Russian LGBT Activism and the Memory Politics of Sexual Citizenship

This paper discusses barriers to the citizen practices of Russian LGBT activists in the national and transnational memory politics of Russian sexual citizenship. Based on memories of activism, as told in interviews with Russian LGBT activists, we ask three research questions. Firstly, a question about barriers to the travelling of memories of LGBT lives and mobilisations in Russian memory activism. We ask what the LGBT activists whom we interviewed remember of LGBT mobilisations in Russia, and how they mobilise these memories in their struggles for rights and recognition. Secondly, a question about barriers to the travelling of memories of Russian LGBT lives and mobilisations in transnational memory activism. We ask how (if at all) narratives of memories of Russian LGBT lives and mobilisations travel across time, place and space and, according to Russian LGBT activists, are (re)interpreted, (re)formulated and/or dismissed by European activists in the few transnational relations they have with European counterparts. Thirdly, a question about intersectional inequalities in national and transnational memory activism and politics. The interviews were conducted in 2021 (before the war between Russia and Ukraine, which started in 2022) and focus on the period between 2010 and 2020. The results of our study show that Russian activists encounter different types of barriers when engaging with memories of LGBT lives and mobilisations in the constitution of their collective identity as a social group. Relatedly, we find that memories of Russian LGBT lives and activism do not always travel well to LGBT activists in Western Europe. This highlights the complexities of intersections of unequal power relations in national and transnational memory politics of sexual citizenship. Theoretically, the results contribute to thinking in the research field of memory politics and memory activism and recently emerging research on queer memory politics and activism. They provoke questions about the different uses of temporality, space and place in narratives of progress and social change in studies of queer global politics and transnational solidarities.