I think I have a very basic understanding of east vs west. before this class, I largely held the belief of the "average westerner" with eastern Europe being a very clear split, which very much falls into what Professor Thomas Grob says, with "Our current understanding of an 'Eastern Europe' is shaped by the Cold War and the 'Iron Curtain', the term applied by Churchill in 1945 to the Soviet-dependent 'bloc'". but over my time in this class it sort of seems that east vs west is sort of debated, and perhaps even arbitrary, with certain countries consider themselves eastern, while others very much considering themselves not western, but not Eastern, and some, once again, according to Professor Grob, to even consider themselves, "the heart of Europe" like in the case of Prague. Finally, Grob talks of the often-negative connotation of "eastern", with people of the past considering the east to be "barbaric" and a "lower level of civilization". Just in general the concept of Eastern has gained the preconceived notion that it is some monolith, but over my time in this class that seems to be less, and less true.
in recent times, it seems, in Russia, that it is getting harder and harder to express sexual citizenship, with even parodies of gay in a semiprivate dorm being considered "propaganda". As mentioned by Cassiday, the main "propaganda" not even being unique, or out of the blue, but rather being a sort of homage or remake of an earlier parody by British troops. Arguably, the government reacting so harshly heightens the parody, potentially falling into what the parody was getting at, in that the original music video gets no backlash, yet a gay parody does, despite having similar levels of vulgarity. beyond this more subjective take, it did objectively increase the strength of the parody/satire, as many people came out of the woodwork to show their support of the Ulianovsk cadets (Cassiday 3-4). Another example of modern Russia's strict presentation guidelines is in 2024, when a bunch of Russian celebrities went to an "almost naked" party in Moscow. This is once again, a case of a somewhat private even with celebrities having almost humorous scantily clad outfits with one, a rapper named "Vacio" simply wore a sock covering his genitals. This, however, did not go over well with Russia's government, it earning him a hooliganism charge, which is arguably reasonable, but also rather unreasonable considering it was a private event, however, strangely, he was also charged with "propagating LGBT relations", which is very strange, considering the circumstances, which sort of shows the strictness of anti-gay Russian laws, policing things that are not even explicitly gay, other than involving a man. And finally, for a change, an older example of Russian sexual citizenship. According to Healey's "Homosexual desire in revolutionary Russian" due to many circumstances, women started "passing" as men in order to facilitate lesbianism, with examples such as Aleksandr Pavlovich, and Evgeniia Fedorovna, and while Aleksandr's case might have been approaching transgenderism, as she did this "performance" for 10 years, and the only thing that managed to stop it was what amounts to conversion therapy, by modern standards, this was apparently a common enough occurrence for it to essentially be a dog whistle for lesbianism (Healey 19-23).
in to Call Me Marianna, we see a glimpse into how Poland's view on sexuality, with there being a question on the sort of gender transition eligibility questionnaire essentially requiring Marianna to answer that she is heterosexual to be able to transition because that is "normal". This creates an interesting dichotomy and intersectionality between sex and sexuality, as Marianna's ability to have SRS is (partially) restricted by her, essentially forcing her to be heterosexual, which contrasts with Poland’s rather progressive stance (well, by today's standards) on even allowing SRS (Bielawska, 2015, 20:00-21:00). In more recent years, however, LGBT rights seem to have worsened further, with the president saying something along the lines of “'LGBT is not people, it’s an ideology', which threatened the nation and was worse than communism.” (Dunin-Wąsowicz, "In Poland, the home of ‘LGBT-free zones’, there is hope at last for the queer community") which is quite the scathing opinion, considering Poland was once a prominent satellite state of the Soviet Union, which led to very poor conditions under communism. Finally, from Call Me Marianna, again, is a particular scene with a doctor where he briefly talks about how there is not really room for a third gender in society, despite the existence of third genders being a recurring thing in society. I believe this sort of intends to poke fun at how the rejection of this is sort of a modern concept, despite it being it being almost marketed as a "traditional" one, as well as showing the state of nonbinary acceptance at the period that the autobiography is taking place (Bielawska, 2015, 17:00-18:00).
I think that sexual citizenship is being able to express one's gender and sexuality open in pubic, legally. This is due to how this right is often restricted, or even ostracized, as shown by how, in 2023 Russia found "the LGBTQ community" to have “various signs and manifestations of an extremist orientation, including incitement of social and religious hatred.” (MacFarquhar 2023). Another aspect I would consider important to sexual citizenship would be people effected by policy to be heavily involved in the creation, be consulted during the creation of, or at the very least be inquired before the passing of. this is due to the fact that people are often not consulted in the creation of policy that will very much affect them (Josephson 3). Finally, I think a major aspect of sexual citizenship is not being considered other, or wrong. In revolutionary Russia, sodomy was legalized, however, I do not think this is truly as acceptable, at least by today's standards, as it may seem. Homosexuals were seen as a sickness, and something to be treated with such invasive procedures such as having one's testicles replaced with those of a heterosexual (Healey 126, 134). This goes to show that sexual citizenship must go beyond simply legality, but into how homosexuals are perceived, as well.
I am not exactly sure how my major will tie into this class, as computer science often is not exactly interfacing with queer issues, that I know of. Perhaps the broad concept of "engineering ethics", and how I must consider my actions, and how they will potentially affect queer communities. Another thing to consider is who I am working for, and their politics, with my knowledge from this class facilitating the analysis of a company's motives of certain actions and policies. As for topics I would be excited to see, I would like to see more of queer art, such a perspective on art is truly interesting, in my opinion, and I really enjoy seeing it. Topics on gender are very interesting to me as well, I enjoy seeing the different perspectives and presentations of it throughout time, and throughout this very interesting part of the world.