Activist knowledges in queer politics1

1. We use the term ‘queer’ as an umbrella to signify those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning and we use this interchangeably with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) throughout the paper.

Abstract

This paper examines the politics of knowledge production in the field of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) activism. It situates the development of LGBT activist research capacity within a broader shift towards evidence-based policy-making. The paper presents case studies of LGBT organizing from the US and Canada to demonstrate how LGBT activists utilize established social science methodologies such as statistics to claim legitimacy and render queer worlds visible in the policy process. The paper argues that this development in LGBT advocacy is marked by struggles over the kinds of queer realities that may be enacted through social scientific inquiry. The paper also explores the deployment of auditing and benchmarking in LGBT activist knowledge production. It demonstrates the way in which LGBT activists are using these privileged modes of knowledge production to produce truths regarding the nature, extent and effect of homophobia and heterosexism. The relationship between such calculative technologies and the emergence of LGBT active citizenship practices is considered. The paper concludes by emphasizing the decidedly mixed political implications of the increasing reliance on social science and calculative practices in queer activism.

Keywords:

• lesbian and gay politics
• evidence-based policy-making
• audit
• benchmarking

This research was funded by grants to Miriam Smith from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and this support is gratefully acknowledged. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Studies in Political Economy conference, Ryerson University, Toronto, 23–5 February 2006. We would like to thank Deborah Cowen, Sarah Lamble, Michael Orsini, Douglas Torgerson and Lorna Weir as well as the journal's referees for valuable comments.

Notes

1. We use the term ‘queer’ as an umbrella to signify those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning and we use this interchangeably with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) throughout the paper.