The Global Fight Against LGBTI Rights

The Georgetown BMW Center for German and European Studies invites you to The Global Fight Against LGBTI Rights: How Transnational Conservative Networks Target Sexual and Gender Minorities, a lecture from Phillip Ayoub, Professor of International Relations at University College London. This event will be held in the Mortara Center for International Studies from 12:30-1:30pm on Thursday February 6th. Lunch will be provided.

In the past three decades, remarkable progress has been made in numerous countries for the rights of individuals marginalized due to their sexual orientation and gender identity. The advancements in LGBTI rights in a variety of diverse countries can largely be attributed to the tireless efforts of the transnational LGBTI-rights movement, forward-thinking governments in pioneering nations, and the evolving human rights frameworks of international organizations. However, this journey towards equality has been met with formidable opposition. An increasingly interconnected and globally networked resistance, backed by religious-nationalist elements and conservative governments, has emerged to challenge LGBTI and women's rights, even seeking to reinterpret and co-opt international human rights law.
In this lecture, Phillip Ayoub draws on his new book with Kristina Stöckl to investigate this complex landscape, based largely in Europe and North America, drawing from over a decade of in-depth fieldwork with LGBTI activists, anti-LGBTI proponents, and various state and international organization actors. Moral conservative TANs have employed many of the same transnational tools that garnered LGBTIQ people their widespread recognition. As the double-helix metaphor suggests, rival TANs have a reciprocal relationship, having to navigate each other’s presence in an interactive space and thus using related strategies and instruments for mutually exclusive ends.

Phillip M. Ayoub is a professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science at University College London. He is the author of four books and volumes, including When States Come Out: Europe’s Sexual Minorities and the Politics of Visibility (Cambridge University Press, 2016), and his articles have appeared in the American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, Social Forces, the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, the European Journal of International Relations, the European Journal of Political Research, the Review of International Studies, Mobilization, the European Political Science Review, the Journal of Human Rights, Social Politics, Political Research Quarterly, and Social Movement Studies, among others. Further information can be found under www.phillipayoub.com.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Mortara Center for International Studies, 36th Street Northwest, Washington, United States