A Transsexual can become the next Ukrainian Supermodel. LGBT news from Belarus, Ukraine and Russia for the period 12—18/09/2016
Belarus is a country of non-banned PornHub and YouPorn. A transsexual is starring on the TV-show «Ukrainian Supermodel». Russian totalitarian fist continues clenching around LGBT rights, people are sneering: Milonov became a hero of the game. Highlights of LGBT news from Belarus, Ukraine and Russia in one article. Digest Gaypress.eu from September 12-18, 2016.
Russian authorities have blocked access to the Russian version of the global porn sites PornHub and YouPorn on the basis of «presence of pornographic content on the portals». PornHub is daily visited by 44 million people around the world. Recently, a gay porn for the blind has appeared on a portal. This fact triggered ironic photo-jokes in Belarus, where the most popular porn resource is accessible. Some bloggers have offered to host a PornHub’s advertise on the aircraft of the national airline company Belavia with the caption: «The whole world is watching this site, and Belarus as well». The footer of the photo encourages to come to Belarus and access the site. Who knows, maybe PornHub will become one of Belarusian tourism brands.
The Belarusians are joking about blocked PornHub и YouPorn sites in Russia. Original photo: Anton Motolko.
«Journalists for Tolerance» together with Gaypress are preparing presentation of annual monitoring for «Coverage of LGBT Subject in the Belarusian Mass Media». The event will take place on Friday, September, 23. The expert group has analyzed the publications of the most influential Belarusian media, has identified common trends in the media environment in Belarus, and found out the most significant mistakes and stereotypes when covering LGBT issues. All interested are welcomed to the presentation.
The historic event took place in Ukraine: a transgender man has proved in court that it is possible to change a gender in the documents without surgical interference. Fritz Von Klein (Friedrich Chernyshev) was born in Donetsk as a woman. He has a husband, and therefore considers himself a gay. Also Fritz gave a birth to the daughter two years ago. According to him, the identity of the person by gender is not equal to the sexual orientation, and a private decision to become a transgender is simply enough. However, the existing official order of changing sex is vaguely worded, that gives the right for health care organizations to require minimal surgery — removal of reproductive organs. According to transgender community, such a requirement is a violation of human rights, so they went to the court and won the case.
Transsexual woman participates in the TV contest «Ukrainian Supermodel». The «New Channel», one of the 15 companies comprising StarLightMedia group, is producing and broadcasting this TV-show. It is hard to believe that beautiful Julia Mochalova with tanned fit body, full lips and blonde hair was once a man. Because of her gender identity she suffered a lot in her childhood and teenage period. Therefore, the competition in the contest is a way to find her own backbone and prove personal worth. The organizers stated that they would not do any exceptions to Julia. The first tests for 15 competitors of the third season’s TV-show are over. Julia Mochalova has successfully passed all of them.
Scheduled for September 24th «Festival of equality» in Zaporozhye, Ukraine has become an occasion for information warfare. Firstly, at least half a dozen news sites called the festival dedicated to the discriminated groups as a «gay parade» or «LGBT parade», which is untrue because the event does not plan any street actions.
Secondly, the officials expressed the opinion that under the guise of human rights activities LGBT community imposes to Ukrainian society values that are contrary to Christian morality. Earlier they have blamed representatives of the LGBT for the fence repainting into rainbow colors near the Dnieper dam. Although, LGBT had nothing to do with this incident.
Ukrainian LGBT representatives are still the target of beatings, looting and dismissal for homophobic radicals, and for the attackers, who believe that their crimes will remain unpunished, since homosexuals afraid to disclose their sexual orientation more than to lose their wallets. Therefore, they do not seek help from the police.
Also the newly created Human Rights Office is in charged to increase the level of tolerance among the officers of Ukrainian National Police. Every policeman of human rights department has passed the examination with respect to non-discrimination and tolerance. According to official data, no complaints about police behavior have been reported yet.
The member of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, Vitaly Milonov has become a hero of the new game MilonovGo. The mission of the virtual Milonov is to save St. Petersburg and Russia from drug addicts, prostitutes and gay men, turning them into sportsmen, righteous and military respectively. Also Milonov must turn gay bars, shooting galleries and brothels into useful social institutions.
«Russian coming out» in the tea commercial — that is how social networks’ users interpreted the TV advertising. The video is about a teenage girl, who suffers from unrequited love to young man named Valera [Russian male name]. In order to cheer up the daughter, her father offered the girl a cup of tea saying: «There was Valera in my life too». According to the user’s opinion, the man admitted to his homosexuality that way.
The husband of the new Russian Children’s Ombudsman Anna Kuznetsova priest of the Russian Orthodox Church Alexei Kuznetsov believes that homosexuality is «a result of an incompetent education» and declaims against sex education at schools. Unlike her husband, the Ombudsman, the mother of six children, has not expressed her opinion on LGBT issues yet. Although a number of publications, without reference to the source, reported that the Ombudsman has repeatedly criticized same-sex families and defended the notorious «law of Dima Yakovlev», prohibiting the adoption of Russian orphans to foreign same-sex families.
The authorities of Kaluga, Tula and Tyumen cities, Russia denied the LGBT activist Nikolai Alekseev’s request to hold a gay pride march in the named cities. The official rejection states that «the goal of the planned activities is not in conformity with the Constitution of the Russian Federation, and violates the prohibition provided for by the legislation of the Russian Federation on administrative offenses». The activities were planned for the September, 18-22, in the face of the elections to the State Duma held on the September, 18. Alexeev sued the administration of Tyumen. If necessary, the gay activist plans to bring the case to the European Court of Human Rights.
