Whose Name is it Anyway?: Feminists and Queers Fighting the State over Patronymic Policy

• In Event: Remembering Queer Futures: Reflections on Queer-Worldmaking in Russia and Central Asia in the 2000-2020

Abstract

This paper tracks the terrain of legal given names as an arena of queer and feminist advocacy in Russia and Kyrgyzstan. Patronymic names carry a specific colonial, classed, and social history, and a legal standard for the reproduction of official gender order. Drawing on historical and ethnographic research, this paper tracks the experiences of activists and civil rights lawyers challenging this paradigm by supplanting Russophone patronymics with Turkic patronymics or "matchestvo" (otchestvo-style matronyms) become targets for politicized retaliation.

Author

• Cassandra Hartblay, U of Toronto Scarborough (Canada)