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LGBTQ politics and International
Relations: Here? Queer? Used to it?
_____________________________ _______________________________ ______________________________ _______________________________ ____________________________ ___________________________
Markus Thiel
Department of Politics & International Relations, Florida International University, Miami, Florida, USA.
E-mail: thielm@fiu.edu
Kollman, K. & Waites, M. (2009)
The global politics of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender human rights: An introduction.
Contemporary Politics, Special Issues, 15(1).
Kulpa, R. & Joanna, M.
Decentering Western Sexualities: Central and Eastern European Perspectives. Ashgate: New York, 2011,
232 pp., £58.50/$108, ISBN: 978-1409402428
Lind, A.
Development, Sexual Rights and Global Governance. Routledge: New York, 2010, 211 pp., £ /$52,
ISBN: 978-0415592628
Tremblay, M., Paternotte, D. and Johnson, C.
The Lesbian and Gay Movement and the State. Comparative Insights into a Transformed Relationship.
Ashgate: New York, 2011, 234 pp., £ 58.50/$ 108, ISBN: 978-1409410669
Weiss, M. and Bosia, M. (eds.)
Global Homophobia. Illinois University Press: Chicago, 2013, 268 pp., $25. ISBN: 978-0252079337
Abstract |The politics surrounding Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) claims
have received increasing attention in the past few years. LGBTQ advocates pursue their diverse
interests at the local, national, regional and global levels, in the course stimulating an interesting
discussion about sexual rights in International Relations. The books that have emerged on this topic
in the recent past show the promise of a nuanced and lively debate on this topic for years to come.
International Politics Reviews (2014) 2, 51–60. doi:10.1057/ipr.2014.17
Keywords: sexual rights; LGBT; human rights; homophobia; advocacy
Introduction
As the co-editor of a forthcoming volume on Sexual/
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ)
Politics in International Relations (IR) (Picq and Thiel,
2015), I was astonished to notice not only the immense
academic interest, but also the lack of literature on sexual
rights and LGBTQ politics in IR.
1
As Kollmann (2010)
shows, a successive expansion of publications over the past
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two decades dealing with LGBTQ politics in the domestic
spheres or on a theoretical level occurred, though much of
it in sociology and law.
2
The general dearth can mainly be
attributed to the fact that sexuality was once considered a
private affair, relegating it outside of the public remit of
politics. The first attempt to place sexuality firmly in the
public sphere, and to encourage research on its diverse
expressions, came from Magnus Hirschfeld, who founded
the Scientific Humanitarian Committee in Germany in
1897, which of course came to an end with the rise of fas-
cism (Kollmann and Waites, 2009). Kinsey in the 1950s,
the sexual revolution of the 1960s, the gay liberation
movements of the 1970s with the founding of the Interna-
tional Gay and Lesbian Association (ILGA), and HIV/Aids
in the 1980s all left indelible marks on the historiography
of sexual rights.
Following the blazing trail of gender equality claims
and policies, the politics surrounding sexuality have
received an astonishing degree of public and international
attention in recent years. No matter if related to health
policies, family support, labor structures or neoliberal con-
sumption patterns, non-traditional sexualities and gender
expressions are connected to every public policy imagin-
able. Many governments now try to provide non-dis-
crimination policies and equality rights domestically while
simultaneously attempting to preserve their electoral sup-
port. Gender provisions and sexual rights –in particular for
LGBTQ individuals –have become points of contention,
eliciting domestic culture wars and international diplomatic
rows. As a thoroughly competitive battleground of ideas
about sexuality and gender expressions, LGBTQ rights are
inherently political. In some ways, however, the subject at
hand is less about globalized sexual politics per se than
about transnational advocacy politics, particularly when
LGBT movements or civil society groups are involved.
Seventeen countries have legalized same-sex marriage,
many more recognize some form of same-sex relation-
ships, and Nepal, Pakistan and India officially acknowl-
edge third gender categories, despite a generally reticent
public opinion at home, and, in the Indian case, a recrimi-
nalization of homosexuality in 2013. But 76 countries still
criminalize homosexuality (a few with the death penalty),
and international fora such as the United Nations (UN) and
other regional or functional bodies –with the exception of
regional human rights courts –have been rather muted on
the topic of sexual rights. That changed somewhat in 2008
with the appointment of South African Navy Pillay as UN
High Commissioner for Human Rights, a vanguard in pro-
viding legal-constitutional sexual rights. Yet in the inter-
national community, there remains a disconnect not only
between more progressive and more conservative as well
as religious countries, but also a similar division exists
between advocates in these disparate settings over the best
strategy to promote LGBTQ rights (inter)nationally. Neela
Ghoshal, a senior researcher in the LGBT rights program at
Human Rights Watch in Nairobi cautioned in this regard:
‘As the US- and Europe-based LGBT movements accom-
plish a lot of what they’ve been working for at home,
they’re discovering the rest of the world and trying to help
–and that kind of commitment doesn’t necessarily mean
they’re developing their engagements in the most con-
structive way.’(IRIN, 2014). The following works all
explore how LGBTQ claims have moved to the forefront of
(inter)national politics, and investigate the repercussions of
those hotly contested rights for LGBTQ individuals,
societies, states and the international community.
A terminological clarification is in order: all of the
works recognize the centrality of the LGBTQ movements
in the struggle for equality rights, but the field lacks a uni-
form application of what is sometimes colloquially termed
‘the alphabet soup’.
3
Some authors prefer to use an exten-
ded version including intersex and/or allies that results in
LGBTQIA, whereas others limit themselves to gays and
lesbians –arguably the most dominant forces in the strug-
gle for sexual rights. This open and ongoing debate in the
field reflects not only an implicit yet contested hierarchy in
which bisexual and transgender individuals are often ren-
dered invisible, but is also the result of a deeper epistemo-
logical discussion about the value of assigning fixed labels
(such as gender or sexuality), as opposed to living with the
tensions of a fluid personalistic expression of sexual- and
gender-identity. It also points to the generally accepted
statement that sex and gender are socially constructed, rather
than primarily biologically determined (Parker et al,2014).
Moreover, LGBT categories are neither universally recog-
nized as many cultures do not subscribe to these Western
identitarian concepts, nor do they capture the full range of
sexual diversity –‘sexual orientation’, for instance, neglects
bisexual oscillation in its binary outlook on sexual attraction.
Important for politics is that the alphabet soup forces people
with different aims into one broad group –think of sexual
rights claims of gays and lesbians (for example, marriage
equality) versus gender identity issues (health care, legal
recognition) of transgender individuals. Thus ‘the relation-
ship between essentialist and/or fixed conceptions of sexual
and gender identity and the political discourses and strate-
gies employed by LGBT movements in global human rights
struggles is therefore a vital topic of academic and political
debate’(Waites, p. 142).
Queer individuals, in contrast, subscribe to queer the-
ory, which is a diverse body of literature and research
opposing normative and binary notions of sexuality (het-
ero/homo), gender (male/female), class (rich/poor), race
(white/non-white) and so on. Queers opt for alternative
views and practices that are critical of mainstream society,
including but not limited to many socio-political institu-
tions such as mainstream liberalism, neoliberal capitalism,
regulatory citizenship and so on. Queer movements are
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thus less apt to exploit political opportunity structures and,
consequently, play a less prominent role in (inter)national
LGBT advocacy politics. Though they can be influential on
the local level, some analysts have even attributed the suc-
cess of LGBT politics to the ‘de-queering’of homo-
sexuality for political purposes (Hekma and Duyvendak,
in: Tremblay, Patternotte and Johnson, 2011, p. 103). ‘The
anti-assimilationist character of queer activism and its
breaking down of pre-existing categories would present a
perhaps insurmountable challenge to human rights dis-
course, which requires stable categories and, given oppo-
sition to anything perceived as a claim for “special rights”,
an emphasis on the similarities between people regardless
of their sexuality and the “normality”of LGBT people’
(Sheill, 2009, p. 56). This inherent tension is one that
makes for an interesting analytical comparison, particularly
when applied to IR and its theories (Picq and Thiel, 2015).
In the following discussion, however, I avoid identitaerian
reasoning (refusing to cite the ever-present Foucault or
Butler) in this field and concentrate instead on what the
literature states about the linkage between politicized sex-
ualities and trans/international governance.
Theorizing LGBT Politics: How Non-Traditional
Sexuality and Gender Morphed into ‘Human Rights’
Kollman & Waites’edited special issue of Contemporary
Politics in 2009 is a ‘must’for the reader who wants to
more closely examine the impact of LGBTQ Politics in IR.
Not only because it was one of the first major research
productions focusing on the international repercussions of
sexual politics in an interdisciplinary manner, but also
because of the comprehensive and balanced way in which
this admittedly broad umbrella-topic is approached. They
also make clear that in the case of LGBT politics both,
political will and action in the shape of sexual equality laws
and judgments, and activism from LGBTQ individuals and
groups is required. Without support from the state institu-
tions and international organizations, demands by activists
will not be heard or implemented, whereas without claim-
making by advocacy groups, political stakeholders do not
have the awareness or the pressure to rectify existing poli-
cies or create new equality statutes. Historically, Scandi-
navian countries have led in the creation of LGBTQ rights
policies: ‘Without the pioneering legal developments of the
Nordic and Benelux countries in Europe, for example, it
probably would not have been possible for either the EU
(European Union) or the ECtHR (European Court of
Human Rights, added) to incorporate sexual orientation
protections into their treaties and/or decisions. These deci-
sions have in turn helped shape the human rights practices
of the rest of continental Europe’(p. 6). The Scandinavian
countries remain the frontrunners in international LGBT
advocacy, to an extent that more recently has unnerved
culturally conservative states in the UN and also led to fis-
sures among activists about the appropriate strategy to
advance ‘LGBTQ human rights’. While there is increasing
recognition at the UN institutional level, as well as among
the Human Rights Council and working groups, that sexual
orientation needs to be on a firmer footing in international
human rights law, ‘unequivocal and broad support at the
intergovernmental level is still far away’(Swiebel, 2009,
p. 27). Differences in rights attainment in the various
international organizations is explained through variances
in the capacity of mobilizing structures, issue framing and
in regards to the receptiveness of the political opportunity
structures (inter)nationally.
With regards to the linkage of LGBTQ claims to human
rights, the editors of this special journal issue posit that the
broad international consensus on the pursuit of such rights is
stronger in countries that came out of authoritarianism
(Spain, Argentina, South Africa are notable examples). Yet
such an association is also wound up with a lack of specifi-
city, a Eurocentric outlook on the universality of liberal–
democratic rights policies, and an increasing interventionism
in the name of LGBTQ human rights. Feminism, they make
clear, initially raised most of these issues with regards to
gendered power relations already. In an effort to further
theorize the emergence of LGBTQ politics in the interna-
tional system, the editors note that the end of the Cold War
together with the rise of transnational activism led to the
emergence of constructivist-inspired human rights research
(such as the boomerang pattern or the norm cascade), which
similarly applies to transnational LGBT advocacy politics.
Two of the articles in this issue explicitly apply queer
theory, but most contributors notably refrain from con-
sidering queer theory as a main lens of analysis. This is not
surprising given the rather narrow disciplinary and dis-
ciplining focus of political science outlets, and points to the
fact that political science/IR discovered the relevance of
LGBTQ politics rather late, comparatively speaking. And
there is even less of an understanding for queer interna-
tional theory in parochial mainstream IR (Weber, 2014).
While the contributors acknowledge the relevance of queer
approaches in deconstructing essentialist understandings of
gender and sexuality, they recognize that in practice ‘law,
policy and states appear to need identifiable categories to
combat discrimination’(p. 13) –a fundamental tension
between the theory and practice of LGBT advocacy. The
article contributions run the gamut from policy-tracing
analysis of, for instance, the EU’s recognition of same-sex
unions (Kollmann), the establishment of the aspirational
‘Montreal Declaration’on LGBT Human Rights or the
adoption of the largely normative ‘Yogyakarta Principles
on the Application of International Human Rights Law in
Relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity’to
more critical examinations of the impact of politicization
and regulation of sexual rights as an international human
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rights. These critical approaches are nicely concretized in,
for example, the problematization of intersectional (that is,
cross-cutting) international lesbian rights, transgender
issues and the forcing of the politics of recognition for
people outside LGBT identifications in the non-Western
world (Sheill, 2009). These issues, the contributors high-
light, are always connected to the societal stratifications of
class, gender and race in which sexual rights are advanced.
Overall, this special issue is highly recommended as a pri-
mer on the theoretical as well as practical-political issues
associated with the promotion of LGBT rights as interna-
tional human rights. Given that this collection of articles
appeared relatively early, there are few suggestions con-
tained about how to move forward in a manner reconciling
political needs and critical, or even queer, considerations in
the analysis of LGBTQ rights.
LGBTQ Individuals, LGT Advocacy Politics and the
‘Straight State’
While the LGBTQ label subsumes a number of diverging
and differently represented sexual minorities, in practice
one can only recognize LGT politics (with a just-emerging
focus on transgender rights). These subgroups often have
different opinions on objectives from heteronormative
‘normalization’, including same-sex marriage advocacy, to
a more radical-queer contestation of assimilationist patterns
of societal integration and neoliberal consumption. Even
though they seem to have little in common, they all face the
‘straight state’, that is, heteronormative socio-political
environments and a political system that is tendentiously
cautious when faced with such a potentially contentious
issue. The work most closely examining the central venues
in which these interactions play out in national politics is
edited by Tremblay, Paternotte and Johnson (2011). In it,
the contributors whose backgrounds stem mostly from
political science or sociology, tackle the central question of
how gay and lesbian advocacy groups relate to the state and
its institutions. Thirteen chapters from all over the world
(from Australia to the United States) investigate in local,
national and international contexts questions of federalism,
inter-institutional competition, and most importantly, civil
society–state relations. This volume necessarily empha-
sizes the individual state level, albeit with a reference to the
international movement (the ‘Gay International’,as
Massad (2007) calls it) or intergovernmental levels
throughout. Being firmly embedded in the domain of poli-
tical science, most contributors apply a historical institu-
tionalist analysis, detailing how the gay and lesbian
movements of the countries under observation claimed and
gained rights in exchange with sympathetic elites, domes-
tically allied parties, civil society groups, governmental
branches or international organizations. The notion of
the ‘straight state’somewhat oversimplifies, however, the
way in which LGBT groups relate to the state, as the
post-authoritarian (Poland, Argentina) or developmental
(Brazil, India) state examples show. Some interesting
comparative findings are contained that defy simplistic
expectations regarding those mutual interactions between
stakeholders: leftist parties do not always support gay/les-
bian rights as the case of Australia shows, nor did the
emergence of HIV/Aids result in the problematization of
the LGBTQ movement, as it had the opposite effect in
Brazil and the Netherlands. Moreover, the growth of civil
society in general does not always foster LGBT rights, as
Christian groups (in Poland) or Muslim-based ones (in
Indonesia) often counter sexual rights advances in newly
democratized countries.
One of the recurring themes of the chapters in this volume
is that, particularly in the case of sexual rights, political cul-
ture plays a significant role in how political stakeholders
respond to the claims of LGBT groups. The ways in which
states continue to consolidate their (deomcratic?) governance
or economies and treat social and ethnic factionalization and
socio-cultural diversity, has led to the development of a dis-
tinct set of norms and practices that mirror the recognizable
dominant political culture in each state. LGBT advocates
have to respond to those if they want to be successful. More-
over, the state is often portrayed as a ‘permeable’one, in
which multiple channels of exchanges between political sta-
keholders exist. The resulting organizational diversity of
LGBT civil society groups and legal statutes provides for
many political opportunity structures, (but also makes for a
strenuous read at times when trying to keep the central argu-
ments in mind). The centrality of the state institutions in pro-
viding rights to LGBTQ individuals and groups based on the
initial decriminalization of homosexuality leads governments
to treat their divergent claims in a similar manner, despite the
different needs (from access to health care to same-sex mar-
riage equality). Thus the book presents well-composed,
coherent contributions about the necessary balance of move-
ment strengths and political opportunity structures at the state
level that are succinctly synthesized in the conclusion.
The editors succeed at bringing together the main points
raised in the different chapters, providing a comprehensive
yet nuanced picture of the complex state-lesbian/gay move-
ment interactions through time and space. They establish
that (i) states respond differently depending on its spatial
(federal-unitary) configuration, (ii) states change their LGBT
policies with political transformations that can be gradual or
abrupt, (iii) states consist of a wide array of potentially
helpful institutions and actors, (iv) while they are the most
important, they are not the only important institution
involved in the regulation of sexuality. Lastly, that they
cannot be viewed as closed and hermetic entities, but as
actors that exchange with and are exposed to other countries,
transnational actors and intergovernmental influences. It is
notable that no unidirectional relation between the state and
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lesbian/gay movements is posited, but instead an interactive
model is proposed that allows for the reconfiguration of the
state and its policies through continuous pressure from
below, by lesbian and gay advocates. In conclusion, the
ongoing debate over diverging interests by the LGBTQ
communities is problematized both domestically and
internationally: ‘challenging the exclusion of lesbians and
gays from the same rights and entitlements that hetero-
sexual couples enjoy has recently been seen by the Western
gay and lesbian movement as the most fundamental form
of heteronormativity to be challenged’(p. 223) –an
approach that scholars of the queer persuasion, or non-
Western scholars, would regard cautiously because of the
implicit heteronormativity in ‘trying to keep up with the
straight Joneses’. The referencing of international human
rights standards in the domestic arena by LGBT advocates
is a recurring motive as well, highlighting the considerable
level of intermestics in such low-politics issues today.
Sexual Rights as International Human Rights?
An element that has become central to LGBT advocacy
politics is the strategic linkage of sexual rights claims to
notions of globalized human rights. A solid human rights
regime has been firmly established in the international
system in the wake of the Second World War with the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and as such, an
association with such a successful concept is politically
promising as it creates symbolic capital. It also engenders
discussions surrounding citizenship, however, making
LGBT rights claims more urgent and ‘natural’.
Amy Lind’s carefully edited volume is particularly
relevant, as today’s LGBTQ politics play out in seemingly
different ways in the Global North, where pluralist interest
groups are strongly represented, as opposed to the more
volatile Global South. There, a two-fold dynamic makes
social justice for these individuals much harder, as on the
one hand LGBTQ individuals experience a higher degree
of either invisibility (transgender, lesbian individuals) or
harassment (gays), and on the other hand, developmental
policies originating in the North can sometimes have a
detrimental impact. Lind’s book precisely problematizes
these issues and foregrounds the problematic neoliberal,
heteronormative ‘narratives, policies and practices’(p. 2)
in transnational development work under the auspices of
global governance institutions. Aside from these more
policy-relevant issues, the book also pursues the ambitious
goal of offering a tentative queer theory of development (or
at a minimum, aims to queer conventional development
prescriptions stemming from traditional, patriarchal or
neocolonial origins). Just as queer approaches at times do
not easily align with traditionally advocated prescriptions
in development policy, so too feminist, gay and alternative
views on best practices often have contradictory objectives
and outcomes. The contributors, with expertise in various
disciplines, and often with a practitioner background,
‘query development, globalization and global governance
through a range of approaches and on various scales’(p. 4).
Such a mix should be welcomed for the plurality of views
expressed to avoid an overly normative vantage point, but
it also poses the familiar challenge of coherence of themes
and approaches. Yet the subdivision in three parts provides
for a sequential logic that complements the theoretical
progression of arguments made. The first, theoretical part
offers a critical reconceptualization of a number of basic
assumptions underlying sexual politics and development –
from the invisibility of certain sexual minorities to a mis-
characterization of sexual and gender roles. The second
part focuses on individuals in development agencies and
organizations, and on how they mediate and represent the
objectives of these institutions. The last part looks to the
future and asks how alternative views can be integrated
into existing hetero/homo-normative or other binary or
hegemonic neoliberal development policies.
Some parts tackle the topics of the volume more closely,
that is, the queering of development. The second part in par-
ticular focuses on the LGBTQ constituency in international
development institutions and organizations such as the World
Bank, International Monetary Fund and Non-governmental
Organizations (NGOs). The link between human resources
policies, employees’‘homosociality’(p. 87) and the advo-
cacy of development professionals and the discourses and
policies of their employers cannot easily be traced, and the
characterization of the proliferation of such sites in broad-
ening the transnational space for more sexual rights seems
obvious. As such, this part appears somewhat weaker com-
pared with the theoretical challenges and practical implica-
tions raised in the other parts. Yet the project is to be
commended for its two-fold attempt to not only problematize
heteronormativity in development approaches, but also to
empirically provide evidence how ‘multilateral development
institutions are important policy agents involved in the refor-
mulation of normative forms of heterosexuality’(p. 110).
It also, importantly, broadens the notion of sexual rights
from sexual minorities best known as LGBT individuals to
other alternative family models –be they single-mother
households or MSM/WSM (men who have sex with men/
women who have sex with women, but do not necessarily
identify as gay or lesbian). Hence the contributors critique
heteronormative –in some cases, consumption-oriented,
non-political homonormative –models of development
with regards to land rights, access to family assistance and
so on. In this regard, one of the most insightful chapters
(Chapter 8) argues that ‘organizing strategies and develop-
ment interventions around sexual orientation and gender
expression need to shift away from common categories of
identity toward a broader context of struggle’(p. 132),
aiming to achieve a human right to expression of sexuality,
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however varyingly defined. Such change of paradigm,
which moves away from identity-based categorizations,
also stimulates a wider discussion of related areas such as
human security, global governance and social justice. This
entails repercussions in the field of education, health and
justice, to name a few.
The third part of the book provides more or less concrete
suggestions as to how a more inclusive, but also a more cri-
tical interaction of development organizations and local
populations as well as culture can occur. Issues of particular
local, religious and cultural contexts make it necessary to
strengthen local coalitions with other civil society actors and/
or politicians while at the same time being linked to interna-
tional sexual rights organizations. With regards to the latter, it
seems from the examples in the book that the support from
largely Northern-based human rights NGOs is necessary to a
certain extent, no matter its application to the Middle Eastern
or African context. This, however, relativizes the autono-
mous-radical theoretical approach of the book decrying the
Eurocentric and/or neocolonial intervention in local Global-
South contexts on several occasions. The reality of a queer
development approach probably lies somewhere in the mid-
dle, as acknowledged when stated that ‘local groups “indi-
genize”or hybridize Northern knowledge and mechanisms’
(p. 165). This makes it difficult to prescribe concrete mea-
sures as each case is different, and it is also the affirmed anti-
normative goal of this volume to not fall prey to generalizing
presumptions that resemble well-known anti-colonial or
feminist positions. At the same time, the book raises a num-
ber of important questions (how to integrate non-traditional
sexual and gender expressions without exposing them fur-
ther; how to counter neoliberal and Eurocentric policy pre-
scriptions that further sideline the already marginalized; how
to conceive of queer development studies), which are impli-
citly evaluated at various points in the volume. A conclusion
would have probably aided in better synthesizing the many
useful contributions to this important yet broad debate.
This book, as well as the others, highlights the issue
of the ‘private’and the ‘public’spheres that sexual and
gender expressions invariably connect. Some sexual
rights and expressions may be protected precisely because
they are relegated to the private realm (be it through the
non-intervention at home or the invisibility existing in
this area), but it is also there where oppression, margin-
alization and disempowerment is prevalent. In this con-
text, the assumed universalist desire for visibility may not
alwaysbeapossibleorlegitimateformofactivismin
non-Western contexts (Offord, in: Tremblay et al, 2011).
And sexuality as a social marker of humanity is always to
a certain degree public, even with attempts to hide non-
traditional sexual or gender expression. The question of
how to best address this private-public balance in achiev-
ing sexual rights publicly, as well as on an individual
level in terms of the personal ‘deployment’of sexuality, is
one that ought to be carefully calibrated in each particular
group- or cultural context.
Lost in Translation: From the ‘West’to the Rest?
‘De-centering Western Sexualities’is not so much a cri-
tique of Eurocentric ‘Western’sexual rights advocacy in
the global sense, as it is an interrogation of standard hetero-
normative assumptions and, interestingly, a critique of
Western queer theory dealing with sexual expression in
Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). In addition to aiming for
a de-centering of Western mainstream progressive and queer
theories, they ‘take up the question of relations between
post-colonial and post-communist studies, showing how the
cross-contamination of theories is one of the best queer stu-
dies practices’(p. 13). In this context, this volume also posits
that the Western/Eastern-binary is problematic –asomewhat
precarious undertaking given its title. The ten contributions
in this volume are provided by a diverse group of social
theorists, ranging from human geographers to women’sstu-
dies scholars. Yet they all have similar experiences: the rapid
implosion of socialism and its authoritarian economic,
social, cultural and political structures in 1989 suddenly
confronted LGBTQ movements in CEE with sexual rights
promotion policies of the West developed over decades.
Depending on the progress of socio-economic transforma-
tion and democratic stabilization, individual countries in the
region responded differently to the varying claims made by
LGBTQ communities without adopting a linear, progressive
stance on both ends. Simultaneously, CEE countries were
‘othered’by labeling them a post-communist ‘contemporary
periphery’contrasted with the idealized metropolitan/liberal/
supposedly pro-gay West (in the more narrow EU or wider
hemispheric sense). They remind us of the stereotyping we
all engage in when communicating with others, or even
when conducting and publicizing research.
While being more eclectic than the other books in its
application of differently sourced queer theories, as opposed
to political science/IR ones, certain political influences
emerge strongly in the CEE context. One repeatedly occur-
ring theme consists of the ambivalent influence of the EU,
while pressing for the adoption of supranational anti-dis-
crimination legislation in the process of accession to the
bloc, simultaneously creating, rather than diminishing,
nationalist and anti-gay pushback reactions by state and
social institutions. Paradoxically, by doing so the EU several
times appears as an immoral intrusive force (Eurosodomy)
against which the nationally pure, heterosexual nation has to
fight. This confrontation, as many of the chapters show, is as
much domestically directed against the emerging LGBTQ
communities, as it is internationally trying to evade EU non-
discrimination treaty obligations. In this difficult terrain,
LGBT groups in those countries often re-appropriate their
connection to either the home country or the international
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human rights regime by holding pride marches on either a
national holiday or on the UN’s International Human
Rights Day.
The second part of the volume presents empirical chap-
ters that explore the meanings and contexts of LGBTQ
individuals and movements in a mostly qualitative ethno-
graphic manner. These are stimulating because they dis-
play how, despite the forced association with ‘the West’,
these people seem to be quite confronted with domestic
homophobia, in the course almost internalizing feelings of
invisibility, inferiority and heteronormative orientations.
One contributor called this constant renegotiation of public
acceptance ‘the transparent closet’–a process in which
individuals come out but are, once known, pushed back
into invisibility and non-acknowledgement to reduce
society’s discomfort (p. 151). This becomes particularly
apparent when legal and political instruments are changed
for the better (ranging from the introduction of anti-
discrimination legislation to same-sex relationship recog-
nition), for instance in preparation for EU accession, but
the social and cultural homophobic traditions still produce
negative consequences. The acquisition of ‘intimate or
sexual citizenship’is thus one in which LGBTQ indivi-
duals have to weigh how much of their transgressive
sexuality they want to articulate, and how far they want to,
in an effort to gain respect, silence those expressions and
follow heteronormative models and regulations.
One of the major contributions of this volume is to sen-
sitize the reader as to the distinctiveness of LGBTQ com-
munities and advocacy politics in national contexts. Many
examples evidence the forceful, sometimes conditional
introduction of Western (often, EU) models of minority
rights in a way that do not resonate with preexisting his-
tories, cultures and socio-economic conditions. The idio-
syncratic timeliness of policy adoption and socio-cultural
change contingent upon ‘post-socialist’transformation
processes is, unlike Tremblay, Patternotte and Johnson’s
more linearly conceived volume, problematized in a man-
ner that highlights the unique problematic legacies of the
CEE countries in a powerful way. At the same time,
I wonder if this uniqueness, and the resulting contrast to
Western experiences, is at times over-emphasized? Many
chapters use the imported LGBT and Queer terminology
and chronicle the emergence of public visibility and inter-
identitarian tensions, with the familiar invisibility of
bisexuals and transgender individuals that we know from
‘the West’. The critique of standard queer theories is also
noted, for example, in Poland where the ‘modern closet’
refers to the counterintuitive assumption that ‘undermining
the notion of a strict and coherent gender and sexual iden-
tity theory weakens the Polish LGBT movement’(p. 97).
Yet at the same time, the book provides a critical assess-
ment of hegemonic Western norms, discourses, practices
and policies from a distinct vantage point. On the border
between being European insiders and outsiders, the con-
tributors apply post-colonial and queer theories to the
socio-political conditions as they exist in this particular
European area. While doing so, they do not criticize
Western queer theories inasmuch they construct a non-
normative basis for the creation of cross-pollinated new
queer approaches from the CEE countries. Again, a con-
clusion would have provided for an even better overview of
the commonalities and differences among the countries
observed.
Global Homophobia –Preexisting Condition,
Anticipatory Counter-Movement or Reactive State
Tool?
Meredith Weiss and Michael Bosia’s (2013) edited volume
‘Global Homophobia’articulates the point that resentments
against LGBTQ individuals have to do not only with pre-
existing cultural, heteronormative orientations, but are also
in essence politically charged: ‘We consider political
homophobia as purposeful, especially as practiced by state
actors; as embedded in the scapegoating of an “other”that
drives processes of state building and retrenchment; as the
product of transnational influence peddling and alliances;
and as integrated into questions of collective identity and
the complicated legacies of colonialism’(p. 2). In this vein,
they view homophobia as an elite/state strategy of differ-
entiation against a minority, to construct a national image
in an Andersonian sense and to extract political support
from the supposed ‘majority’àlaTilly. They compare
various theoretical approaches in their introduction, high-
lighting how the study of homo- and to a lesser extent,
transphobia is often either neglected in hopes of its over-
coming through modernizing progress, or is politically
instrumentalized (often by LGBT advocates themselves) so
as to mutually and falsely reinforce assumptions of LGBT
rights with (homo)nationalism and Islamophobia (p. 10).
Homophobia is thus explicitly transnational and modular,
applied varyingly across the globe with similar objectives
in mind: ‘Central to this project is the maintenance of a
particular order entangled with sexuality and gender […]
always readied for battle against mythical foreign dangers
known as “LGBT activists”, who stand as surrogates for
the financial capital and international institutions that have
compelled social transformation and limited the regulatory
capacity of the state’(p. 21).
The contributors’goal is to develop a theory of the
‘modular’deployment of (inter)national homophobia, a
significant contribution to the rapidly emerging body of lit-
erature on comparative sexual politics. They do so with a
political science focus, but also seamlessly integrate queer
approaches, for instance in the way binaries (state-citizens,
Global South–North and so on) are problematized through-
out. Bosia affirms state homophobia as an instrument of
LGBTQ politics and International Relations
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AUTHOR COPY
nation-building and state governance, in times of war
(Bosnia, Iraq) or economic crisis (Malaysia, Zimbabwe),
respectively. In the latter case, government leaders attempt
to divert attention from domestic issues and/or to implicate
the accused in a Western-based plot to undermine sover-
eignty and identity. Surprisingly, he cautions that courts are
often the ones used to legitimize sexual oppression or per-
secution of individuals, in contrast to Tremblay et al who
have highlighted the courts as important vanguards in
lesbian and gay equality.
The contributions of this volume focus on different
geographical and cultural settings (from advanced indus-
trialized countries to post-colonial societies). They highlight
the role of states domestically as well as transnationally in
fostering homophobia, either through direct export (think of
McCarthyism’s impact on the United States and even Wes-
tern international organizations, or neocolonial US evange-
licals’influence in Africa), or in the homophobic counter-
mobilization to the encouragement of gay rights within the
international human rights framework (think of the United
States or European push for international recognition of such
rights at the UN’s Human Rights Council, for example). Yet
the latter seems not to be uniformly applicable –or rather,
contains few exceptions. In fact, O’Dwyer’s chapter on
Poland convincingly shows that the EU has indeed had a
positive impact on gay rights there, with little to no sig-
nificant counter-mobilization. His chapter and Lind’scon-
tribution on the way sexual politics were constitutionally
framed in Ecuador by homopositive as well as homophobe
discourses provides for a nuanced interrogation of the state-
led processes that react to international pressures from above
as well as domestic pressures from below to calibrate poli-
cies on sexual rights that fit the needs of state leaders, not the
minority or majority populace. In her chapter on anticipatory
homophobic counter-movements in Southeast Asia, Weiss
advances this argument by highlighting how governments in
the regions have constructed ‘prejudices before pride’
(p. 149) in anticipation of the larger globalizing processes of
diffusion (of LGBTQ rights, of HIV/Aids), but not necessa-
rily because these issues were raised by activists in the local
or national context. The implications for the latter are that
LGBTQ advocates refrain from more aggressive mobilizing,
internalize self-censorship, and are ambiguous about the
acceptance of foreign labels and support. Moreover, it
results in ‘legitimacy on the religious right for what may
amount to impressive-looking shadowboxing, a felt need to
shape or restrict right claims to reflect what terrain the
counter-movement has already claimed or declared to be
critical, and pressure on gender-based organizations to con-
front internalized fears of appearing queer if they speak to
sexuality’(p. 167).
Together, the chapters in this book provide a more diverse
picture of the transnational diffusion of LGBT rights, as well
as of state-supported homophobia: unidirectional or simplistic
dichotomous relations (the West impacting on the rest; Non-
Western states being inherently homophobe) miss the nuan-
ces of mutual engagement and confrontation in establishing a
dialog with resulting pro- or anti-LGBTQ stances (p. 190).
It is particularly refreshing to see how two concluding
chapters respond to the assertions and evidence provided
throughout, as they synthesize similarities across space and
elucidate further how political homophobia has become a
globally used yet domestically calibrated application module
to justify and enact pro-or anti-LGBTQ policies. In theorizing
purportedly obvious phenomena, such as political homo-
phobia or -philia, this book not only disentangles complex
global processes connected to the internationally raised status
of sexual rights, but also formulates a way forward for acti-
vists and politicians in terms of how to appropriately and
effectively situate themselves.
Conclusion: Avenues for the Future?
The works presented above make clear that the call for
more rigorous interrogations of the impact of LGBTQ
issues in international politics has begun to be successfully
answered. In terms of future LGBT politics and research,
there are multiple factors to consider: the progress of LGBT
advocacy politics is mainly limited to the West, and evokes
domestic hetero- and homonormative and international,
colonialist contention. Hence many hurdles still exist on the
road to sexual justice. Referring to political progress in
Western countries, if predominantly gay and lesbian rights
such as marriage and adoption equality are achieved while
transgender groups are still lacking workplace protection or
health-care access, can one speak of true equality? And if the
‘normalization’of non-traditional sexualities into privatized
and depoliticized constituencies, as well as the resulting
co-optation of LGBT advocacy groups leads to a weakening
of truly alternative or critical queer models of socio-political
coexistence and diversity, what long-term effects does this
have on their empowerment?
Similarly, in the international sphere, the advancement
of LGBT rights provokes backlashes by countries that feel
that a neo- or ‘homo’-colonial interference on behalf of
those minorities by Western governments and inter-
governmental organizations curtails their cultural and poli-
tical sovereignty. This becomes particularly apparent when
transnational NGOs, such as ILGA or IGOs such as the
UN, the World Bank and the EU, advocate reforms in reti-
cent countries while not realizing that their explicit
LGBTQ support accentuates the politicization of those
minorities. To counter this tendency, LGBT advocacy
groups have linked their collective identity strongly to the
international human rights regime in order to evoke uni-
versally valid human rights considerations under difficult
domestic circumstances, and to appropriate such con-
siderations for themselves as well. This attempt has been
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fostered by the debate surrounding sexual or intimate citi-
zenship that aims to locate the sometimes abstract notion of
human rights in the concrete laws for and rights of citizens
(with all attendant potential problems of the regulation of
sexuality through ‘duties’, for example, in a hetero-
normative vision of procreation, or the invisibility of the
ones not officially recognized as such).
Encarnación (2014) in Gay Rights: Why Democracy
Matters takes a more cautious liberal stance: given the
international contention of the sometimes forceful push for
LGBT rights, maybe the support of democratizing mea-
sures more broadly is a better way to indirectly aid LGBT
civil advocacy without inciting the kind of anti-LGBT
responses that occurred in the recent past. The literature
reviewed here also responds to this discussion, aiming to
find more nuanced and truly ‘glocal’solutions to the diffi-
cult global debate about sexual rights in non-Western
countries, often with different priorities than the ones pro-
moted in the West. This could occur through fewer explicit
connections with Western LGBTQ identities or expres-
sions, but also through the advocacy of privacy rights,
separation of state from religion and the highlighting of
democracy, rule of law and human rights (Zeidan, in Weiss
and Bosia, p. 204). A similar way forward is proposed
by Blasius in the same volume, who posits that ‘LGBT
movements (are successful when they) shape debate and
advocacy about their same-sex loving and gender diversity
across cultures through framing their specific cultural tra-
ditions within new ways of conceiving and enacting just
governance’(Blasius, p. 220). How exactly these novel,
localized rights approaches look is yet unclear –mainly
because many non-Western states still work through a
counter-position to the westernized ideal of LGBTQ
rights –but it will certainly provide for more comparative
theorization in the years to come. The thorny question that
remains is how to promote human rights transnationally
and leave LGBTQ groups self-determination and agency
when they are repressed and marginalized domestically.
As one can see from the literature presented here,
LGBTQ research is a collaborative effort. There are few
single-authored works, as a single viewpoint in a field as
diverse –some would say, even amorphous –would
unnecessarily limit the range of expressions. It would also
preclude a healthy debate about the contents and forms of
LGBT advocacy politics in IR. The implications of
LGBTQ expressions in private and public life are mani-
fold, and the best research seems to evolve from compara-
tive and collaborative work conducted by scholars from
related but different disciplines, such as Political Science/
IR, Sociology, Anthropology, Sexuality and Gender Stu-
dies and so on. If broad categorical concepts such as
democracy or security often fail to travel successfully to
other states or regions if not comprehensively and sensi-
tively attuned to the conditions and context there, how can
a research endeavor in such a complex field such as the
international politics of sexual orientation and gender
identity be appropriately examined by one disciplinary
focus alone? The emerging field of transgender studies, for
example, increasingly highlights the comparative intersec-
tion of transgenderism and ethnicity resulting in different
social and political repercussions (Zabus and Coad, 2014).
All books are marked by chronological (from state and
movement evolution to the emergence of responses to
LGBTQ rights claims) as well as spatial diversity (of
LGBTQ movements, of states and ‘cultures’globally).
These engender what some analysts called ‘a different,
uneven geotemporality’from one case to the next (Kulpa &
Mizielinska, 2011). However, this does not mean that one
cannot compare or better, contrast, these diverging experi-
ences and relate them to the larger institutionalization of an
international human rights regime; or what Puar (2013) has
critically called ‘the human rights industrial complex’.As
refreshingly diverse as these books are in their epistemolo-
gical perspectives and methodologies used, they share an
implicit tension in the application of, on the one hand,
interest-representing LGBT groups and queer individuals
and theorists who challenge established notions of integra-
tion. Despite the marked critical and relativizing influence of
the latter, most contributors to these publications seem to
share a basic liberal paradigm that presupposes equality,
sexual and social justice and rights for all independent of
sexual orientation, gender expression or belief, but that
exists in an often precarious coexistence with anti-gay socio-
political forces and institutions. This constantly evolving
scholarly field increasingly pays attention to the presumed
success of international LGBT advocacy politics, as more
critical examinations surrounding the construction of mod-
ernity (Rahman, 2014) or of Eurocentric liberalism (Ayoub
and Paternotte, 2014) remind us of the pitfalls of progressive
assumptions and ideologies.
Notes
1 Sexual Politics generally includes also issues of sexual
health and well-being, though applied in the narrow
rights focus here I concentrate sexual rights to LGBTQ
individuals and groups only.
2Adamet al edited a groundbreaking volume on The
Global Emergence of Gay and Lesbian Politics in 1998,
though it focused mainly on sociological theories and
movements. Other important workssuchasMarkBlasius’
(2001) Sexual Identities, Queer Politics remain wedded to
an identitaerian outlook, and Denis Altman’s (2001)
Global Sex primarily theorizes the globalization of
sexuality.
3 In the following, I use LGBTQ for movements, com-
munities and rights that encompass, albeit unevenly, all
those individuals but reserve LGBT for the political
stakeholders involved in advocacy politics.
LGBTQ politics and International Relations
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