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Abstract
In 2010, Portugal became the eighth country worldwide to approve same-sex civil marriage. Such legal change is a recent addition to the achievements that have put Portugal at the forefront of sexual citizenship rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Europe. This article investigates the political path of LGBT rights in this Southern European, majority Catholic, and post-dictatorship country, exploring the role of the Portuguese LGBT movement in contributing to change. This research highlights how the state is willing to compensate – via legal recognition – queer sexual encounters to the extent that they willingly embrace the dominant values of respectability and normalcy. In this respect, the approval of same-sex marriage offers the opportunity to discuss issues of agency, citizenship, recognition, and normativity.
The paper begins by contextualizing sexual citizenship in democratic Portugal, providing an analytical account of the LGBT movement. In the second section, I suggest that a ‘politics of containment’ has characterized much of recent public discussion about sexual and reproductive rights, and I provide some examples. In the last section, I discuss the political and cultural implications of same-sex marriage law, with a particular focus on issues of normalization and homonationalism – that is how the state can actively contribute to the creation of the acceptable ‘normal gay’ with the compliance of LGBT activism.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the generous and insightful comments provided by colleagues to an earlier version of this paper which was presented at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies Seminar Series held in September 2011, at the University of Leeds, UK. I would also like to acknowledge the important suggestions offered by two anonymous reviewers of the Journal of Gender Studies.
Notes
1. Between 1974 and 1988, there were 15,000 people on average emigrating per year, in contrast with 82,000 annual emigrants between 1956 and 1974 (Arroteia Citation2001).
2. The percentages of people unable to write or read in the country changed as follows: 1920, 70.8%; 1930, 67.8%; 1940, 59.3%; 1950, 48.7%; 1960, 40.3% (Carreira Citation1996, p. 11). In 1970, 53.3% of people over 60 years old could not read or write (Ferreira Citation2001, p. 137).
3. The popular magazine Maria and the radio show O Passageiro da Noite, between 1981 and 1982, would be two examples of intimate and sexual issues being debated in the media at that time.
4. As reported by the magazine Opção, n. 44, February 1977.
5. In March 1976, the Health Secretary issued a document establishing a system of family planning medical appointments. The fertility index that year was of 2.6 children per woman, and abortion was the third cause of maternal death in the country, often covered under labels such as ‘general infection’ (Vilar Citation1994). In 1980, one year after the creation of the National Health System, the National Fertility Survey demonstrated that only 33% of married women ranging from 15 to 49 years old were using effective contraceptives.
6. The dictatorship regime disbanded the last feminist organization (The National Council of Portuguese Women) in 1948.
7. Portugal's application dated back to March 1977. The accession occurred during a centre-right government constituted by the Democrat Social Party (PSD) and headed by the economist Prime Minister Cavaco Silva, who ruled from 1985 to 1995, the same man who was elected the nineteenth President of the Portuguese Republic in January 2006.
8. For a contextual reading of the historical development of the Portuguese LGBT movement see Santos Citation2004, Citation2005, Citation2012a, Cascais Citation2006, Carneiro and Menezes Citation2007.
9. A legal equivalent to the civil partnerships law in the UK, yet including both same-sex and different-sex partners.
10. Other European countries had already outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation, but not in their most important legal document, i.e. the Constitution. The Swedish hate speech provision, for instance, has been part of the Swedish Penal Code since 2002.
11. This term was coined by Roseneil and Williams Citation2004.
12. Abortion after the tenth week is still unavailable upon request, being criminalized except in case of rape, malformation of the foetus, or serious health risk of the woman. Pro-choice campaigners have cautioned against this deadline, which is still considered too strict considering the decision-making process, as well as the bureaucratic procedures under the Portuguese National Health System (Sousa Santos et al., Citation2010).
13. ILGA Portugal stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Intervention. ILGA Portugal was created in 1995 in Lisbon. It runs the only Lesbian and Gay Community Centre, a space that was provided by the Lisbon Municipality in 1997. ILGA Portugal has organized the Annual Lisbon Pride Party since 1997 and has co-organized the LGBT March in Lisbon since 2000. It is reported to be the biggest LGBT organization in Portugal, with nearly one thousand members registered (according to information published by the magazine Com’ OUT, August 2008).
14. Panteras Rosa is an LGBT organization created in 2004 in Lisbon. It has co-organized the LGBT March in Lisbon since 2004, as well as the LGBT March in Porto, since 2006. It has focused on direct action initiatives and media campaigning.
15. Available from: http://panterasrosa.blogspot.com/2010_06_01_archive.html [accessed 12 July 2010].
16. Contrary to Portuguese law, Spanish law offers equal rights to heterosexual or lesbian and gay spouses in the field of parenting.
17. My notion of ‘syncretic activism’ points to the simultaneous deployment of discourse and action strategies which the literature has considered incompatibly assimilationist and radical (Santos Citation2008, Citation2012a).
18. Duggan Citation2002, p. 189.
19. Parliamentary debate, 8 January 2010. Available from: http://debates.parlamento.pt/page.aspx?cid = r3.dar [accessed 12 August 2010].
20. Parliamentary debate, 8 January 2010. Available from http://debates.parlamento.pt/page.aspx?cid = r3.dar [accessed 12 August 2010].
21. See, amongst others, Saalfield Citation1993, Sullivan Citation1997, Warner Citation2000. For a more nuanced, empirically driven perspective on this debate, see Weeks et al., Citation2001.