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Recognition or Othering? Trans* Representation in Russian Media

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Mapping LGBTQ Spaces and Places

Abstract

While political and societal pressure on LGBTIQ+ activists and individuals intensifies every year with new discriminatory legislation being discussed and/or implemented and new cases of harassment becoming public, popular media that had not previously engaged with gay or trans* issues started including queer people and their experiences. We focus on three positive trans* representations occurring at venues such as the popular reality show “The Bachelor,” the glossy fashion and celebrity magazine “Tatler” and the internet-media “O-zine.” We analyze representative examples of the positive trans* representations in these different media, using critical discourse analysis developed by Ruth Wodak texts and the approach developed by Eva Flicker for visual analysis. We argue that rather than directly opposing state homophobia or presenting spectacular victim narrative that speak to oppression, these media focus on the individual personal experiences and lives as just one individual variation of societal norm and create positive visibility without aiming at political rebellion. Thereby, although to varying degrees, all of these media normalize trans* people and issues as part of Russian culture, which contradicts the state discourse that clearly signifies LGBTIQ+ people as deviation and un-Russian.

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Acknowledgements

The research for this article was developed by the authors within the framework of the project “The Magic Closet and the Dream Machine: Post-Soviet Queerness, Archiving, and the Art of Resistance” (AR 567), conducted by Katharina Wiedlack, Masha Godovannaya, Ruthia Jenrbekova and Tania Zabolotnaya, funded by the Austrian Science Fund (2020–2024).

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  1. Department of English and American Studies, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Tania Zabolotnaya & Katharina Wiedlack

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  1. Tania Zabolotnaya
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  2. Katharina Wiedlack
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Correspondence to Katharina Wiedlack .

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  1. Inst of Demography Campus Condorcet, Paris 1-Pantheon Sorbonne University, Aubervilliers cedex, France

    Marianne Blidon

  2. Department of Geography, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA

    Stanley D. Brunn

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Zabolotnaya, T., Wiedlack, K. (2022). Recognition or Othering? Trans* Representation in Russian Media. In: Blidon, M., Brunn, S.D. (eds) Mapping LGBTQ Spaces and Places. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-03792-4_28

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-03792-4_28

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