BackHome
Refresh: OffView Personal Schedule
Session Submission Summary
Share...

Direct link:

From Breakthrough to Backlash: Global LGBT Rights in Comparative Perspective

Sat, August 31, 2:00 to 3:30pm, Marriott, Jefferson

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The past twenty years has seen both the rapid extension of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) rights and fervent backlash against this development. What political forces explain these divergent outcomes? What are the consequences of this extension of rights on LGBT organizations? What predicts the acceptance or rejection of LGBT rights and identities? This panel explores these questions as it examines LGBT rights advocacy in comparative perspective. In particular, we examine whether breakthroughs in LGBT rights, like the adoption of same-sex marriage, actually produce enduring change for LGBT individuals. We also address backlash against LGBT rights and how it may not only endanger fragile social and legal gains, but also threaten LGBT activists and livelihoods.

In 2005, Canada became one of the first countries to adopt same-sex marriage. Scholars agree on the importance of strong democratic institutions, such as Canada’s, to LGBT rights. However, the extent to which even established democracies are able to consolidate LGBT rights in the face of global trends of neoliberalism and populism remains an open question. For example, the achievement of same-sex marriage occurred in the context of a neoliberal funding landscape in many countries. Ng argues that achievement of marriage left many Canadian organizations seeking to justify their continued existence, and opened the door to increased corporate influence on LGBT advocacy. Ng finds that firms have become vital to sustaining LGBT organizations in Canada and, paradoxically, LGBT organizations have become social and economic resources that Canadian funders compete for to mobilize. These findings contribute significantly to scholarly understandings of the consequences of the extension of LGBT rights by exposing the unintended--and potentially negative--consequences of a single issue, rights-based social movement agenda.

Also looking at Canada, Fetner and Dion explore which segments of the Canadian population are most likely to support transgender rights. They find that, across the board, Canadians are more supportive of the right to change gender identity on government documents than the right to gender-affirming health services, suggesting that some rights are easier to accept among the majority cisgender population. They also find that women, more educated, younger, less religious, and urban-dwelling Canadians are more supportive of transgender rights. Interestingly, their work on the demographic characteristics of those less likely to support transgender rights finds a link between populist sympathies and rejection of transgender rights. Through examination of the Canadian case, it becomes clear that while democracies may be the vanguard of the extension of rights, support for these rights is uncertain even in the presence of robust democratic institutions.

The uncertainty of LGBT rights is even more pronounced in countries where populism has made a clearer impact than in Canada. Lind and Keating (2013) argue that left-wing populist regimes often engage in “homoprotectionism,” or the inclusion of LGBT individuals into citizenship in order to legitimize state authority. Moreau’s paper examines lesbian mobilization in the aftermath of the passage of same-sex marriage in Argentina, and lesbian activists’ articulation of the demand for “lesbian visibility”--a demand that did not change even after the adoption of the marriage law. Continuity of activists’ objectives suggests that even with the rapid inclusion of LGBT individuals into citizenship in left-wing populist regimes, such as Argentina under the Kirchners, activists perceive an inadequacy of formal inclusion that requires ongoing mobilization. By exploring the specific manifestation of lesbian visibility at Buenos Aires Pride, Moreau’s paper helps us grasp the limitations of the political inclusion of LGBT subjects.

Right-wing populist regimes, by contrast, often cast LGBT people as “other” to the nation to achieve their political ends. Through a comparative analysis of Nigeria and Mexico, O’Brien untangles backlash against sexual and gender minorities, arguing that conservative regimes--and their transnational networks--mobilize a religious and nationalist discourse to deny rights to women, children and LGBTQ individuals alike. Use of religious discourse to persecute sexual and gender minorities has implications for the anti-feminist far right in the U.S. and other developed nations, as anti-feminist, ethno-religious elites across country contexts share patriarchal and xenophobic ideas with conservatives elsewhere.

Taken together, these papers advance knowledge about the nature of breakthroughs in LGBT rights, and backlash against those advancements. This set of papers promises to be an important contribution to current scholarly debates in LGBT issues in transnational and comparative perspective.

Sub Unit

Cosponsor

Chair

Discussant

Individual Presentations