Description
The role of children as a security mobilizer is underexplored in security studies, despite the fact that the invocation of children as the ideal referent object is transnational and applies for physical and ontological security threats. Children symbolise various temporalities—the past, present, and future – and also act as a blank slate for the imagined ideal citizen. Using the US and Turkey as comparative cases, we argue that framing children as the referent object of security has allowed for more brazen anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda. This paper explores the securitisation of LGBTQ+ individuals and organisations and their (assumed) transnational character against ‘us’ – the ideal citizens with ideal families that constitute the nation – and, in particular, ‘our’ children. Children’s position as both the vessel of the future and ideal citizen means any threats against them can bolster policies by harnessing fears about the nation’s existence in the future. Moreover, the same security frames exist across the world, especially amongst right-wing populist discourses like the US Republican Party and Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP). Crucially, by framing LGBTQ+ individuals as the threat and children as the referent, these discourses make claims about who belongs in the nation and who does not. As children are attributed no political agency, they have been addressed as the fragile element that needs absolute protection for ‘us’ to have a future as a nation. Discourses around “making America great again” or Turkey’s “returning to its origins” have aimed to shape the future through temporal policies inspired by the nation’s past (children: past, present, future).
