A trans teen was humiliated when she tried to get in to a Russian nightclub. | Photo: David Shankbone / Flickr
A Russian nightclub in St Petersburg has come under fire for its treatment of a trans teen who was trying to get in.
Ionoteca is one of the city’s hottest clubs and the trans girl, known as Melissa, tried to get in on the weekend.
But bouncers refused Melissa entry because of she is underage, but managed to completely humiliate her in the process.
Bouncer allegedly called her a ‘monster’ and forced her to lift up her skirt.
‘The problem is that I’m transgender and I have not been able to change my documents yet and so I have a man’s passport, but I look like a girl,” she told the website, Sobaka.
Melissa said one of the bouncer seemed drunk and told her, ‘this monster will not come in here, we have normal people here’.
It gets worse
Upset at the bouncers’ treatment, Melissa contacted the owner of the club, Alexander Ionoff.
But Ionoff sent her a brutal reply.
‘I’m sorry, but you have a whole life of humiliation ahead of you … [] .. You knew that when you made the decision (to transition), now bear it,’ he wrote.
Ionoff quickly blocked her and added her on the club’s blacklist.
The screenshots of the conversation quickly spread around social media, forcing Ionoff to backtrack.
On one Facebook post he said he had sympathy for Melissa, but it wasn’t up to him to change the mindset of transphobic people.
Ionoff argued that trying to change someone’s views on trans people was akin to Orwellian ‘thought police’. In his bizarre apology, he also managed to misgender Melissa.
‘What I wanted to say with such a combination of differently incompatible people, that the right to own opinion is above all,’ he wrote.
‘What you are doing under the guise of fighting for the rights of transgender people is the typical Orwell’s ‘thought police’.
‘The club has always positioned itself as a place of complete freedom.There are absolutely different people hanging out around us: gays and transgenders, and all kinds of representatives of the left-liberal circles: artists, poets, musicians, etc.
‘I regret what happened, the situation was not beautiful, I sympathize with a man who did not get into the club, no more.’
Ionov then shared a photo of himself getting his makeup done next to a photo of a guitar with a rainbow strap.
Alexander Ionov claims to be an LGBTI ally because he once played at a music festival with a rainbow guitar strap. | Photo: Facebook
LGBTI advocates are calling on people to boycott the nightclub.
