Paper short abstract:

The paper explores the role played by queer activist during conflict transitions by looking at the case study of Sri Lanka during its constitutional coup in October 2018. It argues, that the queer activism has exploited the moments to advance queer agenda through an intersectional approach.

Paper long abstract:

This paper discusses the role of queer activism in the democracy movement, which emerged during the Sri Lankan president's move to sack the prime minister and dissolve the parliament in late October 2018 (which became known as the 'constitutional coup').It was considered undemocratic and unconstitutional by the majority of the population and thousands of people and activists started rallied to reinstate democracy. The crisis was brought to an end in December 2018 with the reinstatement of the sacked prime minister.

During such moments of ruptures or transitions, many civil forces and political groups working for democracy, including the queer movement, took the struggle both into streets and the courts. This has created a space for queer activists to work alongside other democratic forces. Looking through the experiences of organizations working on the issues related to the persons with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and sex characteristics (SOGIESC), the paper highlights how queer leadership was able to devise a creative intersectional agenda that was instrumental in bringing both the democratic struggle and mainstreaming queer agenda together. It argues that the queer activism was able to exploit the moments of transitions in such a way that capitalized on the democracy movement to mainstream the queer agenda through an intersectional approach. The queer activism has been instrumental in the queer communities' creative utilization of collective agency, providing a new political landscape where SOGIESC organizations can effectively transcend the limits of liberal NGOs.

Key Words:

Constitutional coup, Queer Activism, Democracy movement, SOGIESC NGOs