It has gay bars. And Cossacks. Not necsarily the same place.
Contents:
- HOW SOCHI BEME THE GAY OLYMPICS
- LIFE GO ON FOR SOCHI’S GAY MUNY, SPE 2014 WTER OLYMPICS
- SOCHI'S GAY SCENE
- DACHA, CHACHA AND A GAY BAR: 9 WAYS SOCHI SURPRIS
- EXCLIVE: SOCHI'S GAYS HAD PROTECTN FROM THE MAYOR WHO CLAIMED THEY DON'T EXIST
HOW SOCHI BEME THE GAY OLYMPICS
Castg asi anti-gay atmosphere Rsia, and Sochi’s mayor claimg “There are no gays here,” many the muny move on wh life * gay sochi *
A monstrator holds a rabow flag and the Rsian natnal flag durg a prott agast Rsia's anti-gay laws outsi the Rsian embassy Berl. (Rters/Thomas Peter)In Augt 1982, 1, 350 athlet om 12 untri gathered San Francis for the first-ever Gay Gam. The Stonewall rts were more than a the past; a year earlier, reports had surfaced about rare pnmonia and ncer afflictg homosexuals New York and California—the first glimmers of what would later be lled AIDS.
Tom Wadll, a gay Olympian who would die of AIDS five years later, told The New York Tim that he had anized the athletic petn to “pull the gay muny together globally. ”At the time, that gay muny found self vastly different circumstanc around the world. As the activist Greg Day wrote the program for the gural Gay Gam, the U.
Had “much to learn om Holland, Norway and France where there are natnal laws protectg the rights of Gay and Lbian cizens.
LIFE GO ON FOR SOCHI’S GAY MUNY, SPE 2014 WTER OLYMPICS
At the Mayak Cabaret, one of the few gay clubs Rsia’s Olympic cy of Sochi, a man strips to his unrwear as a drag performer stris towards him. * gay sochi *
” “Direct ntact” wh athlet om the natns, Day argued, would be enlighteng for Amerins livg a untry where ternatnal visors were often nied entry bee of their sexual s later, sports are once aga stirrg to take stock of gay rights around the world.
Ultimately, the stlit Olympics history may be remembered for markg a perd which gay rights aren’t so much advancg globally as expandg certa parts of the world while regrsg or languishg 6, 000 athlet om 85 untri gather Sochi, the global gay-rights divi will be unmistakable. “The stat of LGBT rights globally is schizophrenic, ” Jsi Stern, executive director of the New York-based Internatnal Gay and Lbian Human Rights Commissn, tells me. But gay rights only me to the fore the summer of 2013, when the Rsian ernment, which crimalized homosexualy 1993, banned the dissematn of “propaganda of nontradnal sexual relatns” around children—makg more difficult for gay activists to operate and, rights groups allege, fuelg a rise anti-gay vlence the untry.
SOCHI'S GAY SCENE
* gay sochi *
Around the same time, Print Vladimir Put signed another law prohibg gay and lbian upl foreign untri om adoptg Rsian children. Put has sce clared that gays attendg the Olympics should feel "at ease” (so long as they “leave the children peace”), but that’s done ltle to prevent Sochi om beg a battleground for gay rights.
The mayor of Sochi sayg there were no gay people his cy didn’t help, perhaps the most provotive rebe to Rsia’s lims on LGBT rights, Print Obama has clud three openly gay athlet—Billie Jean Kg, Cal Cahow, and Brian Boano— the U. Gay Olympic athlet have exprsed outrage as well; the Atralian snowboarr Belle Brockhoff, for stance, has vowed to “rip on [Put’s] ass” after petg and possibly flash an oblique six-fger salute reference to “Prciple Six, ” an anti-discrimatn clse the Olympic Charter. Then there’s the solutn proposed by Saturday Night Live: an all-heterosexual Team USA figure-skatg squad:The laws agast homosexualy that have recently ma ternatnal headl aren’t necsarily new, Stern says, but they are “gettg more attentn today bee of the level of progrs that we’ve seen other parts of the world.
DACHA, CHACHA AND A GAY BAR: 9 WAYS SOCHI SURPRIS
”***The Sochi Olympics e durg a dizzyg perd the history of the global gay-rights movement. Brazil, Bra, France, New Zealand, and Uguay all legalized gay marriage as well (jt this week, Northern Cyps repealed Europe’s last sodomy law).
Qutned about gay prits, Pope Francis famoly asked, “Who am I to judge? ” It was enough for one activist to dub 2013 “the gayt year gay history”—or, as Rad Free Europe/Rad Liberty put , “the year LGBT rights went global.
”But gog global hasn’t necsarily meant gog the directn gay-rights advot would like. In recent months, India’s Supreme Court has restated a ban on gay sex ( one fell swoop doublg, by one timate, the number of gay people the world who n be imprisoned for their sexualy) and Atralia’s High Court has overturned gay-marriage legislatn.
EXCLIVE: SOCHI'S GAYS HAD PROTECTN FROM THE MAYOR WHO CLAIMED THEY DON'T EXIST
In Nigeria, Ai’s most populo untry, the thori have reportedly begun arrtg people unr a new law that outlaws gay advocy and punish gay marriage wh up to 14 years prison. In Uganda, Print Yoweri Meveni has exprsed opposn to a proposed bill metg out life imprisonment for gays—only to characterize homosexualy as an “abnormaly” and lbianism as a product of “sexual starvatn.