Queering the Public Sphere in Mexico and Brazil

Queering the Public Sphere in Mexico and Brazil is a groundbreaking comparative analysis of the historical development and contemporary dynamics of LGBT activism in Latin America’s two largest democracies. Rafael de la Dehesa focuses on the ways that LGBT activists have engaged with the state, particularly in alliance with political parties and through government health agencies in the wake of the AIDS crisis. He examines this engagement against the backdrop of the broader political transitions to democracy, the neoliberal transformation of state–civil society relations, and the gradual consolidation of sexual rights at the international level. His comparison highlights similarities between sexual rights movements in Mexico and Brazil, including a convergence on legislative priorities such as antidiscrimination laws and the legal recognition of same-sex couples. At the same time, de la Dehesa points to notable differences in the tactics deployed by activists and the coalitions brought to bear on the state. De la Dehesa studied the archives of activists, social-movement organizations, political parties, religious institutions, legislatures, and state agencies, and he interviewed hundreds of individuals, not only LGBT activists, but also feminists, AIDS and human-rights activists, party militants, journalists, academics, and state officials. He marshals his prodigious research to reveal the interplay between evolving representative institutions and LGBT activists’ entry into the political public sphere in Latin America, offering a critical analysis of the possibilities opened by emerging democratic arrangements, as well as their limitations. At the same time, exploring activists’ engagement with the international arena, he offers new insights into the diffusion and expression of transnational norms inscribing sexual rights within a broader project of liberal modernity. Queering the Public Sphere in Mexico and Brazil is a landmark examination of LGBT political mobilization.

“The detailed analysis of the different efforts in each country and the careful cross-national comparison makes this work an essential source for any scholar working on Brazil, Mexico, democratization in Latin America, and the emergence of gender and sexual movements demanding equal rights and an end to discrimination.” - James N. Green, The Americas, “Rafael de la Dehesa has written an empirically rich and analytically nuanced book that explores the rise and development of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activist engagements with the state in Brazil and Mexico. . . . de la Dehesa makes a substantial contribution to our knowledge of LGBT movements and of Brazilian and Mexican politics. . . . [H]is comparative analysis deepens our understanding of how globalization, in particular the transnational project of liberal modernity, powerfully affects local activism, but in contingent and nonhomogenizing ways.” - Deborah Gould, Perspectives on Politics, “[A]nother wonderful piece of scholarship based on a decade of field research, including nearly 270 interviews with a wide range of respondents. . . . [A] beautifully written, eloquently argued, and entirely original work. De la Dehesa has written the first English-language monograph focused on the interaction of Latin American LGBT communities with party systems and the state. . . . This book is sure to find a wide audience, as it explores key issues in Latin American and sexuality studies, as well as in sociology and politics.” - Elisabeth Jay Friedman, Signs, “Rafael de la Dehesa does a wonderful job comparing the activism of the LGBT movements in both countries, something that is important mainly because of the lack of this kind of rigorous studies in Latin America. Queering the Public Sphere in Mexico and Brazil, a model of comparative analysis, reveals a significant history of organization and political presence of sexual minorities in Latin America that has remained mostly ignored.” - R. Hernandez Rodriguez, The Latin Americanist, “Rafael de la Dehesa’s work stands out among recent studies of social movement activism around sexual identities and scholarly publications on democratisation in Latin America. It breathes fresh air into the debate on the nature and meaning of the democratisation processes in the region and provides key insights on the role that civil society groups have played in domestic and transnational contexts. . . . Without any doubt this will soon become a seminal piece for anyone interested in interdisciplinary and comparative analyses, North and South.” - Antonio Torres-Ruiz, Journal of Latin American Studies

Rafael de la Dehesa is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work at the City University of New York, College of Staten Island.