When States Come Out Europe's Sexual Minorities and the Politics of Visibility

In the last two decades, the LGBT movement has gained momentum that is arguably unprecedented in speed and suddenness when compared to other human rights movements. This book investigates the recent history of this transnational movement in Europe, focusing on the diffusion of the norms it champions and the overarching question of why, despite similar international pressures, the trajectories of socio-legal recognition for LGBT minorities are so different across states. The book makes the case that a politics of visibility has engendered the interactions between movements and states that empower marginalized people - mobilizing actors to demand change, influencing the spread of new legal standards, and weaving new ideas into the fabrics of societies. It documents how this process of 'coming out' empowers marginalized social groups by moving them to the center of political debate and public recognition and making it possible for them to obtain rights to which they have due claim.

1. Introduction; 2. The politics of visibility and LGBT rights in Europe; 3. Transnational movement: opportunities, actors, and mechanisms; 4. Complying with new norms: LGBT rights legislation; 5. Internalizing new norms: attitudes towards sexual minorities; 6. Poland and Slovenia's responses to international norms; 7. Visibility in movement and transnational politics.

Phillip M. Ayoub is Assistant Professor of Politics at Drexel University, Philadelphia. Ayoub's doctoral dissertation received the biennial 2013–14 award for the best dissertation from the European Union Studies Association, as well as the 2014 Kenneth Sherrill Award for the best dissertation in the field of sexuality and politics, and the 2014 award for the best dissertation in the field of human rights from sections of the American Political Science Association. He is also the recipient of Cornell University's 2011 Kahin Prize and co-recipient of the 2014 Esman Prize for distinguished scholarship. His articles have appeared in the European Journal of International Relations, Mobilization, the European Political Science Review, the Journal of Human Rights, and Perspectives on Europe.