Translated material
I'm tired of being a lesbian
20-year-old St. Petersburg resident Lesya Aleshina (the character’s name has been changed at her request) is a lesbian who admitted that she would like to be heterosexual. She said on social networks that she would like to fall in love with a guy and start a family with him so as not to hide anymore, but she cannot do this because she still likes girls. Her story sparked controversy on TikTok and Twitter in the queer community and beyond. Some users accused Aleshina of internal homophobia, others thanked her for voicing their thoughts. Aleshina told Kholod how she deals with hate and why she doesn’t think it’s right to hush up the problem of internal homophobia that many LGBTQ+ people face.
I told him that I would like to have a relationship with a man, but I can’t. I was accused of homophobia
At the age of 12, I realized that I liked girls. In the summer of 2017, at a children's camp, my first crushes began to flare up: the guys and I played spin the bottle, and I felt excited when the neck pointed to the girl I liked. Despite the clear feeling that I was more interested in girls than boys, for a long time I could not accept my sexuality. For two years I told myself that it was just me imagining it—I was scared to admit that I was a lesbian, even to myself. Therefore, at the age of 14, I made a deal with myself that I was bisexual.
I decided that it was okay to kiss girls if I would only build serious relationships with guys. I think this attitude was imposed on me by society with its constant sexualization of lesbian relationships. It is believed that kissing a girl with a girl is not as scary as kissing two guys - it’s sexy and as if not serious, just a joke, an erotic fantasy that you can play with and then leave it. I followed this attitude for some time, convincing myself that I liked some guys, but in reality I only liked girls.
Every time I realized that I was deceiving myself, I scolded myself very much. I was angry that I couldn’t bring myself to love the guy.
At the age of 15, this walking in circles exhausted me, and I admitted to myself that I was not a bisexual: I only like girls. I told my friends about it, and then my parents. But neither my friends nor my parents took my coming out any seriously. My friends didn’t seem to care, but my parents shrugged and said I’d “grow out of it.”
From the ages of 15 to 18, I had a series of unsuccessful relationships with girls. They turned out to be painful for me, so I would not like to talk about them. After that, my self-acceptance wavered again. My friends told me, “Since you can't do it with girls, try with guys,” as if my sexuality was controlled by a switch. But then I followed their advice and set out to meet a “normal” guy. My ex-partners hurt me very much, and I thought that this would not happen again in a relationship with a man, he would not break my heart.
Some guys very opportunely then began to try to get to know me better and showed me signs of attention. I accepted them, but soon realized that I felt physical rejection towards guys, and gave up these attempts.
I don't want to be a hero
Now I'm single and not looking for anyone. This is due to personal reasons, Russian laws that equate queer people with extremists, and general homophobic sentiments in the country. There were no such cases in my circle, but I read in the news that provocateurs deliberately lure queer people into dating through online applications, and then beat them, humiliate them on camera, threaten to post information about them on the Internet, or even worse.
Ideally, I would like to live without this fear: to find a girl I love, to be able to bring her home, introduce her to my parents, start a family with her, raise children. But the reality in which I live now as a queer person in Russia is very far from this ideal picture.
Not to mention marrying the girl I love, I can’t even talk openly with my mom about my crushes. One day I did a little experiment. At first she told her mother about her real love for a girl, and after some time she substituted a man’s name for a woman’s name. In the first case, my mother listened to me, but didn’t tell me anything at all - she was just silent. In the second, I joined the conversation with animation.
What kind of freedom can we talk about if I cannot maintain a basic level of trust in my relationship with my parents? My heterosexual friends discuss some events from their personal lives with their parents, talk about their loved ones, and can ask for advice. I can't do any of this. My mother is silent in response to my stories about relationships with girls, and my dad pretends that that conversation at the age of 15, when I approached him and admitted that I liked girls, never happened between us.
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It's the same with my straight friends. They can sit in a cafe and discuss their relationship without worrying that people around will hear it. For me this is an unattainable privilege.
Lesbians in Russia face a choice: stay in their native country and live in constant struggle, or emigrate . I don’t want to live in a foreign country, and at the same time, the first option also seems unenviable to me. We have many brave people in our community who fight for our common rights. But the fact that I am queer does not in any way determine my character, my desire or unwillingness to fight.
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For example, I don’t want to be a hero. I just want to love the person for whom I sincerely feel this feeling. I don’t want to engage in activism, I don’t want to gnaw my way to freedom, the right to be heard in our country. And I often think that if I were a heterosexual girl, I would not have such a choice. I could live quietly and by default receive basic acceptance from friends, parents and other people. I wouldn't have to hide a part of myself.
Sometimes we give up
I recently decided to make a TikTok video about these experiences. I recorded a lip sync where I say: “I didn’t ask to be a lesbian. I just want to fall in love with a guy, have a normal family, talk about my relationship with my parents, like all the girls my age.” And the second voice answers me: “You will never be like them. Just deal with it."
I thought that many queer people in Russia might recognize themselves in this. Many of us have similar conversations with ourselves, thinking about how much easier life would be for us if we were born “normal.” We all, of course, understand that there is nothing abnormal in our orientation, we all struggle and want to be heard, but sometimes we give up. We get tired of fighting and think that we didn’t choose this in the first place.
But the reaction to the video was mixed. Many girls wrote in the comments that they recognized themselves in the video and thanked me for voicing their thoughts. But there were also those who accused me of internal homophobia . The discussions were not limited to comments under the TikTok video. People reposted the link to the video on other social networks and wrote that I was instilling shame in lesbian girls for their sexuality, conveying the idea that loving girls is bad and that they should want boys.
I was also criticized for my desires. They explained that I should want to be born in a normal country where there are no homophobic laws, and not to fall in love with a guy. Of course, I would like this and could record a video about the oppression of the rights of the LGBTQ community in Russia, but it was important for me to highlight another problem.
It seems stupid to me to put a taboo on discussing internal homophobia, which almost every lesbian has, and to pretend that we don’t have such thoughts.
This is a lie and hypocrisy - these are the thoughts that come to us. Moreover, they even visit those of us who live in freer countries, where there is no homophobia at the legislative level, but it is still felt at the everyday level.
I think that if a girl who has never encountered internalized homophobia watches my video, she will not feel inferior because she never wanted to love a guy. She'll just pass by. But if a girl who is also tired of fighting stumbles upon him, she will recognize herself, and she will feel better that she is not alone. I'm not calling anyone to renounce their sexuality and I'm not saying that girls shouldn't love girls.
One of my subscribers, in an attempt to protect me from hate, wrote a phrase that I really liked: “Don’t you understand that this is just an unfiltered dialogue between a girl and herself?” I think this is a very accurate definition of what this video is all about. I won’t deny that the text in the video could sound harsh out of context. But I wanted to show the degree of despair and fatigue from the struggle that we sometimes experience.
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At first I was very worried about the hate. I’m generally quite a sensitive person and it’s hard to bear such stories, especially since I don’t have a very popular account (Aleshina has just under 23 thousand followers on TikTok. - Note from Kholod) . And I didn’t expect that this video could cause such a strong reaction.
It really scared me that I was attacked by girls who love girls just like me. I thought that since we are in the same boat, we should support each other, try to understand each other, even if one of us is carrying game. Many people called me homophobic and did not want to listen to my reasons. I’m used to hate from homophobes , but I didn’t expect such an attitude towards myself from representatives of my own community.
Then I calmed down and stopped taking criticism to heart. A week after publication, I finally deleted this video. A girl I follow and who also posts content that makes it clear that she is a lesbian, received threats. I was worried about this and decided to hide the post so as not to take another risk.
But I was very pleased that many stood up for me, patiently and non-confrontationally explained the essence of my message to people who criticized it, or simply left supportive comments. This is very cool. It seems to me that this is exactly how we should treat each other within our community - with love and support. There is someone to tear us apart outside of it.
The heroine’s opinion may not coincide with the opinion of the editors.
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Author: Inga Olshanskaya