Following Leader’s Suicide, LGBT Community Begins ‘Love is Love’ Photo Project

Isa Sahmarli’s suicide earlier this year struck a major blow for the LGBT community in the post-Soviet sphere. Not only was the Isa considered by many as the face of the LGBT community in Azerbaijan – an ex-Soviet nation stuck between Turkey, Iran, and Russia – but he stood as one of the most promising activists anywhere in the former communist sphere, which has seen a considerable backslide in LGBT rights in the past few years.

The blow, according to Mike Raybourne, was felt most acutely among the post-Soviet generation – among those near in age to the 20-year-old Isa.

“After Isa’s death the Azerbaijani LGBT community was shaken hard and many young people were left feeling alone and directionless,” Raybourne, one of Isa’s friends, told The New Civil Rights Movement. “A lot of younger people in the community are still hurting from his death. People visit and decorate his grave weekly.”

Following the initial period of mourning – which included a moving look at Isa’s wake, featuring a rainbow flag representing Isa’s cause – Azerbaijan’s small, reeling LGBT community gathered. They would not let Isa’s passing be the end of their movement. They would take Isa’s message, and methods, and push the call for tolerance forward. Isa may be gone, but his memory would propel his program forward.

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Taking Isa’s mantra – that love, in the end, is love – Isa’s close friends began pouring their efforts into a photo campaign that would both honor Isa’s memory and illustrate the fact that support for the LGBT community in Azerbaijan has not faded. The project, begun on Valentine’s Day, would carry a simple, straightforward title: “Love is Love.”

A small sample of the more than 400 photos sent for “Love is Love,” posted on the Azerbaijan Free LGBT Facebook page

“Sabina Kurgunayeva, a young woman from the Azerbaijani city of Mingechivir, and I developed the Love is Love project as a way to show support for the community while at the same time honoring Isa,” Raybourne said. “In the next few months we’ll be working to start a website run by members of the Azerbaijan LGBT community. It will provide a central place for the community to meet and learn about projects in Azerbaijan, as well as find resources they can use to organize their own projects in their schools and towns.”

The photo project has thus far collected over 400 photos. Many of the photos, collected from around the world, feature a rainbow heart with “love is love” written below. Men, women, straight, gay, ex-Soviet, Western – the photos keep come from varied sources, and the collection keeps growing. And according to Raybourne, this is just the beginning.

In a country as culturally conservative as Azerbaijan, soliciting photos has proven something of a challenge, with residents reticent to show full-throated support. However, the project’s expansion could help along those concerned about showing support.

“Our next step is to start accepting and encouraging anonymous picture submissions,” Raybourne said. “This will allow people from more conservative families or communities to still show their support of the LGBT community. For these pictures people can draw their own hearts and submit messages of support in their own unique handwriting.”

Azerbaijan, unfortunately, has not been immune to the regional clampdown recently seen within LGBT communities in the ex-Soviet states. Russia’s widely discriminatory anti-LGBT propaganda laws have continued to trickle through the former Soviet republics – Kyrgyzstan is currently debating a bill remarkably similar to Russia’s – and the pressure only looks to continue.

However, this has not stopped Isa’s colleagues from pushing his work, and his message. Love is love – and keeping Isa’s message going is the best way to ensure his memory lives on.

“In our eyes the best way to honor Isa is to continue his work as a supporter of LGBT rights in Azerbaijan,” Raybourne said. “And we hope this international photo campaign based on some of Isa’s favorite words, ‘love is love,’ will remind the Azerbaijani LBGT community that they are not alone, and that there is a huge network willing to support them both inside and outside of the country.”

Below is another look at the project. You can also see a slideshow of all the images on Flickr.

Image, top, by Azerbaijan Free LGBT Organization via Facebook
 

Casey Michel is a graduate student at Columbia University, and former Peace Corps Kazakhstan volunteer. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Slate, and Talking Points Memo, and he has contributed multiple long-form investigations to Minneapolis’s City Pages and the Houston Press. You can follow him on Twitter.