Uprooting naming conventions is no easy task, but activists in Central Asia, especially women and LGBTQI+ people, are defying the traditions that encircle identity.
One of these traditions is appending the name of a newborn child’s father to the name of the child - commonly referred to as a patronymic. While patronymics are common in several cultures, children in Central Asia are not allowed, by law, to be given a matronymic, a mother’s name.
Cases involving the politics of naming and its intersection with gender are generating a new wave of feminist discourse in Central Asia. One recent example, which gained resonance on social media, involved a lawsuit from Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Justice against Altyn Kapalova, an art curator and activist living in the capital, Bishkek.
