities tried to keep in a lifelong closet was the great filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein. Eisenstein may have internalized the homophobia of the Russian and international Communist movements, as when he told the Soviet critic Sergei Tretiakov that if it were not for Marx, Lenin, and Freud, he would have ended up as "another Oscar Wilde."

(That's footnoted as from pg 119 of Marie Seton's "Sergei M. Eisenstein," revised ed. (London: Dennis Dobson, 1978, originally published in 1952 by The Bodley Head.) Back to the paragraph on Sergei from "Hidden from History,"

But he did yield to his gay desires when visiting Berlin and Paris and even more so during his 1930-1932 stay in Mexico to make a film, where he became openly gay and almost caused an international scandal. The Soviet government blackmailed him into returning to Moscow by threatening to disclose his private life. Before he was allowed to make another film, he had to submit to that Soviet cure-all for homosexuality: marriage. His friend and assistant Pera Attasheva volunteered to go through the ceremony, though they never lived together.

I have to say I don't love that language of "yeilding to gay desires" - especially as it's a negative spin on finally stopping to pretend to be someone you are not. If Sergei was finally able to be his authentic self in Mexico, that's something to cheer.

There's another footnote to that paragraph in "Hidden From History," which lists four other sources on Sergei Eisenstein's being gay, including:

Stan Brakhage, "Film Biographies" (Berekeley: Turtle Island, 1977), pg. 98-99, where Kenneth Rexroth reports a conversation with Eisenstein in which the director admitted he was forced to return to the Soviet Union by a threat to expose his sex life;

Thomas Waugh, "A Fag-Spotter's Guide to Eisenstein," Body Politic, no. 35, July/August 1977, an excellent demonstration of homo-erotic imagery in Eisenstein's films

Sergei being gay is also cited in this film review by David Thomson in the UK paper The Guardian of "Battleship Potemkin" - which in 1958 was voted, by an international jury meeting in Brussels, as "the greatest picture ever made."

...Eisenstein was gay and bursting to get out of the closet and out of the Soviet Union. Indeed, he dreamed of going to California. In 1930, he arrived in Hollywood, but it was the start of his personal disaster. Helped by the author Upton Sinclair, he made a ravishing documentary in Mexico, but Moscow disowned the project.

Interestingly, in the footnote back in "Hidden from History," Edmund Wilson's "Eisenstein in Hollywood" in Wilson's "The American Earthquake" (New York: Doubleday, 1958) pg. 367-413 cites,

"...the role of the American pro-Communist writer Upton Sinclair in cutting off the funds for Eisenstein's Mexican film project and denouncing him to Stalin when Sinclair fournd out about the director's sex life."

While Upton Sinclair's role in outing Sergei is fascinating, the discussion being all about who Eisenstein had "sex" with sort of ignores the fact that being gay is about being a guy who can fall in love with another guy, or a gal who can fall in love with another gal.

Let's focus on Sergei falling in love with another guy when he was in Mexico, okay?

Healthy grown-up relationships can include sex, but to reduce all gay, lesbian and bi relationships to being just about sex is a misrepresentation - just as reducing all heteroSEXual relationships to being just about sex would be.

Not surprisingly, there is no mention of Sergei Eisenstein being gay in this bio at the Russian Archives, nor is it mentioned in the Reuters obituary that ran in the New York Times on Feb 12, 1948.

A screen shot of the entry on Sergei Eisenstein in "Queers in History"

Happily, Sergei Eisenstein is featured on page 152 of "Queers in History," which includes the additional information that:

Eisenstein's unexpurgated diaries, published in 1984 as "Immoral Memories," record his infatuations with many young men, including his assistant, Grigori Alexandrov.

Here's a picture from 1925 of, left to right, Grigori, Sergei, Walt Disney, and Eduard Tisse, who worked with Sergei as his cinematographer.

Sergei (center left) wrote in his diaries about his crush on his assistant, Grigori (far left.)
They're pictured here with Walt Disney (center right) and Sergei's Cinematographer, Tisse (far right)

The film-focused biography of Sergei on the Gene Siskel Film Center site ends with these words:

"It is time to rediscover Sergei Eisenstein, not simply as a textbook exemplar of "Soviet Montage," but as one of film history's most spectacular and exhilarating stylists, able to mobilize the entire arsenal of cinema's resources--editing, mise-en-scène, music, documentary, and artifice--with a dazzling virtuosity that has never been surpassed."

And I think it's time to rediscover - and celebrate - Sergei Eisenstein as a gay man, too!

***

Add To The Celebration:

Who are the Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Trans and Queer Russians you'd like to celebrate? Tell me your favorites in comments, or by twitter, and on the final day of the Olympics, I'll run a rainbow variety-pack post with everyone's suggestions!

Please Note: Given the situation in Russia, I'm thinking we should keep it to either people who are no longer living in Russia or are historical. I'd hate to create a list that then would be used against people by a repressive, anti-LGBTQ regime.

Having said that, there is a lot of Queer Russian heritage to explore and so many LGBTQ Russians we can celebrate!


***

Bonus:

Check out this great article by Michael Regula at Advocate.com on "Why The End of Communism Didn't End AntiGay Hate In Russia"

It includes this:

“If Russia for a long time was not safe for LGBT people, it’s a bit different now that the government is actually taking steps to enshrine that homophobia in the law,” explains Morris, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based LGBT group Immigration Equality. “And I think that’s especially scary for people in Russia who are trying to get out.”

Immigration Equality works to end discrimination in U.S. immigration law, and helps win asylum for those fleeing persecution based on their sexual orientation, gender identity, or HIV status. The organization’s staff has witnessed the impact of Russia’s growing political and cultural homophobia. Morris reports a “dramatically higher increase” in asylum applications from Russia in the past year. Calls to the organization’s free immigration advice hotline tripled in September alone.

Morris says Immigration Equality is currently working on 45 Russian cases."

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Take Action:

Consider supporting (by raising money for, sending money to, or spreading word about) organizations that help Asylum-seekers (People fleeing Russia and other homelands where it is dangerous for them to be their authentic LGBTQ selves, who want to be able to stay in safer countries.)

The organization mentioned in the Advocate article helping LGBTQ Russians escape and stay here in the USA is Immigration Equality - they've even started a "Russia Emergency Fund."

Check it out and see what you can do to help!

The Chuckchi, Koryak and Kamchadal! Day 4 of our Celebration of Russian LGBTQ Pride: An Olympic Counter-Programming Event #OlympicShame #RussianPride

A Siberian Shaman

Photo from here.

In Russian Siberia, three indigenous nomadic peoples - The Chuckchi [Chukchi], Koryak and Kamchadal - embrace a third gender.

As reported at PBS' great resource: A Map of Gender-Diverse Cultures Throughout The World,

"Chuckchi (Siberia)

"The Chuckchi (and neighboring indigenous peoples including the Koryak, and the Kamchadal) are a nomadic, shamanic people who embrace a third gender. Generally shamans are biologically male with some adoption of female roles and appearance who married men but also were not subject to the social limitations placed on women. Third gender Chuckchi could accompany men on the hunt, as well as take care of family."

So cool to know!

Here's more from the pbs-linked website of Raven Kaldera. Alhough it has a pretty negative spin on being gender non-conforming and not playing by the "gender rules," it does provides more detail about how the third gender was recognized and functioned in these societies:

If you look at the research on shamanism worldwide - and especially that of the subarctic circumpolar shamanisms, from Siberia to the Inuit - you find, over and over, the disturbingly frequent presence of spirit-workers who transgressed gender roles and indulged in unusual sexual practices. In some cultures, just showing evidence of these behaviors was considered a sign that a child was bound to be a spirit-worker of some sort.

This was remarked on particularly in Siberian shamanism, specifically among the Chukchi, Koryak, and Kamchadal, and across the Bering Strait with the Inuit. While Siberia may seem to be a long way in the minds of many people, from Scandinavia or even Finland, there are many things that the circumpolar subarctic shamanic traditions have in common, much more so than shamanic traditions from further south. …

Interviews with these "transformed shamans" report that the spirits informed the shamans in question that they were required to put on the clothing and take up the jobs of the opposite sex; in some cases, they lived their whole life in this way, including taking lovers appropriate to their role, and in some cases the male-to-female shamans would ritually mime childbirth. (Even here, however, the "special" role of these shamans as still not playing by the gender rules can be seen; a "shaman-wife" of this type did not have to observe the taboos of women, but could accompany their husband to battle, and rather than taking their husband's name, sometimes the husband took theirs instead.) Sometimes one also finds reports of male-to-female shamans who changed gender later in life, but remained husbands to their wives and fathers to their children, merely adopting female clothing and household jobs. Some merely donned women's clothing during ceremonies.

There's more on the Chukchi people at this site, where I learned they call themselves the Lygoravetlat, which means "genuine people."

And also at this site on Siberian Shamanism, that quotes from Yuri Rythkeu in National Geographic [February 1983],

"The Chukchi are a people who used to herd reindeer on the tundra and set up coastal settlements on the Bering Sea and other coastal polar areas. Originally they were nomads who hunted wild reindeer but over time evolved into two groups: 1) Chavchu (nomadic reindeer herders), some of whom who rode reindeers and others who didn’t; and 2) maritime settlers who settled along the coast and hunted sea animals."

A Chukchi shaman was "was the preserver of tradition and cultural experience. He was meteorologist, physician, philosopher, and ideologist—a one-man Academy of Sciences. His success depended on his skill at prognosticating the presence of game, determining the route of the reindeer herds, and predicting the weather well in advance. In order to do all this , he must above all be an intelligent and knowledgeable man."

Despite the male pronoun used above, it's fascinating to learn more about what people in this third-gender role did in their culture.

Knowing that indigenous people in Russia saw - and still see - gender differently than the binary (and dominant) Russian and Western culture's view that you're-either-a-guy-or-a-girl is inspiring. People who combine male and female qualities, roles and attributes to form their own gender identity feels very similar to the "Gender Queer" identities being claimed by younger people in the LGBTQ community today.

And knowing that Russia has this history of indigenous gender non-conformity - an honored and sacred position among their society - in the Chukchi, the Koryak and the Kamchadal? That's something to celebrate!

***

Add To The Celebration:

Who are the Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Trans and Queer Russians you'd like to celebrate? Tell me your favorites in comments, or by twitter, and on the final day of the Olympics, I'll run a rainbow variety-pack post with everyone's suggestions!

Please Note: Given the situation in Russia, I'm thinking we should keep it to either people who are no longer living in Russia or are historical. I'd hate to create a list that then would be used against people by a repressive, anti-LGBTQ regime.

Having said that, there is a lot of Queer Russian heritage to explore and so many LGBTQ Russians we can celebrate!

***

Take Action (and today's bonus video!):

Get the Olympic sponsors that count you as a customer to know that you expect them to stand up and speak out in support of Russia's LGBTQ community.

Here are the main ten sponsors of the Sochi Olympic shame:

I LOVE this grand-standingUP moment, as reported in the International Business Times, of European Parliament Member Michael Cashman cutting his Visa Card To Protest Sochi.

“The discrimination, violence and human rights attack by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin are entirely unacceptable. Attacks on lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people are equally unacceptable,” Michael Cashman, a British Labour MEP representing the English region of the West Midlands, said. “I trust the athletes to speak out in Sochi, but I condemn sponsors like McDonald's, Coca-Cola and Visa for their continued support of the Games. I will boycott the sponsors, starting now, with Visa. Madame President, not in my name!” He then proceeded to pull out of his pocket a Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) card and a pair of scissors, cutting it in half.

Here's the video:



Go, Michael!

Now each of us has to figure out how WE can stand UP and have our voice heard, too!

Tsar Peter The Great! Day 3 of our Celebration of Russian LGBTQ Pride: An Olympic Counter-Programming Event #OlympicShame #RussianPride

Peter The Great

Born in 1672 and crowned Tsar when he was ten, Peter grew up to become the guy who:

In 1721, proclaimed Russia an empire and was accorded the title of Emperor of All Russia, Great Father of the Fatherland, and "the Great."

Modernized the Russian alphabet, introduced the Julian calendar (how most of the world keeps track of time now), and established the first Russian newspaper

Opened Russia to the West, sending Russians to Europe to learn arts, crafts and skills to bring back and inviting European engineers, shipbuilders, architects, craftsmen and merchants to come be part of modernizing Russia

Made beards illegal as part of his drive to 'modernize' Russia, because "in Europe smooth cheeks, bare chins and expertly twirled moustaches were all the rage." Crazy as it sounds, "Beard patrols would knock on the houses of local bearded men and forced them to shave or pay the extortionate ‘beard tax’.")

Expanded Russia's territory through wars, changed how the army, navy and government was structured, moved the capital of Russia from Moscow to St. Petersburg and...

Was bisexual.

Oh, and he was over six-and-a-half feet tall.

Did I mention he had love affairs with women and men?

While the info about Peter the Great's relationships with women is wide-spread (he married twice and had 11 children) you won't read about his love affairs with men in the biography here, or here, but it's mentioned:

In the great chapter by Simon Karlinsky, "Russia's Gay Literature and Culture: The Impact of the October Revolution" in "Hidden From History: Reclaiming The Gay & Lesbian Past," Edited by Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus and George Chauncey, Jr.

It's brought up in a discussion of how the first laws against male gay love happened during his reign. In 1706, his German military advisors drafted a new military law against gay men loving each other, and while the penalty was burning at the stake,

"However, the tsar, who was known to dabble in bisexuality on occasion, soon mitigated this penalty and there are no known instances when it was applied... The consensus of Russian historians is that the military regulations of 1706 and 1716 pertained only to soliders on active duty and did not concern the rest of the population."

The same story about Peter having relationships with men, too, is cited on page 157 of "Women in Russia and Ukraine," edited by Rosalind J. Marsh.

"The punishment for 'unnatural lechery' - burning at the stake - first appeared in 1706 in Peter the Great's military code, composed on the Swedish model. Yet in 1716, Peter, himself not averse to bisexual relations, watered down the punishment, replacing it with lifelong exile (in the event of the use of violence), and that only for military personnel."

Which sounds more like the law's intent was to prohibit rape more than consensual intimacy between two men.

Peter being Bisexual also talked about at this website, where Frank Sanello writes:

Peter the Great, an open bisexual, promoted his stable-boy lover to prince and governor of Russia's Baltic states.

Peter had managed to cow Russia's aristocracy into submission, and unlike Edward II's assassins, the Russian nobility did not object to Peter treating his Stable Boy Charming like a prince, literally.

In another article, Frank explains that

"in his 1980 Pulitzer-Prize winning biography, Peter the Great, Robert K. Massie denied Peter was bisexual while at the same time admitting that the tsar and his favorite courtier, Alexander Menshikov, a handsome stable boy Peter promoted to prince and governor of Russia’s Baltic states, took naps together, during which Peter used his favorite’s stomach as a pillow to rest his head on"

In the Russiapedia entry "Prominent Russians: Aleksandr Menshikov" Peter and Aleksandr's relationship -and whether it was a romantic love affair - is openly discussed:

Although Peter and Aleksandr often competed with each other to catch the attention of young, pretty daughters of aristocrats, historians even in Peter’s times wondered whether Menshikov and the Tsar had a romantic relationship themselves. One described their relations as “more love than friendship”, and the two would often sulk and fight, sometimes literally, with several accounts of Peter punching Menshikov until he bled. Menshikov was known in the court as the only man who could soften the Tsar’s violent temper (often alcohol-induced), and the relationship between the two never appears to have flagged, right up to Peter’s death.

For two years after Peter's death, Aleksandr pretty much ruled Russia. But then, after Peter's heir turned against him, Aleksandr was stripped of his power and exiled to Siberia, where he died two years later. (That's from this bio, which calls Aleksandr the "good friend and companion" of Peter the Great.)

It's a shame that as part of the Olympic opening ceremony, when, as the British Express put it, "The floor of the stadium was then transformed into a raging sea depicting the reign of former emperor Peter the Great during the era of Imperial Russia" the fact the Peter was a man who loved women and men was hidden.

But we can talk about it - and tell the world!

Because knowing that one the most famous leaders of Russia in history was bisexual? That's something to celebrate!

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Take Action:

Check out the flow of Olympic-themed tweets over at twitter, and chime in with your own supportive-to-LGBTQ-Russian comments of your own! The Olympics in Sochi are Putin's attempt to spotlight how awesome Russia is - but the Russia he wants to create is one without gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer history or people. Let's remind him - and the world - that Russia is great not despite LGBTQ Russians, but because of them, too!

Some hashtags to co-opt:

#Olympics #Sochi #sochiproblems #sochi2014 #olympicgames


***

Add To The Celebration:

Who are the Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Trans and Queer Russians you'd like to celebrate? Add your favorites in comments, and on the final day of the Olympics, I'll run a rainbow variety-pack post with everyone's suggestions!

Please Note: Given the situation in Russia, I'm thinking we should keep it to either people who are no longer living in Russia or are historical. I'd hate to create a list that then would be used against people by a repressive, anti-LGBTQ regime.

Having said that, there is a lot of Queer Russian heritage to explore and so many LGBTQ Russians we can celebrate!

***

Your Bonus:

Check out this performance from before the broadcast Olympic opening ceremony. It's members of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs choir (No kidding) - and they're performing, as NBC put it: "a rousing rendition of Daft Punk's 'Get Lucky'"

You can click this link to check out the choir's Olympics performance, but NBC hasn't made it embeddable. I did find this version on youtube:



It's a great reminder that under all their military uniforms and hetero posturing and external stern-ness (in turns both personal and political) Russian people are just like the rest of us. Some are straight, some are queer, some go to bed early, and some are up all night to get lucky.

Anna Yevreinova! Day 2 of our Celebration of Russian LGBTQ Pride: An Olympic Counter-Programming Event #OlympicShame #RussianPride

The image of Anna Yevreinova is from this website.

Anna Yevreinova and her life-partner, Maria Feodorova, were a lesbian couple on the Russian literary scene in the 1880s and 1890s.

I learned about Anna and Maria in Simon Karlinsky's excellent chapter, "Russia's Gay Literature and Culture: The Impact of the October Revolution" in "Hidden From History: Reclaiming The Gay & Lesbian Past" edited by Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus and George Chauncey, Jr. (on page 350 and 351.)

Anna was born in 1884.

She held a law degree from Leipzig University - many sources name her as the first Russian woman to be awarded a law degree from that university.

She and Maria were "highly active" in the feminist movement.

Anna was the founder, publisher and editor of an important literary journal called "The Northern Herald," which, along with Maria, she edited.

How cool that Anna and Maria were a couple in love and in their life's work!


There was a fascinating description of Anna in a footnote of a letter Anton Chekhov wrote Anna on March 10, 1889. The description is by Zinaida Gippius, and it's on page 133 of "Anton Chekhov's Life and Thought: Selected Letters and Commentary":

"Inseparable from her pugdog, her gray hair closely cropped, a maroon velvet jacket thrown over her shoulders, she was constantly in three simultaneous but different kinds of excitement." 

It goes on to explain that Chekhov corresponded with Anna, both about his own submissions to Northern Herald as well as to suggest medical, agricultural and other natural-science experts who could "contribute interesting articles to her journal."

The name of the literary journal Anna published has also been translated as "The Northern Messenger." Here's an image of an 1894 cover:

It's interesting how in the online St. Petersburg Encyclopaedia, they don't use Anna's first name in the description of the journal - just initials, saying

"SEVERNY VESTNIK (Northern Herald), a literary, scientific and political journal, of populist (narodnik) orientation, which appeared in 1885-98 until 1889 under А. М. Evreinova's editorship."

In the list below that of "Persons" associated with the journal, Anna's name is fourth down in a list of 19. There, she's listed as "Evreinova Anna Mikhailovna" - but it does make you feel like they're downplaying the fact that she was a woman in a position of power who helped guide and shape Russian literary culture.

If they're not talking about her being a woman, I doubt her love for Maria is highlighted in Russia, either.

For all Anna and Maria did and were, and for how they inspire us today, their love is something to celebrate!

***

Check out this great artist's portrait of this pioneering Russian Lesbian couple - Anna and Maria - at To Russia With Love. a very cool art and advocacy project to "portray iconic and influential queer figures from Russia's history" and "create conversations" by getting their images of queer Russians out into the world.

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Take Action:

Today, maybe even while you're watching the Olympics with them, talk to friends and family members about what's going on with Russia's anti-gay laws, to where even defending gay people's right to exist is a crime.  Consider using this quote from Gary Shteyngart, interviewed in the February 10, 2014 TIME (on page 64), who said

"What a jerk, by the way, this Putin. It's like he figured out, O.K., you can't go after the Jews anymore, so who're we going to go after now?"

Drawing the parallels between the scapegoating of the LGBTQ community now with Russia's sad and terrible history of scapegoating the Jewish community there is powerful.  It can lead to discussing how politicians manipulate hate (and fear) to keep themselves in power and deflect attention from that which they'd rather the people in their country not notice. (Like a magician, who distracts you so you don't see the slight-of-hand.)

***

Add To The Celebration:

Who are the Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Trans and Queer Russians you'd like to celebrate? Add your favorites in comments, and on the final day of the Olympics, I'll run a rainbow variety-pack post with everyone's suggestions!

Please Note: Given the situation in Russia, I'm thinking we should keep it to either people who are no longer living in Russia or are historical. I'd hate to create a list that then would be used against people by a repressive, anti-LGBTQ regime.

Having said that, there is a lot of Queer Russian heritage to explore and so many LGBTQ Russians we can celebrate!

***

Today's Bonus:

What Google's Home page looked like yesterday, the opening day of the 2014 Winter Olympics

I have to shout-out to Google for their Opening Olympic Day search engine logo which was all Rainbow LGBTQ Pride!  They even added this line from the Olympic Charter:

"The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play." –Olympic Charter

Go, Google! Thanks for Standing UP!

Tchaikovsky! Day 1 of our Celebration of Russian LGBTQ Pride: An Olympic Counter-Programming Event #OlympicShame #RussianPride

Pyotr [Peter] Ilich Tchaikovsky

The guy who composed THE NUTCRACKER, SWAN LAKE, the 1812 OVERTURE and SLEEPING BEAUTY was gay. And Russian!

Born in Votkinsk, Russia on May 7, 1840, Tchaikovsky was pretty tortured about being gay. He taught music for a while, then had a female benefactor who let him just compose for years. He briefly married a woman but the idea of being intimate with her was so off-putting that the marriage ended just weeks after it began. After the wedding disaster, he wrote his brother Anatoly that there was “nothing more futile than wanting to be anything other than what I am by nature.”

As reported in the British Newspaper The Guardian, recently (in Sept of 2013),

Russia's culture minister has denied that composer Peter Tchaikovsky was gay, discarding what has long been regarded as historical fact. Vladimir Medinsky claimed that there was no evidence to suggest the 19th-century composer was anything other than a lonely man who failed to find a suitable woman to marry...

Historians, however, say there is a mountain of evidence to the contrary.

"In the case of Tchaikovsky his homosexuality is so well documented by his own writings and the writings of others that it is simply ludicrous to suggest otherwise," said the author Konstantin Rotikov, who has written a history of gay Saint Petersburg. "It's a historical fact. History doesn't change just because we are trying to push a certain agenda today."

Sadly, the biopic on Tchaikovsky's life being filmed for Russian television reportedly won't include his being gay, even though everyone knows he was. Where are the laws against heterosexual propaganda? How about we protect children from lies about gay, lesbian, bi, trans and queer people that make us either bad people or, if we did good, try to make us straight?

Tchaikovsky's music is iconic and familiar world-wide. I love to imagine how thrilled Pyotr might have been to see how Matthew Bourne took his Swan Lake ballet and made it a breathtaking ballet where the romance and dancing was between men.

This still takes my breath away...




Want to know more about Tchaikovsky? While it still shows him being gay, you can check out the article on Tchaikovsky at Russiapedia under Prominent Russians.  More reliably, you can download a pdf biography of Tchaikovsky here at the LGBTQ History Month website. There's also this biography at PBS. And this lecture by Professor Robert Greenberg, which looks at Tchaikovsky's life and music and how they were intertwined, is excellent.

And through it all, it's Tchaikovsky's music that stays with us - beautiful, passionate, amazing, gay Russian music.

Definitely something to celebrate!

***

Take Action:

Want to protest the Olympic embrace of Russia's Anti-Gay Laws and help add your voice for change? Check out (and sign) this petition to Olympic sponsors Coca-Cola, asking them to stand tall against homophobia and prejudice.

Oh, and tell everyone you meet today that Tchaikovsky was a man who could fall in love with another man.

And listen to some of his amazing music!

***

Add To The Celebration:

Who are the Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Trans and Queer Russians you'd like to celebrate? Add your favorites in comments, and on the final day of the Olympics, I'll run a rainbow variety-pack post with everyone's suggestions!

Please Note: Given the situation in Russia, I'm thinking we should keep it to either people who are no longer living in Russia or are historical. I'd hate to create a list that then would be used against people by a repressive, anti-LGBTQ regime.

Having said that, there is a lot of Queer Russian heritage to explore and so many LGBTQ Russians we can celebrate!

***

Today's bonus: This awesome PSA from The Canadian Institute of Diversity and Inclusion, a fitting (and hilarious) response to Russia's efforts to deny LGBTQ involvement and presence in the Olympics:

Russian Broadway Shut Down - Broadway Artists Put On A Show To Protest Russia's Homophobic Laws

This video made me laugh, think - and I even got all choked up at one point. (Thanks, Jonathan Groff!)

With the Winter Olympics starting tomorrow, it's well worth watching, and sharing. Dah.

Anything That Loves - Comics Beyond "Gay" and "Straight" - A Comic Anthology About Bisexuality

Anything That Loves: Comics Beyond "Gay" and "Straight" a comic anthology edited by Charles "Zan" Christensen

From confessional, personal accounts to erotic flights of fancy to undersea identity politics, this collection of comics invites the reader to step outside of the categories and explore the wild and wonderful uncharted territory between “gay” and “straight”.

The anthology features contributions both long-established and new creators, with brand-new work from MariNaomi, Amy T. Falcone, Jason Thompson, Kevin Boze, Roberta Gregory, Tara Madison Avery, and Nick Leonard and a full roster that includes Erika Moen, Maurice Vellekoop, Ellen Forney, Leanne Franson… more than 30 contributors in all.

The book features an introduction from editor Charles "Zan" Christensen, explaining the origins of the project and the reason he felt it was important, as a gay man, to tackle the topic of prejudice against bisexuality.

"Could repression of same-sex attraction by bisexual people," writes Christensen, "be the major contributor to the myth that gay people can 'choose' heterosexuality? They aren’t 'gay' and hiding it, and being 'bisexual' really isn’t something that straight or gay culture puts much stock in. It’s all-or-nothing, and people cram themselves into the box that seems to chafe the least. Could the refusal to accept the existence of bisexuality, then, be a root cause of homophobia itself?"

Note: This title may be best suited for older teens, as many of the contributions deal directly with sex and sexual situations.

Add your review of "Anything That Loves" in comments!

Helleville - Gay Teen Paranormal Horror and Romance

Helleville by Hayden Thorne

All fifteen-year-old Noah Hipwell wants is to go through high school in peace. Yet he finds himself suspended after a bully pushes him too far, and Noah’s forced to defend himself. His mother, fed up with the school’s indifference to his plight, pulls him out completely and leaves Noah uncertain of his future while they look for a good and safe school for him.

All Dorothy “Dot” Hipwell wants is to go through single motherhood in peace. Yet she and her son are harassed by weekly phone calls from her evangelical family hell-bent on guilt-tripping them both back into the fold. Then Noah’s grandparents ask strange questions about their old van after dropping cryptic references to a group called The Soul Warriors. Fed up, Dot takes Noah away for a much-needed getaway, only to find themselves suddenly transported to an alternate world, where a town called Helleville awaits them and all other condemned souls.

Along with warm-blooded, living human beings, the Hipwells rub shoulders with zombies, vampires, house ghosts, and occasional “green vomit piles” while picking up the pieces and sorting out what could very well be an eternity in a bizarre, fanciful, and humorous world of ghouls and banned books.

When residents suddenly disappear one by one with no trace and for no logical reason, however, doubts being “housed” in an alternate world for their sins are raised, and time suddenly becomes of the essence as Noah and the rest of Helleville’s condemned race to find answers to what’s quickly turning into a dangerous puzzle.

Add your review of "Helleville" in comments!

Counter Programming The Olympics - 17 Days Of Celebrating Queer, Gay, Lesbian, Bi and Transgender Russians and Russian History Starts Friday!

It's something I've been thinking about for months, with the anti-gay laws in Russia and the upcoming winter Olympics on this collision course of injustice and prejudice, what can I do here on this blog to help make a difference?

I've signed petitions (lots of them.)

Boycotting the Olympics seems unfair to the athletes.

Moving the Olympics out of Russia (to someplace like Sweden) sounded best to me, but that didn't happen.

Pressuring the Olympic sponsors (looking at you, Coca-Cola and McDonalds) to speak up against the anti-gay laws (which activists are doing) is a great idea, but the big-money machinery of the Olympics churns on, seemingly uncaring of the rights of queer people in Russia (both Russian and foreign.)

But we do care. Millions of us.

And what we can do - each of us - is raise our voice!


Thousands of Swedes did just that, singing the Russian national anthem in the Stockholm Olympic Stadium, in support of Russian LGBTQ people. It's an event created by the group "Live and Let Love" and the video is very moving.



And I'll be raising my voice here. For 17 days, starting on February 7th and ending on February 23, for each day of the 2014 Winter Olympics, I'll be featuring a celebration of Queer Russia. Gay Russia. Lesbian Russia. Bi Russia. Transgender Russia. We'll be looking at people and history and celebrating just how Gay Russia has been, is, and will always be.

Since my website is geared for youth 11 years old and up, if I was in Russia, just sharing the history of LGBTQ Russians like I'm going to do would be illegal under their new laws. Mentioning that the famous Russian composer Tchaikovsky was gay is something for which I could be arrested. Fined. Even put in jail for up to two weeks. (A Russian newspaper was just fined under their laws for running an article about a middle school teacher who was fired for being gay.)

Yes, and Tchaikovsky was gay - he'll be featured on Friday! (He even had a gay brother.)

I'm grateful to live in the U.S.A. where I can speak out and stand up, but I think about all the LGBTQ people who aren't free to raise their voices. The ones in Russia. The ones in other countries where being yourself (if you're different from the heterosexual norm) is a crime.

And I know I need to RAISE MY VOICE.

Join me.

And together, we'll sing the glories of being authentic, and the power of Russian Pride.

Here's to a gay gay gay Olympic season!

(And an extra-special shout-out of "GOOD LUCK!" to the five athletes brave enough to be openly queer going into the Olympics!)

Namaste,
Lee

Transgender Teens and Twenty-Somethings Are Sharing Their Stories

As reported in the Los Angeles Times in a fascinating article by Emily Alpert Reyes,

"Thousands of teens and twentysomethings who are transgender — identifying with a gender that is different than their sex at birth – have turned to YouTube as a kind of public diary. As they start taking hormones or using new names, many are documenting their journeys on video, baring their souls and revealing their changing faces to strangers online.
Their videos tell stories that were once routinely hidden: Transgender people were told to abandon their old lives and craft a new history after making their transition."

but today, many teens are

"embracing their transition as an essential and even celebrated part of their identity."

It's a public shout-out to authenticity, to the courage of being yourself and not hiding your journey. Each one of us, no matter how different we might feel, is not alone.

Just knowing the videos exist (kind of like my Gender 101 series of videos exploring Gender Queer identity) makes our world a better, safer, more celebrating-of-diversity place.

And that's a good thing.

You can check out the article here, and check out the video journals at youtube for two of the trans people featured in the article: Kat Blaque and Asher Zickert. (I couldn't find Niko Walker and Naomi Ngoy's youtube channels - if you know those links, add them in a comment and I'll fix that here. Thanks!)

Namaste,
Lee


Thanks to my husband and our friend Chris for sharing this article with me, so I could share it with all of you!

Love In The Time Of Global Warming - A Teen Fantasy "Chockfull of LGBT Characters"

Love In The Time Of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block

Seventeen-year-old Penelope (Pen) has lost everything—her home, her parents, and her ten-year-old brother. Like a female Odysseus in search of home, she navigates a dark world full of strange creatures, gathers companions and loses them, finds love and loses it, and faces her mortal enemy.

Thanks to my friend Lesley for letting me know about the novel's cast being "chockfull of LGBT characters." Add your review of "Love In The Time Of Global Warming" in comments!

Help PFLAG Out With This Quick Survey For Trans Allies, Family, and Trans and Gender Non-Conforming People

PFLAG (Parents, Friends and Family of Lesbians and Gays) is asking for help with their "Straight For Equality" Project, as they put together

"a new resource to invite, educate, and engage allies of people who are transgender and gender nonconforming"

Go here to check out the project, and add your voice!


Namaste,
Lee

Superior - A teen lesbian dystopian coming-of-age/adventure/romance Novella

Superior by Zoe Amos

After the Water Wars led to Civil War II, Superior Protectorate established itself in what is now Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Two young women, Miss Kristian and Miss Rhona, will soon be of marrying age, but that means being tied to a hustand instead of each other--a forbidden prospect. Powerless to change the rules of a nation that supposedly protects them, the young lovers are thrust into a perilous journey in their quest for freedom and a life together.

The author, Zoe, is also a blogger at lesbian.com. Add your review of "Superior" in comments!

The Bravest Knight Who Ever Lived - A Picture Book I Wish Had Been Read To Me When I Was A Little Kid

The Bravest Knight Who Ever Lived by Daniel Errico, illustrated by Mo Qovaizi

Cedric grows up a pumpkin farmer, dreaming of one day being a knight. Pretending with friends, he always saves the day, and is offered a flower by the rescued princess. He always kindly declines, just saying that isn't how the story ends.

Through brave adventures, Cedric's dreams come true - he ultimately becomes a knight, bests (but doesn't kill) a dragon, and saves royal siblings, a princess and a prince. And when the rescued princess asks to be his bride, we find out how Cedric's fairy tale truly ends.



A free video version of the picture book, being read, is here:




This book was published by the author, and how I wish it had been read to me when I was a little kid. Add your review of "The Bravest Knight Who Ever Lived" in comments!