My Own Prejudices

I’m a pretty tolerant guy. I tend to not care about skin color, ethnicity, sex, or sexuality. I don’t even judge based on religion, usually.

However I have discovered that since moving to Sacramento that I have a prejudice against a demographic not common in my previous stomping grounds of The Silicon Valley and Central Texas—Russians, and other Slavic people in general.

I have a distrust of Russians because of Trump being in bed with Putin, and the attempts of that country to sabotage our democracy. How many of these people are in California to meddle in our government as foreign agents?

Knowing this prejudice, I set out to Google to learn more about the local Slavic population and why they’re really here. What I found did not help.

They’re refugees that fled Russia, mostly in the 80s when the Soviet Union fell apart. Mostly people wanting to have religious freedom. That’s totally relatable. I think some of my ancestors came to America for similar reasons.

Then I read more.

They’re of sects like Pentecostals and they’re highly fundamentalist and conservative. Worse, they’re really really really homophobic and transphobic.

In fact, these evangelist members of the Sacramento Slavic demographic actively persecute LGBT+ people.

Some news stories talk about Russians running a 24–7 prayer wheel to pray against the gays.

Others harass, protest LGBT events, and protest at schools to scream at gay kids.

Some have found out coworkers are queer and lied about them to bosses to get them fired.

There’s also instances of violence including one assault that turned deadly when a Russian father punched a gay man who was having a picnic. The gay man’s head hit pavement. He suffered brain damage and died. And the murderer fled back to Russia escaping justice.

So yeah this doesn’t really make me dislike the Slavic population any less.

However, allegedly only 1/3 of the group is evangelical extremist homophobic shitheads. Some are likely homophobic albeit not as extreme. This still means that maybe 1/2 or 1/3 of the Slavic people in Sacramento are likely cool.

Still, there’s enough extremists in the area that as a transgender person I feel extra unsafe.

I’m not going to stop being out and proud. In fact, I’m going to be more out and proud.

I’m going to look into a self-defense class and get some mace so I can protect myself from the homophobic Slav squad.

I’m also going to keep my phone handy and ready to record. Anyone that harasses my trans ass is going right onto social media.

So I don’t hate the Slavic people because they’re Slavic. I hate them because they hate me. I think that’s okay.