Current Sociology

Please welcome our Social Scientist of the Month for June 2026, Meredith Weiss (Professor of Political Science and founding Director of the SUNY/CUNY Southeast Asia Consortium, University at Albany, SUNY, USA). Her article for Current Sociology Scapegoating queers: Pink-blocking as state strategy is Free Access this month.

Meredith Weiss

Could you please tell us about yourself? How did you come to your field of study?

M. Weiss: How I came to my field of study is, in a word, haphazardly! Pursuing a PhD rather than simply letting the currents carry me toward law school was a last-minute decision; deciding to pursue a PhD in political science specifically took even longer. My focus on Southeast Asia is more readily explained, although still wholly contingent: I had a wonderful undergrad professor who made the region sound politically mercurial and complex and dynamic… and sealed the deal by cooking up a Southeast Asian feast for the final session of each of his classes. Once I had settled upon political science + Southeast Asia, I decided that what I really wanted to explore were these interesting political phenomena I soon came to know as “social movements”—though as time went on, I pretty much gave up on limiting myself to one area of study, however broad or intriguing. I can pretend post-hoc that there has been some method or logic to my choice of projects and topics, but it’s honestly just been a mix of curiosity, luck, and compelling developments.

What prompted you to research the area of your article, “Scapegoating queers: Pink-blocking as state strategy”?

M. Weiss: This piece emerged from some of those compelling developments. On the one hand, Malaysians had just ousted the coalition that had been in power for over 60 years in favor of one touting progressive reform—the iconic leader of which had been imprisoned for sodomy, no less. On the other hand, the situation for LGBTQ Malaysians seemed to be getting worse rather than better. Homophobia and transphobia seemed the one thing on which all political camps could agree, and yet the grandstanding made no sense; so few Malaysians are “out,” and fewer still engage in any sort of political lobbying. Inasmuch as there is queer mobilization in Malaysia, it focuses far more on community-building and self-help (in often amazingly courageous and meaningful, but largely under-the-radar, ways). I had previously written on state homophobia—and edited a book on that years back with my friend and colleague, Michael Bosia—including the ways in which, in Southeast Asia, state elites respond preemptively to imagined rather than actual queer-rights challenges; I term these efforts “anticipatory countermovements.” But this level of vindictive scapegoating seemed to amp such efforts up to a new level.

What do you see as the key findings of your article?

M. Weiss: My key findings are that queer communities will likely continue to be targeted, irrespective of what they actually do or say as political actors, when there is a political payoff to doing so. In the article, I argue that what I term “pink-blocking,” or proactively denying LGBTQ rights claims, is likely where elections are competitive and margins matter; an electorally important domestic constituency (usually but not necessarily religious) opposes sexuality/gender-identity rights; and western military or financial support is either not so essential or not so conditional on meeting human rights standards. Where those conditions are not met, and especially where state elites see greater payoff in waving rainbow flags to distract rights-touting western allies/donors than in pandering to domestic audiences (for instance, where elections are not an issue, regardless), pink-washing is more likely.

What are the wider social implications of your research in the current social climate? How do you think things will change in the future?

M. Weiss: When I first conceptualized and drafted the article, my inspiration was Malaysia. Now, I could substitute “US” for “Malaysia” and end up in much the same place. Unfortunately, this research seems far more germane now than ever. The (to me) bizarre rightwing obsession, in so many polities, with so-called “gender ideology” and upholding white-picket-fence 1950s heteronormativity as the “great” to which to aspire is apparently not simply going to fade away anytime soon. Nor can progressives anywhere count on western conditionality (always problematic in all sorts of ways, regardless) or what had seemed to be maybe an evolving normative consensus to back up queer rights claims. Rather, trans rights especially, but really queer rights broadly, are in the process of precipitous backsliding: pink-blocking is painfully ubiquitous. While I hold out some hope that the world (not least the US) is going through a phase, at best, we now have depressingly much ground to make up, if and when the tides turn.

Do you have any links to images, documents or other pieces of research which build on or add to the article? Or a suggested reading list?

M. Weiss: Most importantly: Sarah Schulman’s now-classic 2011 New York Times article, “Israel and ‘Pinkwashing,’” https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/opinion/pinkwashing-and-israels-use-of-gays-as-a-messaging-tool.html.
The aforementioned edited volume may be of interest, as well: Global Homophobia: States, Movements, and the Politics of Oppression, https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p079337.
US-based/focused readers may be particularly interested (sadly, perhaps more as cautionary tale than just as history) in David Johnson’s excellent The Lavender Scare, https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/L/bo193960577.html.

For those interested in matters LGBTQ in Southeast Asia, I can recommend, among other works, Anthony Langlois’s Sexual and Gender Diversity Rights in Southeast Asia, https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/abs/sexuality-and-gender-diversity-rights-in-southeast-asia/29200A510553918080C13EA4C227DBD8; and Shawna Tang and Hendri Julius Wijaya’s Queer Southeast Asia, https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781003320517/queer-southeast-asia-shawna-tang-hendri-yulius-wijaya.