Are gay rights Islamophobic? A critique of some uses of the concept of homonationalism in activism and academia

The concept of ‘homonationalism’ refers to deployments of gay rights for racist and Islamophobic ends, resulting in the consolidation of more sexually inclusive, but racially exclusionary, ideas of citizenship. This article critiques some of the analyses that the concept has inspired in both activist and academic contexts. The critique concentrates on two texts, showing that they make inappropriate rhetorical moves and inaccurate or unsubstantiated claims, and that rather than unearthing structural undercurrents of racism from certain texts or events, they project such structures onto them. While the validity of ‘homonationalism’ as an analytical category is not disputed, some of its propounders assume its explanatory power to be greater than it appears to be. The implications of this critique for gay rights activism and reform are explored.

It's not queer to be gay: Miami and the emergence of the gay rights movement, 1945–1995

This work chronicles how queer individuals politicized their same-sex desires from the post-World War II era to the mid-1990s. Using Miami as a site of exploration, this work demonstrates the shift from understanding homosexuality as a same-sex "desire" to a distinct form of "civil rights." It argues that by no means was it inevitable that queer issues entered the American political mainstream. This project pays particular attention to Miami's Cuban exile community, as it managed to garner great socio-political power in the city. Like others in the city's power structure, Miami's Cuban exiles were also fundamentally traditionalists. Together, these phenomena crystallized into a matrix of obstacles that stunted the growth of the gay rights movement. This work demonstrates the historical dynamics of sexuality and politics by contextualizing immigration, ethnicity, race, consumerism, and Cold War domestic and foreign policy.

Betty Friedan's speech in support of Gay Rights at the International Women's Year conference

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Anita Bryant after Dade County voters defeated the Gay Rights Bill

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Demonstration to pass gay rights bill Intro 554 at St. Patrick's Cathedral

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Bruce Voeller (N.G.T.F.) and children at Albany demonstration for gay rights

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Lesbian mothers attend gay rights demonstration in Washington, D.C.

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane. Digital reproduction

Mathew Troy city councilman against gay rights

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Queering Apartheid: The National Party’s 1987 ‘Gay Rights’ Election Campaign in Hillbrow

This article investigates the anomaly in apartheid history of the ruling National Party's (NP) fielding a ‘pro-gay rights’ candidate in the Hillbrow constituency during the 1987 whites-only election in South Africa. The NP was aided in its Hillbrow campaign by the gay magazine Exit, which encouraged its readership to ‘vote gay’ in the election and published a list of candidates who were favourable to gay rights in South Africa. The Hillbrow campaign is intelligible when the intersections between race and sexuality are analysed and the discourses wielded by the NP and Exit are spatially and historically situated. The Hillbrow/Exit gay rights campaign articulated discourses about the reform of apartheid in white self-interest and conflated white minority and gay minority rights, thereby contributing to the NP's justification for apartheid. The NP candidate's defeat of the incumbent Progressive Federal Party (PFP) MP for Hillbrow, Alf Widman, was trumpeted by Exit as a powerful victory and advance for gay rights in South Africa, but the result provoked a sharp backlash among many white gay men and lesbian women who organised to openly identify with the liberation movement. The Exit/Hillbrow campaign problematises the singular assumptions that are often made about race and sexuality in apartheid South Africa, and illustrates how political, social and economic crisis can provoke reconfigurations of identities vis-à-vis the status quo.

Ethnonationalism and Attitudes Towards Gay and Lesbian Rights in Northern Ireland

Peer reviewed

Ethnonationalism and Attitudes Towards Gay and Lesbian Rights in Northern Ireland

Peer reviewed

Kate Millett at Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights March

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Jean O'Leary at Gay Civil rights hearing Intro 384

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.