European Journal of Politics and Gender • vol 1 • no 1–2 • 55–74

© European Conference on Politics and Gender and Bristol University Press 2018
Print ISSN 2515 1088 • Online ISSN 2515 1096
https://doi.org/10.1332/251510818X15272520831175

RESEARCH

Coming out of the political science closet: the

study of LGBT politics in Europe
David Paternotte, David.Paternotte@ulb.ac.be
Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium

This article gives an overview of the field of LGBT politics in European political science. It
does not aim to offer an exhaustive review of the literature, but rather to highlight the major
trends and to reflect critically on the endeavours of the last 25 years. After a history of the
development of this field of research and a mapping of existing scholarship, this piece sheds
light on new areas of inquiry (Europe, international relations, nationalism, trans* politics
and oppositions) and discusses some of the key challenges for the future, with a focus on the
conditions of knowledge production.

Key words sexuality • sexual politics • political science • queer • LGBT • trans*

Key messages
• The history of LGBT political science in Europe.
• How did the study of LGBT politics came out of the political science closet.
• An overview of the field of LGBT politics in Europe.
• Discover the challenges for the future of LGBT political science in Europe.

To cite this article: Paternotte, D. (2018) Coming out of the political science closet: the
study of LGBT politics in Europe, European Journal of Politics and Gender, vol 1, no 1-2,
55-74, DOI: 10.1332/251510818X15272520831175

Introduction
In recent years, LGBT1 issues have risen to the top of world politics. The topic is
now discussed in highly revered political venues such as the United Nations (UN) or
the European Union (EU), and has become one of the battlefields of contemporary
culture wars (Altman and Symons, 2016). In political science, too, LGBT issues have
come to the fore. As Carver and Mottier already mentioned in their 1998 seminal
edited collection, ‘Sex, gender and sexualities can no longer be presumed to be non-
political, pre-political or even marginal, because electoral politics, public policy, local
government and international and EU relations are all arenas in which the politics of
sexuality arises’ (Carver and Mottier, 1998: 1). The increasing politicisation of LGBT

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issues has turned them into legitimate objects of study, as shown by the burgeoning
of research projects and publications on sexual politics in the last decade.
However, despite this rising interest, it is not yet possible to identify a common
research agenda or even of a common field of study. Carver and Mottier (1998: 9)
had also noticed that:

the one thing that the politics of sexuality is not, however, is ‘private’ or ‘pre-
political’, something that can be treated as peripheral or of merely personal
interest. Beyond that, there is substantial disagreement concerning the ways
in which the politics of sexualities and of sexual identities are interpreted.

This situation has not changed. As will become clear from this article, few scholars are
allowed to dedicate most of their work to these issues, and most research initiatives
must be read as isolated contributions. Research networks are still poorly structured,
people often do not stay in academia and no agreement emerges regarding the concepts
and the approaches to be used in the field.
This article attempts to give an overview of this field of research and to shed light
on the various areas of political science in which it has developed. It does not aim
to offer an exhaustive review of the literature,2 but rather to highlight the major
trends and to reflect critically on the endeavours of the last 25 years. While locating
the discussion in a global frame, it focuses on European political science, that is, on
political science produced in European universities, as well as on research on Europe
carried out outside of the region (often by scholars active in European research
networks). As highlighted in the following section, this European focus results not
only from length constraints, but also from the specific timing and the distinctive
research interests of European scholarship. This is particularly true when compared
with the US, where this field has emerged more precociously but has remained
focused on domestic politics.

The slow development of a field

Political science has been a bit of a latecomer to studies of LGBT phenomena,

especially as compared with the humanities, but also as compared with other
social sciences. (Blasius, 2001: 4)

This observation is equally valid in Europe, where historians, anthropologists,

sociologists, psychologists and legal scholars have all preceded political scientists in
academic and social debates (Paternotte and Perreau, 2012; Stambolis-Ruhrstorfer,
forthcoming). This lack of interest could easily be accounted for by specific research
interests, which would explain why other disciplines appeared as more welcoming.
The late politicisation of these issues offers an additional line of explanation as LGBT
issues were therefore not regarded as suitable objects for political scientists for a long
time.
Nonetheless, such a reading overlooks the long involvement of the state in the
messy business of sex, as well as the power relations that govern it. This reading would
also proceed from a simplistic understanding of science, in which the production of
knowledge follows social and political debates. In contrast to this account, I argue

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that we need to reflect on political science itself, and to interrogate the ways through
which its organisation as a science and its history have contributed to the erasure
of sex from the realm of knowledge (Weber, 2015). At this stage, three hypotheses
can be pointed out.
First, despite prestigious antecessors, political science is a young science, which
mostly developed in the 20th century. In such a configuration, early researchers were
undoubtedly reluctant to embark on a project that could be scientifically and morally
contested, shameful or stigmatising. In brief, the recurrent equation of sexuality
research with ‘dirty work’ (Irvine, 2014) could endanger this new field of study.
Second, political science has historically been constructed as a science of power, with
a focus on institutionalised politics. From Machiavelli and Jean Bodin, power has
been reduced to politics, and political science was closely intertwined with the art
of government. Moreover, this knowledge was more easily available to the powerful
than to rebels and social outcasts. For these reasons, despite the close relation between
sex and power, sexual politics has long been overlooked in political science. Third,
political science has been constructed as the science of the public, leaving issues like
sex to other disciplines. LGBT research has therefore challenged, along with feminist
scholars, the idea that the private is a space of intimacy and individual freedom,
politicising domestic and personal lives and denouncing underlying unequal power
relations (Carver and Mottier, 1998: 9; Krouwel and Duyvendak, 1999; Blasius,
2001: 7).
Despite an originally hostile environment, the interest in sex for political science
should hence not be merely understood as contingent, that it, as a consequence of
the politicisation of LGBT issues over the last 50 years. On the contrary, numerous
authors have claimed that sex cannot be understood without power, and that,
echoing Joan Scott’s understanding of gender, it is a fundamental way of signifying
power relations. Starting with Sade, they include people as different as Foucault, gay
liberationists Hocquenghem and Mieli, lesbian theorist Wittig, and feminists Dworkin,
McKinnon, Millet or Rubin. Nonetheless, despite the abundance of reflections on
sex and power, no political science of sex emerged before the 1970s. Among the first
political scientists to write about LGBT politics is the Australian Dennis Altman.3
His first book, Homosexual: Oppression and liberation (Altman, 1971), is considered
as a classic of gay liberation, and Altman has written on topics as different as gay
activism (Altman, 1982), HIV/AIDS politics (Altman, 1986), globalisation (Altman,
2001) and the recent polarisation around LGBT rights (Altman and Symons, 2016).
Although he has always paid special attention to politics, his scholarship has never
been limited to political science, but been constructed in a fruitful dialogue with
other disciplines. Furthermore, it has never been limited to Australia; Altman has
always been involved in international scientific conversations, first with colleagues
from the US and UK, and then from the whole world, decisively contributing to
the debates on the globalisation of sex.
These two features – interdisciplinarity and internationalism – have characterised the
field of LGBT politics until today. It has always been constructed through sustained
interactions with colleagues from other disciplines, and pioneers in the study of
LGBT politics were generally not political scientists themselves. These scholars
have worked across borders, creating crucial transatlantic bridges, and the field was
internationalised long before other areas in political science. These features, which
have created an interdisciplinary and international community of friends and relatives,

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must be understood as the result of the scarcity of researchers and the long hostility
of political science as a discipline.
American political scientists were the first ones to establish an autonomous field,
capitalising on the faster development of political science in their country and a
greater politicisation of sexual identities. In 1987, the Gay and Lesbian Caucus for
Political Science was set up at the American Political Science Association (APSA),
under Sarah Slavin and Mark Blasius’s presidency. This caucus not only organised
specific panels at academic meetings, but also contributed to a diversification of the
political science canon, to an improvement of the situation of LGBT scholars in the
field and the profession, and to a more equal and diverse APSA. It was completed by
a Committee on the Status of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and Transgender Individuals
in the Profession, which took over some of its missions. In 2007, a Sexuality & Politics
Organized Section was created by the caucus co-chair Angelia Wilson (who also
pioneered the study of LGBT politics in British political science). Seminal edited
volumes were also published in the early 2000s, particularly Craig A. Rimmerman,
Kenneth D. Wald and Clyde Wylcox’s (2000) The politics of gay rights (probably the
first attempt to offer a comprehensive overview of LGBT issues in American politics)
in 2000, and Blasius’s (2001) Sexual identities: Queer politics in 2001.
In Europe, the field of LGBT political science did not coalesce until the mid-
1990s. A first attempt took place in 1996 in Oslo, when Terrell Carver and Véronique
Mottier organised a joint session on the politics of sexuality, which addressed issues of
sexual politics in a very broad sense. This workshop, which led to the groundbreaking
volume Politics of sexuality. Identity, gender, citizenship (Carver and Mottier, 1998), not
only gathered political scientists, but also lawyers, sociologists and political and social
theorists. Nothing happened, however, at a regional level after Oslo, and European
political scientists had to wait until the third European Conference on Politics and
Gender (ECPG), which took place in 2013 in Barcelona, for the network to start
consolidating. Thanks to the support of the co-chairs of the ECPR Standing Group
on Gender and Politics (particularly Isabelle Engeli), a section on LGBTQI Rights,
Sexuality and Politics4 was launched by Roman Kuhar and myself, and maintained
at the 2015 and the 2017 conferences, held in Uppsala and Lausanne. This article
should be read as a result of these encounters.

Taking stock
The field originally developed in three directions: social movements, citizenship
and public policy. Interestingly, despite an early internationalisation, there are few
comparative or transnational/global studies, and most of the literature is made up of
national case studies. Moreover, many parts on the world are still poorly covered by
the scientific literature, including within Europe.
Scholars first studied social mobilisations in favour of LGBT rights, as well as against
HIV/AIDS. Several generations of scholars may be identified in Europe, starting with
Jeffrey Weeks (1977) in the UK or Rob Tielman (1982) in the Netherlands. In the
1990s and 2000s, scholars like Jan Willem Duyvendak (1994, 1995), Olivier Fillieule
(1998) and Christophe Broqua (Broqua and Fillieule, 2001; Broqua, 2005) further
contributed to this area of research. Today, a large range of countries in Europe are
covered by the literature, although these publications usually focus on a specific issue,
group or period. They include Belgium (Paternotte, 2011), Croatia (Butterfield,

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2016), the Czech Republic (O’Dwyer, 2013), France (Fillieule and Duyvendak, 1999;
Bosia, 2009; Prearo, 2014; Fillieule and Broqua, 2017), Germany (Kollman, 2013;
Ayoub, 2016; Davidson-Schmich, 2017), Italy (Prearo, 2015a, 2015b), the Netherlands
(Hekma and Duyvendak, 2011; Davidson, 2015), Poland (Chetaille, 2011; Binnie
and Klesse, 2012; Ayoub, 2016; Szulc, 2017; Ayoub and Chetaille, 2018), Portugal
(Santos, 2013), Romania (Carstocea, 2006), Spain (Trujillo, 2009a; Monferrer Tomàs,
2010; Calvo and Trujillo, 2011; Calvo, 2017; Coll-Planas and Cruells, 2017), the
UK (Plummer, 1999; Kollman and Waites, 2011), Serbia (Slootmaeckers, 2017),
Switzerland (Roca i Escoda, 2010; Delessert and Voegtli, 2012; Voegtli, 2016) and
the ‘post-Yugoslav space’ (Bilic, 2016; Bilic and Kajinić, 2016). A few comparative
studies and edited collections on the region are also available (Engel, 2001; Kuhar and
Takács, 2007; Paternotte, 2011; Holzhacker, 2012; Santos, 2013), and three ‘global’
edited volumes, including a large set on European case studies, have been published
since 1999. The first one was edited by Barry Adam, Jan Willem Duyvendak and
André Krouwel (1999), and remains a key reference in the field. It was completed
in 2011 by a volume on the relationship between lesbian and gay movements and
the state edited by Carol Johnson, David Paternotte and Manon Tremblay, and by a
Companion edited by Paternotte and Tremblay in 2015.
The political process approach remains the main analytical perspective, a situation
that contrasts with the US, where research on LGBT movements has crucially
contributed to theoretical advances in social movement studies. Moreover, despite a
diversification of research, several topics remain insufficiently covered. The literature
focuses mainly on lesbian and gay activism, and few studies examine lesbian activism,
especially when it did not happen in mixed movements with men (for exceptions, see
Trujillo, 2009a; Bilic and Radoman, 2018). Trans* movements are still poorly known
(Balzer and Hutta, 2014; Motmans, 2010; Motmans and Van der Ros, 2015; Platero
and Ortega-Arjonilla, 2016), and the literature on intersex and bisexual activism is
almost non-existent (Monro, 2015; Von Wahl, 2017). Scholars have also criticised
the standard historical model used to narrate the history of these movements, which
articulates a set of sequences from the homophile movement to queer and beyond.
According to its critics, this model would underplay the importance of early activism
and overestimate gay liberation as the foundation of contemporary LGBT activism.
It also mirrors a limited set of historical experiences (mostly the US and UK), of
which it confirms the hegemony (Kulpa and Mizielińska, 2011).
The second area of study revolves around the notion of sexual, ‘intimate’ (Plummer,
2003; Roseneil, 2010) or ‘affective’ (Johnson, 2010) citizenship. This scholarship,
which intersects with wider reflections on sexuality and democracy (Rahman, 2000),
examines the relations between the state and LGBT citizens in specific settings,
examining both the rights that were denied because of one’s sexual orientation
or gender identity and the ones claimed or gained by LGBT movements. This
discussion was opened in the 1980s with Monique Wittig’s (1989) seminal essay on
the heteronormativity of the social contract, and was decisively developed in the
1990s in the UK. Starting in 1993 with a denunciation of the commodification of
gay life (Evans, 1993) and a groundbreaking edited collection by Angelia Wilson
(1995), it has developed in two directions. On the one hand, authors such as Jeffrey
Weeks (1998) and Kenneth Plummer (2003) have highlighted new areas of political
and social discussions, as well as a new range of individual possibilities. Eric Fassin’s
(2010) notion of ‘sexual democracy’ would also fit into this category. On the other

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hand, scholars such as Diane Richardson (1998, 2017) have attempted to better
understand the intersections between rights and sexuality, and proposed new rights
typologies. While this scholarship has mostly addressed lesbian and gay rights, it has
been completed in recent years by publications on trans* (Monro and Warren, 2004;
Hines, 2006, 2013; Davy et al, 2017; Kuhar et al, 2017; Monro and Van der Ros,
2017) and bisexual (Monro, 2015) citizenship. Recently, authors have also connected
this debate to concerns about race and migration (Fassin, 2014; Perreau, 2016), re-
examining the underpinnings of the reproductive state (Roseneil et al, 2015).
Most of these studies are bounded by national borders and focus on single national
cases (for an exception, see Santos, 2013), even though some authors have also
looked into European sexual citizenship (Ammaturo, 2017; Stychin, 2001). Others
have recently raised concerns about the ethnocentrism of most conceptualisations,
with Diane Richardson arguing that ‘any critical reimagining of the concept of
sexual citizenship needs to be accompanied by a de-centring of the focus on the
Global North’ (Richardson, 2015: 219; see also Sabsay, 2012; Johnson, 2017). This
connects debates on sexual citizenship to wider discussions on LGBT human rights
as conceptually dissociated from citizenship rights and deployed across the globe
(Kollman and Waites, 2009; Lennox and Waites, 2013; Langlois and Wilkinson,
2014; Corrêa et al, 2015).
The third area examines specific policy debates. While it intersects with the former
two, it neither approaches sexual citizenship as a whole and conceptualises the overall
relation between sex and the state, nor puts the emphasis on civil society actors as
in social movement studies, but attempts to account for the development of specific
policies. Scholars such Jeffrey Weeks (1981, 2007) in the UK and Janine Mossuz-
Lavau (1991) in France first sketched an overview of contentious policy areas related
to sex, as did Davina Cooper (1994; see also Richardson and Monro, 2012) for local
politics in the UK. Research has later focused on specific policy debates, looking at:
the equalisation of the age of consent (Waites, 2005); antidiscrimination and equality
provisions (Cruells and Coll-Planas, 2013); same-sex union and same-sex marriage
(Kollman, 2007, 2013; Platero, 2007; Calvo and Trujillo, 2011; Paternotte, 2011,
2015; Kuhar, 2012; Paternotte and Kollman, 2013; Winter et al, 2018); reproductive
technologies (Engeli, 2010); adoption and parenting rights (Herbrand, 2006; Engeli
and Roca, 2012; Perreau, 2014; Engeli and Eggert, 2015); HIV/AIDS (Favre,
1992; Eboko, 2005; Seckinelgin, 2008, 2016); trans rights (Monro, 2003; Platero,
2009; Hines and Santos, 2017; Van der Ros, 2017); or asylum policies (Raboin,
2016; Hamila, forthcoming). The two major European projects on ‘gender equality’
headed by Mieke Verloo, QUING and MAGEEQ,5 have also systematically included
sexuality issues.

Contemporary debates
The study of LGBT politics has dramatically diversified in recent years in Europe,
with the emergence of new areas of inquiry. Following broader trends in sex research,
both European studies and international relations (IR) have offered new homes
for the study of LGBT politics. More recently, new objects have also been under
investigation, such as trans* rights, nationalism and opposition to equality. A brief
comparison with US scholarship finally highlights some topics that remain intriguingly
under-researched in the region.

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As highlighted by Ayoub and Paternotte (forthcoming), the association of Europe

with LGBT rights has been studied in four directions: as an institutional entity;
as an activist project; as an exclusionary idea; and as a threat. The literature has
first analysed the treatment of LGBT issues by European institutions (Stychin,
2001; Beger, 2004; Weyembergh and Carstocea, 2006; Swiebel, 2009; Mos, 2014;
Malmedie, 2016; Ammaturo, 2017). Using the Europeanisation frame, it has also
looked into the European influence on domestic politics, particularly in the case of
the enlargement of the EU to Central and Eastern Europe (O’Dwyer, 2010; Kuhar,
2012; Holzhacker, 2013; Kollman, 2013; Ayoub, 2016; Bilic, 2016; Slootmaeckers
et al, 2016; Slootmaeckers, 2017). In recent years, Ayoub and Paternotte have also
investigated another approach to Europe and LGBT rights, insisting on its normative
dimension and its connection to activism, both at national and regional level (Ayoub
and Paternotte, 2014; Paternotte, 2016). Finally, scholars influenced by postcolonial
theory and debates on homonationalism have located Europe in a wider frame and
interrogated the idea of European sexual exceptionalism (Colpani and Habed, 2014;
Bilic, 2016; Ammaturo, 2017).
LGBT issues have also found an unexpected fertile soil in IR (Kollman and Waites,
2009; Kollman, 2010; Thiel, 2014; Langlois, 2015; Weber, 2016; Rao, 2018). This
is not only the consequence of an internationalisation of LGBT politics, but also
the result of new ways of looking at international politics. On the one hand, the
constructivist approach to IR, with its insistence on norm diffusion and a focus
on non-institutional actors, could easily be applied to sexuality issues, studied as
another case of human rights diffusion (e.g. Kollman, 2013; Ayoub, 2016; see also
Mos, 2013). On the other hand, more theoretical and radical approaches, influenced
by queer theory, have led to fruitful concepts such as ‘political homophobia’ (Weiss
and Bosia, 2013). This dynamism is also attested to by the launch of a LGBTQA
Caucus at the International Studies Association in 2010 (Langlois and Wilkinson,
2014; Picq and Thiel, 2015).
In recent years, several research objects have also entered the field or were brought
under a new light. The study of trans* politics has developed at an extremely rapid pace.
As detailed earlier, both the emergence of trans* movements and the development
of trans* citizenships have been scrutinised, along with a thorough analysis of trans*
politics and policies across Europe (Monro, 2003; Monro and Warren, 2004; Hines,
2006, 2013; Davy et al, 2017; Hines and Santos, 2017; Kuhar et al, 2017; Monro
and Van der Ros, 2017; Van der Ros, 2017). The development of this scholarship
raises important questions about the relations between gender identity and sexual
orientation, and about the space offered to trans* studies in contemporary political
science. Historically, trans* and LGB issues can be regarded as ‘odd bedfellows’ given
the historical invisibility of trans* issues in research and in society and the ways
in which they were sometimes problematically subsumed under the label ‘LGBT’
(Motmans and Van der Ros, 2015). In recent years, however, the field of sexuality
has proven more welcoming than the field of gender and politics, where gender
remains sometimes a synonym for (‘biological’) women.
Nationalism has become another hot topic in the field. While it has long been
related to gender and sexual politics, the study of its connections to sexuality has
been renewed thanks to debates on homonationalism and the co-optation of LGBT
rights in state politics (Puar, 2007; see also Mole, 2016). In Europe, this scholarship
has mostly explored the use of a pro-LGBT rhetoric to target Islam and Muslims,

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especially by Far Right actors (Mepschen et al, 2010; El Tayeb, 2011; Petzen, 2012;
Rahman, 2014; Rexhepi, 2016), as well as the instrumentalisation of LGBT rights
in renewed civilisational and imperial projects (Bracke, 2012; Colpani, 2017; Rao,
2015). These debates have also transformed the conversation on nationalism and
sexuality more broadly (Jaunait et al, 2013), shedding new light on what should be
called ‘ancient’ heteronationalism (e.g. Chetaille, 2013; Norocel, 2015).
Third, the unexpected resurgence of various forms of opposition to LGBT rights in
Europe has contributed to the development of a new field of research. As exemplified
by a large part of the scholarship on Europe(anisation), scholars were driven by a
teleological account of LGBT politics in the region. They assumed that opposition was
largely foreign to the European experience, in opposition to the US (Wilson, 2013)
and the rest of the world, or could only subsist as remains of the past and primarily
in Eastern Europe and Catholic countries such as Italy or Ireland. As a result, there
were almost no studies of opposition in the region until recently.
This understanding of sexual politics has largely been invalidated since the 2010s.
Interestingly, these attacks target both gender and sexual rights, urging researchers
to join forces (Verloo, forthcoming). In addition to needed empirical investigations,
scholars have researched in two directions. They have tried to apply notions forged
in other parts of the world (mostly the US) to make sense of what was happening in
Europe: conservative and counter-movements (Agrikoliansky and Collovald, 2014;
Ayoub and Chetaille, 2018; Broqua and Fillieule, forthcoming), backlash (Ayoub,
2014; O’Dwyer and Schwartz, 2010) or culture wars (Mondo, 2014; Ozzano and
Giorgi, 2015). They have also attempted to address the singularity of what is happening
in the region, examining ‘anti-gender campaigns’ (Aguilar Fernandez, 2011; Kuhar,
2015; Paternotte et al, 2015; Garbagnoli, 2016; Kuhar and Paternotte, 2017) and
calling for an extension of studies on populism and the Far Right to gender and
sexuality (Norocel, 2013; Hark and Villa, 2015; Kováts and Põim, 2015; Köttig et
al, 2017; Graff and Korolczuk, forthcoming).6
Finally, despite this uncontested dynamism, some issues remain intriguingly missing,
especially in comparison with US scholarship. As mentioned, both research on
intersex and bisexuality issues are persistently scarce. While intersex rights are new
on the agenda (Ammaturo, 2016; Von Wahl, 2017) and may lead to new research
in the future, bisexual politics are still under-studied (Monro et al, 2017). Second,
fields like electoral politics (Prearo, 2013), party politics (Waites, 2000; Carabine
and Monro, 2004), opinion studies (Ayoub and Garretson, 2017; Slootmaeckers and
Sircar, forthcoming) and representation studies (Meier, 2010) are underdeveloped in
Europe. Third, following a more general trend in European political science, there is
very limited research on law and politics, legal mobilisation, litigation, and the role
of the courts, and it deals mostly with European courts (Roca i Escoda, 2011; De
Waele and Van der Vleuten, 2014). Finally, despite the involvement of theorists like
Kulpa, Rao or Colpani and the existence of research on queer activism in Europe (Di
Feliciantonio and Brown, 2015; Elefteriadis, 2018), queer theory has not always found
a home in political science, at least in comparison with other disciplines (Smith and
Lee, 2015; Weber, 2015). This absence raises two key questions: does the meaning
of queer travel across borders and what does it mean in Europe? Is the epistemology
underlying political science compatible with a queer approach, which derives for a
large part from literature and art studies?

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Challenges for the future

I would like to conclude this piece by discussing challenges for the future. The first
one is extremely simple: who and what are we talking about? An attentive reader
may have noticed a certain discomfort about labels and categories, which are however
crucial to delimit the frontiers of the field. The label ‘LGBT’ is probably the most
common. It has been suggested to address critiques about a lack of inclusiveness of
the movement (monopolised by gay men) and also mirrors crucial transformations
in activism (Prearo, 2015a). However, it has been attacked on the same ground and,
as a result, more letters have been added – such as A (asexual/allies), Q (queer/
questioning), I (intersex), TTT (travesty, transsexual, transgender) or 2S (two-spirit).
Other criticisms target the fact that this label examines sex from an identity
perspective. It therefore covers an extremely limited aspect of the complex world of
sexuality and leaves many people behind. Following Foucault, many authors have
demonstrated that this understanding of sexuality is not universal, but ensues from a
specifically Western experience of medicalisation and psychologisation of same-sex
attractions. It was much later globalised, to some extent, to the rest of the world (e.g.
Massad, 2002; Broqua, 2012; Paternotte and Seckinelgin, 2015). Furthermore, the
identity approach is not the only one to advocate sexual rights, as demonstrated by
the experience of women’s sexual and reproductive rights (Petchesky, 2003; Corrêa
et al, 2015).
Identity dilemmas are not new, and were already raised by Carver and Mottier
(1998: Part II). To address these criticisms, other labels have been proposed. MSM
(men who have sex with men), for instance, is common in research on HIV/AIDS and
puts more emphasis on sexual practices. Recently, however, it has been reclaimed as
another sexual identity, in particular, in contexts where homosexuality is criminalised
or despised (Paternotte and Seckinelgin, 2015). SOGI (sexual orientation and
gender identity), an acronym used in the Yogjakarta Principles and adopted by the
UN, is another attempt to overcome the limits of an identity approach, especially in
relation to global human rights. It has nonetheless been criticised for its essentialising
approach and its reliance on historically contested psychological categories, such
as ‘orientation’ and ‘identity’ (Waites, 2009). The notion of ‘politics of sexuality’
or ‘sexual politics’, as used by Carver and Mottier (1998), could provide another
alternative to identity-based labels by avoiding the trap of overemphasising sexual
identities and facilitating collaborations with political scientists examining other sex
issues, like sexual harassment, abortion and contraception, reproductive technologies,
or sex work and prostitution. However, such collaborations could overshadow LGBT
issues in political science again or subordinate them to gender concerns.
The use of the label ‘LGBT’ and its variants also raises another set of questions: who
is allowed to produce knowledge, and for whom? The identity approach to sexuality
mirrors a historically Western experience, and this ethnocentric bias raises the question
of the experiences that we write about and the concepts and approaches that we use to
describe them. As argued by Brown et al (2010: 1568) in a piece on ‘Sexualities in/of
the Global South’, sometimes ‘sexualities defy easy categorisation and representation;
they exceed the boundaries of sexual identity categories that we think we know’. As
a result, one must reflect on what can be seen with specific categories and analytical
tools. Do these invisibilise some experiences while overemphasising others? To what
extent are they truly global or merely a reproduction of Western provincialism?

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More fundamentally, who has the power to forge these concepts and what counts as
science? How do we ensure that the Global North is not the only one writing about
the Global South and that scholars from the margins can also contribute to the study
of the centre? Such questions are particularly pressing given the rapid development
of a dynamic field of research on politics and sexuality globally (e.g. Corrales and
Pecheny, 2010; Tamale, 2011; Corrêa et al, 2015).
Finally, one should question the institutional and academic conditions necessary to
allow a further development of the field. Scholars on LGBT politics have not been
able to organise in Europe until very recently. This is often due to the precariousness
of their situation and the rapid turnover among researchers. Many PhD students
are not able to continue their academic careers, while several colleagues have left
political science to find more welcoming academic homes. Often, scholars on
LGBT politics are regarded not as fully fledged political scientists, but as experts on
an ‘exotic’ specialty. Few resources are available, and there is no clue whether they
will be maintained in the future. As discussed earlier, the study of LGBT politics
has emerged through interdisciplinary conversations, and the support from other
disciplines has been instrumental. However, while many social scientists have attended
the ECPG, few political scientists go to more general meetings in sexuality studies.
At the same time, scholars who may happen to be LGBT but have never read the
existing scholarship improvise themselves as experts of a field that remains poorly
consolidated. All this has a direct impact on the organisation of the field.
As indicated by the election of renowned sexual politics scholars as the heads of
the Canadian Political Science Association, the Council for European Studies or
the Political Studies Association, change may be on its way. However, these success
stories should not give the illusion of a landslide change in the profession. It is still
difficult to be openly LGBT in most European universities and LGBT research
is rarely taken seriously, especially on the job market. Therefore, if one wants to
maintain this field active over the years, it will be necessary to confront the implicit
heteronormativity and the latent homo- and transphobia of both political science as
a discipline (Phelan, 1997) and of many academic institutions in Europe. At the same
time, taking LGBT issues seriously in European political science would contribute to
a more intersectional approach to politics and to a more inclusive profession, while
further consolidating social change.

Conflict of interests
The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgements
I thank Phillip M. Ayoub, Isabelle Engeli and the anonymous reviewers and editors for
their comments on previous versions of this article.

Author biography
David Paternotte is Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Gender Studies at the Université
libre de Bruxelles. His publications include the monograph Revendiquer le “mariage gay”:
Belgique, France, Espagne (2011), numerous articles, chapters and edited volumes, including
Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe: Mobilizing against Equality (2017). He is a co-editor of
the series “Global Queer Politics” (Palgrave).

64
 Coming out of the political closest

Notes
1. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans. Labels are thoroughly discussed in the last section of this

article.
2. Due to space constraints, only a limited number of references have been included. In

many cases, these have been limited to only two by author.

3. Kenneth Sherril should also be mentioned for the study of LGBT politics in the US.
4. Papers on LGBT issues had already been presented at the 2009 and 2011 ECPGs held

in Belfast and Budapest.

5. See: http://www.quing.eu/index.php; http://www.mageeq.net/web/index-2.html
6. Crucially, this happened at the same time as a renewal of two other areas in political

science: the development of a European school on morality politics (Engeli et al, 2012;
Euchner et al, 2013; Knill, 2013; Knill et al, 2015) and a reinvestment in the study
of religion and politics in Europe (Hennig, 2012; Euchner et al, 2013; Béraud and
Portier, 2015; Dobbelaere and Pérez-Agote, 2015; Ozzano and Giorgi, 2015; Bracke
and Paternotte, 2016;Avanza and Della Sudda, 2017). In both cases, the study of LGBT
politics has undoubtedly contributed to these transformations.

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