Keep it Radical”: A qualitative analysis of contemporary queer discourse around gay pride

Sammanfattning: In the last 50 years the gay pride movement has gained more momentum worldwide than ever before. The increased visibility obtained from the Stonewall riots of 1969 in the US, granted queer identities agency. Almost a decade later, the gay pride movement started to flourish in Greece as well, but the country did not see its first gay Pride parade until 2005 in the capital city of Athens. Since then, the movement’s political character has been a point of contestation within the county’s gay pride movement. This thesis aims to explore one actor in this conversation, namely the Radical Pride group which mobilizes in Thessaloniki, Greece. Combining Alberto Melucci’s conceptualization of New Social Movement Theory with Chantal Mouffe’s theorization on the notion of ‘the political’, 11 texts published on the group’s blog between 2017 and 2021 are analyzed through the three dimensional model within critical discourse analysis, to examine whether or not contemporary discussions around gay pride are political and if so, to what extent. The analysis reveals a high level of political elements in the group’s discourse, revealing moreover the antagonistic qualities that contemporary queer discourse can have in order to challenge the dominant sociopolitical structures.