A court in Moscow has fined Yan Dvorkin, the leader of Centre T, a group of activists helping transgender and non-binary people, 100,000 rubles (€1,150) for “LGBT propaganda”, the group’s Telegram channel reports.
Dvorkin pleaded not guilty and asked to stop the administrative case. He also noted that he considers it “inhuman” that the Russian state “makes it legal to discriminate against an entire social group of the population, which is about 14 million Russian citizens.”
“I never imposed on others what they should be and what they should do. I deeply respect the freedom of every person to be themselves,” he said in court.
Dvorkin was summoned to the police on 21 March. It was his comment on a statement by Vitaly Milonov, an MP who said that all people who left Russia were “active homosexuals” that was behind the charges. Dvorkin assumed that only “passive homosexuals” stayed in Russia then, lacking “their partners and sex”.
Dvorkin fosters a child with a disability, so the custodian agency reported him to the police. He told Radio Liberty that no one from the custodian agency had any concerns about him before he started speaking publicly on the rights of transgender and non-binary people and married to his partner.
Centre T is a group of activists who help transgender and non-binary people by providing them with mental and legal assistance and collecting donations for people in dire straits.
