ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the monopolization of the discursive field of sexuality by the Anglophone concepts of gay and queer alongside the general neglect of issues of language and translation in Anglophone scholarship. It examines only those texts marked either overtly or covertly as translations. Analyzing the use of translations in a popular Russian gay journal, Kvir, the chapter presents translation as a unique discursive site in which non-Western queers can negotiate an identity that is not always already marked as Western while challenging the exclusive binary of the west and the rest. The fact of translation is material proof of the allure underscored by Binnie and testifies to the mutual interdependence of the local and the global. The three text types translated in the journal—foreign literary works, articles from the foreign press, and interviews with foreign cultural figures—suggest a complex relationship to minoritarian gay culture.
