Now It’s The Gay Teachers in Russia Getting Fired
Two Russian teachers, one gay and the other bisexual were fired from their jobs and told their lives would be ruined unless they quit work.
Olga Bakhaeva(24) and Alexander Yermoshkin(38) were victims of vicious attacks both on the street and in the school when their sexual orientation was exposed. Alexander Yermoshkin, teaching for 18 years, was fired from his school shortly after President, Vladimir Putin passed a national law banning the promotion of ‘homosexual propaganda’. Yermoshkin spoke about his traumatic experience on Russia’s ‘only public media’ Colta.ru.
“The most terrible thing is that I have actually been banned from my profession. That’s like forcing an artist to stop painting.”
The Geography teacher started working in LGBT activism four years ago, organising numerous flash mobs, ‘Rainbow over the River Amur’ and ‘A Week Against Homophobia’. However, he never hid nor displayed that he was gay until a short while before he was fired from his job.
He explained how after the country’s law banning ‘homosexual propaganda’ was passed, LGBT-related events he held were often attacked by neo-Nazis and Baptist Christians. He also reported that on 26 August he was attacked on his way home. The thugs tore off his glasses and made threatening gestures.
The neo-Nazi and Christian Baptist groups joined forces and submitted a petition to have Yermoshkin fired. They collected 678 signatures and delivered them to the Minister of Education. ThePrincipal was given the ultimatum to fire Yermoshkin or risk her own job and he was fired.
Olga Bakhaeva experienced a similar ordeal after Russia’s anti- gay laws were passed this year. She was expelled from her job as a History teacher as she self identified as part of the LGBT community on a social networking website. After posting her opinion about another LGBT professor who was being persecuted, she was targeted by online trolls and fake journalists who contacted the school where she worked.
Stories about Bakhaeva surfaced on local TV news and the head-master at her school received print outs of her social media activity. She was then contacted by a prosecutor because a parent of a student in Magnitogorsk sent a letter of complaint as their child claimed they were exposed to ‘homosexual propaganda’ after visiting Bakhaeva’s social network page. She was subsequently fired from her job and has not been able to find work since.
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