Challenging heterosexuality and nationalism through queerness.

As summer turns into autumn and winter the giddy joy that came with the season grows dim. This summer we celebrated Pride as usual. For the most part the festival is in accessible to me due to the cost. The other factor is that the festival does not speak much to me. Commercialism combined with a touristy feel make the event seem like one big giant party.

As a few LGBTQ friends and I walked past Manchester’s gay village on Pride Saturday and Sunday one of them remarked at the glut of rainbow flags in town in the shops of big business. Pride she claimed had lost the plot. I agree with her. It is wonderful that big businesses is supportive of the LGBTQ community but are they really? In a world where big business has taken over smaller business, exploits its workers a mere rainbow flag does not remedy the exploitation. As a black lesbian my friend saw the precarious peace she occupies in a homo-nationalist celebration.  Now that LGBTQ people are protected by the law of the land institutions that were once known (and still are) for their homophobia have jumped on a similar bandwagon.

Perhaps the most ironic one of these institutions was the Home Office and its support for LGBTQ people. For over a week now I have seen rather disturbing news of a young gay Ugandan friend being deported back to his country. This is not an isolated case, another friend I admire is in a similar situation for over a year. She is Nigerian and not lesbian enough. I am not comforted by the fact that the Home Office employs LGBTQ people. Both these people are Christian and members of the LGBTQ community. I mention their religion, as this is almost always a reason quoted by people of the faith and not to bash Africans and to justify the superiority of Britain. In more liberal Christian circles being tolerant of LGBTQ people is a sign of changing times in the nation, homophobia and transphobia is an African problem relegated to that continent alone. To non-Christians homophobia and transphobia in the global south is due to being trapped in religion and culture. Then of course there are cultural Christians to whom Christianity is an identity which is white and European. While the continent of Africa has some nations that have re criminalised homosexuality this takes on a nationalistic fervour. Homosexuality is imagined to be a western import corrupting the youth distancing them from good family values. Heteronormativity is invoked family is imagined to be a perfect situation where men and women marry in a lavish ceremony and produce the right amount of children. These ideas aren’t left unchallenged feminists and LGBTQ groups in these regions do challenge this idea. While Western Europe is imagined to be a safe haven for the community the rest of the world is thought of as backward lagging behind in social progress it does not have the same magnanimity to accept some of its citizens.

Intersectionality is lost in these debates, LGBTQ identity is thought of as the preserve of white lesbian and gay people (the the b’s, t’s and q’s don’t make it in this fantasy). That one can be non-white, LGBTQ, religious, disabled….. is never considered. White LGBTQ groups are notorious for their racism. The village in Manchester is perfect example of this which is very selective in its demographic. People of colour are not participants in this community only cab drivers and kebab makers, on the periphery. LGBTQ people are conceptualised through a homo-nationalistic lens, white, gay male and middle class, who then occupy the majority position in public forums. Terms like pink pound explain this situation perfectly. Revolutionary fervour and the precarious position the community occupies are lost in this celebration. It is wonderful that some sections of the community are in influential positions and have it easier than others however that sections acceptance has meant that homophbia and transphobia are thought of as a thing of the past, it happens everywhere else but here.

There is another way of looking at queerness and nationalism and that is through a black lesbian feminist perspective. Gloria Anzaldúa suggests another way that reaches out across national boundaries.

As a mestiza I have no country, my homeland cast me out; yet all countries are mine because I am every woman’s sister or potential lover. (As a lesbian I have no race, my own people disclaim me; but I am all races because there is the queer of me in all races.) I am cultureless, because as a feminist, I challenge the collective cultural/religious male derived beliefs of Indo-Hispanics and Anglos; yet I am cultured because I am participating in the creation of yet another culture, a new story to explain the world and out participation in it, a new value system with images and symbols that connect us to each other and to the planet.  Page 102- 103 Anzaldúa

In an era where nationalism is becoming a universal feature of all nations challenging notions of nationhood and homo-nationalism are pressing issues. Culture must be deconstructed.

Reference:

Anzaldúa, G. (1999) Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza . 2^nd edition. Aunt Lute Books. San Francisco

Queering Nationalism and nationalising the queer- An observation from Political Pride Manchester

The last weekend was busy Manchester Pride and Political Pride were both running at the same time not to mention the numerous events around the city. It is lovely to see everyone making the most of the last of summer.

While Manchester Pride was the centre of the city Political Pride was more restrained and certainly focused on the LGBTQIA community. A month before Manchester Pride shops had rainbow flags everywhere. The very same organisations that have have been pulled up in recent years for mistreatment of workers of all sexualities. This alignment with a fringe movement would seem contradictory but it is not. As one friend remarked Pride has become a family event full of rainbows where you can take your children to wave at gay people who will wave back. We have forgotten how this is a same community that was going to unleash the destruction of the family and morality. Rainbows are bright, cheerful and non-threatening. You can pick up a bag of British carrots and potatoes in a shop full of rainbow flags.

This is where the change lies the community that was once dangerous has now been domesticated. It has been given the same moral institutions that heterosexual individuals are expected to enter into- marriage. Marriage is the one institution that carries with it not only a gendered patriarchal expectation but also a nationalistic one. Gay weddings are not only good for business but also good for the national image. Gay marriage is now seen as one of the last bastions of liberation. It plays on the idea that by offering the LGBTQIA community the same ‘privileges’ as heterosexual couples equality has been achieved. It plays into the idea it is so much better out here than anywhere else where gay people are murdered.

The problem with this comparison is that it puts across a crude idea of queer liberation through the framework of national identity. Isn’t that how the right plays the immigration debate, eroding British values, their liberalism interfering with our liberal society. Needless to say we won’t be seeing a black liberation march meet such acceptance anytime soon. Pride events have come to pit one issue against another. Homosexuality is pitted against race and immigration. The apparent liberation of the LGBTQIA community is seen as a benchmark of civilisation. Is it any surprise then that this argument is used in the LGBTQIA community. In the few years I have lived here I have been told to be grateful, or asked why my country or community are homophobic. Some even going as far to say well black people have been through so much why are they so homophobic? Then of course is the other side of this propaganda black people and immigrants have it so good however being LGBTQIA is still looked down upon.

Queerness has acquired nationality in its fight for liberation. It is both a mark of liberation and national degradation. However this is not an idea that is alien to nationalism. Anne McClintock claims that all nationalisms are gendered and dangerous. Taking this argument forward it would be appropriate to say nationalism is gendered and heterosexual. Since the link between women as reproducers of culture symbolically and literally signifies the strength of the nation its obvious sexuality must also be mentioned. Given the strong connection family plays in nationalism is it any surprise that heterosexual women who fail in this expectation are immediately classified as lesbians. Similar fears exist around feminists of all sexualities whose claims are often thought of as damaging family life.  

While Britain is going through a phase where gay rights are more accepted the same cannot be said for other nations that have recriminalised homosexuality. I will stress on the word recriminalised here because it is often imagined that the history of homosexuality in the global south has been a monolith since Independence.  Recriminalising homosexuality has much to do with nationalism, as it has to do with the resurgence of religious and political extremism. Take for example Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code  which became an issue in the general election of 2014. Both sides of the debate focused very little on the present but went back to the glorious past. The liberal side arguing that our history has had a liberal interpretation of sexual identity which has only just been destroyed through colonisation. The counter argument that is put forward is that Indian values have been eroded in the recent colonial past and sexual morality must be restored. Both sides harp on the past and both do little for the LGBTQIA community in the present.

It is the liberal side of the argument that is picked up by LGBTQIA activists in the west Britain included. While the role of colonialism cannot be negated to insist that the former colonial subject is still reeling under cultural trauma denies agency and panders to homophobia. Recriminalising homosexuality in this moment of time comes as no surprise, at a time when censorship and violent opposition to anything perceived as non-Indian exist homosexuality is one of the many casualties.

History is used as a political tool to justify social exclusion. Indian history in particular has a way of making inroads into political, scientific, cultural discussion. We are both a liberal and conservative nation at the same time when it suits us. Nationality plays a role in how we view all kinds of issues. What I mean by this is that history is invoked to justify the problems of the present. Take for instance the homosexuality debate where a few random moments and exceptions in history are used as an argument. Invoking history does little for a community that lives precariously on the margins. However it is not all bad as there is still space for gay marriage in India, while homosexual activity is criminalised the law does not ban gay marriages, loophole that came under scrutiny in recent months. As in the west this was met with exhilaration, however it was short lived.  The gentleman in question and his mother put out a matrimonial advert which like the millions of adverts in Indian newspapers demanded ‘a boy of an upper caste background’.  As in the west this did not challenge the status quo but affirmed it.

The most exhilarating thing queerness can do in light of these changes is to queer gendered heterosexualised notions of the society it lives in. While it is wonderful that the law now accepts gay marriage it should not turn into the end of the discussion.  Queerness at the heart of it has the potential to challenge troubling ideas of nationality, gender, sexuality, race and class.

Not trans enough’ how the standard trans gender model gives in to cisgenderism

Here is an abstract of a paper that will be presented at manchester Sparkle and at the Psychology of Women's Section Conference. 

This paper challenges notions of what makes a good transgender person. In recent years the community has turned to more cisnormative ideals of gender to gain acceptance and often remain safe. The critique is not of specific people but how the transgender community is subjected to sexism, transphobia which is internalised and manifested in various ways.

This paper is going to be presented at the Psychology of Women's Conference. Here is a link to the program.

This is the abstract 

Not trans enough’ how the standard trans gender model gives in to cisgenderism – Pauline Sometimes and Sonia Soans

Abstract –

Amongst the LGBTQI community there are narratives of the ‘good trans’ person which alienate parts of the community that fail to identify according to the binary model of gender. Standard narratives about gender identity include transition from birth assigned gender and eventual hormone therapy and/or surgery. It is assumed that there is a strong desire to pass in cisgender society

Non-binary and bigendered individuals are often seen as confused and insufficiently transgender. Traditionalist views of what it entails to be transgender divides a community that is marginalised and creates a scramble for power and identification with ones oppressors. Attempting to restrict the transgender spectrum within a binary model imposed by cisgender society marginalises and excludes the most vulnerable members of society. Methodology is based upon lived experience of one of the co-authors supplemented with information published by transgender support organisations and social media postings by transgender, bigender and non-binary individuals.

Keywords: Transgender, Bigender, ‘oppositional sexism’

A free and open talk based on this paper will be given at Manchester Sparkle. For details consult the poster below 

I am your sister - Audre Lorde

I am tired of hearing about the gay agenda. I am tired of hearing about the LGBT community taking over the world. I am tired of hearing how they will spoil our children. The truth is heterosexuality breeds a certain notion of gender and violence to enforce gender.

You  can find this brilliant essay here Lorde, A. (1985). I am your sister: Black women organizing across sexualities (Vol. 3). Kitchen Table/Women of Color Press

The insecurities of men

‘Here take some hand cream’ I said to a male friend who sat next to me working. His hands were chapped badly and they looked painful. He looked at me with great disdain and said ‘I can’t use that I am not a woman’. To be honest I did expect that reaction. A lot of heterosexual cisgender men have a deep fear of loosing their masculinity. This is expressed in pathology, anger, violence and policing. Anger and violence is directed towards people who don’t conform to their masculine ideals, women, LGBT people, disabled people and even other men. Sometimes this fear leads to pathology, take for example Dhat Syndrome a condition that is characterised by a male patient feeling physical symptoms due to loss of semen.

Masculinity is not an unchanging state it is time and culture bound. What constitutes masculinity has undergone significant shifts in my lifetime and will keep changing. It is not the traits that matter it, some of them are decided upon in an arbitrary manner sometimes they are carefully chosen. Take for example the wearing of lace is now taboo for men, look at paintings from three centuries ago men wore lace. Lace is neither male or female but we have come attribute its use on clothing as exclusively female. Men who give into feminine styles of dressing are taunted for their choices, thought of as gay or even worse becoming women. I was chatting to a transgender friend about this today of how men think putting on anything belonging to female will make them female. As someone who is in the process of transitioning she knows there is more to gender than putting on clothing. Julia Serano argues there is a deep psychic gender identity within us the outward transition only confirming what was known to an individual all along. When cisgender men react with disgust and fear of putting on female clothes and makeup they reduce a transgender persons identity to an issue of fashion. That disgust is also degrading to cisgender women who are taught they are not worthy of respect. To quote Madonna

Girls can wear jeans

And cut their hair short

Wear shirts and boots

'Cause it's OK to be a boy

But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading

‘Cause you think that being a girl is degrading’- What It Feels Like For A Girl

Male insecurity is a massive problem as it transcends into patriarchal hegemony. Gender and sexuality are constructed to pander around these insecurities. Patriarchal powers reside in each one of us irrespective of gender and sexuality. Patriarchy is enacted in how we react to gender transgressions, through conformity. A particular quote by Gloria Gloria E. Anzaldúa springs to mind. 

Culture forms out beliefs. We perceive the version of reality that it communicates. Dominant paradigms, predefined concepts that exist as unquestionable, unchallengeable, are transmitted to us through the culture. Culture is made by those in power- man. Males make the rules and laws; women transmit them. How many times have I heard mothers and mothers-in-law tell their sons to beat their wives for not obeying them, for being hocicomas (big mouths), for being callajeras (going to visit and gossip with neighbours, for expecting their husbands to help with the rearing of children and the housework, for wanting to be something other than housewives?   

Anzaldúa’s example is familiar to all, sums up how power and fear collude and feed off each other.  Notice how she explains how patriarchy operates through both men and women. It is easy to see power operating in an obvious example such as that however as Foucault would argue power is most dangerous when it is not operated by a single individual but by the errant subjects on themselves. Women who want to look thin for their men are part of that politic whereby the power is wielded by an invisible authority figure. So while patriarchy is not all men it is still powerful enough to police our behaviour. It is the little voice that tells us how to think and how to behave.

Think of all the times you have seen examples you have encountered of manliness chances are it is based on insecurity, a false bravado and nationalism. Look at its victims it they are women, LGBT people, disabled people and anyone else who does conform.