Mother Russia in queer peril: the gender logic of the hypermasculine state

The notion of “Mother Russia” has long played a central role in the articulation of Russian statehood. Drawing on Peterson’s “lens of protection,” this chapter interrogates how “Russia as Motherland” has been utilized to help construct a neopaternalist gender regime and state identity via a narrative of existential threat to Mother Russia from an “Unholy Queer Peril.” This narrative highlights the state’s dogmatic adherence to “traditional” understandings of gender and sexuality, and the chapter explores the impact of the perception of a “queer peril” for practices of statecraft, showing how the hypermasculine state’s “fear of queer” becomes both defining and self-defeating as the state’s logic of protection focuses increasingly on ensuring the “correct” performance of gender by state and citizens alike.