Background

The study of rights based on a homosexual identity is one of the most unpopular topics in Russia. Occasional attempts to analyze the law of the Russian Empire, which referred to the so called “sodomy”, appeared almost simultaneously with the similar reflections in Western Europe in the late XIX century (Набоков 1902). However, the discussion did not form in a profound research area and died soon. In the conditions of ideological blockade of sexual themes in the USSR, such studies were even rarer. Although in the late 1970s and 1980s some books written by Soviet jurists were issued in the United States. The problems of homosexuality and the law in Russia were discussed in the books (Чалидзе 1977; Козловский 1986). Then, the “patriarch” of Russian social sexology I. Kon got started his work.

In 1994 a report “The rights of gays and lesbians in the Russian Federation: Report of the International Commission on Human Rights for gays and lesbians” (Гессен 1994) was published. In particular, it seeks to identify a list of human rights concerned gays and lesbians in the new Russia:

“As our analysis shows, in Russia, violation of gay rights to freedom of press, freedom of assembly, the right not to be inflicted an unusual punishment in prison or mental hospital is still prevalent” (ibid.: 4-5).

Then, homosexuals are excluded from the legal discourse. Studies in psychology, art, sociology still cover some issues of homosexuality. However, the law and human rights activities remain outside this context.

Homosexuality has become an important part in the works of Kon (apogee is reached, perhaps, in his work, “Faces and Masks of the same-sex love”, 2005). Convicted of “buggery” L. Klein also produces important work devoted to the homosexual culture in  Russia (“The Other Side of a Heaven Body”, 2002). These works are quoted elsewhere, their occurrence in any bibliographical list of a scientific article on a similar subject is considered almost mandatory.

Homosexuality finds a place in the emerging gender studies. The studies consern the problem of homophobia (Омельченко 2002), the issues of identity (Жеребкина 2006), lesbian families (Нартова 2004) and subculture (Нартова 1999), the behavior of homosexuals (Воронцов 1999), etc. Scientists who work in the gender spectrum do not exclude the issues of homosexuality from the contexts of their studies even in those cases where the object is a heterosexual narrative (see, for example, Здравомыслова и Темкина 2002).

Asking questions about sexuality in the context of human rights is still problematic. This study is based on the findings of Western researchers, where the right to sexuality has been developed within a number of theoretical approaches. However, in the context of global social changes, this solution seems to be quite justified. Arguments of rights to sexuality are formulated in terms of human rights, and globalization has played a first violin in this regard (Weeks 2007: 201). Global experience makes us feel the pain from legal wounds much heavier at home.

Current situation with gay and lesbian rights in Russia can not be called enviable. On the one hand, the law on sodomy was abolished long ago. Thus, we happily left the criminal field. On the other hand, we have not become a part of the civil law. Gays and lesbians in Russia today are not full citizens: in addition to those rights which we are deprived like all the others (freedom of movement in Moscow without Moscow registration, for example), there are those rights, which we rejected as gays and lesbians.

The Russian legal discourse is based on the exclusion of gays and lesbians (Kondakov, 2010, 2011). The law does not protect us from discrimination, but in itself contains discriminatory provisions. Moreover, as a part of the heteronormative order, the law is interpreted not in favor to the right to sexual identity even in the cases where a specific rule could be applied to protect homosexuals.

Under these conditions, Russian gays and lesbians can put srtonger requirements on the respect for human rights, feeling the pain fromlegal wounds much heavier. The real situation is that many people have chosen a strategy of conformism: patience of the pain, its tolerance. This hypothesis needs to be verified empirically in this study. Determining the rights and their importance for the subjects, the researcher intends to uncover the practice of upholding the rights that gays and lesbians in Saint Petersburg do.

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