Event and Policy Brief: Queer Feminist Analysis of Peace & Security Analytical Framework
Event summary of Launch of Queer Feminist Analysis of Peace & Security Analytical Framework Policy Brief
On May 27th, the Centre for Gender in Politics at Queen’s University Belfast launched the Queer Feminist Analysis of Peace & Security Analytical Framework. This initiative emerged from ongoing work co-developed during a workshop held at Queen's University Belfast in September, which brought together queer activists from around the world. The framework aims to inform conflict analysis and highlight violence against LGBTQIA communities at global, national and local levels.
The event began with Jamie J. Hagen, Co-Director of the Queen’s University Belfast Centre for Gender in Politics, offering brief remarks, emphasising the ongoing efforts to make Queen’s University Belfast an apartheid-free zone and acknowledged that “all efforts for queer and feminist peace must also be committed to Palestinian liberation (...) and recognising organisations working with them inside and outside Palestine’’. Co-organizer Chitra Nagarajan then presented an overview of the framework, started by highlighting decades of mobilisation by queer and feminist people and the confusion that arises in practice in the intersection of Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) and Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Expression, and Sex Characteristics (SOGIESC). She pointed out the overemphasis on cis gay men in research, leading to the exclusion of other queer people.
This analytical framework strives to combine the insights of feminist and queer activism and theory with regards to conflict, peace and security. Drawing on experiences from Afghanistan, Colombia, Myanmar, Uganda, among others, the framework can be localised to inform policy programming, community-level initiatives, or global advocacy.
The Queer Feminist Analysis of Peace & Security Analytical Framework is divided into five main intersections between queer and feminist approaches:
Shared Understanding of Conflict Drivers: Both feminist and queer approaches examine structural violence and the lasting legacies of empire and enslavement, the latter often missing in mainstream conflict analysis. Gender inequality is recognized as a conflict driver, with high levels of gender-based violence as an indicator of potential violent conflict or its continuity. Chitra emphasised the role of structural inequalities and historical injustices, noting that mainstream conflict analysis often neglects these critical factors. State responses to conflict often intensify grievances with masculinist attitudes, militarised security, and economy, and the shrinking of civil action. Security forces are frequently the main perpetrators of violence, with post-conflict reforms often failing to address deeper transformations of institutions. There is a militarised understanding of security that is often outsourced to private companies, which is likely to lead to impunity for abuses.
Highlighting Gender and SOGIESC Impacts of Violence: Both queer and feminist approaches acknowledge the similarities in harm perpetrated against women and SOGIESC individuals, including displacement, sexual violence, and reduced access to justice. While men of ‘fighting age' are subject to detention or compulsory recruitment and men of a certain ethnicity are often associated with a specific side of the conflict. They recognize the differential impact of separation from supportive family members on SOGIESC individuals as their emotional support often depends on only one family member. Chitra highlighted that ‘even in times of relative peace, women and queer people continue to experience violence from community or state’ in all contexts, and a lack of response from security actors. Women and queer human rights defenders face not only the risks and violation of human rights defenders but also specific risks linked to their gender identity and sexual orientation.
Complex Realities beyond men as perpetrators and women and queer people as victims: Both queer and feminist approaches reject essentialist stereotypes that deny agency to women, queer individuals, people with disabilities, and children. Often the inclusion of women and SOGIESC individuals in peace negotiation are tokenistic. Chitra noted that these stereotypes often lead to the exclusion of women from peace negotiations and the rewarding of perpetrators of violence with positions of power.
Rejection of Instrumentalization and Cooptation of Rights: Both queer and feminist approaches highlight the instrumentalisation of women and LGBTIQ rights for geopolitical interests that have been used to justify interventions in places like Afghanistan, only to be deprioritized when inconvenient. Support for Feminist and LGBTIQ causes in development and foreign policy are often unreliable and fickle. The case of the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls in Nigeria that got much international attention and that today humanitarian and governments are afraid now to support them in their divorce as it could push former combatants to return to fighting.
Expanding Definitions of Peace and Security: Both queer and feminist approaches support a holistic vision of freedom, recognizing that peace agreements are not the end of violence. Both approaches emphasise the need for access to education, healing processes, resource distribution, and new ways of handling conflicts. Chitra discussed the role of anti-rights movements and the rejection of Colombia's 2016 peace agreement due to its association with "gender ideology."
Following Chitra’s overview, speaker Basira Paigham, discussed the dire situation for the LGBTIQ community in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover in 2021, highlighting that ‘not only women suffer in conflict zones but also gender roles are causing suffering to men, women and queer people’. Severe restrictions and punishments are being imposed on LGBTIQ individuals, including punishment in public forums and familial reporting. Basira detailed how the Taliban are hardening the legislation adopted in 2015 to further criminalise same-sex relations, openly talking about killing trans people, and increasing imprisonment and torture. She hopes ‘’the framework opens a window towards understanding deeply the queer and feminist approach’’ that will inform institutions in power.
The second respondent Meena Sharma, leader of The Institute of Human Rights Communication Nepal (IHRICON) is trying to see how and where to use this framework, where despite LGBTIQ policies, queer individuals face significant obstacles due to entrenched patriarchal beliefs and attitudes. Since the signing of the 2006 peace accord between the Nepalese government and the Maoists, the government with the support of the international community developed LGBTIQ rights policies however the implementation has not followed. During the conflict, trans women were an active part of the conflict where as after they ended up taking sex work. Despite the legalisation of same-sex marriage, the court imposes restrictions on their ability to register, and they often receive poor treatment from the security forces.
Sharma concluded the event with a reflection that arose from the workshop, ‘How can we make our organisation inclusive, bringing in people from marginalised communities, with disabilities, LGBTIQ as a member of the organisation and not as staff or support?’
Read the policy brief:
You can also watch the event recording launching the policy brief below
:
The event featured three speakers and two co-hosts:
Speakers
Basira Paigham is an Afghan LGBTIQ human rights defender. She advocates for the recognition, protection, and legalisation of the Afghan LGBTIQ community, and fights for their human rights, equality, and freedom. She is the co-founder of the organisation: Afghan LGBT.
Meena Sharma is a dedicated peace practitioner from Kathmandu, Nepal. Her conviction lies in ensuring that every individual in the community is entitled to a life filled with peace, justice, freedom, and dignity.Currently, she is leading an organisation "The Institute of Human Rights Communication Nepal" (IHRICON), and a network called Children As Zone of Peace, (CZOP). She had been able to combine over a decade and a half of expertise in Gender Equity Disability and Social Inclusion (GEDSI), peacebuilding, media, and human rights. Her work focuses on building new knowledge from practice, especially in the areas of women's rights, empowerment, and transformative feminist leadership. She has worked with more than 200 civil society organisations in Nepal.
Co-hosts
Jamie J. Hagen is a lecturer in International Relations at Queen’s University Belfast, where she is the founding co-director of the Center for Gender in Politics. Her work sits at the intersection of gender, security studies, and queer theory. Hagen brings a feminist, anti-racist approach to her work, bridging gaps between academics, policy, and activist spaces. She was the lead researcher on a British Academy Innovation Fellowship (2022-2023) focusing on improving engagement with lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer women in Women, Peace, and Security Programming. She is co-editor of the edited volume Queer Conflict Research: New Approaches to Study of Political Violence (BUP).
Chitra Nagarajan is an adviser, programme manager, researcher, and trainer focusing on conflict analysis and sensitivity; climate security; disability; gender; human rights; social inclusion; violence against women and girls; (women’s) economic justice, women, peace and security; and peacebuilding.
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