Active citizenship: Negotiation of private/public and activism/compliancy by public officials in Russia and Germany

In professions of public officials, the LGBTIQ identity might serve as a permanently negotiated border between the private and the public. The forced negotiations of one’s identity within the authority bring about specific forms of activism, performed by state officials. The working paper demonstrates results from the empirical research on public officials in Germany and Russia, focusing on the intersection of LGBTIQ identity and belonging to public offices. By doing so, the working paper detects a special meaning of the private/public divide as essential aspect of LGBTIQ-identity articulation and discusses its relevancy for the activism.