Decolonial Queer Politics and LGBTI+ Activism in Romania and Turkey Page 1 of 18 PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, POLITICS (oxfordre.com/politics). (c) Oxford University Press USA, 2019. All Rights Reserved. Personal use only; commercial use is strictly prohibited. Please see applicable Privacy Policy and Legal Notice (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 27 June 2019 Subject: Groups and Identities, History and Politics, Post Modern/Critical Politics Online Publication Date: Jun 2019 DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.1282 Decolonial Queer Politics and LGBTI+ Activism in Ro mania and Turkey Bogdan Popa and Hakan Sandal Summary and Keywords The role of a queer decolonial analytic is to put scholars of ethnic decoloniality in conver sation with queer studies scholarship. In exploring not only the impact of the Ottoman Empire on the region but also of a larger global colonial gender/sex system, decolonial scholars analyze the intersection of imperial hierarchies with the coloniality of gender. This is why Romania and Turkey serve as a focus to think about repositioning ethnic and gender identities in the context of global capitalist and imperial hegemonies. Queer ac tivists in collectives such as Macaz in Romania and Hêvî LGBTI in Turkey show that de colonial politics needs an alliance with queer studies. Refusing single-issue activism, de colonial queer politics in Turkey and Romania seeks a radical transformation of society by drawing on the success of intersectional analyses as well as by addressing growing con cerns about global inequality. Moreover, a queer decolonial analytic interrogates mainstream LGBTI+ terms such as “visibility” and “the closet” and calls for a different political imaginary on the basis of José Esteban Muñoz’s assertion that the future is the domain of queerness. Since the lan guage of the closet and visibility in LGBTI+ activism has significant limitations in wider political and societal contexts, a new analytic proposes the transformation of current ac tivist vocabularies. In Turkey, the historical oppression of the Kurds and their ongoing po litical struggle have given a unique position to Kurdish LGBTI+ organizational efforts and queer activists. Kurdish LGBTI+ activism raises critical questions about ethnic and class hierarchies both within Turkey and within a global queer movement. This sort of activism deemphasizes “the closet” or “gay marriage,” or a mere “visibility,” which traditionally have been a key component of the 2000s LGBTI+ organizations and Western non-govern mental organizations’ agendas. Like in Turkey, new forms of queer activism in Romania seek to develop spaces and locations that create safe spaces, advocate sexual experimen tation, and promote radical social interventions. Keywords: decolonial, queer, LGBTI+ activism, Romania, Turkey, visibility, utopia, LGBT politics