See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/314982760

The Emergence of Transfeminism in Russia: Opposition from Cisnormative

Feminists and Trans* People

Article in TSQ Transgender Studies Quarterly · May 2016

DOI: 10.1215/23289252-3334343

CITATIONS READS

9 48

1 author:

Yana Kirey-Sitnikova
Eurasian Coalition on Health, Rights, Gender and Sexual Diversity
11 PUBLICATIONS 30 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Yana Kirey-Sitnikova on 12 August 2022.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 TSQ312_20Kirey-Sitnikova_1pp.3d 01/13/16 3:25pm Page 167

1
2
3
4
5
The Emergence of Transfeminism
6
7
in Russia
8 Opposition from Cisnormative Feminists
9
and Trans* People
10
11
12
13 YA N A K I R E Y - S I T N I K O VA
14
15
16 Abstract Trans* issues became visible in Russian feminist communities only in 2013. In Russia,
17 transfeminism was not a reaction against the explicit exclusion of trans* people from feminist spaces;
18 on the contrary, transphobia in feminism arose after an attempt to introduce transfeminism. Both
19 sides currently borrow their arguments from texts by US authors, without significant adaptation to
the post-Soviet context. According to the results of a survey conducted among Russian-speaking
20
feminists, the acceptance of trans* people depends on social privilege and education, with more
21 privileged and educated feminists being more conservative. On the other hand, the support for
22 existing gender roles in Russian trans* communities is rather high, although it was shown to
23 be lower than in the general population. Assaults from cisnormative feminists and trans* people,
24 together with the tough political situation, make the survival of transfeminism questionable
in Russia.
25 Keywords Russia, transfeminism, trans* activism
26
27
28
29
30
T ransfeminism became well known in Russian trans* and feminist commu-
nities only in 2013. This is not surprising, given that trans* activism in general
started only around 2008. From its introduction, transfeminist ideas faced strong
31 opposition from both cisgender feminists and trans* people. In this article, I will
32 briefly describe the historical context of recent trans* and feminist movements,
33 and the introduction of transfeminism in Russia. I will then try to explain why it
34 has been rejected by many trans* people and feminists alike. As a person actively
35 involved in transfeminist activism, I will rely mainly on my memory of events in
36 which I personally participated, which makes this article partly autoethnographic.
37 I also rely on information from numerous online forums, surveys, and personal
38 communications with trans* people and feminists. However, it is worth noting
39
40

TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly * Volume 3, Numbers 1–2 * May 2016 167
DOI 10.1215/23289252-3334343 ª 2016 Duke University Press
 TSQ312_20Kirey-Sitnikova_1pp.3d 01/13/16 3:25pm Page 168

168 TSQ * Transgender Studies Quarterly

1 that my experience is limited to events that took part mainly in Moscow and St.
2 Petersburg after 2010, and some of my observations are drawn mainly from
3 communication with people with trans* feminine identities.
4
5 Trans* Activism
6 Transgender issues are scarcely known to the general public in Russia, and they
7 did not receive any attention from mainstream political groups before 2015.
8 If discussed at all, it was only in connection with the LGBT issues that have
9 recently gained visibility because of antipropaganda laws, and most people do not
10 understand the difference between transgenderism and homosexuality. From
11 personal experience, I can say that even LGBT activists have little understanding
12 of the needs of trans* people and regard them as less important than the problems
13 of cisgender lesbians and gays. This is reflected in the work of LGB(T) organi-
14 zations, which rarely cover any trans-related issues—when they do, it is usually by
15 allowing one token trans* person to coordinate all the work in this area, which is
16 not seen as a priority. The situation has slightly started to change over since the
17 beginning of 2015, when trans* people were identified as a suitable group (dif-
18 ferent from lesbians and gays) for harassment by religious conservatives, and the
19 authorities are picking up this trend.
20 Lectures and workshops on transgenderism started as early as 2008
21 (Sitnikova 2014). Trans* issues first appeared in a public space in a political
22 context only in 2010, when Anno Komarov raised a banner with the slogan “My
23 Gender Is My Choice” during Moscow Pride, organized by the radical Russian
24 LGBTorganization GayRussia. Only two street actions explicitly devoted to trans*
25 issues have been held in Russia to date; both were part of international Stop Trans*
26 Pathologization campaigns in 2011 and 2014, drawing only five and ten partici-
27 pants, respectively. More street actions included trans* slogans, including the 2011
28 and 2012 protests for fair elections, where transgender and genderqueer flags
29 appeared for the first time. Other kinds of activism occur mostly in the sphere of
30 self-advocacy while attempting to change names or legal genders, or when seeking
31 access to hormones or surgeries. Generally speaking, self-defined trans* activists
32 are few, centered in large cities such as Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk,
33 Samara, and Arkhangelsk, rarely affiliated with organizations or institutions, and
34 have few if any resources to influence even other oppressed groups that might
35 conceivably become allies.
36
37 Feminism
38 In contrast, the Russian feminist movement has a long history that may be traced
39 back to the nineteenth century. In 1917, the Soviet Union was among the first
40 countries to grant women voting rights, and in 1920, abortion was legalized. The
feminist movement was later suppressed along with other independent civil
 TSQ312_20Kirey-Sitnikova_1pp.3d 01/13/16 3:25pm Page 169

KIREY-SITNIKOVA * The Emergence of Transfeminism in Russia 169

1 movements during the period of Joseph Stalin’s rule, and a new law prohibiting
2 abortion was issued in 1936, to be revoked only in 1955, two years after Stalin’s
3 death. Despite official Soviet support for equal rights, the oppression of women
4 continued, although in a different form than in many Western countries. Women
5 were considered equal with men in terms of ability to work and were allowed to
6 perform heavy physical labor, but at the same time, patriarchal thinking persisted,
7 and women were still required to do all the housework, which led to the “double
8 burden” of women being expected to work both at home as well as at their jobs. A
9 new wave of dissident feminism in the 1970s argued against the “unisex” model of
10 Soviet citizenship and drew attention to the specific challenges and experiences of
11 women (Moscow Feminist Group 2013).
12 After the dissolution of Soviet Union, the return of women to their “true
13 destiny” as wives and mothers was an explicit goal of various nationalist projects
14 (Gapova 2004: 109). Feminism is unpopular in contemporary Russia, enjoying the
15 support of only 8 percent of the general population, with 38 percent of all Russians
16 never even having heard the word (Public Opinion Foundation 2012). Far more
17 than was the case for third-wave feminism in the West, post-Soviet feminism
18 evolved in the context of virulent class stratification and economic inequality.
19 According to feminist scholar Elena Gapova, Russian women’s ignorance of or
20 inattention to feminism stems in part from the consideration of gender inequality
21 to be a problem secondary to economic issues more generally (Gapova 2004: 116).
22
23 Emergence of Transfeminism
24 Given the low visibility of both transgender and feminist communities, it is
25 no surprise that the two groups were not interested in one another’s issues and
26 really didn’t even know of one another. Because of the small number of separatist
27 feminist spaces, hardly any trans* people ever experienced discrimination there,
28 and trans* access to women-only spaces never became an issue. Feminism was
29 rarely discussed among trans* communities, where conversation focused instead
30 on hormones, surgeries, and the need to navigate within transphobic medical
31 and social institutions.
32 I became interested in feminism in 2011, as a member of Yabloko, a political
33 party, and its gender branch, which supports liberal feminism. I hadn’t previously
34 identified as a feminist, owing to what I knew of transphobia within mainstream
35 Western feminism, and I was unfamiliar with any alternatives at that time. I first
36 read about transfeminism in English in the summer of 2012 and was apparently
37 one of the first persons in Russia to do so. I publicly presented on transfeminism
38 for the first time in October 2012 at the Festival of Queer Culture (QueerFest) in
39 St. Petersburg. I gave another lecture on transfeminism in Moscow later that same
40 year, organized under the auspices of the Moscow Feminist Group, which became
the first feminist group in Russia to organize a transfeminist event. They invited
 TSQ312_20Kirey-Sitnikova_1pp.3d 01/13/16 3:25pm Page 170

170 TSQ * Transgender Studies Quarterly

1 me to their separatist meetings, though I never came. A rally in Moscow on March

2 8, 2013 (International Women’s day, an official holiday in Russia), was the first
3 feminist street action in which transfeminist issues were publicly raised, but
4 transfeminist activism was not confined to the capital city. I know at least two
5 trans* women in Siberia (cities of Novosibirsk and Novokuznetsk) who suc-
6 cessfully engaged with their local feminist communities. I encountered no
7 opposition toward transfeminism at this early stage of activism, and even now
8 there is currently only one organized feminist group in Russia whose members
9 explicitly reject the identities of trans* women (“Initiative Group ‘Za femi-
10 nism’”).
11 This positive start could perhaps have inspired hope that transfeminism in
12 Russia would follow a different path than it had in the United States, where it had
13 to struggle against feminist transphobia. Unfortunately, the reality was somewhat
14 different. It’s not that transphobia didn’t exist at all in Russian feminism before
15 the introduction of transfeminism. Reading online feminist discussions before
16 2013, one can certainly find posts in which commentators refer to trans* people as
17 mentally ill and regard them with suspicion, but their opinions were not based on
18 any particular feminist theory and were not different from arguments made by
19 other (nonfeminist) people. The general attitude appears primarily to be one of
20 curiosity, and even sympathy, toward a little-known phenomenon. The intro-
21 duction of transfeminism, however, seems actually to have provoked a more
22 explicit and deliberate transphobic response. The earlier situation changed dras-
23 tically after I started blogging in online feminist communities, the largest of which
24 was Feministki.livejournal.com, where I introduced the basic concepts of trans-
25 feminism, first by borrowing from US transfeminist authors such as Sandy Stone,
26 Julia Serano, and Emi Koyama (Sitnikova 2013), then going on to develop my own
27 ideas. Before long, cisgender feminists started using such concepts as “women’s
28 experience” and “male privilege” to discuss transgenderism, and their attitude
29 toward it gradually changed from neutral to negative, or even hostile.
30 How did theoretical or ideological positions on transgenderism begin to
31 appear in Russian feminism? Were they imported from the West or homemade?
32 While Russian transfeminist perspectives indeed borrowed directly from US
33 transgender theorists, it is less clear where Russian feminist transphobia origi-
34 nated. Such concepts as “universal women’s experience” and “male privilege”
35 were long known in Russian feminism, but it is difficult to determine whether the
36 transphobic application of these to trans* issues was the independent invention of
37 Russian feminists, or whether they first encountered these arguments in foreign
38 sources. Part of the hostility toward transfeminism among some Russian feminists
39 is undoubtedly the result of my personal style of activism, which is confronta-
40 tional and uncompromising. I see this clearly when I compare comments on
online posts I’ve made with comments made on posts by other trans* people. Had
 TSQ312_20Kirey-Sitnikova_1pp.3d 01/13/16 3:25pm Page 171

KIREY-SITNIKOVA * The Emergence of Transfeminism in Russia 171

1 transfeminism been introduced in a more gradual and delicate way, the oppo-
2 sitional response might have been less vigorous. Whether my radical strategy was
3 the right way to go depends on whether we as trans* people want assimilation and
4 sympathy in a cisnormative world (including the feminist world) or whether we
5 want to deconstruct cisnormativity. This question is highly controversial, even
6 among members of trans* communities in Russia, who often post “don’t rock the
7 boat” comments in response to my blogs and other statements.
8
9 Who Are Trans*-Exclusive Feminists in Post-Soviet Space?
10 What makes some feminists trans* inclusive and others trans* exclusive? This
11 question has been of great concern to me for some time. To satisfy my curiosity, I
12 decided to organize an online survey, the initial results of which are published
13 here for the first time. The language of the survey was Russian. It did not restrict
14 participation based on the respondent’s country of residence. The only require-
15 ment for participation was self-identification as a feminist. The survey was run in
16 the first half of 2015.
17 Of the 639 respondents analyzed here, 54 self-identified as transgender
18 people; their answers are excluded from the discussion that follows in an effort
19 to reduce bias. One question I asked, which provided a key for interpreting
20 responses to other questions, was, “People who were assigned male at birth
21 but who identify as female are . . .” The answers included “women” (62 percent),
22 “men” (12 percent), “an intermediate gender” (4 percent), and “depends on con-
23 ditions” (18 percent). There was also a field in which respondents could enter their
24 own answer. It was possible to select more than one answer. Answers to a simi-
25 larly structured question about trans* men correlated closely to answers for the
26 question about trans* women. The survey is not representative, and it is clearly
27 biased by the fact that many feminists know me as an active participant in the
28 trans* movement, which must undoubtedly contribute to underrepresentation of
29 the opinions of “trans*-exclusive” feminists.
30 I compared respondents who answered either “women” or “men” to the
31 question regarding the gender of people assigned male at birth but who identify as
32 female, referring to these groups as, respectively, “accepting” and “rejecting” of
33 transgender identity claims. Surprisingly, unlike the case with cisgender gays and
34 lesbians, personally knowing trans* people was not a determining factor in
35 accepting their identity. This result also contradicts other studies that suggest the
36 significance of this factor in determining levels of transphobia (Hill 2005: 541). It
37 should be noted that rejection of a trans* person’s identity claim is not necessarily
38 synonymous with transphobic behavior. It should also be noted that a few of the
39 “rejecting” feminists indicated that they acquired their views only after being in
40 communication with trans* people who were misogynist or supported existing
gender norms.
 TSQ312_20Kirey-Sitnikova_1pp.3d 01/13/16 3:25pm Page 172

172 TSQ * Transgender Studies Quarterly

1 The most indicative factors for the acceptance or rejection of a trans*

2 persons’ identity appears to be class privilege and level of education (which are
3 not always correlated in post-Soviet states, where higher education is often free).
4 The average salary of “rejecting” feminists is almost twice as high as the average
5 salary of “accepting” feminists (US$1,147 and US$592 per month, respectively).
6 The gap would be even wider if transgender respondents (all of whom fall into the
7 “accepting” group) were included. As for education, there is a significant gap in
8 graduate education between the two groups—40 percent of “rejecting” respon-
9 dents and 24 percent of “accepting” respondents (fig. 1). These differences may be
10 regarded in part as the consequence of age difference: the mean age for the
11 “accepting” group was 21.8 years old, while for the “rejecting” group it was 23.5
12 years old. This age gap (1.7 years) is, however, too small to explain the huge
13 difference in salary and educational level. The answers to other questions confirm
14 that social and economic privilege is the most important indicator regarding
15 Russian-speaking feminist attitudes toward trans* people.
16 Respondents in the “rejecting” group tend to live in larger cities: 46 per-
17 cent live in cities with more than 5 million in population, compared to only
18 35 percent in the “accepting” group. “Accepting” respondents were more likely to
19 report experiencing more than one form of discrimination, while the “rejecting”
20 respondents were more likely not to experience any discrimination at all except for
21 misogyny. There were more bisexuals and gender nonbinary people among
22 the “accepting” group, while there were more lesbians among the “rejecting”
23 feminists. Being a migrant, belonging to a national/ethnic minority group,
24 and having a disability had no correlation with attitudes toward trans* issues
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
Figure 1. Respondents considered accepting and rejecting of transgender identity claims,
40
according to their level of education
 TSQ312_20Kirey-Sitnikova_1pp.3d 01/13/16 3:25pm Page 173

KIREY-SITNIKOVA * The Emergence of Transfeminism in Russia 173

1 (fig. 2). The “rejecting” group appears to be more active on feminist issues and
2 causes, with only 25 percent reporting not participating in any type of activ-
3 ism, compared to 37 percent of the “accepting” group not being active (fig. 3).
4 “Rejecting” feminists were twice as likely to write articles and blogs on feminist
5 issues or to translate texts. Participation in street protests, fund-raising, and
6 gender studies is also higher among the “rejecting” group, owing to part to their
7 higher levels of socioeconomic privilege and greater opportunities for activism
8 in larger cities.
9 Participants were asked what most defined “female” and “male” for them.
10 For the “rejecting” group, genitals were the primary factor (67 percent), followed
11 by genes (49 percent). Hormones, reproductive capacity, and gender socializa-
12 tion were listed. Among the “accepting” group, “gender identity” was by far the
13 leading criterion (67 percent), followed by other social factors rather than bio-
14 logical ones.
15 Rejection of trans* people’s preferred gender identity is closely related to
16 the negative attitude toward the concept of intersectionality, that is, a theory that
17 studies intersections of oppressions and privileges in different social hierarchies..
18 Only 18 percent of “rejecting” feminists believe this concept is useful for femi-
19 nism, while 57 percent think it is harmful, and 18 percent are unfamiliar with the
20 term. This finding is not surprising, given that many “rejecting” feminists have
21 never experienced forms of oppression other rather than misogyny. Among the
22 “accepting” group, 61 percent think that intersectionality is useful for feminism,
23 while only 2 percent think it is harmful, and 29 percent have never heard of the
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
Figure 2. Respondents considered accepting and rejecting of transgender identity claims,
40
according to their social group
 TSQ312_20Kirey-Sitnikova_1pp.3d 01/13/16 3:25pm Page 174

174 TSQ * Transgender Studies Quarterly

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Figure 3. Respondents considered accepting and rejecting of transgender identity claims,
15 according to the number of groups to which they belong
16
17
concept. Attitudes toward transfeminism are similarly highly correlated to
18
rejection or acceptance of trans identities.
19
A few other findings are worth mentioning. Among the “rejecting” group,
20
39 percent opposed being able to amend gender markers on official documents
21
at all, and 21 percent thought it should be possible to do so only once. At the
22
same time, 27 percent believe that one should be able to change gender markers
23
as many times as one wants. Regarding why trans* people would want to par-
24
ticipate in feminism, 66 percent of “rejecting” feminists feel that transgender
25
people want feminists to solve their problems for them, and 27 percent believe
26
transgender people are “agents of patriarchy who want to destroy feminism.”
27
At the same time, however, 21 percent of the “rejecting” feminists believe that
28
feminism and the trans* movement have similar goals. When asked whether
29
trans* women should be included in women-only spaces, only 51 percent of
30
the “rejecting” group opposed inclusion under any circumstances, while the
31
remainder said it should depend on having had surgeries, having taken hormones,
32
or visually appearing to be women. Thus, strictly speaking, “trans*-exclusive”
33
feminists represent only about half of the “rejecting” group, while the other half is
34
willing to tolerate trans* women in women-only spaces under certain conditions,
35
even though they do not consider them to be women. Attitudes toward trans*
36
men were much more tolerant.
37
38
Attitudes Toward Feminism in Trans* Community
39
The introduction of transfeminism specifically and of feminism more generally
40
faces strong opposition in Russian trans* communities. Many trans* people in
 TSQ312_20Kirey-Sitnikova_1pp.3d 01/13/16 3:25pm Page 175

KIREY-SITNIKOVA * The Emergence of Transfeminism in Russia 175

1 Russia are very conservative with regard to upholding gender norms, and social
2 norms more generally. They see their goal as “becoming normal,” not in chal-
3 lenging norms, which leads to rejection of feminism as well as any public trans*
4 activism that undermines binary gender roles. This conservative faction is very
5 active and vocal, creating the impression of a strong trans* opposition to any
6 form of feminism. Empirical evidence paints a different picture, however, and
7 suggests that conservative voices do not represent a significant fraction of opinion
8 within the trans* community. According to a survey I conducted in early 2015
9 among Russian-speaking trans* people (N =358), 30 percent of respondents have
10 a positive attitude toward feminism, and 32 percent have a positive attitude
11 toward transfeminism. This is more than three times higher than the percentage
12 of the general population that has a positive attitude toward feminism, as noted
13 above (Public Opinion Foundation 2012). Only 9 percent of trans* respondents
14 have a negative attitude toward feminism, and only 6 percent have a negative
15 attitude toward transfeminism. Among those surveyed, 24 percent identified as
16 feminist, and 11 percent identified as transfeminist.
17 While 23 percent of respondents didn’t know what the word transfeminism
18 meant, this is not a hopeless finding, taking into account the short history of
19 the movement in Russia. One reason for the lack of comprehension of (trans)
20 feminist ideas among the trans* community here is its overintellectualization
21 and the large number of unfamiliar theoretical concepts that are often difficult
22 for a person without higher education, or previous exposure to these concepts, to
23 understand. Many trans* people find the discussion of these abstract concepts
24 inappropriate at a time when more urgent practical problems remain unsolved.
25 Unfortunately, there have been no significant attempts among Russian (trans)
26 feminists to explain how their theories can correlate with the everyday experi-
27 ences of trans* people, and, even more importantly, how these theories can help
28 to change the political situation. Transfeminism thus remains the interest of a
29 few college-educated middle-class activists. To some extent, this is a problem of
30 Russian feminism in general.
31
32 Political Context
33 The general political climate in Russia will play a significant role in determining
34 the ultimate fate of transfeminism. In the beginning of trans* activism here, and
35 especially during the protests of 2011 and 2012, there was a feeling that democ-
36 ratization would come some day —or that at least the direction of political change
37 was heading in that direction, though not as quickly as one might hope. Since
38 2012, however, the situation has only gotten worse. The Russian state tries to
39 undermine any civil activism. Russian imperialism is on the rise. Both feminism
40 and transgenderism are considered Western phenomena that are contrary to
“traditional” Russian values, which leads to censorship, prohibition of public
 TSQ312_20Kirey-Sitnikova_1pp.3d 01/13/16 3:25pm Page 176

176 TSQ * Transgender Studies Quarterly

1 assemblies, and attacks from ultra-right groups. Some trans* activists are leaving
2 the country, while others are abandoning their activism. Others, such as myself,
3 reorient their activism to less public spheres such as theoretical writing.
4 Many trans* people and feminists have internalized the conservatism
5 propagated by state media. One trans* woman told me that “propaganda of queer
6 theory,” a formulation that paraphrases the law banning “propaganda of non-
7 traditional sexual relations,” would be prohibited in the Facebook group she
8 created. At a time of massive assaults on women’s rights (for example, the recent
9 legislative initiative against abortion or smoking for women under forty), it is
10 easier for cisgender feminists to claim that the rights of trans* women should not
11 be their concern, as they have more important issues to resolve. Likewise, it is
12 easier for the general population to claim that feminism and trans* rights are not a
13 high priority during a time of financial crisis sparked by the annexation of
14 Crimea, the conflict with Ukraine, and international economic sanctions. Under
15 such conditions, it is hardly surprising that the development of transfeminism in
16 Russia has been suspended so soon after it began, and that its future in the region
17 is so uncertain.
18
19
20 Yana Kirey-Sitnikova is a trans* activist and feminist from Moscow, Russia, and the author of
21 the first book on transfeminism in the Russian language. She is also a PhD student in the field of
22 chemoinformatics.
23
24
25 References
26 Gapova, Elena. 2004. “O gendere, nacii i klasse v postkommunizme” (“On Gender, Nation, and
Class in Postcommunism”). Gendernye issledovaniya 13: 101–18.
27
Hill, Darryl, and Brian Willoughby. 2005. “The Development and Validation of the Genderism
28
and Transphobia Scale.” Sex Roles 53, nos. 7–8: 531–44.
29 Moscow Feminist Group. 2013. “Leningradskij feminizm 1970-x godov” (“Leningrad Feminism in
30 the 1970s”). ravnopravka.ru/2013/05/leningrad_feminism/ (accessed March 2, 2015).
31 Public Opinion Foundation. 2012. “Zhenshhina—tozhe chelovek: Predstavleniya rossiyan o
32 feminizme” (“Woman Is Also a Human: Attitudes of Russians toward Feminism”). www
.fom.ru/obshchestvo/10611 (accessed July 16, 2015).
33
Sitnikova, Yana. 2013. “Transfeminism I radicalnij feminism: Kogda chastnoe stavit pod vopros
34
publichnoe” (“Transfeminism and Radical Feminism: When the Private Calls into
35 Question the Public”). In Zhenshhiny v politike: Novye podxody k politicheskomu (Women
36 in Politics: New Approaches to the Political). Feministskij obrazovatelnyj almanax (Feminist
37 Educational Almanac), vol. 3, edited by Alexander Pershai and Evgenia Ivanova, 79–88.
38 Prague: Adliga.
———. 2014. “Transgender Activism in Russia.” Freedom Requires Wings. www.freedom
39
requireswings.com/2014/01/report-transgender-activism-in-russia.html (accessed July 16,
40
2015).

View publication stats