While homophobia is commonly characterized as individual and personal prejudice, this book instead explores homophobia as a transnational political phenomenon. The book theorizes homophobia as a distinct configuration of repressive state-sponsored policies and practices with their own causes, explanations, and effects on how sexualities are understood and experienced in a variety of national contexts. The chapters cover a broad range of geographic cases, including France, Ecuador, Iran, Lebanon, Poland, Singapore, and the United States. Combining empirical analysis with theoretical synthesis, ... More

While homophobia is commonly characterized as individual and personal prejudice, this book instead explores homophobia as a transnational political phenomenon. The book theorizes homophobia as a distinct configuration of repressive state-sponsored policies and practices with their own causes, explanations, and effects on how sexualities are understood and experienced in a variety of national contexts. The chapters cover a broad range of geographic cases, including France, Ecuador, Iran, Lebanon, Poland, Singapore, and the United States. Combining empirical analysis with theoretical synthesis, the chapters examine how homophobia travels across complex and ambiguous transnational networks, how it achieves and exerts decisive power, and how it shapes the collective identities and strategies of those groups it targets. The first comparative volume to focus specifically on the global diffusion of homophobia and its implications for an emerging worldwide LGBT movement, this book opens new avenues of debate and dialogue for scholars, students, and activists.