Grounded in original accounts of queer lives under authoritarian rule in Azerbaijan, this book introduces the concept of petro-authoritarian violence to show how oil wealth, state power and the regulation of gender and sexuality intersect to shape the marginalisation, control and conditional inclusion of queers. Drawing on ethnography, it traces how queer people navigate political homophobia, nationalism, militarism and NGO donor politics, while also foregrounding everyday practices of conflict, survival, solidarity and resistance. By focusing on local categories and experiences, the book contributes to queer anthropology by rethinking dominant frameworks from the post-Soviet context and highlighting how queer life persists under conditions of constraint and ambiguities.