Karèn Shainyan

Karèn Shainyan (born 1 July 1981) is a Russian journalist, LGBT activist, and YouTuber.

[1] Openly gay, he runs a YouTube channel called Straight Talk with Gay People, where he interviews international LGBT+ figures in order to dispel myths commonly held in Russia about the LGBT+ community.

[5] In August 2020, he released a documentary titled The Chechen War on LGBT.

[6] In December 2020, he released a documentary titled Minsk: Queer and Techno Protest Against the OMON, documenting the experiences of the Minsk LGBT+ community during the 2020–2021 Belarusian protests and the subsequent repression by OMON, the Belarusian riot police.

[8][9] In April 2022, he was designated a foreign agent by the Russian Ministry of Justice.