I’d imagine I first heard the word “prophylactic” in the early 1980s. My sexual engines were starting up just around the time that AIDS was spreading, and, besides abstinence, prophylactics were the heralded way to avoid getting infected with the HIV virus. Go, prophylactics.

The irony that the same word was used in the Russian press to describe the raids that have resulted in the torture, murder, and attempted erasing of gays in Chechnya isn’t lost on me. The respected Russian paper Novaya Gazeta called the action “a prophylactic sweep.” Likening the snuffing out of gay men to a tool used to prevent AIDS—the language is telling, however unintentional.

I’ve grown weary of the word “privilege.” It makes me nervous, because once you’ve been labeled with it, you can’t transcend. As a gay, white, cis-gender male, I’m apparently chock full of privilege—supposedly, it’s oozing from my pores. This also means that my opinions are informed by experiences that don’t speak to what are largely considered today’s most important stories. 

There’s no arguing with the facts: I grew up downstate in a cool, green, shady area of Westchester County and have enjoyed lots of freedoms as an adult that I’ve only recently thought twice about. No, it hasn’t been a nonstop joyride. There have been plenty of snags along the way, but none of them have been because of my gender, color, or national affiliation. Which is as I believe it should be…and is also a privilege. Even still, I will not pretend that it doesn’t irk me to be told that because I’m white and have experienced some luck in my life that my opinions on certain things don’t matter. And then, after admitting that, being informed that it is, apparently, my privilege that fuels those irksome feelings, which also don’t matter. See how this works? It’s a vicious circle. You aren’t allowed to rise above.

Between Hulu’s eerily time-relevant adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian The Handmaid’s Tale, the horrifying situation in Chechnya, and the lack of anything but complete, universal support for outlawing conversion therapy here at home, the world feels dangerously unhinged. The folks in the world Atwood describes in her book saw something coming that didn’t feel quite right, but they let it happen. Are we in the process of letting something happen to us? By not succeeding at outlawing conversion therapy in one fell swoop—across the board—we leave the door open a crack for dystopia to take shape. It may only be one piece of a much bigger puzzle, but given the current shit-storm of oppressive thought, that’s not a crack we can afford to ignore.

To draw an unsettling parallel, the Hulu dramatization of Atwood’s book closes the gap between us and Chechnya. My comparison will probably outrage the privilege police…too damn bad. The reality is that it’s not that far to fall, which is why the show has people talking. In it, the rights of women are essentially redacted. Along the way, Congress is slaughtered and the constitution is suspended, leaving room for a new militia to emerge that pushes forward a terrifying agenda. Suddenly, women aren’t allowed to own property. Their bank accounts mysteriously close and they’re let go from their jobs. All of them. They’re rounded up and put into camps. Women are vilified in the name of staunch Catholic ideals, and within that context, gay women are among the worst offenders. I won’t give away any more of the story, but the feelings it brings to the surface are positively riotous. And maybe it serves as a glimpse, for some of us, of how it might feel to lose our privilege. 

In learning more about what’s happening in Russia, I was struck by what a dangerous job it is just to be a journalist there—just to strive to tell the truth in a public forum, to deliver just the non-alternative-facts, ma’am. Novaya Gazeta has lost six journalists in 20 years to what are characterized as contract-style murders directly resulting from their work. Two of them wrote almost exclusively about human rights abuses in Chechnya and the Muslim-majority North Caucasus region. Talk about a dangerous beat. Comparatively, American journalists take it for granted that we have the freedom to tell the truth without fearing for our lives, which is as I believe it should be…and is also a privilege. 

Perhaps most horrifying is the means by which these heinous crimes against gays in Russia are being denied; if you don’t acknowledge the existence of your victim(s), then a crime could never have been committed. Alvi Karimov, a spokesman for Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, has claimed that the accusations are false since there simply aren’t any gay men in the republic. 

“You cannot arrest or repress people who just don’t exist in the republic,” he’s quoted as saying to the news agency Interfax. “If such people existed in Chechnya, law enforcement would not have to worry about them, as their own relatives would have sent them to where they could never return.”

It’s true, there is a tradition of such “honor killings” in Russia, whereby families will murder relatives (or ship them off to others who will carry out the dirty work) whose behavior is considered somehow unflattering to their tribe. Could you imagine if Uncle Joe tried to snuff you out while you were sleeping because he just couldn’t handle your love for the neighbor boy? You can’t make this shit up.

Most have interpreted Karimov’s quote as merely bizarre, but I hear a more chilling erasure in it. It’s as if he’s saying, “They weren’t really human, so it doesn’t count.” 

The Donald’s questionable relationship to Russia has been the source of much debate during his dismal first 100 days. All other ramifications aside for the moment, it’s disturbing that anyone in power over here should have any kind of working relationship with a culture that has imposed a 100-year ban on LGBTQ Pride parades in its capital and has also banned the circulation of information that even portrays LGBTQ lifestyles in a positive light. Just about any other administration in recent memory would likely be pursuing a dialogue with Russian leaders to a) put an end to the hate crimes in the foreground, and b) ease their oppression of sexual freedoms in the larger picture. After all, this is the United States. We’re known for sticking our nose into everyone else’s business, for telling other cultures how to live, and for sending in troops to enforce our ideas when talking doesn’t get the job done. But in this scenario, there is an unsettling silence from Washington. I shudder to think of the implications.

I had a dream the other night that heroin was legalized. In it, people were walking around with portable needle dispensaries, much like fanny packs, only with the biohazard symbol printed on them. But there was a more sinister undercurrent: Addicts were looking to spread HIV, hep C, and other blood-borne illnesses by sticking people with their used needles in public places. I woke up with an accelerated heartbeat. The feelings of persecution and the inability to trust people on the most basic level—the fear—was still fresh. I suppose it’s a privilege that I get to sit for a moment after a dream like that and relax because it wasn’t real, that I get to remember how my life isn’t spent running from (or being trapped and tortured by) oppressive forces of evil, intent on my demise. 

In this case, the judgment holds true: I just can’t imagine. Does that make my opinion invalid? Ask me if I give a fuck. 

Wanna help? Get in touch with WNYACT—Western New Yorkers Against Conversion Therapy—to help protect LGBTQ youth from harmful pseudo-science: contactwnyact@gmail.com. And reach out to Toronto’s Rainbow Railroad, rainbowrailroad.ca, to find out what you can do to help save lives in Chechnya and other places around the world where LGBTQ folks aren’t safe.