The Yogyakarta Principles - Boris Dittrich

‘Does it hurt?’ I asked the girl. We were hiding behind a car in front of the Tverskaya police
station on Bolshaya Dmitrovka Street in Moscow. From the other side of the street a group
of skinheads and other anti-gay nationalists were throwing eggs at us. Most of the eggs hit
the wall of the police station but one landed between the girl’s neck and shoulders. The yolk
left a blurry, yellow mess.

A little while ago I had gone inside the police station and asked for protection of the group of gay and lesbian activists that were being hunted by their adversaries.
The police commander in charge dismissed me. ‘Go away’, he said, ‘We have other
matters to attend to.’ But now that the eggs which were thrown at us, hit the wall of his
police station, he decided to act. Several policemen came running through the front door and
dispersed the group of skinheads and fanatics. Not that this helped us very much, because
they assembled down the road and threatened us. They yelled: ‘Moscow is not Sodom. No
to pederasts. We hate you lesbians, leave our country. Russia should stay clean and pure.’ The
police did not arrest any of the hate speakers, but simply left us there, unprotected. The girl
cleaned her neck with a tissue paper. She was about twenty years old and the Gay Pride in
May 2007 was her first demonstration as a lesbian activist. She was not from Moscow, but
from a small town a few hours away. ‘Eggs don’t hurt. But words do,’ she said. ‘They seep
inside your head and nestle there. There is so much hatred against lesbians. Those words
will haunt me at night, when I can’t sleep. But I refuse to give in. This is also my country. And
I want to live here as a free citizen. I want to be allowed to express my sexual orientation. I
want to say out loud that I love my girlfriend without being afraid they will kill me for that.’