Rights and the Politics of Normalization

JVF Conference Papers

From a queer theorists’ perspective, equal rights politics present several structural limitations for sexual minorities.

As sexuality is generally considered as belonging to the realm of the private, only certain issues can gain access to the hegemonic public. However, due to wide-ranging processes of neoliberal economical and social transformation, new modes of recognition are offered to specific life forms that fit into a pluralist market society – among them (some) lesbians and gay men.

Focusing on the Swiss Partnership Law, I try to explore the current conditions as well as limitations of these processes of normalization.

Download pdf