Assumptions and Sustained Erasures: SDG16 Blind Spots on LGBTQ+ People

This presentation builds on prior work proposing invisibilization as a distinct stage in genocidal processes, showing that violence can begin with the systematic erasure of personhood through legal, institutional, and epistemic means. Extending this framework, this presentation explores unchecked assumptions embedded in SDG16, that, while valuable in its normative goals, also rests on biased and short sighted premises about legal recognition, participation, and visibility. As SDG16 assumes all humans are equal before the law, in practice it can also unintentionally exclude marginalized groups, like LGBTQ+ people, whose identities are often criminalized or institutionally silenced. Based on comparative policy and discourse analysis, focused on national laws, human rights reports, court rulings, and civil society documentation, the study shows how invisibilization happens as a self-reinforcing cycle of exclusion, institutions that normalize denial, and perpetuate structural violence. The key question guiding this presentation is whether SDG 16’s logic, though well-intentioned, can in fact legitimize genocidal mechanisms (like denial or invisibilization), thus rendering formally inclusive institutions and legal systems into actually inaccessible to certain groups. Achieving SDG 16 “for all” requires explicitly recognizing and protecting those groups whom institutions and legal systems have systematically and historically failed to see.

Speaker: Fernando Palacio - PhD - Lecturer at Doshisha University and Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Japan