ABSTRACT

Spending time with a youth-led lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights organisation as part of my PhD field work in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, I became aware of a ‘narrative of exclusion’ of the group from wider civil society. This narrative emerged in interviews and conversations, and took the form of recurring examples of events and campaigns where the organisation and its members had attempted to participate and contribute, but were blocked from doing so. I came to realise that this was a central aspect of the group’s identity, but that it also made considerable strategic sense, in the context of the group’s reliance on attracting funding, as well as moral and practical support from outside of Kyrgyzstan. These are the issues that I explore in this article, along with the wider implications that they may have for activism on sexuality and gender rights in an environment like Kyrgyzstan, where external support plays such a significant role in shaping how that activism can be enacted.