Growing UpPentecostal in Russia at 23 Artem Kolesov Comes Out
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| Artem Kolesov, 23. Any 50 Year old still in the closet should be ashamed by this courageous young guy (Adam)The following story is my birthday present for last saturday. |
A Russian teen came out as gay on YouTube despite his family’s intense opposition and threats of violence against gay people, and now he wants to be a beacon of hope for other LGBTQ teens who are afraid to admit their identity.
Twenty three-year-old Artem Kolesov told BuzzFeed he made a YouTube video to come out as gay. He made the video, Artem said, "because it breaks my heart to know how many Russian children and other LGBT youth around the world feel like they’re alone." Artem explained that growing up in Russia, his Pentecostal pastor parents instilled in him and his family a hatred of gay people.
He grew up hearing gay people should be bombed, he said, and that if anyone in his family were gay they should kill them with their bare hands. This hatred led Artem, who says he knew he was gay from a young age, to years of depression and suicidal ideation. It wasn’t until Artem moved to Canada to attend school for violin that he learned to stop hating other gay people and himself, making him want to come out.
Now, Artem wants to show other young people like him that their lives are worth living .
"We don’t come out for heterosexual people to know,” he says. “We don’t come out for the ones who hate us to know. We shout and make as much noise as possible just so other people like us who are scared and can’t be themselves would know that they are not a mistake and they are not alone.”
Artem's message is an important one. In Russia, a 2013 law bans "gay propaganda," which BuzzFeed notes Artem's video could be considered. The passage of that law led to increased anti-gay violence, according to the Guardian. Artem's video also comes after gay men in Chechnya, a region of Russia, are reportedly being rounded up and sent to makeshift prisons or killed. And in the U.S., proposed laws that question the Supreme Court ruling allowing same sex marriage and the ongoing debate on where transgender people do and do not belong can make it feel dangerous to come out as LGBTQ. In fact, LGBTQ people are more likely than any other group to be the target of a hate crime.
Artem's video is not only brave, it's important. Because he’s right: everyone deserves to live happily as exactly who they are.
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