Queer Wars E-Book

Dennis Altman

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 184

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

The claim that �LGBT rights are human rights� encounters fierce opposition in many parts of the world, as governments and religious leaders have used resistance to �LGBT rights� to cast themselves as defenders of traditional values against neo-colonial interference and western decadence.

Queer Wars explores the growing international polarization over sexual rights, and the creative responses from social movements and activists, some of whom face murder, imprisonment or rape because of their perceived sexuality or gender expression.

This book asks why sexuality and gender identity have become so vexed an issue between and within nations, and how we can best advocate for change.

Leseprobe

Copyright page

Copyright © Dennis Altman and Jonathan Symons 2016

The right of Dennis Altman and Jonathan Symons to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2016 by Polity Press

Polity Press

65 Bridge Street

Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press

350 Main Street

Malden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 9780745698687

ISBN: 9780745698694

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Altman, Dennis, 1943– author. | Symons, Jonathan, 1976– author.

Title: Queer wars : the new global polarization over gay rights / Dennis Altman, Jonathan Symons.

Description: Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA : Polity Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015030522| ISBN 9780745698687 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780745698694 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Classification: LCC HQ76.5 .A39 2016 | DDC 323.3/264–dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015030522

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Typeset in 11 on 15 pt AGaramond

by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited

Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to participants in two workshops, one at La Trobe University in 2013 and one in Los Angeles in 2014, where some of these ideas were thrashed out. There are too many participants to name them all, but special thanks to Sofia Gruskin, with fond memories of the walk in Washington Heights with Dennis that led to the Los Angeles workshop. Some of the ideas outlined here were first published in an article titled ‘International norm polarization: sexuality as a subject of human rights protection’. published in the journal International Theory in 2015. We thank the journal editors and anonymous referees for their contributions.

Many other individuals and organizations deserve thanks, and their work is often reflected in our notes. Colleagues and activists across the world have been generous with feedback and information: thanks to Peter Aggleton, Paul Amar, Chris Beyrer, Tom Boellstorff, Christophe Broqua, Edwin Cameron, Carolyn D'Cruz, Laurie Essig, Gillian Fletcher, Masha Gessen, Kate Gleeson, Aeyal Gross, Michael Kirby, Anthony Langlois, Terry Macdonald, Rafael Perez Munoz, Dede Oetomo, Jeff O'Malley, Richard Parker, Momin Rahman, Rahul Rao, Chris Roche, Hakan Seckinelgin, Jessica Stern, Maurice Tomlinson, John Treat, George Vasilev and Dennis Wang Yip.

We have gained valuable insights from groups such as the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, the Global Forum on MSM and HIV, and organizers at the International AIDS Conference in Washington (2012) and Melbourne (2014).

Our editors at Polity, Andrea Drugan and then Elen Griffiths, have been both generous and encouraging, and we received helpful comments from two anonymous readers.

Queer wars: how should we respond to global polarization over gay rights?

When Conchita Wurst won the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest, Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin tweeted that Eurovision ‘showed supporters of European integration their European future – a bearded girl’. The contest took place against a political backdrop of rising tension between Russia and the European Union, Russia's passing of anti-gay-propaganda laws, the annexation of Crimea and continuing fighting in Ukraine by pro-Russian rebels. In Copenhagen the crowd booed Russia's entry, the Tolmachevy Sisters (winners of the junior Eurovision who had identified themselves as virgins in press interviews), while Russian audiences jeered the victory of a 25-year-old, bearded, Austrian drag queen. There were petitions against Wurst in Russia, Belarus and Armenia, despite her polling well in their popular vote. Wurst herself explained, ‘I really felt like tonight, Europe showed that we are a unity full of respect and tolerance’, and when asked for a message for Putin, replied ‘we are unstoppable’. She emerged from this divisive contest as an instant symbol of sexual and gender diversity, much as had the Israeli transsexual, Dana International, who won the contest in 1998.

The divisions performed by the Eurovision crowds are more than symbolic. Every year thousands of people are beaten, harassed, raped and even killed because of their real or perceived sexual or gender ‘deviations’. It is impossible to give accurate figures, as often the worst abuses are performed by the state, or at least ignored by authorities, as in the case of attacks on homosexuals by vigilante groups in Russia or the widespread ‘corrective rape’ of women perceived to be lesbian in South Africa.1

Sometimes abuses receive international attention, as in the case of David Kato, a prominent Ugandan gay activist who was murdered in 2011 shortly after winning a law suit against a local magazine which had identified him as gay and called for his execution. At his funeral activists grabbed the microphone to stop the Christian minister preaching against gays and lesbians. Over the next few years the Ugandan Parliament made various attempts to strengthen anti-homosexual legislation, which led to considerable US and European pressure on the Ugandan authorities. The film Born This Way (2013) shows the constant threats and persecution faced by homosexuals in Cameroon, a country which allegedly arrests more people for homosexuality than any other. A small group of activists have tried to build a movement there; some of them have now left, seeking asylum in countries where their lives will not be at risk. Like many women and men from Iran, Russia, Uganda and many other countries, they have discovered that to be open about one's sexual orientation, and even more often one's gender expression, is to face ongoing harassment, violence and even the possibility of being killed. Even in the most liberal of countries there is considerable violence and hatred directed at people who are seen as sexually and gender diverse.

We are writing this book in a time when one can point to huge gains in acceptance as well as major setbacks for the cause of gay rights, and sexual rights more generally. We seek to answer two questions: first, why, as homosexuality has become more visible globally, have reactions to sexual and gender diversity become so polarized? Both advocates for and opponents of sexual rights are passionate in their views, leading to a hardening of positions on both sides and the danger that arguments about sexual rights will be perceived as an inevitable cultural clash between western democracies and ‘the rest’, often countries struggling with colonial legacies or other forms of social disorder. Amid such polarization both sides lose sight of history; advocates tend to forget how recent are the advances in the west, while their opponents deny the long existence of various forms of sexual and gender diversity in their own cultures.

The book's second question is: what is to be done? As writers who believe passionately in the right of people to choose how they love and how they present themselves, we are equally concerned to think through how we can best achieve these rights globally. Over the past few years there has been a great deal of activity through international fora, as queer and human rights groups, increasingly with government support, have sought to address the situation of people often referred to as ‘sexual minorities’. The decision in June 2015 of the US Supreme Court to grant constitutional protection for same-sex marriages (in Obergefell v. Hodges) has meant renewed international attention to questions of sexual rights. That same week authorities in Istanbul unexpectedly clamped down violently on a gay pride parade, a sharp contrast to the rainbow lights that illuminated the White House. In September 2015 the United States and Chile organized the first (informal) discussion of LGBT human rights in the UN Security Council in response to reports of Islamic State (ISIS) killings of homosexuals. Seemingly in response, ISIS immediately publicized several more executions of homosexuals.

Writing from the privileged safety of a liberal-democratic state, we are aware that advocates of international change must be cautious in urging action upon others. We might advocate radical arguments within our own communities that we are simply not entitled to make in the international context where other people live with the consequences. Our conclusion – that western advocacy should focus on building an international consensus protecting sexual minorities from violence and persecution – may seem minimalist, but it stems from respect for pluralism and a concern for the safety of people facing real threats of violence and intimidation. While we should offer support and solidarity for activists internationally on terms that they request, and while we can hope that basic protections will create conditions for more radical social change, we do not believe it is productive to try to impose human rights protections or that we can be radical for other people.

Finally, a brief note on the terminology used in this book, except when we are quoting others. ‘Gay rights’ (which are usually understood to include women as well as men) and ‘LGBT rights’ have become widely used, even though they link ideas of universal human rights with specifically western identities. ‘LGBT’ stands for ‘lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans’; Australian usage adds ‘intersex’, but we are uneasy with the assumptions of specific identities underlying these terms. As Robert Lorway wrote of Namibia: ‘Local gender and sexual knowledge becomes repositioned as undifferentiated – that is, not fully recognized and in need of elevation to the more secure status of LGBT identities.’2 In contrast, most United Nations human rights documents refer to ‘sexual orientation and gender identity’ (SOGI) in order to recognize sexual diversity without prescribing specific identities, and at times we refer to ‘SOGI rights’ when discussing developments in international human rights practice. The term ‘sexual minorities’, which is sometimes used, assumes a common sense of identity and community that is only applicable to a relatively small number of people, while ‘queer rights’, which encompasses both homosexuality and gender expression, is more inclusive but overly academic. Further, while we recognize the problems of referring to ‘the west’, we use it as a convenient shorthand for grouping together the liberal democracies of Europe, North America and Australasia.

In reality, the goal of campaigns for ‘queer rights’ is the universal application of human rights, irrespective of sexual orientation or gender identity, and many have argued that this is better pursued through building protection for the ‘sexual freedoms and rights’ of all people. The very concept of ‘sexual rights’ was born from a feminist critique which rightly saw the subordination of women and the denial of the right to control their bodies as central to both social justice and genuine ‘development’. Gay rights cannot be conceptualized without reference to broader concerns for sexual rights and gender equality (including a recognition of diverse forms of gender expression), but the major focus of the book is on the peculiarities of the contemporary international debates about homosexuality, and the ways these have come to stand for broader debates about culture, tradition and human rights.

Notes

1

Strudwick, Patrick (2014) Crisis in South Africa: The shocking practice of ‘corrective rape’ – aimed at ‘curing’ lesbians.

Independent

4 January.

2

Lorway, Robert (2015)

Namibia's Rainbow Project

. Bloomington: Indiana University Press: 39.

OneSetting the agenda

It is tempting to see a new Cold War being played out around homosexuality. In 2014 the Winter Olympic Games took place at Sochi on the Russian Black Sea. The Games were carefully planned to enhance the reputation of Russia and its newly (re-)elected president, Vladimir Putin. But they followed the introduction of anti-homosexual-propaganda laws, disguised as protecting cultural values,1 which in turn led to calls for boycotts of both the Games and some of the major corporate sponsors.

No country refused to participate in the Sochi Games, but the United States made its attitude clear by not sending any high-ranking official, and naming a delegation headed by several openly lesbian and gay sporting figures, including tennis player Billie Jean King. Other major political leaders and most European royalty also refused to attend the opening ceremony, although the king and queen of the Netherlands, flanked by Britain's Princess Anne and members of the Monaquesque and Luxembourgeois royal families, were present. The Dutch decision was somewhat surprising, given the extent to which the country has been a leader in promoting gay rights, and came in for some criticism at home. Nor were attempted boycotts always successful; a seemingly spontaneous boycott of Stolichnaya vodka collapsed when it became clear that the vodka actually came from Latvia, not Russia. Following the Sochi Games the International Olympic Committee announced new rules for the selection of host cities, including a requirement of full non-discrimination, which have yet to be tested.

In the controversies over Sochi and Eurovision one could see cultural battles around gay rights attaining a new international prominence. Such a coordinated international campaign around gay rights in an authoritarian country is unprecedented, even if the protests around Sochi were essentially symbolic. But homosexuality is constantly in the news. In one random day as we started writing this book (30 August 2014) the local Australian press carried stories about the first openly gay member of the Chilean navy, and commentary on same-sex marriage, alongside stories about the brutal lashings of a Saudi man caught using his Twitter account to arrange dates with other men. Not only do these stories point to the role of the state in regulating sexuality, they also underline the extent to which both public attitudes and state control appear to be moving in different directions in different parts of the world.

During the Cold War one of the few things on which both Soviets and the United States could agree was that homosexuality was a dangerous perversion. Indeed both countries saw an increasing fear and rejection around homosexuality in the 1950s, following a brief period after the Russian Revolution when the Soviets seemed to pursue greater tolerance, and the greater sexual freedoms that emerged in the United States after World War II. By the 1970s the social and cultural changes which are loosely associated with ‘the sixties’ had begun to challenge the dominant assumptions in most western countries that homosexuality was an illness, a sickness or a deviance. The Soviet Union was far slower to move in this direction, and although small gay movements emerged in a few non-western countries, homosexuality, indeed any deviation from ‘traditional’ assumptions about sexuality and gender, remained heavily stigmatized. While there have been huge shifts in general views of sexuality in the United States this century – epitomized in increasing support for same-sex marriage – the Putin regime has drawn on both the Stalinist and Orthodox traditions to increase persecution of people on the basis of their homosexuality.

After the re-election of both President Obama and President Putin (the latter after an obligatory period as prime minister) homosexuality emerged as a possible theme of a cultural Cold War. Both governments used queer rights as a weapon to mobilize international opinion, Obama using the language of human rights as against Putin's invocation of traditional cultural values. In the Russian rhetoric directed at Ukraine during the conflicts of 2014 there was a consistent strain of defending ‘tradition’ against the homosexual degeneracy of the European Union.

In October 2014, the Economist magazine, which is an extremely influential mouthpiece of liberal thought, published a cover story titled ‘The Gay Divide’. The lead article described change in attitudes to homosexuality, particularly in the west, Latin America and China, as ‘one of the wonders of the world’. Just why these changes have occurred so rapidly is a product of a number of factors, including the development of far greater gender equity, affluence and new understandings of human rights. These changes have not occurred without some backlash, as in various legislative proposals in the United States in reaction to growing support for same-sex marriage that seek to allow businesses to refuse services to ‘LGBT people’ in the name of religious freedom.

Yet the Economist also pointed to a growing global divide, in which homosexual behaviour was illegal in seventy-eight countries and punishable by death in about eight. While countries in Europe and the Americas have moved towards including sexuality in anti-discrimination legislation and legalizing same-sex marriage, other parts of the world have seen a dramatic increase in state-sanctioned homophobia. Legislation aimed at further restricting homosexual activity, often under the guise of protecting traditional values and families, has been introduced in a number of countries, and there are reports of increased violence against both homosexuals and trans* people, including rape, murder and torture. (The term ‘trans*’ refers to the full diversity of transgender, non-binary and gender non-conforming identities.)

The Economist story concluded that ‘[f]or those who cling to the notion of progress, it is hard to believe that tolerance will not spread’. But progress is never inevitable, and there are many parts of the contemporary world where there appears to be a retreat from notions of individual freedoms and human rights in favour of extreme religiosity or state authoritarianism. Most authoritarian regimes target sexually and gender diverse people, or, at best, refuse to protect them against abuse, although this seems least apparent in the countries of east Asia. The increased salience of sexuality means that LGBT rights are increasingly targeted by authoritarian governments for symbolic purposes, as in the crackdown on Istanbul's pride march in 2015.

One might question the Economist's claim that China's acceptance of homosexuality is a ‘wonder of the world’, although there have undoubtedly been major shifts since the sexually repressive period of the Cultural Revolution, when homosexuality was officially regarded as a mental illness and a species of ‘hooliganism’. Certainly the growth of affluence and urbanization has made it possible for some men, and fewer women, to live more openly as homosexual, and a new identity emerged, sometimes called tongzhi, a term which links traditional concepts of sexual and gender non-conformity to a global queer identity.2