Why LGBTQ+ people must resist the seduction of dignity
In 2015, when the Supreme Court declared that gay and lesbian couples were entitled to the “equal dignity” of marriage recognition, the concept of dignity became a cornerstone for gay rights victories. In Disrupting Dignity, Stephen M. Engel and Timothy S. Lyle explore the darker side of dignity, tracing its invocation across public health politics, popular culture, and law from the early years of the HIV/AIDS crisis to our current moment.
With a compassionate eye, Engel and Lyle detail how politicians, policymakers, media leaders, and even some within LGBTQ+ communities have used the concept of dignity to shame and disempower members of those communities. They convincingly show how dignity—and the subsequent chase to be defined by its terms—became a tool of the state and the marketplace thereby limiting its more radical potential.
Ultimately, Engel and Lyle challenge our understanding of dignity as an unquestioned good. They expose the constraining work it accomplishes and the exclusionary ideas about respectability that it promotes. To restore a lost past and point to a more inclusive future, they assert the worthiness of queer lives beyond dignity’s limits.

"In undertaking such an ambitious, cross-disciplinary, and sweeping conceptual analysis, Engel and Lyle implicitly claim that dignity’s effects are felt everywhere; it enculturates us to accept neoliberalism’s constraints, adhere to predominant understandings of propriety regarding sexual conduct, and tread lightly within a legal system that responds to a limited range of LGBTQ+ interests." - Journal of American Political Thought

"Disrupting Dignity provides one such peek into what is to be gained by refusing dignity, and my expectation is that it will serve as a valuable resource for future scholarship and political praxis oriented toward that queer world of possibility." - Perspectives on Politics