Russian Lesbian Families Featured in New Poster Project

By Dana Rudolph -

Whenever I get too frustrated with the pace of change for LGBT rights here in the U.S., I think of what things are like in many other places in the world. Places like Russia, where the level of visibility, understanding, and rights is even less than it is in most of our country.
An LGBT rights organization in St. Petersburg, Russia,  however, hopes to increase visibility and awareness with a series of five posters celebrating lesbian parents and their children. The group Coming Out is launching the “Rainbow Parents” project, according to a press release, "to present short stories from the life of gay families, to show their existence for the Russian society. The current threat of homophobia makes many gay families in Russia hide their sexual orientation from children, relatives and friends, from the society."
The posters touch on five topics: “Courage”, “Dignity”, “Rights”, “Happiness” and “Coming out”. You can view them in the original Russian or via Google Translate for a (more-or-less accurate) English translation. Although the words may sound rough to our ears, the love of the families shines through.
With the help of the Heinrich-Böll foundation in Moscow, the posters will be distributed among community organizations in St. Petersburg and the regional offices of the Russian LGBT Network. A note on the Coming Out Web site says they are willing to donate additional posters to anyone else who wants to hang them (presumably in Russia).
Coming Out also recently held the first gathering for LGBT parents in St. Petersburg. I doubt we've heard the last of what seems like an energetic group -- and I hope some of the various LGBT family organizations and projects in the U.S. reach out to them to share resources and stories.
Courage has many faces. These are some of them.

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