Introduction

It is only in recent decades that human rights have become an acceptable scholarly focus for theorists within the academic discipline of international relations (IR). More recent has been the acknowledgement of LGBT rights and sexuality and gender politics in general as legitimate interests for international theorists. A further claim, that these are consequential matters which might shape and guide interpretations of international politics itself, is still a very queer claim. This chapter proposes to utilize this queerness and take advantage of the way in which this claim challenges, destabilizes and reorders analytical priorities for both human rights and international theory. The study of international sexuality and gender politics is shown to be consequential for international theory in general and human rights in particular. The question of theorizing rights for LGBT people is one that is hard to pick up in the IR theoretic context. Cynthia Weber's discussion helps illuminate this.