Even gays sometimes speak very intolerantly, democracy is about discussion. Gayman for 2021 Kevin Drábek opens up important topics in the global competition
This year you became Gayman for the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Congratulations on your success. In an interview with my colleague Jan Witek some time ago, you mentioned that you will be fighting younger opponents. Do you think your age was an advantage in the end?
Thank you (laughs). Well, I would apply the answer already to Mr Gay World - that is, to the world competition, because there I'm dealing with it again. I've been told that some people welcomed the older age of the contestant because it's not about being young, gorgeous and not having a single wrinkle. It's about having some brains in addition to how you look. It also addresses how well we can represent the community.
Now at the competition, you have to communicate not in Czech, but in English. You, however, studied in a foreign language at university, so it's probably not a problem for you, right?
Communicating in English is not really a problem for me, but it happens that you don't understand the established phrases. It's similar to us saying, in the context of a death, "Pull up your slippers." I've had that situation happen to me. I had no choice but to ask for the question to be rephrased, i.e. asked in a different way, because one does not want to look stupid if one does not fully understand something, gets the meaning wrong, and the other party gets an answer to nothing.
Is the world competition different in any other way? Do I understand correctly that because of the covid, the whole course is quite non-standard compared to previous editions?
Exactly. Internet voting has already begun. It works like an e-shop where you basically buy a vote for me, which costs about twelve crowns. Voting is unlimited and anyone can do it if they give it a moment. I don't vote for myself, I find that embarrassing at best, but people 60+ of my family have managed to vote, so I believe in it. Next Saturday will be the first live broadcast and on the 30th of October the final will be broadcast via YouTube.
So how does your participation work when the contest is actually online? Did you have to supply any materials?
We had to supply about eleven pieces of video, so disciplines like answering questions from the president of the competition, Eric Butter, or promenades - in national costume, in a swimsuit, in a suit... It was a lot. There's I think eleven judges, and in order to be able to judge in some way, we had to consolidate the videos that were submitted. So that everybody's on a level playing field. We had to decide how long a video should last, how it should be lit, how far we should walk, and so on. We got about thirty pages of instructions on how to film everything - in English, of course, which was also fun to wade through (laughs).
I believe it must have been challenging...
Yes. In this competition, there's really a lot of the "brains", as I say, in addition to the body. We had to prepare other challenges. For example, we had to prepare a presentation for a South African organization that takes care of animals. Of course you have to read up on that, because you have to be able to talk for maybe thirty seconds on the subject so that it has a head and a tail. That kind of information is not always easy to come by. Furthermore, the Gay World Foundation is concerned with community issues in a legislative sense for a change. This is, of course, a thorny issue. One has to think about not stepping into a hornet's nest. I have named countries like Hungary, Poland, Russia, Afghanistan and so on in my elaboration of the assignment in the video. These are beautiful countries and one has to be careful not to offend anyone. I didn't want, for example, Hungarian gays to think that I was criticising them. No. I wish they had at least the same conditions as we have, even though it is not ideal here either.
In the context of the Czech Republic and domestic conditions for LGBT people - are you satisfied with the current election result?
That's a good question. Of course, the coalition of five parties that will govern will have a lot of things to deal with. Marriage for same-sex couples will reportedly not be on the agenda right away. So, yes, it's a lovely development of direction, but it's about whether the parties involved will be able to communicate and whether the issues outside the mainstream will get covered.
Let's get a little bit more private now that we've covered the topic. Unless your Facebook is lying, you got engaged last year. Congratulations on that as well. What are your plans for the wedding? Are you getting married here or maybe somewhere abroad where gay marriage is allowed?
I don't know how same-sex marriages performed in another state are recognized here. If it were possible, I would certainly go for it. In our country, the situation has shifted since the 1990s, I can see that development - it wasn't rosy. The situation is currently better, but still not ideal, and I don't see how lesbian and gay marriage threatens the traditional family. I don't understand it and I probably never will. That's one of the two topics I'd like to address.
Which is the other?
The second topic is transgender issues. I actually started a correspondence recently with a person who has really experienced a lot of discrimination in our country. He even moved away because of it. Gradually, I've heard from more people like that. They are experiencing various personal attacks. I want to talk to these people, to study the subject properly and to pursue it further. The problems do exist and it would be good to help.
So do you plan to be active in the media space in this context?
On Monday, I registered a post in which Marek Benda was opposed to same-sex marriage. So I didn't hesitate to contribute my bit to the discussion. I have also noticed - and social networks do this a lot - that people speak quite rudely there.
Rude to the gay or transgender community?
Yeah. But even gay people themselves speak very intolerantly. They defend democracy, but we have to understand that democracy is about discussion. Nobody wants to admit that. I was trying to humanly show both sides of the coin and explain that you can't have a conversation when the person on the other side is being insulted. That's why I've come to the point where I want to address same-sex marriage and transgender people. It doesn't help tolerance to see how politicians or even our president feel about this issue. You will remember his remarks. That's something he should never let out of his mouth. As the saying goes: Talk is silver, silence is gold!
