The following report presents the findings of a qualitative study conducted by activists of the Queer Women of North Caucasus Support Group Initiative. The findings describe survival strategies for homosexual, bisexual women and transgender persons in a sexually repressive culture.
This study can be applied to the work of psychologists, social workers, and lawyers providing assistance and support to non-heterosexual women from the republics of the North Caucasus. Moreover, the study is an attempt to document the current situation regarding the rights and the status of homosexual, bisexual women and transgender persons. See more via OutRight Action International
Survival strategies of homosexual and bisexual women and transgender persons in the North Caucasus
Queer Women of North Caucasus Support Group Initiative
The relevance of this study became apparent when we started running the “Queer Women of the North Caucasus” project. During the 2017 and 2018 crises in the North Caucasus when reports of massive illegal detentions, torture and extrajudicial killings of LGBT+ people in Chechnya and then in other republics began, most of the applicants were homosexual and bisexual men. Appeals for help by lesbian and bisexual women were relatively rare. The “Queer Women of the North Caucasus” project itself was the result of the joint efforts of individual female activists in Russia and aims to support and protect lesbian, bisexual and transgender women. Over those two years, the activists involved in the project were able to gather a large amount of information confirming facts of violence against lesbian, bisexual and transgender women in the North Caucasus. Any explicit support and assistance to lesbian, bisexual and transgender women in the North Caucasus entails significant risks, primarily for the applicants themselves.
“Not only is this study an attempt to broaden the knowledge and understanding of
specialists of the helping professions, activists, human rights activists and decision makers at
the state level about the situation of queer women in the region. It is also an opportunity to
gain a better understanding of the conditions in which lesbians, bisexual women and
transgender persons in different republics of the North Caucasus live, to step back from a
colonial approach in human rights work and to document the current situation in an accessible
form. We are convinced that only a deep understanding of the problem and respect for women’s
experiences will help unite efforts and reduce risks for queer women in the North Caucasus.”
Introduction
In 2018 the Queer Women of North Caucasus published its first report, “Violence against queer women in the North Caucasus”. For the first time interviews and stories of the violence experienced by non-heterosexual women became available. This study has allowed us to systematise the unique experiences of lesbians, bisexual women and transgender persons in that region. The study attracted the attention of human rights organisations, but there was next to no reaction from decision-makers at the state level.
From December 2018 to February 2020 members of the Queer Women of North Caucasus initiative kept receiving requests from non-heterosexual women for legal and psychological support in situations of vulnerability to violence based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity and expression.
The attention of human rights activists around the world was attracted by a publication in Novaya Gazeta about the persecution, killings and violence against gays in the Chechen Republic in April 2017. Since then, the Chechen Republic has remained a region in which crimes against homosexuals, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender persons are not investigated and ignored at the republican and national levels. At the same time, lesbians, bisexual women and transgender persons who live not only in Chechnya, but also in other republics of the North Caucasus, remain nearly invisible.
This study aims to examine survival strategies of queer women in the North Caucasus. A premise of our work is the idea that non-heterosexual women and transgender men live in conditions of intersecting social stigma. It is impossible to separate the influence of being socialised as a woman (according to the sex attributed at birth) and being a non-heterosexual woman or transgender person. Restrictions, requirements, prohibitions, vulnerabilities and penal systems intertwine and exacerbate risks for lesbians, bisexual women and transgender persons living in sexually repressive cultures.
The key concept of the study is “survival strategy”. Related categories are “life strategies”, “life path”, “life techniques”, “subjective image of one’s life path”, “meaning of life”, “life scenario”, “lifestyle”, “lifestyle choices”, “temporary prospects”, “life prospects”, “life orientation”, “life objective”, “life programmes”, “attitude towards life” and others.
H. Tome uses the term “life techniques” and defines them as a person’s consciously planned, intentional action that makes up a small part of their responses to the hardships of life. According to H. Tome’s notion, a person is in constant interaction with society and their behaviour is determined by the way a situation perceived (understood, interpreted) rather than by the objective reality of a situation. For our study, this position is important, as the situations described below are perceived, understood and interpreted differently by non-heterosexual women in the North Caucasus and beyond.
In her monograph titled “Life Strategy”3, K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya notes that a life strategy is a constant adjustment of one’s personality and way of life; building one’s life on the basis of one’s individual capabilities and potential and afterwards on the capabilities and potential acquired later in life. A life strategy consists of methods of changing and transforming one’s conditions and life situation in accordance with one’s values; in making a stand for what matters through compromise in things that matter less, in overcoming one’s fear of loss and in finding oneself.
The main question of our study is how non-heterosexual women living in conditions of strict patriarchy, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, xenophobia, a supported system of oppression of women through physical, sexualised, psychological violence and with extremely limited opportunities, are able to change and transform their life conditions in accordance with their values? How can this happen when an important part of one’s personality — one’s identity — is essentially banned and when one has no right to choose their sexual and gender identity?