Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics: Online-First Articles

Political homophobia

The rise of anti-queer rhetoric in Indonesia and Turkey

ORCID logo | Humboldt University Berlin,
This article comparatively analyses the rise of anti-LGBT rhetoric in Indonesia and Turkey in the 2010s and early 2020s. In both countries, periods of greater public visibility of LGBTQ+ people in the early 2000s were followed by waves of severe anti-LGBT rhetoric, violence, and legal measures. This analysis focusses on the rhetoric that conservative state and non-state actors use to other non-heteronormative people and to exclude them from the nation or “the people”. My main argument is that state and non-state actors conduct othering of LGBTQ+ people and construct them as dangerous threats to the nation and to the structure of the family. The anti-LGBT narratives are integrated into larger conspiracy narratives of foreign powers undermining the nation.
Keywords: Homophobia, Nationalism, Turkey, Indonesia, LGBTQ
Article outline
  • 1.Political homophobia: The rhetoric of exclusion in the cases of Indonesia and Turkey
  • 2.Approach and methodology
  • 3.Political background and literature overview
  • 4.Turning the tide: Historical context and key discursive events
    • 4.1Similarities
    • 4.2Differences
    • 4.3Actor landscape
    • 4.4Covert hate speech
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 9 January 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.22050.sch
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