Russia

Overview

Homosexuality is legal in Russia since 1993, however societal anti-homosexual sentiments are high with over 70% of the population holding hostile views towards homosexual people. Currently there are no laws in place protecting LGBT people in Russia from discrimination in areas of employment, housing or military service. However, legally homosexual people are allowed to serve in the military openly. In fact, a law that banned 'propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations' practically legitimises discrimination against LGBT people. Same-sex partnerships is not recognised by law.  It is legal to change one's legal gender, but sex reassignment surgery is required. There are numerous organisations advocating for LGBT and gender rights in Russia, the list of the main ones can be found below.

• An overview of rights and legal acts by ILGA Europe.
• Country ranking by ILGA Europe.

Academic institutions

As of yet to our knowledge, there are no academic institutions dedicated to LGBT research in Russia, but some research on gender and sexuality is carried out by individual members of staff in the following institutions. As there are over 3000 Higher Education Institutions in Russia, the provided list reflects only a fraction of the top institutions. For the fuller scope of academic research on gender and LGBT in Russia please browse the repositories provided below.     

• Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University
• Faculty of Sociology, Saint-Petersburg State University
• Gender Studies Centre, Novosibirsk State University
• School of Sociology, Higher School of Economics
• Institute of Demography, Higher School of Economics
• Department of Pedagogy and Psychology, MGIMO University
• Centre of Independent Social Research

Resources

Books

• Amico, S. (2014). Roll over, Tchaikovsky! : Russian popular music and post-Soviet homosexuality. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
• Baer, B. (2009). Other Russias. Palgrave Macmillan. Borenstein, E. (2008). Overkill sex and violence in contemporary Russian popular culture. (Culture and society after socialism). Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
• Baker, C. (2016). Gender in twentieth-century Eastern Europe and the USSR. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Barta, Peter I. (2001) Gender and Sexuality in Russian Civilisation. (Studies in Russian and European Literature). London/New York: Routledge.
• Buyantueva, R. & Shevtsova M. (2020). LGBTQ Activism in Central and Eastern Europe: Resistance, Representation and Identity. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Downing, Gillett, Downing, Lisa, & Gillett, Robert. (2011). Queer in Europe: Contemporary case studies. (Queer interventions). Farnham: Ashgate.
• Edenborg, Emil. (2017). Politics of Visibility and Belonging: From Russia’s “Homosexual Propaganda” Laws to the Ukraine War. (Interventions). London/New York: Routledge.
• Eichler, M. (2011). Militarizing men: Gender, conscription, and war in post-Soviet Russia. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
• Essig, L. (1999). Queer in Russia: A story of sex, self, and the other. Durham: Duke University Press.
• Fejes, N., & Balogh, A. (2012). Queer visibility in post-socialist cultures. Bristol: Intellect books.
• Goscilo, Lanoux, Goscilo, Helena, & Lanoux, Andrea. (2006). Gender and national identity in twentieth-century Russian culture. (1st ed.). DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press.
• Healey, D. (2001). Homosexual desire in revolutionary Russia: The regulation of sexual and gender dissent. Chicago, Ill., London: University of Chicago Press.
• Healey, D. (2018). Russian homophobia from Stalin to Sochi. London; New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic.
• Mielke, T., & Minsky, M. (2017). The Russian homosexual lexicon: Consensual and prison camp sexuality among men.
• Mole, R.C.M. (2021). Queer Migration and Asylum in Europe. London: UCL Press.
• Mole, R.C.M. (2019). Soviet and post-Soviet sexualities. (First ed., Routledge contemporary Russia and Eastern Europe series). Healey, D. (2018). Russian homophobia from Stalin to Sochi. New York : Bloomsbury Academic.
• O'Donnell, K., & O'Rourke, M. (2006). Queer masculinities, 1550-1800: Siting same-sex desire in the early modern world.
• Pilkington, H. (1996). Gender, generation and identity in contemporary Russia. London; New York: Routledge.
• Ri͡abova, T. (2008). Pol vlasti: gendernye stereotipy v sovremennoĭ rossiĭskoĭ politike. Ivanovo: GOU VPO.
• Schluter, D. (2002). Gay life in the former USSR: Fraternity without community. New York; London: Routledge
• Sperling, V. (2015). Sex, politics, and Putin: Political legitimacy in Russia. (Oxford studies in culture & politics).
• Stella, F. (2015). Lesbian lives in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia: Post/socialism and gendered sexualities. Francesca Stella, University of Glasgow. (Genders and sexualities in the social sciences).
• Štulhofer, Sandfort, Štulhofer, Aleksandar, & Sandfort, Theo. (2005). Sexuality and gender in postcommunist Eastern Europe and Russia. Aleksandar Štulhofer, Theo Sandfort, editors. New York: Haworth Press. .
• Tuller, David. (1996). Cracks in the Iron Closet: Travels in Gay & Lesbian Russia. Boston/London: Faber & Faber.
• Ziemer, U. (2011). Ethnic belonging, gender and cultural practices: Youth identities in contemporary Russia. (Soviet and post-Soviet politics and society; 103). Stuttgart: Ibidem. 

Periodicals

• Вестник ВГИК
• Вестник Российского университета дружбы народов. Серия: Социология
• Гендерные исследования - an academic journal on gender studies in the countries of the former USSR that publishes materials on gender, covering the entire spectrum of social and human sciences.
• Журнал исследований социальной политики
• Журнал социологии и социальной антропологии
• Laboratorium. Журнал социальных исследований
• Мониторинг общественного мнения: экономические и социальные перемены
• Новое литературное обозрение 
• Социальные и гуманитарные науки: теория и практика
• Социология власти
• Ученые записки
• Этнографическое обозрение
• Post-Soviet Affairs - a journal devoted to the study of the polities, economies, societies, and foreign relations of Russia and other republics of the former USSR. Its primary focus is on the tension between impulses of reform, liberalization, and modernization in the region and legacies of corruption, suppression of civil liberties, and other manifestations of the Soviet (and pre-Soviet) past.

Repositories

• LIS (Лаборатория исследований сексуальности) contains resources on sociological and anthropological studies of sexuality [Russian].
• Boell.org contains a list of resources about gender in Russia [Russian].
• Russian LGBT Museum is a website dedicated to LGBT history in Russia. Their Facebook [Russian].
• A list of articles about gender equality in Russia on Human Rights on Russia website [Russian].
• A list of articles about LGBT rights on Human Rights on Russia website [Russian].
• eLIBRARY.RU is the largest search engine for academic publications with links to online journals including publications on LGBT and gender [Russian].
• List of publications by Центр независимых социологических исследований [Russian].
• A search engine for doctoral dissertations in Russia Открытая Электронная Библиотека Диссертаций [Russian].
• Library of Equal Rights Trust offers online material on LGBT in Russia [Russian].
• St Petersburg University Research Repository provides open access to research publications, teaching materials, conference presentations, research data, graduation projects, dissertations and theses [Russian]. 

Data and statistics

• Rusia hate crime data by OSCE ODIHR [English].
• State-Sponsored Homophobia 2019, report, map and dataset, ILGA Europe - a world survey of sexual orientation laws + older editions [English]. 

Reports

• ECRI - Country monitoring in Russian Federation. Reports, 1997 - 2019 [English].
• World Report 2019 (PDF). Russia. Events of 2019. (Online report). Human Rights Watch [English].
• State-Sponsored Homophobia report: latest edition, includes maps and dataset, ILGA Europe - a world survey of sexual orientation laws + older editions [in English].
• Russian Federation. Amnesty International [English].
• Насилие против ЛГБТ в Росси по данным медиа. Отчет / Лаборатория исследований сексуальности. СПб. : ЛИС, 2017 [Russian].
• Prestuplenii͡a na pochve nenavisti protiv LGBT v Rossii. Aleksandr Kondakov. Sankt-Peterburg : Tsentr nezavisimykh sotsiologicheskikh issledovanii, 2017 [Russian].
• Justice or Complicity? LGBT Rights and the Russian Courts. Equal Rights Trust, London, 2016 [English].
• Monitoring of discrimination and violence based on Sogi in Russia in 2015: General information. Equal Rights Trust, London, 2015 [English].
• На перепутье: методология, теория и практика ЛГБТ и квир-исследований: сборник статей / ред.-сост. А. А. Кондаков. — СПб.: Центр независимых социологических исследований. 2014 [Russian].
• Study on Homophobia, Transphobia and Discrimination on Grounds of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Sociological Report: Russian Federation. COWI and The Danish Institute for Human Rights [English].
• Study on Homophobia, Transphobia and Discrimination on Grounds of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. Legal Report: Russian Federation by university lecturer and researcher Kseniya A.Kirichenko. COWI and The Danish Institute for Human Rights [English].
• The situation of LGBT people in the Russian Federation. ILGA report, 2008 [English].

News portals

• Kvir is a Russian gay-oriented magazine [Russian].
• Parniplius is a website covering various topics related to LGBT and gender [Russian].
• A list of media articles about LGBT [Russian].

Audio-visual

• Философские проблемы гендерных исследований is a series of videos discussing topics related to gender [Russian].

Organisations

LGBTQ organizations

• LGBT ministry Nuntiare et Recreare (latin: herald and strengthen) unites LGBT believers of different religious and confessional affiliations and people who don’t participate in any organized forms of religion, but share values of humanism, cultural diversity, tolerance, intercultural dialogue, nonviolence and Human rights [Russian].
• The Russian LGBT network is an inter-regional, non-governmental human rights organization that promotes equal rights and respect for human dignity, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity. They unite and develop regional initiatives, advocacy groups, and provide social and legal services [Russian, English].
• Project Deti 404  provides support to LGBT teenagers in Russia [Russian].

Other resources

• Side by Side is an LGBT International Film Festival in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The website has a good selection of videos. Their Youtube channel, Twitter, VKontakte, Flickr, Facebook accounts [Russian].
• Russian LGBT Sport Federation website [Russian].