Waved and Unwaved Flags: Nation and Sexuality in a Social Media Debate in Cyprus

This article focuses on the ways in which LGBT+ flag raising in a university at the Republic of Cyprus was debated in a social media environment. It aims to examine the ways in which discourses around sexuality intersect with discourses around the nation in a postcolonial, ethnically divided, European context. One hundred four comments posted on the university Facebook page were analysed through Thematic and Rhetorical analysis. Analysis revealed three main ways of accounting for the flag incident in which sexuality and LGBT+ issues are represented as (a) inferior to national issues, (b) symbolic and/or tangible threat to the nation and (c) personal (instead of collective) identity that should not be waved in public. The discussion focuses on the ways in which the findings differentiate from literature on homonationalism and on their implications for constructing collectiveness and understanding citizenship.