Authors
Olga Doletskaya1; 1 University College London, UK Discussion
Since 2012, Russian queer parents have been impacted by state-sanctioned homophobia, as the ‘anti-gay propaganda law’ puts them at risk of having their children removed by social services. They must balance, measure and mitigate risks to the security of their families and their parental status. The escalation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and later the mobilisation in September, left queer parents with a difficult choice: emigrate or stay in Russia while the risk of border closures looms large. Staying in Russia might mean further isolation as friends from the community flee, while options for emigration are complicated by the need to keep or enhance the legal parental status. The experience of queer parenting in Russia is closely tied to (im)mobility, families with children find it harder to emigrate and at the same time, need it the most. While parenting is under-researched in queer migration and queer diaspora studies, in this work I strive to answer the following questions. How do queer parents in Russia make the decision to emigrate, and how do they calculate risks to their family’s wellbeing? What are the specificities of queer migration in these extreme settings? This paper is part of an anthropological study of Russian queer parenting, and contributes to the understanding of everyday lives of Russian queer parents and what part migration plays in their parenting journeys. 
