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Resisting the Silence: The Use of Tolerance and Equality Arguments by Gay and Lesbian Activist Groups in Russia1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 April 2013

Alexander Kondakov
Alexander Kondakov*
Affiliation:
Centre for Independent Social Research191040 Ligovsky prospekt, 87, POB 193 St. Petersburg, Russia Email: kondakov@cisr.ru
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Abstract

In the new, post-Soviet Russia, some people have been excluded from the possibility of possessing human rights based on different identity claims. Lesbians and gay men are among those who are excluded. Though in some states the mechanism of this is manifestly inscribed in the law, in Russia the mechanism is hidden in the field of silence: the field of discourse on homosexuality is full of lacunas. While the most productive speakers are certainly LGBT activists, the most passive ones are the state officials. These forces come into discursive play where rights are at stake. The purpose of this paper, based on original research on the emerging activism of gays and lesbians in Russia, is to uncover the regulative features of silence in the Russian discourse on homosexuality.

Résumé

Au sein de la nouvelle Russie post-soviétique, certaines personnes sont exclues de toutes protections inhérentes aux droits humains, selon des principes identitaires différents. Les lesbiennes et les gais sont parmi ceux exclus. Bien que, dans certains États, une telle exclusion soit inscrite dans la loi, en Russie, ce principe est caché sous un voile de silence : le champ du discours sur l’homosexualité est rempli de lacunes. Tandis que les activistes LGBT constituent les intervenants les plus productifs, les fonctionnaires de l’État sont les plus passifs. Ces forces entrent en jeu lorsque les droits fondamentaux sont en cause. S’appuyant sur des recherches primaires sur le militantisme émergent des gais et lesbiennes en Russie, le but de cet article est de déceler les caractéristiques régulatrices propres au silence dans le discours russe sur l’homosexualité.

Keywords

homosexualityRussiadiscursive silencehuman rights activismhomosexualitéla Russiesilence discursivelutte pour les droits humains
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , December 2013 , pp. 403 - 424
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association / Association Canadienne Droit et Société 2013 

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References

1 The author would like to thank Rosemary Hunter for her help with this work. Without her it would not have been possible.

2 I. Kon, Liki i maski odnopoloy lyubvi: Lunnyi svet na zare, 2-e izdanie (Faces and masks of Same-Sex Love: Moonlight on the Dawn, 2nd ed.) (Moscow: AST, 2006), 321–22.

3 Stoglav: Sobor byvshyi v Moskve pri velikom gosudare tsare i velikom knyaze Ivane Vasilyeviche (v leto 7059) (Council of a Hundred Chapters Held in Moscow in Front of Great Tsar and Great Duke Ivan Vasilievich (in the year 7059)) (London: Truebner and Co., Partners Row, 1860), 28–29. Cities are given in author’s translation.

4 E. Levin, Sex and Society in the World of the Orthodox Slavs, 900–1700 (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1995), 203.

5 Ibid., 172, 199.

6 Ibid., 202.

7 Ibid., 160.

8 Ibid., 202.

9 Artikul voinsky s kratkim tolkovaniem i s protsessami, napechatasya poveleniem Eya Imperatorskago Velichestva (Military Articles with Short Commentaries and Cases, Published by the Order of Her Imperial Majesty) (Saint Petersburg: Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1777), 54.

10 L. Engelstein, The Keys to Happiness: Sex and the Search for Modernity in Fin-de-Siècle Russia (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1992), 59.

11 Ibid., 58.

12 Ulozhenie o nakazaniyakh ugolovnykh i ispravitelnykh (Crimes and Executions Code) (Saint Petersburg: Second Dpt. of His Majesty Chancellors Press, 1845), 524–25. My emphasis.

13 V Nabokov, “Plotskiya prestupleniya po proektu ugolovnago ulozheniya” (“Crimes of the Flesh in the Light of Criminal Code”), Vestnik prava (Law Review) 32, nos. 9–10 (1902): 129.

14 Engelstein, The Keys to Happiness: 63.

15 Ibid., 6.

16 Ibid., 66.

17 E. D. Emelyanova, “Gender v sovetskoy instoriografii” (“Gender in Soviet History”), in Pol i gender v naukakh o cheloveke i obshchestve (Sex and Gender in Social Sciences), ed. V. Uspenskaya (Tver: Feminist-Press, 2005), 177–186; A. Mitrofanova, “Sovremennye gendernye politiki v perspektive proletarskoy seksualnoy revolutsii 1920kh godov” (“Contemporary Gender Politics from Proletariat Sexual Revolution of 1920s Perspective”), in Vozmozhen li ‘kvir’ po-russki? LGBTK issledovaniya (Is ‘Queer’ Possible in Russian? LGBTQ Studies, ed. V. Sozayev (Saint Petersburg: Vykhod, 2010), 98–106

18 The Criminal Code of Russian Socialistic Federative Soviet Republic, 1926. Clause 154a was enacted in 1934.

19 D. Healey, Gomoseksualoye vlecheniye v revolutsionnoy Rossii. Regulirovanie sexualno-gendernogo dissidentstva (Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia: The Regulation of Sexual and Gender Dissent) (Moscow: Ladomir, 2008), 227.

20 Ibid., 229–32.

21 M. Gorky, “Proletarsky gumanism” (“Proletarian Humanism”), Pravda (The Truth) 140, no. 6026 (1934), 3.

22 See, for example, K. Geiger, The Family in Soviet Russia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968); R. Stites, The Women’s Liberation Movement in Russia: Feminism, Nihilism and Bolshevism, 1860–1930 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978); A. Rotkirch, The Man Question. Loves and Lives in Late 20th Century Russia (Helsinki: University of Helsinki, 2000).

23 M. Gessen, The Rights of Lesbians and Gay Men in the Russian Federation: An International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission Report by Masha Gessen (San Francisco: The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, 1994), 6.

24 Bolshaya sovestkaya entsiklopedia, vol. 7, 3rd ed. (Moscow: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1972), 56. It is interesting that the authors of the Encyclopedia clearly distinguished homosexuality and muzhelozhstvo. The latter was understood as criminalized perversion “usually related to homosexualism, but rarely situational as well” (ibid., 83).

25 V. Chalidze, Ugolovnaya Rossiya (The Criminal Russia) (New York: Khronika, 1977), 228. In a short passage the author mentions that Leningrad lawyers proposed to decriminalize homosexual intercourse. In his own description, he uses a variety of terms related to male homosexuality as synonyms: muzhelozhstvo, gomoseksualizm (homosexuality), muzgchiny-gomoseksualisty (homosexual men), and pederasty.

26 I. Kon, Vvedenie v seksologiu (Introduction to Sexology) (Moscow: Meditsina, 1989); A. Svyadoshch, Zhenskaya seksopatalogia, 3 izdanie (Female Sexual Pathology, 3rd ed.) (Moscow: Meditsina, 1988).

27 As indicated on the NGO’s official web page, http://krilija.sp.ru/en/index.html [Accessed on 22 October 2012].

28 S. Ayvazova, “Zhenskoye dvizhenie v Rossii: traditsii i sovremennost” (“Women’s Movement in Russia: Traditions and Modernity”), Obshchestvennye nauki i sovremennost (Social Sciences and Modernity) 2 (1995): 130; see also “Libertariantsy: Prezident mozhet byt gomoseksualistom” (“The Libertarians: A President Could Be Homosexual”), Kommersant vlast 18, no. 68 (1991). http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/265292 [Accessed on 23 October 2012].

29 Federal Law Act N. 4901-1 “About Modifications and Additions to the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, the Code of Criminal Procedure of RSFSR, and the Code of Correction and Correctional Labor of RSFSR” (1993).

30 D. Healey, “‘Untraditional Sex’ and the ‘Simple Russian’: Nostalgia for Soviet Innocence in the Polemics of Dilia Enikeeva,” in What Is Soviet Now? Identities, Legacies, Memories, eds. T. Lahusen and P. H. Solomon Jr.. (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2008).

31 E. Baraban, “Obyknovennaya gomofobia” (“Homophobia Simply”), Neprikosnovenniy zapaz (Emergency Store) 5, no. 19 (2001/2002): 85

32 M. Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge (London: Routledge, 1972), 30.

33 See “Life under the Act” (Krilija). http://www.krilija.sp.ru/publications2.html [Accessed on 05 May 2010].

34 V. Kirsanov, 69. Russkie gei, lesbiyanki, biseksualy i transseksualy. Kratkie zhizneopisaniya vydayushchikhsya rosiyan i sovremennikov (69. Russian Gay Men, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Transsexuals: Short Biographies of the Extraordinary Russians and the Contemporaries) (Tver: Ganimed, 2005), 476–86.

35 Ibid., 538–48.

36 In another source, in 1995: Umer Vlad Ortanov – odin iz pervykh gey-aktivistov Rossii i SSSR (Vlad Ortanov Died: He Was One of the First Gay Activists in Russia and the USSR) (2011). http://www.gay.ru/news/rainbow/2011/11/26-22263.htm [Accessed on 23 October 2012].

37 K. Kirichenko, LGBT aktivizm: sokrashchaya put’ k peremenam (LGBT Activism: Making the Way to Changes Shorter) (Omsk: Pulsar, 2010), 7.

38 M. Gessen, Zachem nuzhny gey-paragy (What Gay Pride Parades Are For) (2011). http://www.snob.ru/selected/entry/36273 [Accessed on 23 October 2012].

39 Moskovskiy arkhiv lesbiyanok i geev perevedut v tsyfrovoy format (Moscow Gay and Lesbian Archive is Being Digitalized) (2012). http://www.lesbi.ru/news/rainbow/2012/01/20-22652.htm [Accessed on 20 October 2012].

40 All the materials from the web are stored offline and are available from the researcher on request.

41 GayRussia.Ru: http://www.gayrussia.eu (in the beginning of the research, the website name was gayrussia.ru); Vykhod (Coming-Out): http://www.comingoutspb.ru; Krilija: http://krilija.sp.ru/; LGBT-Network: http://www.lgbtnet.ru/; Equality: http://www.spb-pride.ru/; Rakurs: http://rakurs.ucoz.com/.

42 Rainbow Syndrome: http://rainbowsyndrome.livejournal.com (the initial website was: http://www.rainbow-syndrome.org/; informational materials were transmitted to the livejournal page); LesbyPartyЯ: http://inozemceva.livejournal.com/ (the initial website was: http://www.lesbiparty.org.ru/; informational materials were always copied to the livejournal page).

43 The website http://lgbtrights.ru that belonged to LGBT Rights (Interregional Movement for Rights of Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transsexuals in Russia) was closed in 2012; its creator argues he continues the work: http://www.news.gayby.net/publ/13-1-0-230#.UJeIzcV2weo [Accessed on 5 November 2012]).

44 Marriage Equality Russia maintained http://www.marriageequality.ru. On May 30, 2012 the NGO was refused registration by Gagarinsky City Court: http://gagarinskij-rajonnyj-sud.ru/imenem-rossijskoj-federacii-lt-adres-gt-dd-mm-22/ [Accessed on 5 November 2012]. The activists closed the organization’s website and transmitted some information from it to the GayRussia website at http://www.gayrussia.eu.

45 Gender-L: http://vk.com/genderl; Krug-Karelia: http://vk.com/club5167974; Maximum: http://vk.com/maximum_murmansk; Rainbow House: http://vk.com/radugadom; Ural-Positive: http://vk.com/club8083941.

46 Aims are listed on the NGO’s social network page: http://vk.com/genderl [Accessed on 05 November 2012].

47 “Our History” (undated), http://krilija.sp.ru/en/index.html [Accessed on 05 November 2012].

48 Data is taken from the Registration office online base, http://unro.minjust.ru/NKOs.aspx [Accessed on 05 November 2012].

49 W. Brown, Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 83.

50 L. Engelstein, “’Kombinirovannaya’ nerazvitost’ “(“The ‘Combined’ Undevelopment”), Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie (New Literary Review) 49, no. 3 (2001): 40–41.

51 Gessen, The Rights of Lesbians and Gay Men in the Russian Federation, 24–25.

52 “Disorders of Sexual Preference,” Order of the Minister of Health of the Russian Federation No. 311, Section F65 (1999).

53 Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge, 124.

54 N 496-O, 2006 at 3.

55 There is antidiscrimination law in many states of Europe, South America, North America, Africa, Australia and some others. See, for example, an ILGA report by Daniel Ottoson, “State-sponsored Homophobia: A world survey of laws prohibiting same sex activity between consenting adults” (2010). http://old.ilga.org/Statehomophobia/ILGA_State_Sponsored_Homophobia_2010.pdf [Accessed on 10 March 2011].

56 This clause prohibits “actions aimed at the incitement of national, racial, or religious enmity, abasement of human dignity, and propaganda of exceptionality, superiority, or inferiority of individuals by reason of their attitude to religion, national, racial affiliation, language, origin and belonging to any social group, if these acts have been committed in public or with the use of mass media.”

57 I. Kochetkov (Petrov) and K. Kirichenko, “Polozheniye seksualnykh menshinstv” (“Situation with Sexual Minorities”), in Prava cheloveka v Rossiyskoy Federatsii: Sbornik dokladov o sobytiyakh 2008 goda (Human Rights in Russian Federation: 2008 Events Report), ed. D. Mescheryakov (Moscow: Moscow Helsinki Group, 2009), 344.

58 The response was mailed to me by ordinary postal service, and it is posted on my research web page: https://sites.google.com/site/russianlgbtresearch/hot-news-1/perepiskasupolnomocennym.

59 A. Phillips, Which Equalities Matter? (Oxford: Polity Press, 1999), 28.

60 S. Lamble, “Unknowable Bodies, Unthinkable Sexualities: Lesbian and Transgender Legal Invisibility in the Toronto Women’s Bathhouse Raid,” Social & Legal Studies 18 (2009): 112.

61 Ibid., 113–114.

62 This leaves three organisations unaccounted for: one of them represents an extreme queer-anarchy standpoint and acts basically through the language of art; the other two organisations seem to have an unclear position and probably exist as feeble experiments.

63 The registration was checked on the official registration office website: http://unro.minjust.ru/NKOs.aspx [Accessed on 15 October 2012].

64 Semeynye prava geev i lesbianok v Rossii (Family Rights of Gays and Lesbians in Russia), 2009. Saint-Petersburg: LGBT-Network. Originally available online: http://lgbtnet.ru/publications/lgbtfamily.pdf [Accessed on 22 April 2010]. Now stored elsewhere, including: http://www.infoshare.ru/files/programmy/msm/biblioteka/human_rights/lgbt_family_rights.pdf [Accessed on 5 November 2012].

65 Ibid., 12.

66 V. Sozayev, Mify i facty o geyakh, lesbiankakh i biseksualakh (Myths and Facts about Gay Men, Lesbians and Bisexuals) (2010). Originally available online: http://lgbtnet.ru/publications/mythsandfactslgbt.pdf [Accessed on 26 April 2010]. Now stored elsewhere, including: http://www.mhg.ru/files/010/mif.pdf [Accessed on 05 November 2012], 20.

67 Brown, Regulating Aversion, 26.

68 Ibid.

69 A. Phillips, “The Politicisation of Difference: Does This Make for a More Intolerant Society,” in Toleration, Identity and Difference, eds. J. Horton and S. Mendus (New York: Macmillan, 1999), 127.

70 See “And Once Again about Gay-Parade” (St. Petersburg: Vykhod [Coming-Out], 2009), http://piter.lgbtnet.ru/2009/06/16/infopraide-2/ [Accessed on 23 April 2010]. The publication argues against a gay pride march organised by GayRussia. A whole set of activities is evaluated in the publication. What is interesting is that the publication (like many others) is produced by an organization from the tolerance group and directed against an organization from the equality group.

71 See “Charter of the Interregional Social Movement,” The Russian LGBT-Network, 2006, art. 2.2.1, where political actions are prohibited. This Charter is chosen because it belongs to the head organization, and its charter is replicated in those of the other similar organizations. http://lgbtnet.ru/news/detail.php?ID=4116 [Accessed on 6 April 2010].

72 B. Cossman, “Family Inside/Out,” University of Toronto Law Journal 44, no. 1 (1994): 32.

73 Since this research was conducted, the NGO has been disbanded and its information is now available on gayrussia.eu. However, the program itself was removed from open access together with the NGO’s website (it was available at http://marriageequality.ru/practise/progamme-of-russian-marriage-equality-movement.php [Accessed on 22 April 2010]). The steps of this program are now performed by the GayRussia activists, so it is still a valid strategy for them. See Pravo na brak (odnopolye soyuzy) (The Right for Marriage [Same-Sex Unions]), http://www.gayrussia.eu/campaigns/marriage.php [Accessed on 23 October 2012]. The text of the program is also stored on my personal website: http://lgbtqrightsinrussia.wordpress.com/background/marriage-equality/.

74 Minust otkazal geyam v registratsii “Dvizheniya za brachnoe ravnopravie” (The Ministry of Justice Denied Registration of “Marriage Equality” to Gays), http://grani.ru/Politics/Russia/m.175155.html [Accessed on 23 October 2012].

75 B. Cossman, “Betwixt and Between Recognition: Migrating Same-Sex Marriages and the Turn toward the Private,” Law and Contemporary Problems 71 (2008): 164.

76 Ibid.

77 Pravo na brak (odnopolye soyuzy) (The Right for Marriage [Same-Sex Unions]), http://www.gayrussia.eu/campaigns/marriage.php [Accessed on 23 October 2012].

78 Phillips, The Politicisation of Difference, 143.

79 This idea is promoted by Arkhangelsk deputy Aleksandr Dyatlov in his appeal to colleagues in other regions of Russia (see Arkhangelskie politiki predlozhili zapretit propagandu gomoseksualizma po vsey Rossii [Arkhangelsk Politicians Offer to Prohibit Propaganda of Homosexuality All Over Russia], Social Information Agency, http://www.asi.org.ru/ASI3/rws_asi.nsf/va_WebPages/1E643B23B9096C85442579340025F780Rus [Accessed 05 November 2012].

80 The text of the law is available on the official St. Petersburg website (emphasis is mine): http://www.gov.spb.ru:3000/noframe/law?d&nd=537913971&prevDoc=891831166 [Accessed 05 November 2012].