"The officer said:" Look, fag is coming ""

Parents sent their gay son to the army. There he collided with bullying and violence. Here is his story

Six years ago, Denis's parents learned that he was gay, and his father decided that the army was “re -ering” his son. So Denis spent a year in a military unit in Kaliningrad, where commanders and colleagues mocked him. "Cold" publishes his story about this experience - as well as how it changed his life.

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For security reasons, "cold" does not call Denis's last name. Our fact made up the fact that this is a real person.

"Mom began to sob, and father - yell"

It was always clear to me: I am friends with the girls, and I like the boys. Close friends knew about this and supported me. Before the army, I did not encounter pronounced homophobia addressed to me. True, he did not tell his parents about his orientation. For them, I had a “girl”-my Lesbian friend. We covered each other in front of our families: when we went to the night to partners, for example.

Shortly before my 18th anniversary, my parents left for business in Moscow, and my boyfriend came to me at night. Father and mother had to return only the next evening. And in the morning I woke up and saw my parental car in the yard. I asked the guy to wait in my room, and he went to the kitchen. My parents were already waiting for me there. Having lowered their eyes, they asked who it was in my bedroom. I said nothing. Then my mother began to sob, and my father - yell that this is a perversion and I definitely need to go to the army for re -education. I collected things, and the guy and I left. I returned home only after the army.

My father served in the Soviet Union, and it was a difficult experience for him. He did not tell details, but, as I understand it, he seriously suffered from his grandfature. Therefore, we had an agreement with him: from the army, he would fail me. Because of this, after the ninth grade, I decided to go to college for a focus, and not to the university. The college gave me a delay from the army only six months after the onset of adulthood - then my father was supposed to organize a slope.

[After the involuntary camming out] I was left to study in college for another six months. Army fees were scheduled for May 27, 2017. All these six months I lived with my friend. Sometimes I met with my mother: she tried to convince her father, but in vain. Then I went to the military registration and enlistment office to abandon the service for reasons of conscience [and undergo an alternative service]. But they told me that without a chance. Like, there are few conscripts in Vladimir, and the plan for them is large. Therefore, release can only be obtained through the court, and such cases are considered for a long time, most often when a person already serves. Then I fell into apathy. He studied, read books and slept. Fear crushed all other feelings and emotions. My boyfriend tried to find a way out, but I did not have the strength to save himself, and the white ticket was expensive.

"My colleagues had cowards of khaki, and I had Mickey Maus"

I remember how they brought me to the military registration and enlistment office. I looked at the streets of Vladimir and thought: I wonder if I would see them again? Other recruits had the same confused faces. We were taken to Moscow, and from there - at the Aeroexpress in Domodedovo. At the airport, people looked at us sympathetically, someone took a picture in steadily. All this time before the landing we did not know where we were flying; It was impossible to ask questions. When I saw Kaliningrad on the scoreboard, I exhaled. I read a lot about different Russian military units, and the Baltic Fleet was not famous for her grandfather - unlike the Pskov landing, for example.

I was brought to the barracks shortly before the end. Everyone around stupidly ran in different directions. I was at a loss. Then someone yelled: "Smiryly!" I did not know what to do. I saw that everyone was standing close to each other in the corridor, and stood at the very end. Everyone was ordered to undress. My colleagues had cowards of khaki, and I had Mickey Maus. How did I know that linen should be selected in tone? No one warned me. The company commander came up to me and began to yell at me with a selected obscenity. He ordered to show the armpits-and even more broke, because something was shaved there. It sounds funny, but in fact, I recall this shaving armpits with a dull razor and a daily demonstration of their strangers, I yells. In general, as I was scared in these first days in the army ... I never experienced this - neither before nor after. When they announced the hang up, I lay down on the old mattress, yellow-brown from stains, buried in the pillow and sobbed.

The next day, the dining room was the main test. The fact is that they do not explain anything in the army, but you must know all the rules from somewhere. So, as it turned out, 40 minutes are allotted for food. Imagine: a queue of 100 people, and four women slowly lay out food on plates. There was three to four minutes to absorb food. Many threw the second right in the soup for speed. When I did not meet the established time, not knowing about him, the company commander began to yell that I was fucked up. I thought they would beat me. I knew that it was forbidden, but in the army you feel completely powerless: you are isolated, you don’t even have a phone to make an emergency call. As a result, it cost: as a punishment I was forced to wash toilets. The first weeks I ate almost nothing - I just did not have time.

Phones were given only on Sundays - for an hour. Therefore, the guy and I wrote letters to each other. Since the officers read all the correspondence, we agreed that I would call him Olesya, and he would write from a female person. A few months later we lost vigilance and sometimes began to use men's pronouns. It was the fifth month of my service when one officer said, pointing at me, another: "Look, the fag is coming." This insult was picked up by other officers, and then soldiers. The colleague from another unit informed me that their officer told the whole platoon that I was writing love letters to the guy. I asked my boyfriend not to write anymore, but it was too late: hell began.

“One of them shouted:“ Let's lower it! ””

Insults have become an obligatory part of my life. I could not go through the barracks so as not to hear the words “fag” several times. In the dining room, I was not allowed to sit at any of the tables. I then worked as a clerk, so each time I went to eat to my office. I had three friends in the army, but they did not stand up for me. At first I was offended, and then I realized that this was their only way to survive. In the army, there is a so -called asset - these are aggressive guys whom the commanders use to maintain order and hierarchy. To do this, they need to rot someone. Mostly they poisoned those who were different: a boy from the Dagestan village who spoke poorly in Russian, an unscrupulous colleague and me. Many, even neutrally tuned towards us, joined the persecution, so as not to become a victim of an “asset”.

The culmination of bullying was the episode in the bath. It so happened that I had to go inside with the guys from the Asset. I washed in one corner, they are six people - in the opposite. I was in a hurry. It was clear that nothing good in a closed room with them was waiting for me. When I wandered and hastily headed for the exit, one of them shouted: “Let's lower it!” Then all six clamped me in the corner and tried to persuade me to the blowjob. I made a lower voice and said that I would fight, and then I would write a complaint about them. Now it’s ridiculous to remember - as if a complaint would help me. But one of them suddenly said: "Okay, let him live." I jumped out, quickly dressed and ran to my office. There I had a photo book with the black and white shots of St. Petersburg: I ​​leafed through it every time the persecution became unbearable. I imagined how I sit on the plane, fasten the seat belt, fly in Pulkovo, and then I walk around the city.

When grandfathers served, persecution came to naught. There were only my one -year -olds and the new guys with whom I had either neutral or friendly relations. I was a little defending the position of clerk a little - they often began to apply to me with requests: to include in the list for awards, for example. Since the company commander shifted all his tasks to me, I had such powers. I even acquired some influence. Before the 2018 presidential elections, a fat man from United Russia came to us - he said that we had to vote for the “supreme commander in chief Putin”. I did my own campaign work: I scared my colleagues that if they vote for Putin, you will have to serve two years instead of one. As a result, on our site, [Ksenia] Sobchak was the highest result among the entire area. By the way, even then, our commanders regularly talked about the evil NATO, the Nazis in Ukraine, and also described their shootings in the Donbass in paints.

"In the army, I became infected with toxic masculinity"

I returned from the army in the spring of 2018 with a clear understanding that I don’t want to be gay anymore. There was a feeling that the most serious problems in my life were a conflict with my father, persecution in the army - from my homosexuality. I did not want to associate myself with LGBT in order to avoid new problems. I parted on Instagram with my boyfriend and immediately blocked him. I could not tell him what happened to me. He also unconsciously shifted responsibility for what was happening to me in the army - to our letters. Now I regret it. He never found out what happened.

In the army, I became infected with toxic masculinity: I returned convinced that men are miners, and women are the guardian of the hearth. A few close friends ceased to communicate with me because of this. I also decided that I needed to build a family with a girl and have children. Fortunately, nothing happened and I have not ruined someone's life. After the demobilization, I completely isolated myself from the surrounding world. It lasted six months - then I went to the psychologist. She said that the army broke me. I was prescribed antidepressants.

After the demobilization, I lived with my parents for three more years. I never told them what was happening to me in the army: I did not want them to feel guilty. In the army, I myself often blamed my father in what was happening to me. But thanks to therapy, I managed to accept the fact that he has a different picture of the world. And that he acted from the best motives. I also realized that persecution could happen to me anywhere: for example, at work. Just because heteronormative propaganda, which flows from the TV, turns people in Russia into homophobes. And the only way not to encounter this is to leave this society.
Then I decided to repatriate to Israel. My plane landed in Ben-Gurion on February 23, 2022, and on September 23, I received a summons at the place of registration ( the cold failed to verify this information ).