The Charitable Foundation «Humanitarian Action»* stopped the work of a mobile HIV prevention center for transgender people in St. Petersburg. Aleksey Lakhov, Development Director of the Foundation, spoke about Novaya Gazeta.
The work had to be curtailed against the background of provocations and threats that came to the management of the fund.
“Those opposed to LGBT people wrote in various online communities that they should be rolled into concrete, that their tires should be punctured, poured with green paint.
We realized that after a while someone will come and really start to puncture our tires and pour green paint on us. We decided to stop the operation of the checkpoint for the safety of transgender people,” he said.
In addition, on one of the last days of the operation of the point, two masked men approached the employees, who were actively interested in the legality of the foundation's activities. They promised to return.
Mobile prevention point. Photo: Humanitarian Action
The mobile station is a minibus used by a doctor, a psychologist and representatives of the transgender community to travel around the city. Once a week, they offered visitors to take a rapid test for HIV, viral hepatitis B and C, syphilis, and also distributed free contraceptives. According to Lyakhov, work on HIV prevention among transgender people will continue, but in a different format.