Contemporary Context of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in International Politics

Abstract

Farmer explores the ways in which sexual orientation and gender identity politics are negotiated and contested in international relations in order to highlight the contemporary international contexts in which UK-based NGOs and other actors participate. The chapter examines the ways in which LGBT rights are contested at the United Nations, noting how coalitions of states have attempted to either advance or restrict rights protections for sexual and gender minorities. The development of the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Act (2014) is also used as a case study to highlight how some states attempt to restrict LGBT rights as part of broader attempts to strengthen domestic political control, as well as how transnational networks have been used in opposition to LGBT rights. The chapter concludes with an examination of the ways in which simplistic understandings of global homophobias and the homonationalist deployment of LGBT rights by Western states, contribute to a pinkwashed European modernity/coloniality that presents challenges for effective transnational LGBT activism.