ABSTRACT
In a snowball sample of homosexuals, the researcher contacts one or more gay men and lesbians, surveys them, and then asks to be referred to others who would be suitable subjects for the study. Questions were asked about responses to their homosexuality from non-homosexual others in their social environment. In the sociopolitical climate of the time, Soviet gay men and lesbians feared for their families, their friends, their jobs, their freedom, and their lives because of the consequences they might face if they were to be open about their homosexuality. In February 1991, a group of medical doctors and psychiatrists had begun to see several young gay men and lesbians at their offices in a newly-opened, private sexually-transmitted-disease clinic in Moscow, and over the next few months, the doctors held bi-weekly group meetings with them. Sample subjects are more highly educated than the Soviet population as a whole, despite their youth.
