Where the Personal is (Geo)Political: Performing Queer Visibility in Georgia in the Context of EU Association

Abstract

This article examines the interplay between the European Union’s (EU) interventions fostering LGBT+ rights in Georgia, and the visibility-raising strategies of local queer activists. The growing antagonism between the EU and Russia over their “shared neighborhood” crystallizes the idea of a value-based divide between the West/EUrope and the East/Russia on LGBT+ issues—with Georgia occupying a liminal position therein. The paper puts forward the concept of geopoliticization to unpack how the discursive construction of LGBT+ equality as a geopolitical issue shapes Georgian queer activists’ visibility strategies, and to interrogate the outcomes these processes produce.