🏳️‍🌈 When LGBTQ+ Rights Meet Far-Right Politics 🏳️‍🌈

QUEER WORD
HOMONATIONALISM

What it means:

The selective embrace of LGBTQ+ rights by nationalist or right-wing movements to serve their own agendas—often as a tool for anti-immigrant rhetoric. It allows them to position themselves as ‘progressive’ while simultaneously undermining queer rights and marginalising other communities.

Let’s use it in a sentence:

Four years ago Senator Crannock opposed gender-affirming healthcare. Now she's claiming to 'protect LGBTQ+ values' by supporting stricter immigration laws. Classic homonationalism.

A little bit of history:

A recent survey by the gay dating site PlanetRomeo asked its users who they planned to vote for in this weekend’s German elections.

The results?

Pretty damn terrifying.

Leading the pack was AfD (Alternative für Deutschland), a far-FAR-right party that openly promotes xenophobic, anti-immigrant rhetoric, and anti-Muslim policies—yet somehow still gained significant support from the site’s users.

So, what should we make of this scary result?

Well, first of all, we shouldn’t panic. Online polls like this aren’t always the most reliable - vote-bombing, algorithmic biases, and the quirks of self-selection can significantly skew results.

But we shouldn’t ignore it either.

Because even if the numbers aren’t perfect, they point to a larger, more unsettling trend: the growing overlap between queer voters and far-right movements.

And, it’s not just in Germany…

Remember Gays for Trump? And that surreal moment when Trump grinned while holding up a rainbow flag scrawled with “LGBTs for Trump” - soaking up the applause and adoration from a group whose lives he had no real intention of improving?

The right isn’t embracing queerness out of genuine allyship - it’s a convenient tool, selectively deployed when it serves their own agenda.

The Rise of Homonationalism

This selective embrace has a name: homonationalism. Coined by scholar Jasbir Puar in 2007, the term describes how LGBTQ+ rights are used as a marker of national superiority, particularly in contrast to Muslim-majority countries.

Here's how the playbook usually goes:

• Western nations flaunt LGBTQ+ rights as proof of their progressiveness

• Right-wing movements strategically welcome certain queer voices

• These rights are weaponised in anti-immigrant rhetoric

The danger lies in how this strategy pits communities against each other.

A right-wing politician might conveniently ignore queerphobia within their own base with simultaneously positioning themselves as 'champions' of LGBTQ+ rights to help justify their anti-immigrant policies.

And, back in Germany, it looks like it might be working. The AfD has successfully tapped into some queer voters' fears, painting Muslim immigrants as the bigger threat while quietly advancing their own brand of intolerance.

But it gets weirder…

You’d think that when courting LGBTQ+ voters, the AfD would at least throw in a token policy or two supporting queer rights. Or, at the very least, promise not to dismantle the ones we already have.

Right?

Well, as it turns out, no.

Their party manifesto describes LGBTQ+ people as ‘socially barely relevant constellations,’ opposes ‘gender mania,’ and even threatens to revoke marriage equality.

This is made about three thousand times more baffling when you learn that they’ve nominated Alice Weidel - an openly lesbian co-leader - as their candidate for Chancellor should they gain enough votes.

Huh?

This paradox perfectly illustrates homonationalism: actively undermining LGBTQ+ rights while seeking LGBTQ+ votes.

And it leaves us in murky, uncharted waters. Never before has the queer community been seen as politically valuable enough to be courted - while simultaneously having our rights dangled as a bargaining chip.

Never before have our rights been both a battlefield and a bargaining tool.

A sliver of hope…

I can be a bit doom-and-gloom sometimes, so let’s not leave things on such a bleak note. Because, despite all of this, I do believe that there is hope.

Yes, these trends are troubling, but resistance is growing. Across Germany, activists and community groups are pushing back against the AfD’s disinformation.

And while some queer voters are swayed by far-right rhetoric, many more are rallying behind moderate and left-leaning parties that recognise true equality can’t come at the expense of others.

Whatever this weekend’s election results bring, one thing remains certain: the fight for equality must be intersectional.

Real justice never comes by stepping on someone else.

But, enough from me - I want to hear from you!

This week’s poll asks whether you’ve ever voted for a political party despite disagreeing with their LGBTQ+ policies. Have you? Would you? I’d love to know your thoughts.