Meet Nikolai Alekseev - Russia's Warrior for the Full Civil Rights of Homosexuals, Bisexuals and Transgenders

Nikolai Alekseev is pure Russian.  The Russian and international LGBT community are extremely fortunate to have his passionate and fiery, in-your-face disposition, to enunciate suffocated truth for the first time to his people.  Hypocrites and bigots, and their apologists and sycophants must not be permitted to have a day of comfort or dignity behind their special titles.

While I agree with the title of today's New York Times article about him - that he "has an uphill battle" - let's not forget that quite a few brave and determined people have made it to the Mt. Everest's summit.  Millions who are receptive will hear Nikolai's message, and the chorus of others warriors like him.  That's all he needs and they need, to sweep away the litter.

The time is here for major changes worldwide.  Our global LGBT community desperately needs more of the people of the Bear warrior spirit like Nikolai.

~Madison Reed

Russia’s Best-Known Gay Activist Has an Uphill Fight

By Michael Schwirtz

AT first glance, it seemed like a breakthrough for homosexual equality in Russia. After years of battling the authorities, here was Nikolai Alekseyev, Russia’s most visible gay-rights campaigner, on a popular prime-time debate show called “Duel” recently talking about plans to hold a gay pride rally in Moscow.

But the discussion quickly deteriorated, with hostile and bigoted remarks coming not just from Mr. Alekseyev’s opponents but also from the host, who at one point equated homosexuality with pedophilia. When a woman in a Kentucky Derby-style hat started into a screed about “homosexual extremism,” he had had enough.

Calling the woman a lying “hag in a hat,” Mr. Alekseyev charged offstage, stamping a hole through the set as he left.

Any conversation about gay rights in Russia today is bound to be tense. But with Mr. Alekseyev, it can be explosive.

For six years, he has flouted a government ban and held an annual gay-rights event that he calls Moscow Pride. He has weathered arrests and attacks by neo-Nazi thugs, and once got into a shoving match with the press secretary of Yuri M. Luzhkov, the former Moscow mayor who has referred to Mr. Alekseyev’s protests as “satanic.”

With short blond hair and a round, youthful face, Mr. Alekseyev, 33, has the air of a maligned schoolboy out for retribution. He decided to become an activist after Moscow State University, where he was enrolled, refused to accept his graduate thesis, “Legal Regulation of the Status of Sexual Minorities.”

He is brash and provocative, even among would-be supporters. He has berated journalists for coverage he disagrees with.

“He is a complicated person and does not have a mild personality,” said Anna Komarova, a transgender activist allied with Mr. Alekseyev. “But laid-back people choose other occupations.”

Michael's article in the New York Times about Nikolai, continues here......