Rising Above Identity Politics: Sexual Minorities and the

Limits of Modern Recognition

Lucien Carrier (University of Glasgow)

If the raison d’être of social movements is to bring about (social) change, then it follows that
the success of such movements must be gauged against the changes they have brought about.
Gay movements in the West have often relied on a strategy based on identity politics, that is to
say the movements have framed political claims for social change through the affirmation of a
previously marginalized identity. Put differently, strategies based on identity politics are used
by minorities to demand acceptance into society through the normative revaluation of the
social value attached to their group’s defining identity category; a claim is made so that a
given group is seen more positively by other groups in society. The legal recognition of a
group’s identity is an important part of this legitimizing process, hence the focus of gay
movements on equal rights. The strategy of demanding the social and legal recognition of
sexual minorities though the affirmation of a gay identity, far from fostering emancipation, has
entrenched and masked relations of domination within Western society. I will firstly argue that
movements that have focused on achieving equal rights have not led to sufficient substantive
change, by showing that equal rights have not brought emancipatory change to sexual
minorities and have, on the contrary, reinforced structures producing exclusion. Still, while
gay movements have failed to bring about substantive social change through the strategies they
have used thus far, it can nevertheless be argued that activists should not entirely abandon
strategies based on identity politics or even the very concept of identity, as some Queer
theorists have suggested. In the second part of this paper, I will defend the idea that both
identity and processes of recognition are strategically useful to advance emancipatory claims
but that they have, until now, been MI conceptualized. I will show that within the paradigm of
modernity, both have become regulatory tools; tools conducive to the retention of present (and
oppressive) social structures. Thus, to reinvigorate emancipatory change, I argue for a new
understanding of both concepts. This requires us to reorient our goals towards the contestation
of current power relations, instead of seeking unconditional acceptance within society.

Keywords: Critical theory, minority studies, legal theory, recognition, postmodernism

Introduction
The emergence of a gay social movement in the West is often attributed to the Stonewall Riots
of 1969 (Schiller, 1984).1 After another unjustified police raid at a famous gay bar in downtown
New York, drag queens, gays, and other sexual ‘deviants’ revolted against the institutional
repression of their sexual identity. By taking to the streets, they affirmed their difference to the
world and demanded respect for who they were. Strategies such as this, which are based on
identity politics, are still prevalent, albeit contested, within gay movements throughout the
West. Social movements represent an alliance of loosely bound individuals who primarily
agitate for social change (Stammers 2009, p.131-139). When talking about a gay movement, I

1
I would like to particularly thank Dr. Anderson for his constant help and support.

21
thus refer to a collective affiliation that is united both by a common interest – improving the
social status of gay people - and a subjective feeling of belonging – a shared (sexual) identity.
The question of strategy is central to any social movement. How to bring about change?
From the 1970s onwards, gay movements have relied on a strategy based on the concept of
identity politics. As a strategy, this is more than an exclusive political alliance based on identity
categories – such as race, gender or sexual orientation. Social change is sought through the
affirmation of a group’s identity. In other words, the acceptance of gay people within society
through a strategy based on identity politics implies a demand for the normative revaluation of
their previously marginalized sexual identity. The famous slogan ‘Gay is OK’ or the recourse
to Gay Pride marches are good examples of a strategy that considers that the acceptance of
individuals requires the recognition of their identity. Gay movements in Europe have used
various strategies, particularly when framing legal claims. For example, the argument for the
decriminalization of homosexuality before the European Court of Human Rights in the 1980s
(Dudgeon v. UK 1981; Norris v. Ireland 1988) was one that rested on the legal concept of
privacy; the freedom for adults to engage in consensual sex behind closed doors. Social stigma
could still be attached to homosexuality: freedom was not granted out of respect for gay
identity, but out of a universal principle to which every human is entitled. In this example,
social change was brought about without resorting to arguments about identity. A strategy
based on identity politics, for the purpose of this essay, is understood as a medium for change
based on the normative affirmation of a collective identity with the aim of achieving acceptance
within society.
The strategy of demanding the social and legal recognition of sexual minorities though
the affirmation of a gay identity, far from fostering emancipation, entrenched and masked
relations of domination within Western society. What if, while equal in law, sexual minorities
remain oppressed? This question relates to the issue of whether a strategy of identity politics is
able to foster substantive (or transformative) change, that is, a change profound enough to
extensively restructure a given system (Cornell 1993). Thus, although equal legal rights
constitute an objective change, one may wonder whether they can restructure our current social
system.
The first part of this essay will briefly summarize two relevant critiques that relate to
intersectionality and the normative dimension of identities. In the second part I will argue
against abandoning a strategy of recognition of identities and call instead for a
reconceptualization of the concepts of identity and recognition, and an understanding of them
as tools for social contestation as opposed to tools for mere acceptance through legal and non-
transformative social change. To conclude, I will link my observations to Boaventura de Sousa
Santos’ analysis of the paradigm of modernity and ask whether social contestation should be
brought against that very paradigm in order to achieve transformative change.

I – An exclusive inclusion: the failure of identity politics

To a certain degree gay movements in Western Europe have succeeded in achieving equal
rights for sexual minorities. Although such changes must be acknowledged, the benefits they
have brought should not conceal remaining social relations of domination and exclusion. This
section will briefly expose two major issues that strategies based on identity politics have either
left unaddressed or have even exacerbated. The first relates to a certain lack of intersectional
22
awareness while the second involves the perpetuation of oppressive and reductive sexual
categories. The intention of this section is to establish the shortcomings of a strategy based on
the acceptance of difference through the affirmation of sexual identities and the lack of
structural change as a result.
Intersectional studies have been a fashionable field of research in feminist and anti-racist
academia for the past twenty years. In short, it represents the idea that our multiple identities
intersect, and so do the privileges and injustices associated with them. The result is not a mere
addition or subtraction of advantages and disadvantages which would follow a linear thread.
The resulting oppression can be exponential (powell 2014, p.151). For example, a black lesbian
can face prejudices on three distinct accounts: because of her race, her gender and her sexuality.
A strategy based on identity politics seems to overlook these issues by ignoring factors other
than sexual identity. The raison d’être of gay movements is to change the situation for gay
people in society solely by demanding the acceptance of their sexual identity. Such a strategy
implies that the gender, race or social status of gay people is irrelevant since only their sexual
orientation matters. Therefore, gay rights movements which adopt a strategy based on identity
politics accept the compartmentalization of individual identities and disregard the impact other
prejudices may have on gay people’s lived experiences. The consequences of such a lack of
intersectional awareness are far-reaching.
Politically, it suggests that when the struggle for sexual rights is over, then the ‘job is
done’. There can be sympathy towards other minorities, but it remains a secondary purpose:
the demand for change is thus not far-ranging enough. A strategy centred on identity politics
is focused on removing hindrances to political participation based solely on sexual orientation
(Fraser & Honneth 2003). This implies that when those hindrances to political participation are
removed, sexual orientation is no longer considered a source of prejudicial treatment.
According to this logic, a black lesbian would now only face prejudicial treatment related to
her gender and her race. This is problematic on two counts. Firstly, because it leaves to other
movements the duty of addressing other forms of exclusion – which constitutes in itself a
refusal to engage with the structural causes of exclusion. Secondly, it removes incentives for
the privileged members within a given group to act in the interests of the marginalized. If sexual
orientation no longer binds different groups demanding social change under the common
experience of a sexuality-based prejudice, then once prejudice against sexual orientation is
removed a white gay man becomes a member of the most privileged group in Western society:
white men. That man could then perfectly assert his dominance against other minorities and
militate for their further oppression. The examples of ‘Gays with Trump’, or the appeal of the
far-right party ‘Front National’ to the gay electorate in France (Chrisafis 2017) demonstrate
that the lack of intersectional awareness in gay movements has led to – or at least left
unaddressed - the marginalization of others, particularly Muslims. For example, in the
Netherlands, the portrayal of Islam as a threat to gay rights is an argument used to justify
Islamophobia among sexual minorities (Jong 2015). The fragmentation of struggles for social
emancipation implies estrangement between different movements and different communities.
For the individual, the compartmentalization of identities means the sometimes difficult
balancing of the different social values attached to one’s constituent identities. In a very
interesting article, Renee McCoy (2012) surveyed a sample of American black men who
identified as gay and asked them about what it meant for them to be black gay men. The results
23
showed that not only did they identify with ‘traditional cultural beliefs of American society
about gender’ (2012, p.204), but also that they are far from ‘removed from identification with
traditional role designations’ (2012, p.209). McCoy argues that during the interviews these
individuals were attempting the difficult exercise of balancing and making compatible
traditionally antagonistic social values attached to their respective identities. This demand for
normalcy is striking; the interviewees seem to seek integration within existing structures,
structures which define their relation to gender, masculinity and sexuality; they also renounce
the opportunity of contesting them. A plausible interpretation of this trend could be that the
individual is defined by a sum of, sometimes contradictory, characteristics that are articulated
separately depending on the social value attached to them. The tricky point then is to articulate
them in a way where they will be compatible: a traditionally masculine man, who happens to
be attracted to other men, and who is also black. 2 When identity is fragmented in this way,
there will always be marginalization precisely because there will always be identities and
characteristics that clash with one another. For example, if gayness is considered to be
compatible with traditional masculinity, without altering the meaning of either masculinity or
gayness, then camp gay men remain necessarily somewhat excluded. The addition of letters to
LGBTIQA+ is symptomatic of this endless attempt. It shows that a strategy based on a politics
of identity where identity is understood as fragmented cannot, structurally, bring about
substantive, transformative change. It may bring about less inequality but the underlying issues
will never be resolved.
As we have seen, the lack of intersectional awareness in gay movements has
consequences at the levels of political action and individual perception. The uncritical
upholding of the fragmentation of the individual into a sum of separate identities showcases a
clear refusal to engage with social structures, that is, with the sources of power producing the
current social organization.
I will now show that the affirmation of a gay identity by gay movements has led to a de-
radicalization of demands for change and has, instead of asserting difference, fostered
indifference. Acceptance is often associated with tolerance (see Boswell 1980 pp.3-61). It is
commonly held that a just society tolerates difference, and tolerance may be based upon the
basis of religion, humanity or any other universal principle (see Todorov 2008, pp.31-46). The
acceptance of gay people in society is concomitant with demands for a tolerant society. The
recognition of an ‘international day against homophobia, transphobia and biphobia’, for
example, is systematically followed by repeated appeals to tolerance. And yet, such a concept
is not necessarily free from oppressive tendencies. This trend can be understood as it concerns
other forms of social oppression. Ratna Kapur, basing her analysis on colonial India, explains
that tolerance is a cause of concern ‘as it becomes a device for social and political control rather
than empowering the groups being tolerated’ (2010, p.42). She argues it was used to deny ‘full
legal equality to the natives while also managing their claims for greater recognition and
empowerment’. Thus, difference remains ‘threatening or toxic’ (2010, p.42). From a feminist

2
This echoes some definitions of race, for example ‘[it is] first and foremost an unequal relationship
between social aggregates, characterized by dominant and subordinate forms of social interaction, and
reinforced by the intricate patterns of public discourse, power ownership and privilege within the
economic, social and political institutions of society’ see Marable 1995, p.186.

24
perspective, Wendy Brown adds that tolerance becomes a compromise, allowing for tolerated
subjects to be included in society, while remaining defined and subordinated by their perceived
and repulsive difference (2006, p.28). Both arguments highlight two problems that come with
tolerance: firstly, that tolerance is about accommodation and secondly, that it implies the
acceptance of an established relation of domination. A tolerant society is one where the mob
refrains from acting in accordance with the status quo of the present structures of domination.
A sexually deviant subject is accepted into society solely because others refrain from excluding
them. Not only is the concept of tolerance slightly contradictory vis-à-vis politics of
affirmation, it also precludes substantive social transformation by focusing on managing
unrest. Since the daily experience of sexual minorities will be somewhat improved, objectively,
thanks to tolerance, then a form of de-radicalization necessarily follows. Accommodation
removes the incentive for rebellion. The Stonewall riots, for example, would probably never
have happened had the police been tolerant of gay people. Even though gay people would have
suffered less at the time, without those riots, perhaps there would have never been an organized
gay movement, and thus change would have never occurred. De-radicalization is a necessary
consequence of tolerance, and without a certain form of radicalism there can be no change.
Here emerges the second problem. If tolerance precludes substantive social transformation,
then tolerance entrenches current social relations. There can be minor alterations, which would
translate into less (or less direct) oppression. But fundamentally, relations of domination would
stay unchanged: the dominant faction will keep their dominant position, as will the dominated.
In colonial India, tolerated Indians were given a better status in terms of their relations with the
British, but they remained fundamentally dominated. Similarly, a gay subject may gain a better
social status thanks to tolerance but, in fine, they will still be considered a more-or-less negative
deviation from the heterosexual norm. Thus, at once, tolerance prevents real change and
reinforces relations of domination.
One might argue that tolerance is not necessary for a politics of acceptance. But identities
themselves form a statement about what we deem, both individually and as a society, important.
That is the normative side of an identity: it does not neutrally define us. Hence, the affirmation
of a gay identity represents a normative,3 and thus potentially oppressive, statement. Inquiring
into such a statement means asking how our understanding of gayness, our desires or even our
idea of happiness are constructed. This is to over-simplify the complexity involved in the
process of identity-formation (see Bellah et al. 1985) but there is also another level of analysis
where gay identities are inclined to conform to ‘heteronormativity’ (about heteronormativity,
see Warner 1991). In this respect, Sara Ahmed eloquently analyzed the 1996 TV show ‘If these
walls could talk’ (2010 p.109-110). The series starts with an aging lesbian couple in the 1960s.
One of the women dies in hospital and the surviving partner is dismissed as merely a ‘friend’.
In the 1990s, another lesbian couple is trying to procreate and form a family, signifying,
according to Ahmed, how their happiness is linked to heteronormativity, to reproduction and
integration. She claims that the recognition of sexual minorities involves ‘compliance with the
terms on which happiness is constructed’ (Ahmed 2010, p.110). Ahmed makes a very
important point by introducing a notion of control. By taking the example of a popular TV
show, she highlights that the equality and freedom that sexual minorities are fighting for is

3
Normative in this context should be understood as ‘ideology’ see Gavin Anderson 2008, p.133.

25
itself derived from a normative set of values, and is thus far from neutral. Gay subjects are
subtly pushed to understanding their emancipation in terms of mirroring heterosexual norms.
From this perspective, sexual minorities are not accepted based on their difference but on the
contrary, based on their compliance with certain social values. Therefore, pursuing equal rights
without remaining critical of the reasons why equal rights are being pursued is indicative of a
refusal to seek transformative change: acceptance is a result of the normative transformation
of sexual minorities and not of social structures. It could be argued that this trend is
unproblematic. After all, if sexual minorities get to be happy, why should we inquire into the
genesis of such happiness? The issue lies with the fact that if, normatively, sexual deviances
and heterosexuality are conflated (to the benefit of the latter) then what is the point of
identifying as gay? It is not uncommon nowadays to hear gay activists praise this indifference
towards sexual orientation as a sign of social progress (Stone 2016). But such indifference is
extremely problematic because it necessarily entails that deviant sexualities become apolitical.
Judith Butler explains that an objective difference has no value besides the subjective
understanding that this difference is meaningful (1990, p.149). She takes the example of gender
and wonders why sex divides humanity in two instead of, say, eye colour (Butler 1990, p.149).
According to Butler, to give subjective value to any difference always entails a political choice.
For sexual minorities, indifference means that sexual orientation is no longer attached to
a political value: sexual orientation becomes an objective difference that is no longer of
relevance. Thus indifference implies that the terms on which sexual orientation is constructed
– which are, as we have seen, constructed in relation to, and to the benefit of, a dominant
heteronormativity - become undisputable since they are made apolitical. This is why, for
example, feminist scholars have contested the essentialization of gender binaries by politicizing
the male/female divide (Hunter 2013, p.13-30). Indifference removes the grounds for social
contestation and, thereby, it actively promotes the status quo. The uncritical affirmation of an
identity which fully mirrors dominant sexual patterns results in the negation of meaningful
differences and, therefore, results in renouncing social change. As mentioned above,
meaningful change is where the systematized distribution of social roles and attributes is
profoundly altered. So far, while the changes brought about by gay movements are important,
they are merely corrective in that they tend to simply result in (at best) a better version of the
current system. They do not sufficiently question the validity of the system itself. Such
questioning is necessary in order to produce significantly different outcomes.
This section has highlighted two major issues that demonstrate the failure of gay
movements to achieve substantive, transformative change. The legal recognition of sexual
minorities through the obtaining of certain equal rights has led to their partial acceptance within
society. However, such acceptance simultaneously implies renouncing the aim of radically
transforming society: change was acceptable only to the extent that social structures, those
mechanisms producing exclusion, remained untouched. This explains how some gay
associations can openly militate against the integration of other groups and how racism and
misogyny can still be prevalent within a gay community. The lines defining exclusion have
indeed been displaced, and as a result sexual minorities, to a greater extent, are not excluded
on the basis of their sexual orientation per se; but those very lines, and the production thereof,
still apply, albeit differently. Gay movements failed to bring emancipatory change precisely
because they failed to meaningfully contest oppressive social structures. This result cannot be

26
acceptable for those insisting on being progressive. The next section will address ways in which
to move forward.

II – Contesting Modernity: a renewed recognition of sexual identity?

As the previous section argued, gay movements in the West have not brought about substantive
social change. To a certain extent, gay rights movements even precluded further transformative
change through enabling an attitude of indifference. From a strategic point of view, then, what
can progressive activists do? In this section, I will show that despite these issues, entirely doing
away with the concepts of identity and recognition would be a mistake since both can prove
useful in creating much-needed momentum. I will use different theoretical frameworks to
explain that activists should focus on processes as opposed to outcomes in order to avoid the
potential for oppression inherent to a strategy built on the concept of identity politics. I will
argue that such processes involve prioritizing the contestation of structures and thus political
struggle over acceptance within society. Finally, I will consider the value of applying Santos’
broader critique of modernity to the context of the recognition of sexual minorities, as it seems
to both help us understand the difficulties which the identity-based approach encounters, and
also sketch the beginnings of an alternative approach to gay activism.
The first part of this essay considered the notion of a gay identity as inherently oppressive
or, at the very least, unable to bring about substantive change. From the 1990s onwards, an
important and eclectic intellectual movement branded under the umbrella term of Queer theory
elected to reject the concept of a gay identity. As a strand of post-structuralism, 4 Queer theory
defies definition, not least because Queer theorists themselves are often in deep disagreement
about both the nature and the goal of their loosely affiliated movement (Morgan 2001, p.208-
225). Put in the simplest terms, Queer theorists have demonstrated, using deconstructive
methods, the socio-historical contingency of sexual norms. Queer theorists have, more often
than not, remained extremely critical of sexual identities, perceiving them as a tool for social
control (Stychin 2005, p.90-109). They suggest moving beyond identities in order to promote
the idea of a Queer subject – who is unstable and indefinable. This summary does not do justice
to the complexity of Queer theory. Although theoretically extremely rich, particularly in its
understandings of processes of identification, Queer theory failed to generate momentum. It
did not create or sustain a radical wave capable of influencing mainstream politics beyond
intellectual circles. Queer theory has been unable to seriously challenge the conceptual ubiquity
of identities within social movements. In a particularly stark example, the overall focus of
Western gay movements in recent years has been to achieve the legal recognition of gay
marriage, and this has been despite over twenty years of criticism from Queer theorists. In
France in 2013, in the UK in 2014 and in the U.S. in 2015, gay movements have
overwhelmingly sought and celebrated the legalization of same-sex unions.
Critical activists are then faced with a serious issue: Queer theorists may have developed
relevant theories, but these cannot take hold in mainstream movements. On the other hand, the
concepts of identity and recognition, central to a strategy based on identity politics, may be
seriously flawed but are capable of creating momentum within our societies; it seems we cannot

4
A constructivist philosophical movement which emerged in France in the 1960s in reaction to structuralism,
see Jacques Derrida 1972.

27
imagine or produce social change without them. If the inherent problem with a strategy based
on identity politics is that it entrenches a different while perhaps gentler form of oppression,
the question to be asked is whether a non-oppressive identity is possible. Put differently, is the
potential for oppression within a strategy of identity politics structural or contingent? If it is
structural, then a politics of emancipation would necessarily have to abandon the conceptual
use of identities and look for other ways to generate momentum. If, however, it is merely
contingent, then the issue is to find ways to produce non-oppressive identities. This second
approach entails thinking about identities differently. My intention is not to revolutionize
identity scholarship within this short paper. My aim is far more modest: I merely wish to open
doors that might lead, eventually, to new answers. I suggest that approaching a non-oppressive
gay identity requires rethinking the focus of gay rights movements in two consequential ways:
from outcomes to processes and thus from acceptance to contestation.
When I talk about refocusing gay movements towards processes as opposed to outcomes,
I simply suggest putting the ‘how’ before the ‘result’. If a group is trying to further a result, it
means that this group has already defined the terms under which they want to live. It means
that they accept, uncritically, the way in which their result has been produced. The oppression
that derives from a gay identity, as discussed in the previous section, stems from this primacy
of the result. What do gay movements want to achieve? They want acceptance and inclusion.
They want their gay identity to be valued and respected. Structural oppression appears because
individuals need to comply with rigid parameters – they need to fit within the knowable identity
they are labelled (and labelled themselves) with – and because the power relations that have
produced those circumstances are unaltered.5 Simply put, gay movements cannot move away
from an unsatisfactory point A if, in order to get to B, every characteristic of A remains
unaltered. If processes are given primacy, however, it means that outcomes remain unknown.
Nobody can tell what will be the end point of gay movements. All that can be known are ways
to achieve a less oppressive result, and that is by contesting the sources of power that have
produced current injustices. The ‘how’ implies reclaiming those sources of power and
producing different, less oppressive situations. Perhaps identities will eventually disappear and
thus there will be no need for inclusion because there will be no differentiation. This ignorance
as to the outcome is not a proof of some theoretical lacunae but is, on the contrary, indication
of a collective process of thought which evidences a real move from A to B. As put by Daniel
Tyradellis, an ignorance conscious of itself is a precondition of the act of thinking (2012, p.8-
9). What would be the point of thinking collectively if the answers were known before the act
of thinking? Focusing on processes has the potential for producing non-oppressive outcomes
because it does not impose a given framework – since that new framework is construed
collectively – and especially because it can confront the very reasons/structures that led to
oppression in the first place.
A refocus on processes will obviously have deep consequences for what we understand
as identity. Queer critiques can potentially coexist with this reworked concept of a gay identity.
The momentum generated by the idea of a gay identity and the strategy of affirming such an
identity can work if we redefine the goals of such a strategy. If our attention is drawn back to
processes, then the gay identity we are referring to is not a pre-existing one to be accepted by

5
See generally Michel Foucault 1995.

28
society but is one that will be formed in that very process. Thus, while refusing to deny the
strategic importance of a gay identity for social change, activists can substantially diminish its
oppressive potential by reconceptualizing identities as an always-becoming. In this respect, the
work of Elisabeth Grosz is particularly relevant. A critical feminist, she developed a
Nietzschean-inspired theory of the subject where she refuses to understand subjecthood as a
permanent or stable state, but rather as a never ending process. She argues that (2005, p.167-
168):

[I]t may be time for feminists to seek instead what I understand as a politics of the
imperceptible, which has its effects through actions, but which actions can never
be clearly defined with an individual, group, or organization. Such a politics does
not seek visibility and recognition as its goals; rather it seeks actions, effects,
consequences, forces which generate transformation without directing that
transformation to other subjects who acknowledge its force.

Grosz uses the need for a flexible understanding of identity in order to bring the debate
from the individual to the collective: she transforms an inner struggle into a political one and
thus she highlights the need to rethink and challenge the world we live in. It is not really the
‘I’ or even the ‘us’ that counts. The struggle she is referring to concerns the world and its
powers (Grosz 2005, p.194). A very interesting aspect of Grosz’s reasoning is that she shows
how Queer ideas of a ‘different subject’ are not necessarily contrary to a politics of identities.
She makes it very clear that goals are second to means and that through engagement, what she
refers to as ‘actions’, other becomings are made possible. So, when we think about gay
movements, affirming a gay identity is not in itself problematic provided it is understood not
as a set of defined characteristics that inherently and ontologically differentiate a group or an
individual from others, but as a means of action directed against social and political ordering.
Put differently, a gay identity is not something that is directly defined, for example based on
sexual orientation, it is a constant (re-)creation through political contestation.
So far, I have discussed an alternative to the binary opposition between a strategy of
affirming a gay identity and Queer theory, since they are both lacking. I hold that an alternative
can be achieved if activists re-centre their attention to processes instead of outcomes. In doing
so, I have characterized the importance of contestation when reconceptualizing a gay identity
and have shown how ignoring outcomes is actually key to non-oppressive change. At this point,
an obvious question comes to mind: if contestation is necessary to the processes in question,
and if such processes are themselves necessary for a non-oppressive and transformative change,
then what should such contestation be directed against? ‘Structures’ or even ‘systems’ are quite
vague terms. Here I will discuss the need for contestation to occur at the level which informs
both our institutional arrangements and our perception of these: the paradigmatic level.
Boaventura de Sousa Santos (2002) offers a very workable understanding of the
mechanisms of the paradigm of modernity and also outlines a strong critique that can prove
helpful for any movement seeking transformative change. It is important to understand the
logic of modernity if one is to contextualize this debate. According to Santos, modernity is a
system of thought, a paradigm that has dominated European thinking since the end of the
Renaissance. Santos identifies modernity as resting on a dynamic between the two pillars of

29
regulation and emancipation, the tension of which draws a line that we refer to as progress
(2002, p.5-25). Emancipation is supposedly driven by expectations, i.e. desires for social
change (2002, p.9), while society is afterwards stabilized with the establishment of new
regulations (2002, p.10). The issue is that most contemporary emancipatory movements are
themselves regulatory, hence, despite apparent change there is a lack of real transformation
(Santos 2010, p.225-242). Efforts for transformative change must therefore engage with the
paradigm of modernity, in order to rectify it or surpass it. This analysis of modernity should be
appreciated for its schematic value. It fits rather neatly with the description of gay movements
I have given above: while a strategy based on identity politics seems to foster a certain
emancipation of sexual minorities, it only replicates a different form of control and regulation.
If Santos’ account of modernity is accepted, then activists focusing on processes must find
ways to contest these dynamics of regulation. If they do not, they will stay within that cycle
and produce different forms of control. In the last chapter of Toward a New Legal Common
Sense, Santos outlines potential counter-hegemonic strategies. He tries to ‘unfold the signs of
the reconstruction of the tension between social regulation and social emancipation, as well as
the role of law in such a reconstruction’ (2002, p.494), and by doing so he calls for an open
research agenda (2002, p.495). What he means here is that any such reconstruction requires the
contestation of what is presented as ‘realism’, whose systems of thought define themselves as
pragmatic and discard divergence as idealism. When thinking about gay movements, activists
consider themselves to be engaged in emancipatory processes when, in fact, they are considered
to be idealists. This can be taken as a sign that they are engaged with something new and,
perhaps, transformative.

Conclusion
In conclusion, this short paper has shown that despite its failure to bring substantive change to
the situation of gay people in the West, a strategy based on identity politics is still relevant in
today’s struggles. The affirmation of a defined identity risks reproducing the very oppressive
tendencies that gay movements are trying to depart from. However, if identities are conceived
differently, and if gay movements shift their focus towards processes as opposed to outcomes
– thus towards contestation as opposed to acceptance – then it is possible to recombine an
efficient strategy with a sounder theoretical background. I suggest that contestation should take
place in reference to the paradigm of modernity, since it informs both our social organization
and our perception of it. In so doing, I draw attention to the similarities of Santos’ analysis of
modernity and the problems we have encountered throughout our discussion of a gay identity-
based struggle for recognition. The rise and fall of a strategy for emancipation based on identity
politics within gay movements may be followed by a rebirth of its conceptual usefulness,
provided activists accept some uncertainty and contest the limiting paradigm of ‘realism’ that
imposed itself as un-falsifiable truth. The social emancipation of sexual minorities is
indistinguishable from a wide-scale critique of institutional arrangements and consequently
transformative change can only emerge if new doors are opened and old ways left behind.

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