The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the Stonewall Foundation raised funds for Genia and her co-editor, Roman Kalinin, to visit the United States. Steve said that although Genia had no trouble getting an entry visa from the United States government, Roman was at first denied his. After some pressure was apparently applied to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Roman was given permission to enter the United States, and arrived a week or so after Genia. We sat at Steve's dining room table drinking herb tea and eating fresh strawberries while we talked about a culture as foreign to an American as possible. But she is more than willing to talk about life for most lesbians in the Soviet Union.
Average lesbians have a particularly difficult time.
Because we have a housing crisis everywhere, but especially in Moscow, it's impossible for a lesbian to take an apartment and set up a life. Their life is horrible. First of all they're obliged to hide their sexual orientation. At home and at work both they have to hide it. Young lesbians have to live at home because young people in general in our country simply don't have the possibility of taking an apartment.