How do nationalist political actors employ gender and sexuality to reinforce their power?

Consider the US, which proclaims itself a global advocate for human rights, including LGBTQ+ rights, but restricts access to universal abortion rights. Or consider a state like Russia, which vigorously promotes traditionalist values worldwide while simultaneously maintaining one of the world’s most accessible abortion policies. I study how political regimes strategically employ gender and sexuality to construct robust nationalist rhetoric and establish their positions in the international arena, sometimes in contradictory ways. My research primarily intersects with the subfields of gender and sexuality and transnational sociology. Methodologically, I use media analysis, survey data, and focus groups to explore the relationship between international social processes, state politics, public opinion, and lived experience.

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Tsaturyan, A. (2024). Visualizing the Emergence of Political Homophobia: Anti-LGBTQ+ and Anti-Ukrainian Sentiment in Russian Public Opinion. Socius, 10. https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231241234622

Other Publications

Tsaturyan, A. (2013). On State-Sponsored Homophobia in Russia. Guest post on  Social (In)Queery (Tey Meadow, CJ Pascoe and Jane Ward, eds.).

Koroleva, S., Levinson, A., & Tsaturyan, A. (2013). Children in the government custody: On institutions for children without parents [Государственные дети. О местах содержания детей без родителей, in Russian]. Public Opinion Bulletin, 3–4(116), pp. 70–90.

Working Papers

(Email me to request a draft)

Tsaturyan, A. “Strategic Traditionalism: The Role of the Russian State in Shaping the Global Anti-Liberal Discourse on Gender and Sexuality”

Tsaturyan, A. “What Does the Russian Public Think? Views on Homosexuality, Abortion, and the Regime’s Equation of LGBTQ with Foreign influence.”

Tsaturyan, A. “Models Of Disability and Lived Experience: Case Study of
Families With Children with Disabilities”

Tsaturyan, A., Elena Rozhdestvenskaya, “Family Memory and Ethnic-
Gender Identity: Armenian Immigrants in Russia”

Other Output

Listen to the podcast No Right Way (in Russian), the episode titled Drying Out on One Side, Molding on the Other, (2022) featuring Ksuksa, Masha, and Asya Tsaturyan discussing the challenges of the sandwich generation.