Queering Nuclear Weapons: How LGBTQ+ Inclusion Strengthens Security and Reshapes Disarmament

VCDNP Research Associate Louis Reitmann has co-authored an article on the relevance of queer people, experiences, and ideas in the nuclear weapons space with Sneha Nair, Research Analyst at Stimson Center and Coordinator of the International Nuclear Security Forum.

“Equity and inclusion for queer people is not just a box-ticking exercise in ethics and social justice; it is also essential for creating effective nuclear policy.”

Published in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the article makes an evidence-based case that including LGBTQ+ people, with the skills they have developed through experiencing marginalisation, improves nuclear policy outcomes. Full inclusion and meaningful participation of queer people in the nuclear security enterprise also contributes to more comprehensive and accurate threat assessments, as shown in research carried out by Nair.

Additionally, Reitmann and Nair discuss the power of queer theory to change how officials, experts, and the public think about nuclear weapons and highlight the decades of queer leadership in nuclear disarmament activism.

“Indeed, queer theory helps us not only see the bad of a world with nuclear weapons, but also imagine the good of a world without them.”

This article continues the conversation started at a high-level event on LGBT+ Identity in the Nuclear Weapons Space that the VCDNP organised in December 2022.