Rustam Alexander
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- May 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781526155764
- eISBN:
- 9781526166579
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7765/9781526155771
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
Drawing on fresh and previously undiscovered sources, this book fills an important gap. It reveals that from 1956 to 1991 doctors, educators, jurists and police officers discussed the issue of ...
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Drawing on fresh and previously undiscovered sources, this book fills an important gap. It reveals that from 1956 to 1991 doctors, educators, jurists and police officers discussed the issue of homosexuality. At the heart of their discussions were questions which directly affected the lives of homosexual people in the USSR. Was homosexuality a crime, disease or a normal variant of human sexuality? Should lesbianism be criminalised? Could proper sex education prevent homosexuality? What role did the GULAG and prisons play in spreading homosexuality across the USSR? Far from being abstract questions, these discussions often had practical implications – doctors designed and offered medical treatments for homosexuality in hospitals, while prison workers used these treatments in prisons.Less
Drawing on fresh and previously undiscovered sources, this book fills an important gap. It reveals that from 1956 to 1991 doctors, educators, jurists and police officers discussed the issue of homosexuality. At the heart of their discussions were questions which directly affected the lives of homosexual people in the USSR. Was homosexuality a crime, disease or a normal variant of human sexuality? Should lesbianism be criminalised? Could proper sex education prevent homosexuality? What role did the GULAG and prisons play in spreading homosexuality across the USSR? Far from being abstract questions, these discussions often had practical implications – doctors designed and offered medical treatments for homosexuality in hospitals, while prison workers used these treatments in prisons.