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<p>The Russian language traditionally had terms denoting individuals, who fall outside the binary gender norms. However, they are currently considered outdated and derogatory. As a result, Russian-speaking transgender people use terms and their derivatives borrowed from English and German (“transsexual”, “transgender”, “crossdresser”, “transvestite”, etc.) for self-definition. Among trans activists, non-standard forms of derivation such as “trans*” and gender gap (ex. “aktivist_ki”) became widespread. New terms and forms meet mixed attitudes on behalf of the population, including transgender people themselves, and become targets of state regulation. This study aims at determining the patterns of usage of various terms describing transgender and gender non-binary people, on the example of web resources devoted to trans issues. Four web forums and one e-mail list were downloaded, years covered: 1998 to 2021. Native Russian terms (“dvupolyi”, “muzhlan/ka”, “babenya”, “devulya”) were rarely used. As for borrowed terms, “transgender” experienced a sharp growth; for “transsexual”, a temporary growth and subsequent decline were observed; “MtF/FtM” (derived from English “male-to-female” and “female-to-male”) also gradually declined. A Corpus-Based Discourse Analysis revealed that the proportion “transgender/transsexual” grew in the thematic categories “about oneself”, “about specific others”, “citations” and “other topics” but remained almost unchanged in the discussions on medical issues, testifying to the fact that “transsexual” bears medical connotations. Non-standard forms “trans” (as an adjective), “trans*” and gender gap characterized the activists’ speech but were rarely used in personal communications. Only one example of plural to describe oneself (an adaptation of English “singular they”) was found. Thus, the study revealed selectivity of borrowing: foreign terms/forms, which best fit the structure of the Russian language, were the most popular, while others characterized the speech of a limited number of activists.</p>

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Diachronic variation in the use of terms denoting transgender and non-binary people in Russian

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年4月15日

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  • Yana Kirey-Sitnikova

摘要

The Russian language traditionally had terms denoting individuals, who fall outside the binary gender norms. However, they are currently considered outdated and derogatory. As a result, Russian-speaking transgender people use terms and their derivatives borrowed from English and German (“transsexual”, “transgender”, “crossdresser”, “transvestite”, etc.) for self-definition. Among trans activists, non-standard forms of derivation such as “trans*” and gender gap (ex. “aktivist_ki”) became widespread. New terms and forms meet mixed attitudes on behalf of the population, including transgender people themselves, and become targets of state regulation. This study aims at determining the patterns of usage of various terms describing transgender and gender non-binary people, on the example of web resources devoted to trans issues. Four web forums and one e-mail list were downloaded, years covered: 1998 to 2021. Native Russian terms (“dvupolyi”, “muzhlan/ka”, “babenya”, “devulya”) were rarely used. As for borrowed terms, “transgender” experienced a sharp growth; for “transsexual”, a temporary growth and subsequent decline were observed; “MtF/FtM” (derived from English “male-to-female” and “female-to-male”) also gradually declined. A Corpus-Based Discourse Analysis revealed that the proportion “transgender/transsexual” grew in the thematic categories “about oneself”, “about specific others”, “citations” and “other topics” but remained almost unchanged in the discussions on medical issues, testifying to the fact that “transsexual” bears medical connotations. Non-standard forms “trans” (as an adjective), “trans*” and gender gap characterized the activists’ speech but were rarely used in personal communications. Only one example of plural to describe oneself (an adaptation of English “singular they”) was found. Thus, the study revealed selectivity of borrowing: foreign terms/forms, which best fit the structure of the Russian language, were the most popular, while others characterized the speech of a limited number of activists.