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"Theoretical Perspectives on Subnational Public Policy and LGBT Law" published on by Oxford University Press.

Recent political debate over transgender military service and gendered bathroom use highlights a dramatic increase in salience over transgender issues in the US. In this essay, we examine a potential new front in the culture wars by reviewing recent empirical research in social science on the politics of transgender rights in the context of morality politics. Research on morality politics has often focused on LGBT rights, with an emphasis on gay and lesbian rights and little attention to transgender issues. We highlight the progress of research on transgender issues in the US, focusing on the study of attitudes about transgender people and rights, transgender rights in states and localities, and broader findings affecting transgender populations. Although there is ample research still needed, the current state of empirical social science on transgender issues has made great advancements in the past decade and shows that morality continues to shape LGBT politics and policy.

AbstractRecent political debate over transgender military service and gendered bathroom use highlights a dramatic increase in salience over transgender issues in the US. In this essay, we examine a potential new front in the culture wars by reviewing recent empirical research in social science on the politics of transgender rights in the context of morality politics. Research on morality politics has often focused on LGBT rights, with an emphasis on gay and lesbian rights and little attention to transgender issues. We highlight the progress of research on transgender issues in the US, focusing on the study of attitudes about transgender people and rights, transgender rights in states and localities, and broader findings affecting transgender populations. Although there is ample research still needed, the current state of empirical social science on transgender issues has made great advancements in the past decade and shows that morality continues to shape LGBT politics and policy.

"Legislative and Judicial Politics of LGBT Rights in the European Union" published on by Oxford University Press.

"State-Level Public Opinion and Public Policy on LGBT Issues" published on by Oxford University Press.

This volume combines empirically oriented and theoretically grounded reflections upon various forms of LGBT activist engagement to examine how the notion of intersectionality enters the political context of contemporary Serbia and Croatia. By uncovering experiences of multiple oppression and voicing fear and frustration that accompany exclusionary practices, the contributions to this book seek to reinvigorate the critical potential of intersectionality, in order to generate the basis for wider political alliances and solidarities in the post-Yugoslav space. The authors, both activists and academics, challenge the systematic absence of discussions of (post- )Yugoslav LGBT activist initiatives in recent social science scholarship, and show how emancipatory politics of resistance can reshape what is possible to imagine as identity and community in post-war and post-socialist societies. This book will be of interest to scholars and students in the areas of history and politics of Yugoslavia and the post-Yugoslav states, as well as to those working in the fields of political sociology, European studies, social movements, gay and lesbian studies, gender studies, and queer theory and activism.

"LGBT Discrimination, Subnational Public Policy, and Law in the United States" published on by Oxford University Press.

AbstractDespite campaign promises to be the most "gay-friendly" Republican president, since assuming office, Donald Trump has been proactive in what many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) advocates call a "rollback" of gains made during the Barack Obama administration, shocking many observers and bringing sexual and gender politics to the fore. How can we make sense of the contradictions and consequences of Trump's sexual and gender politics? I argue that examining the transnational processes of democratization, political homophobia, and homonationalism illuminates the significance of the administration's actions. A democratization approach reveals how Trump's reversal of Obama-era policies and appointment of conservative judges signifies a greater effort at de-democratization through the contraction of citizenship rights and weakening of the judiciary; political homophobia clarifies how the administration legitimizes its governance through opposition to LGBT people and issues with the appointment of openly homophobic and transphobic individuals to prominent positions; and homonationalism, or the entry of certain queer subjects into the nation at the expense of racialized "others," aptly characterizes forms of queer inclusion still taking place under Trump. For these reasons, putting Trump's sexual and gender politics in transnational perspective can help us better understand this moment in U.S. politics.

This article analyses from an anthropological perspective the 2010 Belgrade Pride Parade, the first state-supported Parade in Serbia, as a part of the building of a democratic and European Serbian nation. In their discursive framing of the Parade and making claims on the state to take it under its auspices, the organising NGOs bound the event to the EU integration process of Serbia. This policy link helped them forge a political alliance with the state, but was also instrumentalised by the government to avoid an ideological conflict with the opponents of the Parade. Owing to the perception of the alliance as "elitist" and to the militarised and depoliticised nature of the state's involvement, the event materially actualised and reified rather than transcended the enduring conflict of liberal and collectivist citizenship visions in Serbia. The article argues that the overall discourse of the government on Europeanisation is informed by the same top-down and instrumental logic. However, members of civil society develop political subjectivities which demand active citizen participation and critically engage with the discourse to restore its democratising potential. Similarly, the emerging "populist" politics of LGBT rights, illustrated by the pop singer Jelena Karleuša's participation in the domestic debate, are better placed to face the legacies of socialist and ethnonationalist nation-building than the human rights and Europeanisation approaches.

This article contributes to the growing field of research on military LGBT policy development by exploring the case of Sweden, a non-NATO-member nation regarded as one of the most progressive in terms of the inclusion of LGBT personnel. Drawing on extensive archival work, the article shows that the story of LGBT policy development in the Swedish Armed Forces from 1944 to 2014 is one of long periods of status quo and relative silence, interrupted by leaps of rapid change, occasionally followed by the re-appearance of discriminatory policy. The analysis brings out two periods of significant change, 1971–1979 and 2000–2009, here described as turns in LGBT policy. During the first turn, the military medical regulation protocol's recommendation to exempt gay men from military service was the key issue. During these years, homosexuality was classified as mental illness, but in the military context it was largely framed in terms of security threats, both on a national level (due to the risk of blackmail) and for the individual homosexual (due to the homophobic military environment). In the second turn, the focus was increasingly shifted from the LGBT individual to the structures, targeting the military organization itself. Furthermore, the analysis shows that there was no ban against LGBT people serving in the Swedish Armed Forces, but that ways of understanding and regulating sexual orientation and gender identity have nonetheless shaped the military organization in fundamental ways, and continue to do so. ; Funding agencies: Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research [2012-0934]; Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences [FOA10Amund-007, FOA12Amund-010]

This article analyses from an anthropological perspective the 2010 Belgrade Pride Parade, the first state-supported Parade in Serbia, as a part of the building of a democratic and European Serbian nation. In their discursive framing of the Parade and making claims on the state to take it under its auspices, the organising NGOs bound the event to the EU integration process of Serbia. This policy link helped them forge a political alliance with the state, but was also instrumentalised by the government to avoid an ideological conflict with the opponents of the Parade. Owing to the perception of the alliance as "elitist" and to the militarised and depoliticised nature of the state's involvement, the event materially actualised and reified rather than transcended the enduring conflict of liberal and collectivist citizenship visions in Serbia. The article argues that the overall discourse of the government on Europeanisation is informed by the same top-down and instrumental logic. However, members of civil society develop political subjectivities which demand active citizen participation and critically engage with the discourse to restore its democratising potential. Similarly, the emerging "populist" politics of LGBT rights, illustrated by the pop singer Jelena Karleusa's participation in the domestic debate, are better placed to face the legacies of socialist and ethnonationalist nation-building than the human rights and Europeanisation approaches. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright the American Council of Learned Societies.]