Chapter 5 explores the effects of identity strategies. In this chapter, an intersectional approach illuminates the parameters of identity and affect that define the universal citizen. The chapter argues that when activists embody identity strategies in public events, activists politicize the terms of personhood and citizenship, giving rights a specific, embodied form. The chapter first examines Free Gender’s deployment of their strategy of commensurability during their participation in memorial services for deceased lesbians. It shows how memorial services are a moment when members of the organization can provide support to the deceased’s family, the local community, and each other. By embodying the confluence of the identities of lesbian, African, and community member during this community activity, the organization challenges dominant notions of who is entitled to the right to live free of violence. The chapter then examines La Fulana’s participation in the annual Pride march in Buenos Aires. The deployment of lesbian visibility challenges the gendered and heteronormative parameters of the ideal citizen through lesbians’ embodied enjoyment and pleasure in public activity. The chapter concludes by considering the importance of embodiment and emotional context to the successful deployment of identity strategies.

Chapter 2 situates the activism of La Fulana and Free Gender in historical contexts. The chapter draws on the theoretical framework of the previous chapter to argue that an intersectional approach illuminates the roles that race, class, and gender have played alongside sexuality in the historical process of constructing citizenship. The chapter advances this argument first with examination of the construction of the colonial state in each context, which instantiated strong norms of race, class, gender, and sexuality. The chapter then shows how these interlocking systems of power mediate organizations’ contemporary interactions with the political system, with other social movement organizations, and with opposition and oppositional discourse. The chapter discusses each of these factors for both organizations, first showing how the democratic transitions and adoption of human rights discourse affected La Fulana and Free Gender’s identity strategizing by providing new political and discursive opportunities. Next, the chapter explains how La Fulana’s and Free Gender’s interactions with the broader LGBT movement influenced their identity strategizing. Finally, the chapter explores the impact of anti-LGBT opposition and oppositional discourses on each organization’s identity strategies.

Chapter 1 lays out the theoretical framework that guides the rest of the book. The chapter makes the case that social movement scholars have not yet fully integrated the insights of intersectional theory on social movements’ strategic identity work. The first part of the chapter reviews the literature on collective identity, collective action framing, and identity strategies to generate a synthetic picture of the factors that influence identity strategizing: political and discursive opportunities, opposition and oppositional discourses, and intramovement and organizational dynamics. Through applying an intersectional lens to these factors, the chapter explains the conditions under which organizations choose to strategize multiple identity categories at once. The chapter continues with an intersectional approach to illuminate the political effects of identity strategies. An intersectional approach focuses on the embodied dimension of identity deployment. This section develops the idea that when activists embody identity strategies in public, they challenge the concept of the universal subject of rights by giving rights a specific form. This conceptualization of identity strategies clarifies the influence that they allow organizations to have on politics even without directly engaging the formal political system.

Chapter 4 considers dilemmas that arise for “successful” LGBT movements with increasing access to and interactions with state bureaucracies. The chapter applies an intersectional lens to neoliberal inclusion to reveal how inclusion along one dimension (sexuality) may constrict organizations along other dimensions (access to resources), influencing the ability of organizations to deploy their identity strategies. The chapter first examines how, in Argentina, activists who took up salaried positions in the bureaucracy were able to deploy their strategy of lesbian visibility from within the state to advance pro-LGBT public policy. However, activists’ engagement with the state weakened the organization and compromised its ability to deploy its identity strategy in the public sphere. The chapter then contrasts this example of state engagement with Free Gender’s decisions in South Africa. Free Gender declined to participate in a major national initiative and chose instead to engage with local police and deploy its identity strategy in these interactions. The chapter concludes by drawing lessons about the consequences of neoliberal inclusion on LGBT organizations, specifically how it may limit their potential to effect change regardless of the choice organizations make to engage the state or not.

Chapter 3 explores the identity strategies that La Fulana and Free Gender have employed in their activism. The chapter puts forward and defines two different identity strategies that organizations employ: commensurability and visibility. The first half of the chapter shows how Free Gender strategizes lesbian identity to be commensurate with other important social and political identities such as “woman,” “African,” and “community member.” Doing so allows Free Gender to advance its goal of eliminating violence against lesbians in their local community. The second half of the chapter shows how La Fulana develops a strategy of lesbian visibility to increase the salience of lesbian identity relative to other social identities. This strategy aims to correct the social and political erasure of lesbians in public that persists after the acquisition of citizenship rights. Overall, the chapter adds to the literature by explaining the kinds of strategies organizations may use when explicitly strategizing multiple identities at once, and how these strategies address the limitations of legally inclusive citizenship.