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Contents:

• 100 YEARS OF PHOTOGRAPHS OF GAY MEN LOVE
• MY HARROWG JOURNEY THROUGH GAY CONVERSN THERAPY RSIA
• GAY MAN IN RSIA APPARENTLY RAPED BY VIGILANT ON VIO
• KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY
• KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY

100 YEARS OF PHOTOGRAPHS OF GAY MEN LOVE

I soon published an article about Zhdanov, which my news se labeled for rears aged 18 and over—the standard age lim imposed on all stori about gays published Rsia sce the summer of 2013, when Vladimir Put signed a law banng the distributn of so-lled “gay propaganda” among mors. It was clear that gays Rsia had ser reason to fear for their liv. Petersburg, and other major Rsian ci, members of the Dobrоta gang (whose name, a sister twist, means “Kdns”) were seekg out gays on Grdr and Hor, then gog to their hom to beat and extort them.

If both rovg gangs and the regime self were tryg to purge Rsia of gays, did gays ever feel pelled to try to alter their sexualy themselv? My assignment was to track down gay men who had done jt this, and I had two weeks to file the piece. For one thg, I typilly avoid talkg to gay people, which almost certaly stemmed om my ep-seated homophobia.

I avoid the streets where I knew there to be unrground gay clubs—I didn’t want any of their patrons to take me for one of them.

MY HARROWG JOURNEY THROUGH GAY CONVERSN THERAPY RSIA

When yet another attempt was ma to hold a gay para Mosw, I bbed my hands together and thought: “Three, two, one… and here e the police wh their batons.

GAY MAN IN RSIA APPARENTLY RAPED BY VIGILANT ON VIO

” In my school years the worst possible sult was to be lled a “peth” or “rooster”—prison slang for a passive homosexual who is routely raped by other men. You’re not gay. ”) That kd of homophobia was not unmon; Rsia was an credibly homophobic untry.

Barbershops refed to adm gay patrons. I remember a state TV host clarg that hearts om gay an donors were unsuable for transplants, suggtg they stead be burned and buried.

And Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Rsian Orthodox Church—the church to which I was baptized—asserted that homosexualy was a “loss of moraly. ”In this homophobic society, was far easier for me to hate gay people than to face what I’d been avoidg sce my childhood: That I myself was gay.

KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY

All I had to go on were acunts of the Wtern experience of nversn therapy, like Sad to Be Gay, a 2005 BBC documentary that follows a reporter at a Christian nversn therapy clic Tennsee. The journalist that film said he was ready to swallow a pill that would cure his homosexualy. I wrote the same thg to everyone: “I am a journalist wrg a story about people who have been treated for homosexualy.

As wh my creatn of Ala, I still felt that I need a disguise—to adm that I was gay would have seemed like a one-way ticket to a new life that I wasn’t prepared turned out, Tr was fertile ground for my rearch. He said that Goland ed a three-stage nversn procs: Durg the first stage, wh the help of hypnosis, patients are plunged to what Goland lled a “sexual-psychologil vacuum, ” a void between sexual orientatns where homosexuals are no longer terted men but not yet terted women. ” (Acrdg to Andrey, Goland once remend to Agarkov that patients also be given high dos of ffee and apomorphe, a dg ed to duce nsea and vomg, while the psychiatrist turns on gay erotic vios.

KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY

They were nothg pared to the feelg of ner pury I would have if I uld actually make the transn to beg rrponnce wh Andrey led me to the webse of the clic Nizhny Novgorod, where I read about dozens of “cured” homosexuals. I was too embarrassed to ll a psychiatrist and adm to beg gay. As he relled, when his mother found out he was gay, she wept.