More than ten years ago, scholars coined the concept of ‘political homophobia,’ referring to a state strategy of scapegoating an ‘other’ (LGBTQ+ people in this case) to promote social cohesion and national identity. For authoritarian regimes, political homophobia may be particularly useful in times of national economic or political crisis, under external political pressure, or amidst an international conflict. It often has nothing to do with factual societal attitudes toward LGBTQ+ people and homosexuality; instead, political homophobia puts the issue of homosexuality into the focus of public attention to distract the population from other problems.

This talk will discuss the issue of political homophobia and instrumentalization of LGBTQ+ rights in the case of Russia’s war in Ukraine that started in 2014 and culminated with the large-scale invasion on February 24, 2022. Using findings from the analysis of Russian and Ukrainian media and official statements of government officials of both countries, this talk will demonstrate how the idea of a ‘clash of values’ can be used to advocate and justify various political decisions, from the adoption of LGBTQ+ friendlier policies to the invasion of another country.

Maryna Shevtsova is a EUTOPIA Guest Researcher at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at Pompeu Fabra University. She is a Postdoctoral Scholar and Visiting Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Ljubljana. She has a PhD in Political Science from Humboldt University, Germany. Before coming to Ljubljana, she was a visiting researcher at the University of Florida, USA, and Lund University, Sweden. Her research interests include LGBTQ+ activism, anti-gender movements in Central and Eastern Europe, and queer migration. She is currently working on an edited volume, Feminist Perspective on Russia’s War in Ukraine, that will be published with Lexington Books later this year. In 2022, Maryna Shevtsova received the Emma Goldman Award for her engagement with feminist and LGBTQ+ rights activism.