In the new Russia, some people experience exclusion from citizenship. This exclusion is based on different claims of identity: lesbians and gay men are among those who are excluded. Though in some states the mechanism of this exclusion is expressive so long as it is inscribed in the law manifestly, in Russia the mechanism is hidden in the field of silence: the articulated field of discourse on homosexuality is full of lacunas. While the most productive speakers are certainly LGBT activists, the most passive ones are the officials. These forces come into discursive play where rights are at stake. The purpose of this paper is to uncover the regulative features which silence entails in the Russian discourse on homosexuality.