Scapegoating Queerness: Associating Egyptian LGBTQIA Advocacy to Western Conspiracy as a Strategy for Aborting Democratization

Focusing on Egypt as a case study, this paper juxtaposes Mubarak and al-Sisi’s anti-queer measures in order to delineate their discursive strategy in framing collective victimhood vis-à-vis Western-sponsored gender activism in an attempt to overshadow the Muslim Brotherhood’s political visibility and reverse the liberal gains of the January 25 Revolution, respectively. This study argues that both presidents’ anti-queer discourse succeeded to abort calls for democratization because of rulers’ capitalization on populist and religious-nationalist idioms in developing a collective victimhood frame as a defensive strategy against constructed threats. Building on the social movement theories’ framing approach, this study unpacks the state’s three-pronged collective victimhood frame by drawing on the revival of Western colonial heritage, sovereignty assertion, and cultural authenticity to validate a generalized repression against non-heteronormative identities and non-conforming sexual practices during the Queen Boat incident in May 2001 and following al-Sisi’s ascension to power from 2014 until 2024.