LGBTQ Politics in Nicaragua

Revolution, Dictatorship, and Social Movements

Karen Kampwirth

• Publisher: University of Arizona Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9780816557172
  9780816542796
• eBook ISBN:
  9780816545254
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Latin American & Caribbean History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The modern political tumult of Nicaragua includes revolution, dictatorship, and social movements. LGBTQ Politics in Nicaragua explores the untold stories of the LGBTQ community of Nicaragua and its role in the recent political history of the country.

Karen Kampwirth is a renowned scholar of the Nicaraguan Revolution, who has been writing at the intersection of gender and politics for decades. In this chronological telling of the last fifty years of political history in Nicaragua, Kampwirth deploys a critical new lens: understanding politics from the perspective of the country's LGBTQ community. Kampwirth details the gay and lesbian guerrillas in the 1960s and 1970s, Nicaragua's first openly gay television wizard in the 1980s, and the attempts by LGBTQ revolutionaries to create a civil rights movement and the subsequent squashing of that movement by the ruling Sandinista party. She analyzes the shifting political alliances, the rise of strong feminist and LGBTQ movements in Nicaragua, and the attempts by the administration of Daniel Ortega to co-opt and control these movements.

Ultimately, this is a story of struggle and defeat, progress and joy. This timely book provides a well-documented review of LGBTQ politics in modern Nicaragua, helping us to see the Sandinista Revolution and its ongoing aftermath in a new light.
 

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. LGBTQ Memories of the Sandinista Revolution
• 2. The Wizard of the Revolution and Other Stories
• 3. After the Revolution: 1990–2006
• 4. The Return of Daniel Ortega
• 5. A Sexually Diverse Decade: 2007–2017
• Conclusion: Nicaragua’s Family Regime in Comparative Perspective
• Epilogue
• References
• Index
• About the Author