Human Rights, Identity, and Recognition: An Analysis of the Proposal Document of the 4th Pernambuco State Conference on the Rights of the LGBTQIAPN+ Population

Abstract

This article examines the limits of LGBTQIAPN+ public policies grounded in identity recognition, taking as its object the Proposal Document of the 4th Pernambuco State Conference on the Rights of the LGBTQIAPN+ Population (2023). By articulating the document’s content with the critical accounts of identity developed by Judith Butler (2018) and Asad Haider (2024), the article seeks to understand the role of LGBTQIAPN+ movements in addressing the tensions among identity recognition, the regulation of dissident sex-gender bodies, and the subversion of the norms that structure the legal-normative field. It argues that, although recognition-based policies are important for the immediate distribution of rights, they may also reaffirm the subalternity of the bodies they seek to protect and reproduce the subaltern identities they claim merely to represent. The article concludes by emphasizing the need for a political approach that uses identity in an instrumental and contingent way, without naturalizing or essentializing it.