Sexual and intimate citizenship in a Time of Pandemic

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of a transnational research project exploring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and public health responses to it, on sexual and gendered politics. It sets out a framework for rethinking sexual and intimate citizenship during the COVID-19 pandemic, and draws on examples from India, Italy, Mexico and the UK to illustrate our analysis. We examine how the pandemic has impacted on the everyday negotiation of intimacy and highlighted material inequalities that impact on the lives of women and LGBTQ+ people. We argue that the pandemic has produced new faultlines between women and different groups of LGBTQ+ people, as well as amplifying existing tensions. In addition to identifying these faultlines, we explore the cracks opened by them which might reveal possibilities for new coalitions and alliances in relation to sexual and gendered politics.

Geographies of gender and sexuality II: Charting scholarship on health

“…2 Second, place has also been central for studies which explored how health crises can relate to and increase sexuality and gender-based discrimination and violence. For example, in relation to the COVID pandemic, scholarship has explored how lockdowns could impose on especially young people domestic arrangements that were unsafe (Ashby et al, 2022). Particularly for trans and non-binary people, the inability to escape unsupportive domestic environments for any length of time could result not only in repeated deadnaming, but also the very real threat of physical violence (ibid.…”