Description
NATO increasingly defines itself as a values-led alliance; one that protects the territorial integrity of its member-states and one that champions democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Increasingly, LGBTQ rights are being included in these ‘NATO values’ with tentative institutional moves underway to promote LGBTQ visibility and inclusion, including two events held at NATO HQ in 2019 and 2021. These moves are replete with tensions in an institution dominated by cisgendered, heterosexual, militarised masculine norms and an alliance made up of thirty member states with differing socio-cultural and military levels of LGBTQ rights. They are also taking place in increasingly ‘queer’ international times, with competing framings of gender and sexualities being used by NATO and Russia to justify their respective foreign and security policies, including the war in Ukraine. Through in-depth analysis of NATO social media, online content, and military policy documents - combined with direct observations from the 2019 event - this paper offers a critical analysis of how LGBTQ ‘allyship’ is (re)conceived, mobilised, and strategically deployed at and beyond NATO at a time of increased conflict and hostility. In doing so, it traces the complex and contradictory links between institutional moves and their international effects.
