Here Versus There: Creating British Sexual Politics Elsewhere

This reflection draws upon two recent ‘moments’ in British sexuality politics—a series of Parliamentary debates on Global LGBT rights and Brighton Pride’s campaign to ‘Highlight Global LGBT Communities’. It contrasts these two moments in order to demonstrate how, at a time when LGBT rights have ostensibly been ‘won’ in the UK, there is an increasing tendency to shift focus to the persecution of SOGI minorities elsewhere in the world. This shift in focus sets up a binary of here versus there that is politically persuasive but ultimately limited and limiting. By reflecting on the way that this growing trend of creating sexual politics elsewhere occurs in two very different locations in British politics and activism, we seek to begin a conversation about the relational affects of placing sexual politics ‘elsewhere’

Queering Brexit: what’s in Brexit for sexual and gender minorities?

On 24 June 2016, many people had the feeling that they had gone to bed the night before in the United Kingdom and had woken up in Little Britain – a country prone to isolationism and protectionism, risking hurting its economic and social development for the sake of imperial nostalgia and moral panic about ‘loss of sovereignty’ and ‘mass migration’. That feeling inevitably affected many individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, queer and other (LGBTIQ+). Although the possible impact of Brexit seems to have been scrutinised from most angles, there has been limited analysis of how it may affect LGBTIQ+ individuals. This contribution assesses Brexit in relation to the situation of LGBTIQ+ individuals. This is particularly timely in the light of the recent UK Supreme Court decision in Walker v Innospec Limited, where the Court relied on European Union (EU) law to hold a provision of the Equality Act 2010 unlawful for violating pension rights of same-sex couples

Gay Rights, the Devil and the End Times: Public Religion and the Enchantment of the Homosexuality Debate in Zambia

This article contributes to the understanding of the role of religion in the public and political controversies about homosexuality in Africa. As a case study it investigates the heated public debate in Zambia following a February 2012 visit by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who emphasised the need for the country to recognise the human rights of homosexuals. The focus is on a particular Christian discourse in this debate, in which the international pressure to recognise gay rights is considered a sign of the end times, and Ban Ki-moon, the UN and other international organisations are associated with the Antichrist and the Devil. Here, the debate about homosexuality becomes eschatologically enchanted through millennialist thought. Building on discussions about public religion and religion and politics in Africa, this article avoids popular explanations in terms of fundamentalist religion and African homophobia, but rather highlights the political significance of this discourse in a postcolonial African context

Repensar els estudis catalans des de la teoria queer

Catalan Studies are basically focused on national/linguistic identity, but recent debate on Catalan identity triggered by the current pro-independent process in Catalonia, may help reshape this academic field. A more diverse approach to Catalan culture should consider sexuality, which has traditionally been banished from literary analysis as a ‘private’ matter. Here, we discussed how queer theory can reframe Catalan Studies mainly by building a specific LGBT literary tradition, identifying queer episodes and characters in the canon, questioning received meanings, promoting interdisciplinary analysis of Catalan culture and exploring the role of queer subjectivity in history

Homonationalism as Assemblage: viral travels, affective sexualities

Neste artigo irei contextualizar o aumento do número de movimentos de gays e lésbicas no âmbito dos debates sobre os discursos dos direitos e da temática dos direitos, que é seguramente o mais forte afrodisíaco do liberalismo. Analiso o modo como a sexualidade se tornou parte de uma formação essencial na articulação de cidadãos plenos através dos vários registos, como género, classe e etnia, quer nacional, quer transnacionalmente. Este estudo posiciona claramente o homonacionalismo como categoria analítica necessária à compreensão e conceção histórica dos motivos pelos quais o estado de uma nação como simpatizante gay se tornou desejável à partida. Como a Modernidade, o homonacionalismo pode ser objeto de resistência e de resignificação, mas não pode ser excluído: todos somos condicionados por ele e através dele. O artigo encontra-se estruturado em três secções. Começo por apresentar uma panorâmica do projeto Terrorist Assemblages, prestando atenção, em particular, à utilização do termo “homonacionalismo”. Em segundo lugar, discuto o homonacionalismo no contexto da Palestina/Israel, com o objetivo de demonstrar a relevância dos discursos sobre direitos sexuais e da narrativa de “lavagem cor-de-rosa” para a ocupação. Termino com uma reflexão acerca do potencial inerente ao pensamento da sexualidade, não como uma identidade, mas como mosaicos de sensações, afetos e forças. Esta viralidade da sexualidade destabiliza produtivamente as noções humanistas dos sujeitos da sexualidade, assim como a organização política que procura resistir aos discursos jurídicos instituídos com o objetivo de nomear e controlar estes sujeitos de sexualidade.In this article I aim to contextualise the rise of gay and lesbian movements within the purview of debates about rights discourses and the rights-based subject, arguably the most potent aphrodisiac of liberalism. I examine how sexuality has become a crucial formation in the articulation of proper citizens across registers like gender, class, and race, both nationally and transnationally. The essay clarifies homonationalism as an analytic category necessary for understanding and historicising why a nation’s status as “gay-friendly” has become desirable in the first place. Like modernity, homonationalism can be resisted and resignified, but not opted out of: we are all conditioned by it and through it. The article proceeds in three sections. I begin with an overview of the project of Terrorist Assemblages, with specific attention to the circulation of the term ‘homonationalism’. Second, I will elaborate on homonationalism in the context of Palestine/Israel to demonstrate the relevance of sexual rights discourses and the narrative of ‘pinkwashing’ to the occupation. I will conclude with some rumination about the potential of thinking sexuality not as an identity, but as assemblages of sensations, affects, and forces. This virality of sexuality productively destabilises humanist notions of the subjects of sexuality but also the political organising seeking to resist legal discourses that attempt to name and control these subjects of sexuality

“Homocapitalism”: analytical precursors and future directions

This is an original manuscript / preprint of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International Feminist Journal of Politics on 07 Jan 2021, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2020.1860692