ABSTRACT
The empirical analysis draws on 44 semi-structured interviews carried out in Egypt, Tunisia, and Turkey between 2011 and 2020, focusing on repressive contexts, civil society activism, and digital networks. By doing so, the analysis also aims to shed light on the roles played by both the more structured meso-level organizations and the more spontaneous digital technologies in triggering a range of diverse survival strategies. Drawing on social movements and gender studies, this chapter aims to explore the processes of mobilization and the survival strategies articulated by LGBT communities in Egypt, Tunisia, and Turkey during and after the 2011 and 2013 protests. Social movement scholars have long examined the nexus between repressive contexts and challengers’ repertoires of actions, which are defined as the sets of means developed by challengers to make political claims. The arrested activists were charged with “inciting debauchery” and “abnormal sexual relations,” and they were tortured in prison.
