The Securitisation of Sexuality in Putin’s Russia: A Media Analysis

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Abstract

The raft of homophobic and transphobic laws introduced by Russian state institutions since 2013 prompted a marked increase in physical and rhetorical violence against the LGBTQ community, significantly undermining their security. Yet, in Russian political and media discourse, it is the LGBTQ community that is presented as the threat to the Russian state, not the other way around, a narrative that is widely accepted by the Russian people. Based on the argument that what constitutes a threat is not determined by the inherent qualities of the threat itself but is the result of ‘securitisation’, where an issue is transformed from a normal political concern into a matter of security, the aim of this paper is to analyse the role of the radical-conservative daily newspaper Zavtra as a securitising actor in this process.

Author

• Richard Mole, U College London (UK)