It is the first time since 1993 that Russians have come out into the streets without an explicit permission from the government to do so. The main difference between the protests of 2011-2012 and these protests today is that they didn't have permits. These were - the people who were coming out into the streets were very young people, for the most part, who knew that they were all risking arrest. It's an extraordinary event.

When you're part of the opposition you want to stay. It's part of your identity. You're useless if you leave. You feel like you have failed.

Every day, there'd be somebody interviewing me as a "lesbian living in Russia." It got to the point where I would joke that I now have two jobs. I work as a writer and a journalist, and I also work as a lesbian. There's a big difference between being out and having that be your sole identity, the only reason that someone is talking to you. My twelve-year-old daughter said, "I have a new job as well. I work as the daughter of a lesbian," because she was also giving all these interviews.

A law is always that much more scary and that much more effective for a totalitarian state if it's selectively enforced.

Donald Trump clearly doesn't have the intellectual capacity to have a concept of what he's doing. I think he has a very strong instinct for using lying to assert power, and that's what he does. Every time he lies, he's saying "I can say whatever I want, whenever I want to, and there's nothing you can do about it." I think he understands that instinctively. He has a finely honed sense for power and manipulation. Bullying is another way to put it. He's a highly skilled bully, but bullying is not a very sophisticated strategy.

I think some people have blind faith in American institutions without knowing a whole lot about them and think they will stand up to Donald Trump and are indestructible. I actually think democracy is not a definable and achievable state. Any country is either becoming more democratic or less democratic. I think the United States hasn't tended to its journey toward democracy in a long time. It's been becoming less democratic, and right now it's in danger of becoming drastically less democratic.

Russian law on banning nontraditional relationships basically says you cannot have any portrayal, neutral or positive, of homosexual relationships or nontraditional families, period. And you also cannot have negative portrayals of heterosexual relationships. So along the way, the law completely quashes any kind of public discussion on domestic violence. No discussion of relationships at all, unless you want to showcase a heterosexual love story, that preferably involves reproduction.