Elena Musolina grew up thinking homosexuality was an affliction of alcoholics and drug addicts. Now she marches alongside her son at LGBT rights protests and goes head-to-head with Russia’s most vocal anti-LGBT politician.

When Musolina joined Coming Out’s support group for parents of LGBT kids in 2011, she didn’t expect it would become political. But that changed when the “gay propaganda” ban made her feel like her son was a second-class citizen. Musolina, a petite 68-year-old, comes to LGBT rights demonstrations in St. Petersburg with other mothers in Coming Out’s parents club, which she now helps lead.

The group is now under threat after Coming Out was branded a “foreign agent” under a 2012 law that requires NGOs receiving foreign funding and engaging in what the government broadly deems “political activity” to register as such. Read More