Paper short abstract:

In this presentation, I turn to life experience stories of newcomers from Russia to Finland, which are married to persons of the same sex. The stories are about their everyday experiences of visiting Russia while living in Finland. I want to show how the state border between these countries makes gender categorisation of same-sex pairs fluid.

Paper long abstract:

In this presentation, I turn to life experience stories of newcomers from Russia to Finland, which are married to persons of the same sex. The stories are about their everyday experiences of visiting Russia while living in Finland. They are the tools of categorisation of sex-gender relations and their fluidity within rapidly changing legal and social contexts. What are they talking about when they narrate their movement to another side of the state border between Finland and Russia? How the border crossing participates in the negotiation of their gender relations and family status quo?

Gender relations and sex-gender categories are embedded in social institutions and could not be analysed separately from them. Marriage could be regarded as one of the most significant institutions that configure both sexual relations and influence gender categories within families. Formally registered marriages make sex-gender relations and categories legal in the eyes of the law and society and normalise them. In their turn marriages are embedded into other social and legal contexts. In Finland, same-sex marriages create legal families. However, when a same-sex couple that has a formal status of a married pair in Finland crosses the state border between Finland and Russia, its marriage does change its legal status immediately. In Russia, same-sex marriage does not exist, and even on the level of informal relationships the character of this partnership is not welcome or understood. These changes in legal and cultural circumstances make the gender categorisation of same-sex pairs fluid.