Exploration and resistance: representations of the LGBTQ+ community in Russian grassroots media since the 2010s

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After the short period of liberation in the 1990s-2000s the tenor of official discourse relating to Russia's LGBTQ+ community drastically shifted to a condemnatory and openly homophobic rhetoric (Soboleva 2015), yet in parallel, queer narratives in alternative media culture emerged and grew in prominence after 2013 (Engström 2021).Since its invasion of Ukraine Russia's state-imposed media restrictions dramatically increased. They included a stringent new "gay-propaganda law" (Sauer 2022). With such severe regulation of the official narrative on sexuality, grassroots media became a critical site of queer resistance in the Russian mediascape. This research will investigate the spectrum of strategies adopted by such actors in defence and exploration of Russophone LGBTQ+ representations.