Relational Comparison and LGBTQ Activism in European Cities

This article examines the role of city twinning as a device for conducting transnational activism around lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer ( LGBTQ ) politics. It focuses on the city of L eiden in the N etherlands, examining how the city's twinning links with the cities of T orun in P oland and O xford in the UK have been used at different times as a device to mobilize transnational solidarities with LGBTQ people outside of the N etherlands. Drawing on qualitative semi‐structured interviews with LGBTQ activists in L eiden as part of a wider study of transnational LGBTQ activism in E urope, I seek to understand how twinning links are used to forge sustainable solidarities both across national boundaries and within L eiden. I suggest that relational comparisons about the status and treatment of sexual dissidents in L eiden and its twin cities are central to the production of these solidarities. While twinning has significant potential as a device for the production of sustainable transnational LGBTQ activism, I also suggest that it can be used to advance problematic geo‐temporalities about the relative ‘progressiveness’ or ‘backwardness’ of LGBTQ politics in specific cities.