Queer Rights and Peacebuilding
In this blog, Visualising Peace student Madighan Ryan discusses the importance of including queer voices in peacebuilding at all levels, identifying ‘multipartiality’ as an important principle for all peacebuilding projects – from our own Visualising Peace Library to international-level peace settlements.
Of the over 1500 peace agreements enacted between 1990 and 2015, only six positively reference sexual or gender orientation, according to the University of Edinburgh’s Peace Agreements Database. Three negatively mention sexual orientation (they reinforce prohibitions on same sex marriage or relations), and the rest do not mention sexual or gender orientation at all. The omission of a queer dimension from conversations surrounding peace and peacebuilding is reflected in our Visualising Peace Project. Almost 50 resources are tagged under the ‘Gender’ category in our virtual library, but only four focus on queer narratives in any capacity, despite queerness being arguably central to the very concept of gender – and peace. I draw attention to this not to fault or critique the project, but to demonstrate the universality of the very prominent gap that exists in who we include when we visualise peace and when we engage in peacebuilding processes.
To Advocate for Queer Rights is to Advocate for Peace
The worldwide fight for queer rights is peacebuilding. The same is true of advocacy for all marginalized groups. If a community experiences consistent prejudice in the forms of discrimination and even violence, then the work done to liberate that community, particularly when the work is done by, or in partnership with, the community themselves, makes the broader society more peaceful. LGBTQ+ people in the United States are ‘four times more likely to experience violence in their life than their straight counterparts’, and half of all American trans folks have been sexually assaulted at least once in their life, reports the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. The numbers become higher when gender and sexual identity are compounded with a marginalised racial identity. And while these statistics only comment on physical violence, societies’ marginalization of queer people around the world manifests as workplace harassment, exclusion from political processes, poor mental health, and more. Therefore, any work to make societies safer and more inclusive towards queer folks is peacebuilding.
For example, in my Visualising Peace museum entry on Zanele Muholi (they/them), a queer photographer and ‘visual activist’, I suggest that they are a peacebuilder, despite never having used the peace-related label themselves. Muholi’s self-proclaimed mission is to fill ‘the need of documenting realities of people who deserve to be heard, who deserve to be seen, and whose lives are often excluded as part of the canon.’ Their ongoing project, Faces and Phases, a series of hundreds of dignified portraits of South African women who love women (lesbians, bisexuals, and some transgender folks) is an archive of the people who, because of their queerness, have not previously had positive representation. By existing as a reference point for teachers, parents, and members of the LGBTQ+ community, Muholi shows that, particularly young, lesbian people are not alone. By asserting the right of the queer community to an equal place in South African society, Muholi’s visual advocacy is peacebuilding.
There is a multitude of moral and pragmatic arguments as to why LGBTQ+ advocacy makes society more peaceful for all. For example, Adrienne Rich, in her seminal article ‘Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence‘, proposes that heterosexuality, particularly female heterosexuality, is not a sexual preference, but a compulsory political institution; and so to normalise and represent LGBTQ+ rights and narratives is to dismantle an oppression as fundamental to our society as the patriarchy. The article also asserts that dismantling compulsory heterosexuality benefits not just lesbians, but all women as it opens up options other than victimization by a structural form of violence.
The Omission of Queerness as a Dimension in Peacebuilding
However, beyond the consideration of explicit LGBTQ+ advocacy as peacebuilding, peacebuilders should also examine the almost total omission of a queer dimension in broader peacebuilding processes. There are some representative programs and policies, like the Executive Order on Rebuilding and Enhancing Programs to Resettle Refugees, in which queer identity is a consideration of refugee vulnerability, but they are the exception not the rule. The UN’s Women, Peace and Security Agenda (SCR 1325) mandates that peace negotiations, treaties, and building use a gendered dimension. Given that gender is a constructed spectrum that is not experienced as a binary by all people, to authentically employ a gendered dimension must mean including the experience of not just cisgender women, but by gender and sexual minorities as well. And yet, there is a complete lack of queer perspectives included or even suggested in the WPS Agenda. As the agenda exists and is employed now, gender is simply equated to being female, which is neither true nor representative. So, the question is, why are queer people omitted from these broader peacebuilding processes?
Coalition Resources provides various potential answers. First, there are high barriers to entry for queer people hoping to get into politics, peacebuilding, and NGOs. To identify as queer and a proud advocate puts oneself in the firing line for harassment, discrimination, and even legal prosecution in many countries. As of 2023, Homosexuality is still illegal in 64 countries, so it is not as if queer people can be deliberately sought out as consultants or stakeholders without placing them in positions of increased risk. Second, peacebuilding processes already have limited funding, and the scope of funding for peacebuilding with a queer dimension is even smaller, so most peacebuilding work with a queer dimension is volunteer-run and thus only available to people who can fund their own participation. Third, conservative and religious groups worldwide push back against the inclusion of queer dimensions in political and peacebuilding agendas, even in countries where homosexuality is legal. Unfortunately, there is a sense that if the LGBTQ+ community is not explicitly mentioned, peacebuilding negotiations or organisations are more palatable to a wider political audience. However, this is at the significant detriment of not only queer people but of the efficacy of broader peacebuilding.
Arguments for Inclusion of a Queer Dimension in Broad Peacebuilding Processes
- To include a queer dimension in broader peacebuilding processes is to add another layer of intersectionality and consideration. Often, people understand intersectionality as a two-dimensional concept that exists between gender and race. However, the liberation of those at the intersection of many systemic forms of discrimination means liberation for all. The Cobahee River Collective Statement, an agenda set by a Black lesbian socialist collective in 1977, is a testament to the importance of centering the voices of those with as many overlapping identities as possible. Discrimination of queer people is not by any means the only form of discrimination that should be included in the peacebuilding process, but ignoring it removes a layer of intersectionality that could improve the potential of peace for all.
- Coalition Resources suggests that analysis by peacebuilders into the widespread justification of discrimination and even violence towards queer people ‘can offer insights more broadly into fear of “otherness”.’ Societies and situations in which this fear of otherness, in the context of queer people, has been effectively addressed and eliminated, can be positive case studies from which to learn. Lessons and knowledge can be applied in peacebuilding processes to other groups which are othered or excluded in society.
- Working with, at the very least, an awareness of LGBTQ+ issues can heighten peacebuilders’ sensitivity to the impacts of their actions on queer people in local contexts, and their understanding of how some countries may react negatively to a foreign peace agenda that advocates for the rights of queer people. Awareness of the LGBTQ+-related impacts of peacebuilding in different contexts is possible through multipartiality, which means having queer representation on a peacebuilding team to help navigate those sensitive challenges.
- Including queer representation and narratives in peacebuilding can have the ripple effect of the explicit improvement of LGBTQ+ rights in other capacities. For example, because the 2016 Colombian peace agreement was developed with queer input and perspective, one of its provisions was the mandate of LGBTQ+ protection. Additionally, a UN paper on the contribution of human rights to peacebuilding and sustaining peace suggests that inclusive transitional peace and justice processes which attempt to include minorities, like queer folks, ‘can be deeply empowering for victims, particularly marginalized groups – giving them voice and agency to shape their own future as rights-holders.’
Conclusion
Over the course of my two semesters in the Visualising Peace Project, I have come to realize that one of the project’s greatest strengths is the extent to which it makes students aware of when alternative perspectives are lacking. This is because so frequently, students are challenged by their peers, who bring their own identities, interests, and life experiences to the table. It is because the guest lecturers come from diverse, and sometimes opposing backgrounds. It is because we are encouraged to critically question these lecturers and challenge ourselves (and them) to think about how their answers may have differed if they had come from a different background with a different set of experiences. Once we identify what perspectives are lacking, we can question why that is the case, and what peacebuilding could gain from including them. In this way, we are seeking what Shamil Idris, the CEO of peacebuilding organization Search for Common Ground, calls multipartiality. He suggests that the most effective model for peacebuilding is not traditional non-partiality, but the inclusion of as many ideas, perspectives, and identities as possible.
This process that I have learned through the Visualising Peace Project, and the concept of multipartiality as well as intersectionality, is why I am interested in the value a queer dimension could contribute to peacebuilding. My hope is that this blog is able to shed some light on an overlooked identity in terms of how we visualise peace, and whose voices we listen to when we enact peacebuilding. The perspective of queer folks can improve and stretch peacebuilding as we go about it today. The Visualising Peace Project has not, nor could it have ever hoped to, populate the museum, library, and website with a perfectly representative selection of entries, because we ourselves are informed by our own identities, backgrounds and interests – and are limited by our time and resources. But as the project draws to a close, we can be proud of the fact that we have absolutely pushed the boundaries of what and who we see when we visualise peace, and in this way have set a precedent and an agenda for future researchers and peacebuilders.
References and Further Reading
Rich, Adrienne. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” Signs 5, no. 4 (1980): 631–60. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3173834.
This seminal journal article proposes that female heterosexuality is a compulsory political institution created to ensure men’s uninhibited access to, and control over, women. Rich interrogates the economic and social systems that make marriage, and relationships with men, seem like the only option, regardless of sexual preference. She asserts that the lack of dignified accounts of the lesbian experience in media and academia is a tactic to make invisible the possibility of being a lesbian or living an independent existence without reliance on men. In every culture around the word, communities of non-heterosexual women believe that they are the first to have ever successfully led an independent and “woman-connected” existence, because the taboo and marginalization of lesbianism has inhibited knowledge sharing. Thus, this journal article is a call to action for researchers, communicators, feminist academics, and the population at large, to begin digging and “unearthing” the lesbian existence to dismantle another unrecognized patriarchal institution for the sake of the liberation of all women. Compulsory heterosexuality is a structurally, and sometimes physically, violent institution, and interrogating its existence, who upholds it, and how it negatively manifests, is a peacebuilding activity. While Rich does not explicitly mention peace, the nature of the article as one of the first – and few – serious lesbian texts in academia, and its discussion of how the dismantlement of the institution of compulsory heterosexuality could liberate not only non-heterosexual women, but all women, arguably makes it a cornerstone of feminist peace studies.
Gretel, Gretel Kahn, host. “From Protest to Politics: How People Engage with News About Climate Change.” Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (podcast). Nov 2023. Accessed March 26, 2024. https://open.spotify.com/episode/7BQXRwKeRp5rsIbDYNBheN?si=1f5899806f904392.
This podcast explores the results of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism’s 2023 report on how the public engages with climate change-related news. Interviewees, Mitali Mukherjee, the Director of Journalist Programs at the Reuters Institute, and Waqas Ejaz, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Oxford Climate Journalism Network, provide helpful insights for politicians and journalists alike. They translate the results of the report and answer questions like: How do age and ideology affect how you consume climate related media? How do people evaluate climate related media? And what factors affect the consumer’s perception of urgency? The data comes from eight different countries at all stages of socioeconomic development to ensure a reflective sample of the diverse climate landscape. Therefore, because their data is varied, the common threads are particularly useful in informing a global media approach to reporting on climate change and inspiring action. For example, worldwide, of all immediate climate impacts, people tend to engage most with, and understand, health impacts and extreme disaster events as direct effects of environmental degradation. Mukherjee suggests that this information can translate into newsroom decisions: reporting on health impacts or disaster events should include more explicit mention of climate change, other impacts, and solutions, to take advantage of the interest and unchallenged connection to climate change. Additionally, another commonality worldwide is that when it comes to climate change reporting, people are not look for positive success stories (as is so often assumed to be the natural counterpart to common fear-inducing, disaster reporting), but for solution-oriented journalism.
This episode is for journalists, but also for people who want to be more aware of the intricacies of the media they, and their peers, consume. When undertaken effectively, climate journalism should inform, galvanize action, and stand in opposition to fake or fear-inducing news. It is a force for peace in that prioritizing and educating on climate change in this way is essential in creating a future of political understanding, environmental stewardship and human security.
Combahee River Collective. “The Combahee River Collective Statement.” (1977) https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/combahee-river-collective-statement-1977/.
In 1977, the Combahee River Collective, a political group of Black socialist lesbian feminists published The Combahee River Collective Statement to raise collective consciousness of the importance of intersectionality in advocacy and social thought. It is one of the original texts that lays out the lived reality of interlocking systems of oppression. The women in this collective asserted that their material conditions and rights were lower than that of their counterparts who were a part of only one marginalised group. They comment on the need for a collective that is non-exclusionary to overlapping identities given that the civil rights movement was sexist and homophobic, the feminist movement was racist and homophobic, and the LGBTQ+ rights movement was racist and sexist. The statement emphasizes the value of intersectional contributions to political and social advocacy; systemic change is possible if the voices of intersectional activists are centered, because their liberation means the liberation of all other marginalised group which they are a part of.
Coalition Resources. “Coalition Resources Report: Inclusion of Gender and Sexual Minorities in Peacebuilding.” (2018)
This report by Coalition resources covers why gender and sexual minorities are almost entirely excluded from broad peacebuilding processes, and what benefit their inclusion in peacebuilding processes would have. The findings are supported with two case studies from Columbia and Nigeria. Through the case study of Nigeria, key barriers to entry for LGBTQ+ people into political and peacebuilding processes are identified: legal prosecution and social/structural discrimination. The report offers short-term alternative avenues for LGBTQ+ political participation including the employment of social media to form connections and feel international solidarity. Through the case study of Colombia, and particularly the development of the Colombian Final Peace Agreement, the report demonstrates the benefits of including LGBTQ+ concerns and representation in the peacebuilding process. It is a useful example in combatting the widespread misconception that the inclusion of LGBTQ+ representation in the peacebuilding process is only beneficial to the queer community.
Idriss, Shamil. 2024. “Paths to Peace in Israel and Palestine.” Search For Common Ground. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxFAh5t5dRs.
This talk, hosted by the peacebuilding organization, Search for Common Ground, is given by their CEO, Shamil Idriss, and focuses on successful team peacebuilding strategies and the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine. Search for Common Ground is the largest dedicated peacebuilding organization in the world and employs creative methods to create sustainable peace in countries with violent conflict or that are lacking in human security, from Yemen to the United States to Palestine. Idriss did not take a side, regarding Israel and Palestine, nor did he provide the “solution” that he believes would be most effective. Instead, he introduced the concept of multipartiality (as opposed to non-partiality) and how effective a tactic it can be in peacebuilding. All of Search for Common Ground’s teams worldwide are multipartial, meaning that they do not take a single stance, or no stance, but are instead composed of members who embody all perspectives on a given situation. In the United States, their team is made up of Republicans, Democrats, police officers, youth, etc. In Israel and Palestine, their team is similarly reflective of many positionalities on the conflict. Idriss describes the obvious challenges of bringing together a multipartial team, how Search for Common Ground navigates these and builds trust, and what the benefits are.