United We Stand? Representative Claims and Practices of LGBTQ+ Organizations Facing Hostility

The growing influence of far-right political parties, authoritarianism, and the rise of restrictive government measures are eroding established democratic freedoms. This is especially acute for the rights of minorities, which are increasingly contested across Europe. Furthermore, governments increasingly target and repress organizations that represent these minorities. This intensifying pressure raises questions about how effectively these organizations can represent the interests of minority communities, and how they might adapt to do so more effectively. To better understand how repression and hostility affect (intersectional) minority representation, this paper examines to what extent interest organizations (claim to) represent minorities. Specifically, we analyze how hostility and repression shape the degree to which these groups (claim to) represent the diverse LGBTQ+ community, and whether they also (claim to) represent other minorities in an intersectional manner. We build our argument on a novel dataset capturing the representative claims and practices of approximately 800 LGBTQ+ organizations across nine European countries. Based on preliminary findings, we observe that LGBTQ+ organizations across all countries both claim to represent and actually represent various LGBTQ+ subcommunities. Surprisingly, however, organizations appear to operate more intersectionally in practice than their public claims suggest. This pattern is particularly pronounced in relatively open political environments. In contrast, when faced with hostility, LGBTQ+ organizations tend to “close ranks” and present themselves as a united front, focusing on LGBTQ+ rights without an explicit emphasis on intersectionality.