Logics of Queer Justice: Disaggregating Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

• In Event: 50 Years of LGBTQ Scholarship at APSA Mini-Conference: Framing and Accessing LGBTQ+ Rights in Democracies

Abstract

All movements experience uneven progress and setback – resulting in contradictory policy environments. Consequently, it is important to disaggregate movements to understand and overcome internal contradictions. This is especially true for global efforts to advance LGBT+ rights as countries commonly enact some progressive reforms while maintaining or hardening other discriminatory policies. Why? I argue that although articulated as a single cause, global LGBT+ movements advance distinct dimensions of personhood: sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, sex characteristics, and sexual behaviors. Each dimension, though interrelated, varies in its recognition as a legitimate form of personhood. This variation helps explain contradictory policy environments. Moreover, known transnational pathways for conferring queer recognition (e.g., transnational movements, international norms, human rights treaties), may be more amenable to some dimensions than others. I demonstrate this argument by comparing the adoption of rights based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and homosexual behaviors across 152 countries between 1991 and 2019. Results from seemingly unrelated regressions find that known transnational pathways for recognizing personhood and, thus, securing rights, vary significantly across each dimension. Findings from this study illuminate why contradictory policy environments exist and how strategies to advance one aspect of queer justice may hinder others.

Author

• Kristopher Velasco, Princeton University