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| June 1 marked the start of Pride Month in the United States, a celebration of LGBTQ+ rights and freedoms born from the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York City. The decades since have seen great strides toward equality for LGBTQ+ people in countries across the world. Yet today, more than a half-century of progress is under threat — coinciding, not coincidentally, with the global autocratic upswing. The Journal of Democracy essays below examine why this vulnerable community is under fire, the different ways in which autocrats weaponize LGBTQ+ rights for their own ends, and whether democracy is strong enough to protect them. Free for a limited time. |
| The Global Resistance to LGBTIQ Rights Autocrats have found a new way to turn citizens against liberal democracy: convincing them that LGBTIQ rights, granted and protected in much of the West, pose a threat to their nation and its values. Phillip Ayoub and Kristina Stoeckl Why Autocracies Fear LGBTQ+ Rights The battle over rights for sexual minorities has divided countries into opposing camps. But autocrats are lashing out with one aim: countering the liberal international order. Gino Pauselli and María-José Urzúa Is Democracy Bad for LGBT+ Rights? LGBT+ rights are under threat across the globe. Populist leaders stirring fear and animosity for political gain understand how democratic institutions can be harnessed and manipulated to curtail these rights, not enshrine them. Kristopher Velasco, Siddhartha Baral, and Yun (Nancy) Tang Gay Rights: Why Democracy Matters In a year that featured unprecedented strides for gay rights in some parts of the world, particularly in Western Europe and the Americas, other places experienced startling setbacks, especially in Russia and some countries in Africa. Omar G. Encarnación Latin America’s Gay-Rights Revolution Even before Argentina’s landmark gay-marriage law was passed in July 2010, a gay-rights revolution was well underway across Latin America. But do gay rights by law equal acceptance of gays in practice?Omar G. Encarnación |
