Queering International Relations (free event)

In countries across the world, LGBTQIA+ rights are backsliding. While significant progress has been made through activist and advocacy networks advancing queer rights and enshrining them in national and international laws and frameworks, there are still over sixty countries that criminalise homosexuality, and many more where transphobia is rampant. This includes countries where queer rights and activism have historically been vibrant – including in the US and the UK – where anti-queer and anti-trans policies have emboldened broader societal discrimination and violence against LGBTQIA+ communities. These developments are not confined to specific countries but are part of a broader global politics of queerphobia, across authoritarian and liberal democratic societies. In such a context, what then does it mean to ‘queer’ International Relations? In this talk, Dr Caitlin Biddolph (University of Technology Sydney) outlines the necessity of viewing global politics through a queer lens. Queering International Relations centres LGBTQIA+ experiences, but it also challenges violences and assumptions of all kinds, including cisheterosexism, racism, colonialism, militarism, and the intersections between them. Dr Biddolph shows how queer thinking applies to the contemporary queer rights backlash, questions of international and transitional justice, and the realm of AI and digital politics. In doing so, she outlines the need to not only recognize the ways the international system is deeply gendered and sexual, but also the necessity of finding ways to promote queer rights and dignity in this current volatile context. Registration link: https://www.irckc.org/what-we-do/irc-events-calendar/#id=10845&cid=1742&wid=2201&type=Cal About the Moderator: Maisy Blanton is a rising senior and communications major at UMKC. She has been on staff at UMKC's independent newspaper, Roo News, since her Freshman year. She is excited to finish out her senior year as the paper's community…