Unruly Identities: Soviet Psychiatry Confronts the ‘Female Homosexual’ of the 1920s
Dan Healey
Gender in Russian History and Culture1/1/2001·DOI·Read paper
Abstract
The study of female homosexuals — like the study of homosexuality in general — was not a major preoccupation of Soviet medical and legal professionals during the first years of the Bolshevik regime. Yet in contrast to pre-revolutionary discussions of the issue, a significant number of case histories and reports of women engaged in same-sex love appeared in scientific journals of the 1920s. Moreover, determined efforts were made by psychiatrists to move beyond a merely descriptive presentation of unusual individuals. Bolshevik policy on sexual and gender dissent was ambiguous, suggesting contradictory approaches to ‘homosexuality’. Some psychiatrists and sexologists endorsed the emancipation of male and female homosexuals, albeit in aesopian language. Meanwhile other medical professionals, buoyed by the revolutionary project to reconstruct humanity, adopted an interventionist approach against women who loved other women.
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