The ‘Pink Agenda’: Questioning and Challenging European Homonationalist Sexual Citizenship

Abstract

This article introduces the ‘Pink Agenda’ as a set of judicial, social and political instruments employed by both nation-states and international human rights institutions, such as the Council of Europe, to achieve some socio-political goals: on the one hand, the proactive promotion of specific lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender identities beyond Europe; on the other, the creation of a dichotomy between tolerant and intolerant countries within the borders of Europe. The successful enactment of the ‘Pink Agenda’ is achieved by building and reinforcing a concept of European Sexual Citizenship that is strongly homonationalist in nature. Through an analysis of the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, the article emphasises the way in which the homonationalist paradigm of sexual citizenship is applied to strengthen the divide between tolerant and intolerant member states and to suggest the existence of a difference between a queer-friendly ‘West’ and homophobic and transphobic non-western countries.