Bad Attitude/s on Trial

Bad Attitude/s on Trial presents a critical analysis of pornography in the context of contemporary Canada, \u27 with a particular focus on the impact of the Supreme Court of Canada\u27s decision in R. v. Butler,2 and its reformulation of the basis of obscenity law. The book is co-written by four Canadian academics: Brenda Cossman, Shannon Bell, Lise Gotell, and Becki L. Ross. Each has contributed a separate section of the book, along with an introduction by Cossman and Bell. The result is a vital, theoretically sophisticated addition to the literature on pornography; a vivid documentation of the impact of obscenity law on the lives of lesbians, gay men, and others in Canada; and a scathing and powerful indictment of the complicity of anti-pornography feminists in the maintenance of the heteronormative moral order

A Postmodern Constitutionalism: Equality Rights, Identity Politics, and the Canadian National Imagination

In the 1990s, identity has become the centrepiece of theoretical work in a variety of disciplines. We now know that, in the conditions of late modem (or postmodem) society, identity is complex-it is fragmented, intersected, subject to alteration, socially constructed and it exhibits only a partial fixity at any moment. Most important, identities are to be valued, respected, and understood on their own terms. However, we also have relearned (if we ever forgot) that identities can be dangerous and fatal, especially when they coalesce in the form of nationalism. In this article, I will explore the intersection of nationalism and identity in the Canadian context and will use as an example to explore these broad issues, the constitutional recognition of sexual orientation as a prohibited ground of discrimination

Gendered nationalism : the gender gap in support for the Scottish National Party

Recent major surveys of the Scottish electorate and of Scottish National Party (SNP) members have revealed a distinct gender gap in support for the party. Men are markedly more likely than women to vote for the SNP and they comprise more than two-thirds of its membership. In this article, we use data from those surveys to test various possible explanations for the disproportionately male support for the SNP. While popular accounts have focused on the gendered appeal of recent leaders and on the party’s fluctuating efforts at achieving gender equality in its parliamentary representation, we find much stronger support for a different explanation. Women are less inclined to support and to join the SNP because they are markedly less supportive of its central objective of independence for Scotland. Since men and women barely differ in their reported national identities, the origins of this gender gap in support for independence presents a puzzle for further research

The litmus test of pride: analysing the emergence of the Belgrade “Ghost” pride in the context of EU accession

The transformation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights into a “standard for civilisation” has not been without consequences. With LGBT Pride parades becoming a symbol for Europeanness in the European Union (EU) accession process, this article asks how the litmus test character of Belgrade Pride has transformed LGBT politics in Serbia. Empirically, the analysis provides an in-depth analysis of how Serbia’s EU accession process has shaped the politics of Belgrade Pride between 2001 and 2015 and vice versa. It is argued that the international symbolic usage of Pride is no innocent practice as it has foreclosed its local politicality. Indeed, whilst Belgrade Pride became politicised as a litmus test in the EU accession process, domestically it developed into an apolitical ritualised event devoid of LGBT politics

Unknowable bodies, unthinkable sexualities: lesbian and transgender legal invisibility in the Toronto women's bathhouse raid

Although litigation involving sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination claims has generated considerable public attention in recent years, lesbian and transgender bodies and sexualities still remain largely invisible in Anglo-American courts. While such invisibility is generally attributed to social norms that fail to recognize lesbian and transgender experiences, the capacity to 'not see' or 'not know' queer bodies and sexualities also involves wilful acts of ignorance. Drawing from R. v Hornick (2002) a Canadian case involving the police raid of a women's bathhouse, this article explores how lesbian and transgender bodies and sexualities are actively rendered invisible via legal knowledge practices, norms and rationalities. It argues that limited knowledge and limited thinking not only regulate the borders of visibility and belonging, but play an active part in shaping identities, governing conduct and producing subjectivity

Homosexuality, politics and Pentecostal nationalism in Zambia

Building upon debates about the politics of nationalism and sexuality in post-colonial Africa, this article highlights the role of religion in shaping nationalist ideologies that seek to regulate homosexuality. It specifically focuses on Pentecostal Christianity in Zambia, where the constitutional declaration of Zambia as a Christian nation has given rise to a form of ‘Pentecostal nationalism’ in which homosexuality is considered to be a threat to the purity of the nation and is associated with the Devil. The article offers an analysis of recent Zambian public debates about homosexuality, focusing on the ways in which the ‘Christian nation’ argument is deployed, primarily in a discourse of anti-homonationalism, but also by a few recent dissident voices. The latter prevent Zambia, and Christianity, from accruing a monolithic depiction as homophobic. Showing that the Zambian case presents a mobilisation against homosexuality that is profoundly shaped by the local configuration in which Christianity defines national identity – and in which Pentecostal-Christian moral concerns and theo-political imaginations shape public debates and politics – the article nuances arguments that explain African controversies regarding homosexuality in terms of exported American culture wars, proposing an alternative reading of these controversies as emerging from conflicting visions of modernity in Africa

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’

Rethinking Legal Methods after Brexit

This article provides a critical, personal appraisal of attempts at designing an introductory Legal Methods module, from the perspective of Brexit. Focusing on the author’s own “cases and materials” collection, it interrogates how, rather than challenging a number of paradigms which subsequently dominated Brexit discourses, it unwittingly reproduced them. The second part of the article seeks to respond by suggesting various ways in which a Legal Methods module might introduce students to legal analysis through the example of Brexit itself