Austin @austbaumer

Today I want to share something very personal. Something that was, in many ways, harder for me to admit to myself and to others than being gay. My disability. It is frustrating how easily people dismiss disability when they see a young person. I cannot count how many times I have heard “but you are so young” as if youth automatically means health or if illness only becomes real when visible. I wear a sunflower lanyard, which represents disabilities, that are not obvious from the outside. In my case it means AuDHD, cPTSD and anxiety. It also means that standing or walking for more than 15 minutes can become painful, and also means bowel problems. But here is the painful part. When I do not wear the lanyard, people treat me as if I cannot possibly be disabled. I am just a young guy, who looks “normal”. So people cross boundaries, question or judge me. For several times I have been pushed out of disabled toilets just because some people decided that I was not disabled enough. And when I do wear the lanyard, often people treat me as if I am less intelligent or less adult. Withouth the lanyard, I am not disabled enough. With the lanyard, I am too disabled. And somewhere between those two projections, the real me disappears. This is something I have experienced not only in general, but also inside communities that should know better. Even within gay spaces, once people see the lanyard, the distance appears. The conversation changes. And that hurts a lot. Apart of being gay, or disabled, I’m also a refugee. Often, each community understands or accepts only a part of me rather than the whole, judging the other sides. I do not want to hide my full identity inside a community that knows what it means to hide parts of yourself just to survive or fit better. So I end up belonging everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I just wish people understood that invisible does not mean imaginary and that the world is more than just black and white.

Let me tell you something about being gay in Russia or many other post-Soviet countries. Since November 2023, Russia has effectively labelled the so-called “international LGBT movement” as extremist. What this “movement” is supposed to mean legally is still unclear, but the consequences are very real. People can face criminal prosecution and prison sentences of up to 12 years. At a recent Congress of Russian Psychiatrists 2026, homosexuality was reportedly discussed as a mental illness that should be “treated”. At the same time, conversion therapy practices becoming more visible in Russia again. Growing up gay in Russia was already hard. Even as a teenager, or a little boy, you understand very early that society will hate you for who you are. You learn that your orientation makes you unsafe. And for young gay people today, this fear is even stronger because now it is not only social hatred, but also the law itself. We grow up around the idea of “normal boys” and “real men”. In many post-Soviet communities, masculinity is deeply influenced by prison culture and its hierarchy, where gay men are associated with the lowest and most humiliated position. They are treated as people no one should touch, sit with, eat with or respect. They are reduced to sexual objects rather than recognised as people. And this does not stay inside prisons. It leaks into schools, families, streets, language and everyday life. Boys grow up feeling that if people find out who they are, they will not simply be judged, they may lose everything, including their own families. There is also a great fear of telling your parents. In a good scenario, they may start searching a way to “cure” you. Not always because they hate you, but because they are terrified for you. They know what this society can do to a gay person, and they believe survival is almost impossible unless you hide or change. In the worst-case scenario, a child can be thrown out, beaten or even worse (you know what I mean) by their own family. Some families openly say that they would rather lose a son than have a gay one. This is only a small part of the context of how gay people live and grow up in the post-Soviet world. When people are forced to suppress their sexuality and identity for years, many do not survive it. Majority falls into serious addictions. Others spend their whole lives hiding, trying to live as someone they are not. The result is self-destruction, loneliness and distorted relationships with yourself and others. Chronic anxiety, depression, nightmares, panic attacks and other mental health conditions follow us for most of our lives, often with no real support available along the way. That is why so many guys choose to leave their countries for their own safety to get the basic right to exist, and hopefully, one day, to actually live.

When I was 14, I read a play called “The Dragon”. It tells the story of Lancelot, who defeated a tyrannical Dragon ruling over a city. But after the Dragon is gone, an even worse tyrant (the city’s mayor) takes his place. Back then, I saw it as a story about how removing a tyrant does not automatically make people free. The real problem seemed to lie not only in the ruler, but in society itself. But now I wonder whether this idea was a form of propaganda, like: “do not try to change a dictator, because you will get something worse.” I can see where this kind of thinking leads in our world, and it makes more sense now. How do you see it?