James Finn
Aug 21, 2024

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Yes! I like to point out, when this subject comes up, that some European cultures have very different gender color codes.

In Russia for example (I speak and read Russian) blue is a very "feminine" color. One word for blue, голубой/goluboy (the color is categorized in more subdivisions than it is in English) is often used as an anti-gay slur!

The hyper-masculine and homophobic Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, has been known to appear in staged press photos rocking a pastel pink shirt, when he's not shirtless on horseback modeling his virile Russian manhood, lol — though he's finally getting a little too old for that given that many Russians snickered a little the last time he posed shirtless.

Overall, gendered color schemes in Russia are startlingly different from what we're used to in the U.S., demonstrating how constructed our ideas are.

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James Finn
James Finn

Written by James Finn

James Finn is an LGBTQ columnist, a former Air Force intelligence analyst, an alumnus of Act Up NY, and an agented but unpublished novelist.

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