Russian Antigay Activist Gets 29 LGBT Teachers Fired, Then Gets Arrested

Russia's self-proclaimed LGBT mouse-devouring "homophobe cat" says he has personally caused the firings of 29 teachers for being lesbian, gay, bi or transgender, reports Vocativ.

The most recent victim claimed by St. Petersburg antigay activist Timur Isayev may have been a lesbian teacher. According to Vocativ, Isayev (whose real last name appears to be Bulatov) wrote a letter to St. Petersburg Primary School No. 565 outing the teacher and demanding she be fired. Vocativ published an excerpt of a PDF dossier Isayev (a.k.a. Bulatov) published on Russia's most popular social media site, VK:

"It's a crime to allow such teachers as [redacted] around children because communication with such teachers won't teach children good behavior, it won't give them a well-rounded view of the world, and it won't give them the ability to respect the family and Russian tradition. A teacher who isn't afraid to make faces at the camera and put the pictures up on the Internet already ruins the ethics and kind reputation of a teacher and dishonors the school where she teaches music. And this teacher, [redacted], doesn't only demonstrate her personal life, but she also puts up photos of sodomy on the internet, for everyone to see. [Redacted] shows up at school with lesbian attributes: rings on her big fingers and pinky fingers, other specific jewelry, dressed like a man, cutting her hair short, which can be a bad example for the behavior of children."

The teacher was fired. According to World News Radio Today, the teacher had spent two years working with autistic and learning-disabled children as well as those with cerebral palsy. Before Isayev's online smear campaign and letter-writing effort, her job seemed secure and her superiors were pleased with her work, according to multiple media reports.

St. Petersburg: Home of Homophobia?
Last year President Vladimir Putin signed a new so-called gay propaganda law, making the promotion of "nontraditional sexual relations" to minors is illegal. St. Petersburg was the birthplace in Russia for a similar, local law that served as a laboratory for what became the law of the land nationwide.

Since then, Russia's once-tolerated LGBT community has suffered violence, bullying, arrests, and now job loss. The growing scale of the problem was documented by two landmark studies in 2014, one by Human Rights Watch and another by the Human Rights Campaign.

Isayev's letter to school and city officials described the teacher as an "immoral" lesbian with "psychiatric abnormalities." It also accused her of living with another "unhealthy" woman. In his letter, Isayev said that allowing the teacher to continue working would be a violation of Russia's "gay propaganda" law.

World News Radio Todaycited Meduza, a Russian-language news site, as having reported that the school's director, Stanislav Vinogradov, told the teacher that he had no choice other than to terminate her.

"As far as I know, the city vice mayor passed the information to the education committee, the committee sent it to the district head, the district head passed it to the deputy, and the deputy district head has approached me," Vinogradov was quoted as saying.

Significantly, the WNRT report said St. Petersburg city officials denied the school administrator's claims that he believed orders to fire the teacher were coming from them. They say the decision was solely that of the school. The teacher is now working with a local LGBT advocacy group to fight for her reinstatement.

Karma's a Bitch for Bulatov
However, the antigay activist recently became a victim of his own social media bullying. According to Vocativ, Isayev signed his real last name, Bulatov, to some of the letters to authorities demanding that teachers be fired for being gay. It turns out he has been wanted on charges of embezzling money from a company where was a manager.

He had been fined 100,000 rubles ($1,800) and was a sentenced to two years in prison, but had escaped before the sentence was served, Vocativ reports. Another report said he has also engaged in street crimes, such as petty theft. Last week he was held by police for 18 hours in connection with some of those allegations.

His arrest was particularly satisfying to the LGBT victims of his homophobic online posts, including graphic memes displaying text such as "Do you see a vile lesbian is your child's school teacher? Tell on them, be a vigilant patriot-parent" and advertisements with messages like "While people whom I annoy still exist, I'm going to live and continue my great mission. I'm homophobe cat."