Activist-turned-diplomat on the intricacies of advocating for 2SLGBTQ+ rights
'You just can't hit people over the head and say... this is wrong,' says author of Queer Diplomacy
*Originally published on Feb. 7, 2024.
On September 30, 1984, Douglas Janoff was marching for 2SLGBTQ+ rights on the streets of New York.
In the midst of the AIDS epidemic — which would ultimately claim the lives of dozens of his friends — Janoff walked with other queer activists to Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza, across from the United Nations, as part of the International March for Lesbian and Gay Freedom.
"It was the beginning of some movement," Janoff recalled in a May 2023 talk at the Glad Day Bookshop in Toronto.
"We were on the outside of the UN building with our signs, and we were marching and saying, 'we want to get in.'"
Inside UN headquarters
In 2009, after several decades of activism and work as a freelance journalist and author, Janoff found himself advocating for 2SLGBTQ+ rights from a very different perspective.
"Twenty-five years later, I am a diplomat. I'm in my suit, and I'm actually inside the UN headquarters."
Today, Janoff works to promote international 2SLGBTQ+ rights as a senior foreign service officer with Global Affairs Canada. But in keeping with his roots as an activist, he has continued to ask hard questions about the system he's now working within.
"For years I had marched in demonstrations, I had done research," Janoff recalled in his lecture. "I published the first book on homophobic and transphobic violence in Canada.
"So I was really trying to find a way to integrate this sensibility and consciousness of my own identity with this identity as the guy with the suit, you know, the white cisgender guy in human rights negotiations."
Janoff decided to embark on another research project, interviewing 29 diplomats, human rights activists and experts from the UN and international governmental organizations to better understand the different techniques and strategies that advocates use to negotiate for improved 2SLGBTQ+ rights around the world.
The result was his 2022 book Queer Diplomacy: Homophobia, International Relations and LGBT Human Rights.
That research, along with his own experiences as a diplomat, sheds light on the deep complexities of working as a queer diplomat — particularly in countries that are hostile to 2SLGBTQ+ rights.
"Some people were telling me, 'We chatted with the foreign minister and we were shocked at how homophobic he was,'" Janoff recalled in conversation with IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed. "And [they] had to change [their] approach.'
"You just can't hit people over the head and say, 'this is bad. This is wrong.' How do you go around that? How do you find different ways?"
Navigating conflict
Janoff says diplomats working in countries where 2SLGBTQ+ rights are politically sensitive will often resort to "quiet diplomacy," working under the radar or broadening the conversation to discuss health rights for minorities.
"You have member states that embrace a universal concept of human rights. And then you have member states that believe that human rights are culturally specific to their particular country. So you have this conflict that emerges," he told Ayed.
According to Janoff, one such conflict took place in 2017 when hundreds of gay and bisexual men were detained and violently beaten in Chechnya, forcing many members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community to flee.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel were among those who spoke out to condemn the state-sponsored violence in Chechnya. Diplomats participated in a global campaign to end the crisis and provide assistance to victims.
"The Chechnya government weaponized nationalism and Western LGBT identity in support of a regime that was already facing economic and political crisis," he said.
"But what we also saw was a crystallizing of LGBTQ diplomacy. What we saw during the Chechnya crisis was that for the first time, world leaders were coming together to condemn what was going on."
What's the future for the movement?
As a former activist, Janoff does not shy away from turning his critical lens on himself and his colleagues. He says queer diplomats from Western nations can also be guilty of making sweeping value judgments about those across the negotiating table.
"They used very strong language to describe the other side," he observed of his fellow diplomats in his 2023 lecture.
"And in fact, you know, you're talking about human rights and these are diplomats that are dehumanizing the people that they're negotiating with."
Overall, Janoff says, international rights for minorities have come a long way since his activist days.
But in a year of political turmoil, with more than 50 hotly-contested elections scheduled around the world, that progress is not guaranteed moving forward.
"As an activist who landed on the doorstep of the UN 38 years ago, I cannot deny that multilateral LGBTQ advocacy and diplomacy have made spectacular gains since then," he writes in his 2022 book Queer Diplomacy.
"Is the movement moving into a vast tent or separating into silos? Will it coalesce and thrive or fragment and shrink?
"All this will depend on whether this movement is nimble enough to coordinate a common approach to multiple threats."
Listen to the full episode by downloading the IDEAS podcast from your favourite app.
*This episode was produced by Annie Bender.
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