There was a way of conforming to the expectations of the revolutionary sect by dressing like a butch lesbian. ‘If you were an emancipated Soviet women you dressed more like a man. But, actually, this was an accepted way for a woman to dress in the 20s and 30s. Many of her female lovers were masculine presenting. Queer women could fly beneath the radar including legendary poets like Sophia Parnok. Gay people understand they have to keep their heads down.’ Queer women, and the idea of two women marrying, flourished ‘It doesn’t want the law against sodomy, but it doesn’t embrace sexual emancipation either. There’s less private enterprise and the regime is ambivalent about sexual minorities. Healey said: ‘Moscow didn’t have the same exuberance. It wasn’t as free in Moscow and St Petersburg, as, say, Weimar Berlin during the 20s. ‘Soviets were progressive about this…and quite relaxed about the sexuality side of it,’ Healey added, ‘Western Europe was anti-surgical adjustments for intersex people.’
Doctors would trust the intersex patient to make their own medical judgment and help them realize the identified gender. Intersex people, unusually in the 1920s and 30s, were possibly treated as humanely as they could be in any country in the world. In 1917, all laws against sodomy were abolished as well as with the rest of the Tsarist penal code.
