Legal Change and the Juridification of LGBT Activism

Abstract

The legal field is often targeted by activists of different social movements who recognize the law as a powerful tool to generate and legitimate socio-cultural change. In the case of LGBT movements in Southern Europe, pressure for legal change emerged both from social movements and supra-national institutions, such as the EU.¹ The accession to the EU benefited LGBT citizens in several ways, mainly through the influence of recommendations of EU institutions and the contact with the freedoms enjoyed in other countries, which contributed to the conviction among activists that legal reform was possible and a worthy aspiration. The importance of the EU in influencing sexual politics and policies has been recognized in Italy, Portugal and Spain (Bertone, 2009; Grigolo and Jorgens, 2010; Santos, 2005a). Therefore, like LGBT movements in other countries (Adam et al., 1999; Stychin and Herman, 2000), Southern European LGBT movements have focused most of their demands on legal change.