ABSTRACT
This chapter uses LGBT Muslims to explore the complexities of the internationalization of LGBT politics. It begins with the current wave of IGO proposals on the rights of LGBT people and also discusses the resistance that these attempts have faced. It shows how the resistance is framed as a lack of modernization in specific nations, regions and cultures, but argues that this is a simplistic model that assumes a linear and universal progress in history and thus ignores the full socio-historical context of modernity. Furthermore, it contains inaccurate assumptions about the universality of cultural understandings of gender and sexuality and it ignores the role that colonialism, racism, orientalism, Islamophobia, and heteronormativity play in structuring sexual diversity during the era of modernity. It explores these concepts in relation to the opposition between LGBT and Muslim cultures and argues that a model of homocolonialism more accurately describes the intersecting processes and conditions in which LGBT politics is being drawn into International Relations. It is then argued that we need a more empirically based intersectional understanding of cultural differences in sexual diversity in order to usefully promote LGBT politics and security internationally.
