On March 7, 2011, the governor of Saint Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city and (once) its most civilized, Westernized, and tolerant metropolis, signed into law the bill against “propaganda of pedophilia, homosexuality, lesbianism, and transgednerism to minors.” When introduced to the Saint Petersburg legislative assembly in the fall of 2011, this infamous bill has caused international uproar among LGBT activists and human rights defenders. Several international petitions with hundreds of thousands of signatures were delivered to the Petersburg’s law makers, asking them to abandon the draconian measure which was to restrict the freedom of expression for the city’s already embattled LGBT community, as well as further deprive gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender residents of Saint Petersburg of their human dignity by equating their life styles to those of criminal sexual offenders such as pedophiles.
