Queering Women, Peace and Security: Expanding Feminist Approaches to Gender in Peacebuilding

In 2000, the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 1325, which addressed, for the first time, the experience of women and girls during conflict and the need to consider gender in peacebuilding. From this landmark resolution, a groundbreaking Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda has evolved, guided by ten total Security Council resolutions. But to this point, the WPS framework and related scholarship has yet to meaningfully include queer and trans women in their programmatic work and conflict interventions.

Queering Women, Peace and Security fills this gap by applying queer theory to feminist efforts to ensure a gender perspective is promoted by the WPS agenda. Engaging with WPS documentation, examples of implementation, and interviews with practitioners, Jamie J. Hagen examines how the needs of LGBTQ people in conflict and peacebuilding are considered within the current architecture and practices. In particular, she identifies the interchangeable use of the words ＂gender＂ and ＂women,＂ which betrays a larger analytical failure to think outside a binary categorization of gender. Informed by this analysis and interviews with leaders from Northern Ireland and Colombia, Hagen outlines steps those implementing the WPS agenda can take to work in collaboration with queer and trans communities in their gender, peace, and security work.

Jamie J. Hagen is a Lecturer in Global Politics at the University of Manchester and a researcher applying a feminist and anti-racist approach to bridging gaps between academic, policy, and activism. Formerly Hagen was a Lecturer in International Relations at Queen’s University Belfast where she co-founded the Centre for Gender in Politics. Working at the intersection of gender, security studies, and queer theory, Hagen is an expert on ways international bodies consider LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) populations in peacebuilding, with a special focus on how Women, Peace and Security initiatives can better include LGBTQ voices and experiences, especially lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women. She is co-editor of Queer Conflict Research: New Approaches to the Study of Political Violence.