Global Sexual Diversity Politics and the Crisis of Democracy

Friday, 11 July 2025: 13:00-14:45
Location: FSE002 (Faculty of Education Sciences (FSE))
RC32 Women, Gender and Society (host committee)

Language: English and French

This session explores the troubling global pattern of democratic crises that have enabled authoritarian governments to weaponize the issue of LGBTIQ+ rights as existential threats to society and nation. The complexity of global LGBTIQ+ and sexual diversity politics runs the gamut of power structures at the local and global level tied to autocracy, democratic aspiration, moral panic, human rights, and colonialism. This session will consider the ways that global movements opposing LGBTIQ+ rights undermine liberal democracies and threaten human-rights egalitarianism, weaponizing democratic pluralism in order to perpetuate divisive culture wars.
Session Organizer:
Melanie HEATH, McMaster University, Canada
Chair:
Dr. Rianka ROY, Wake Forest University, USA
Oral Presentations
Genocide, Necropolitics and Anti-Homosexuality in Uganda: Sociological and Critical Analysis
Dr. Matthew WAITES, PhD, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom
Being Queer Where the Law Bans You: Right-Wing Populism, the Christian Orthodox Church and the Obsession with Gender and Sexuality
Dr. Barbare JANELIDZE, Dr., University Of Kassel, Germany
The Role of the Monogamous State in Anti-LGBTQ+ Politics
Melanie HEATH, McMaster University, Canada
Rethinking Disability and Sexuality in India: Breaking Stereotypes and Advocating for Sexual Rights
Mohammad YUSUF, Aligarh Muslim University, India; Khan SANA, Independent Researcher, India
The Unproud. Political Representation and the LGBTQ+ Backlash
Daniel ROMERO-PORTILLO, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Spain; Pablo ORTIZ BARQUERO, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Spain
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