Transgender Former Italian MP Briefly Detained in Sochi

Transgender television personality and former Italian Member of Parliamant, Vladimir Luxuria has been released after being arrested by Russian police Sunday night. Her offense? Holding a banner that read “Gay is OK” in Cyrillic. While she says during her detainment the officers treated her with respect, it seems, according to the Independent, Sochi organizers have a different story:

Games organisers said today that officers had no record of Ms Luxuria’s detention, and a duty officer at Sochi’s central police station told a reporter with the Associated Press that they had “never had an Italian national in custody.”

Sort of a weird thing to say as there are photos, like the one above, of the incident. Luxuria traveled to Sochi to protest Putin’s homophobic regime and bring more attention to how the anti-gay propaganda laws are affecting Russia’s gay cultures. The day she was arrested she tweeted a photo of herself in a rainbow outfit:

Now released, Luxuria intends to remain in Sochi and continue watching the Games.