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Queer nationalism is a phenomenon related both to the gay and lesbian liberation movement and nationalism. Adherents of this movement support the notion that the LGBT community forms a distinct people due to their unique culture and customs.
The homophobic aspect of many cultures has led to increasing frustration and a wish to separate from a perceived hostile heterosexual majority. [1] These feelings found their expression in 1990 with the establishment of Queer Nation, a radical organization best known for its slogan "We're here. We're queer. Get used to it". [2]
In 1969, gay activist Don Jackson from California proposed to take over Alpine County, California—a project also known as Stonewall Nation. [3]
The first attempt to make territorial claims was made in 2004 by a group of Australian gay activists who declared the tiny islands of Cato Reef to be the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands and Dale Parker Anderson to be the Emperor. Following the 2005 disagreements within the group, the Gay and Lesbian Commonwealth Kingdom and Unified Gay Tribe have cancelled their affiliation to Anderson. Some other groups with similar causes exist, e.g. the Gay Homeland Foundation [4] and a micronation called Gay Parallel Republic.[ citation needed ]
In 2007, Garrett Graham published a plan and constitution for a gay state, [5] connected to Theodor Herzl's Jewish state ("Herzl's words, messages and concepts live on in ... The Gay State"). [6]
The gay rights activist group the Pink Panthers Movement (PPM) in Denver, Colorado, as well as their charters/chapters throughout the United States, including a large group located in Fresno, California, have identified themselves not only as radical and militant but also as queer nationalists.[ citation needed ] These formed several small parties throughout the United States and Canada that stand in solidarity only to those that identify as supporters of the old Queer Nation. [ citation needed ]
An advanced analysis was published 1996 by Brian Walker. [7] In his article "Social Movements as Nationalisms, or, On the Very Idea of a Queer Nation", Walker points out that several features of the nationalistic creation of cultural identity apply to the LGBT national movement as well. Walker classifies queer nationalism as one of the new cultural forms of nationalism which are distinct from the old ethnic and religious types of nationalism and concludes that the gay and lesbian community fulfils many criteria to be regarded as a people for the following reasons:
Walker regards modern communication technologies such as the Internet as offering a chance for the LGBT community to further integrate as a non-territorial nation.
This thesis is supported by Paul Treanor, who considers an alternative (non-nationalist) world order possible. In this context, Treanor mentions the LGBT community as a "non-territorial nationalist movement". [8]
Will Kymlicka acknowledges that LGBT people have developed a group identity and group culture similar to those of ethnocultural groups, but he argues in favor of integration instead of separatism. [9]
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBT people in society. Although there is not a primary or an overarching central organization that represents all LGBT people and their interests, numerous LGBT rights organizations are active worldwide. The first organization to promote LGBT rights was the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, founded in 1897 in Berlin.
Queer is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or are not cisgender. Originally meaning 'strange' or 'peculiar', queer came to be used pejoratively against LGBT people in the late 19th century. Beginning in the late 1980s, queer activists, such as the members of Queer Nation, began to reclaim the word as a deliberately provocative and politically radical alternative to the more assimilationist branches of the LGBT community.
Sexuality and gender identity-based cultures are subcultures and communities composed of people who have shared experiences, backgrounds, or interests due to common sexual or gender identities. Among the first to argue that members of sexual minorities can also constitute cultural minorities were Adolf Brand, Magnus Hirschfeld, and Leontine Sagan in Germany. These pioneers were later followed by the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis in the United States.
The LGBT community is a loosely defined grouping of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals united by a common culture and social movements. These communities generally celebrate pride, diversity, individuality, and sexuality. LGBT activists and sociologists see LGBT community-building as a counterweight to heterosexism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, sexualism, and conformist pressures that exist in the larger society. The term pride or sometimes gay pride expresses the LGBT community's identity and collective strength; pride parades provide both a prime example of the use and a demonstration of the general meaning of the term. The LGBT community is diverse in political affiliation. Not all people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender consider themselves part of the LGBT community.
Separatism is the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental, or gender separation from the larger group. As with secession, separatism conventionally refers to full political separation. Groups simply seeking greater autonomy are usually not considered separatists. Some discourse settings equate separatism with religious segregation, racial segregation, or sex segregation, while other discourse settings take the broader view that separation by choice may serve useful purposes and is not the same as government-enforced segregation. There is some academic debate about this definition, and in particular how it relates to secessionism, as has been discussed online.
Identity politics is politics based on a particular identity, such as race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, caste, and social class. The term could also encompass other social phenomena which are not commonly understood as exemplifying identity politics, such as governmental migration policy that regulates mobility based on identities, or far-right nationalist agendas of exclusion of national or ethnic others. For this reason, Kurzwelly, Pérez and Spiegel, who discuss several possible definitions of the term, argue that it is an analytically imprecise concept.
Lesbian feminism is a cultural movement and critical perspective that encourages women to focus their efforts, attentions, relationships, and activities towards their fellow women rather than men, and often advocates lesbianism as the logical result of feminism. Lesbian feminism was most influential in the 1970s and early 1980s, primarily in North America and Western Europe, but began in the late 1960s and arose out of dissatisfaction with the New Left, the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, sexism within the gay liberation movement, and homophobia within popular women's movements at the time. Many of the supporters of Lesbianism were actually women involved in gay liberation who were tired of the sexism and centering of gay men within the community and lesbian women in the mainstream women's movement who were tired of the homophobia involved in it.
William Kymlicka is a Canadian political philosopher best known for his work on multiculturalism and animal ethics. He is currently Professor of Philosophy and Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen's University at Kingston, and Recurrent Visiting professor in the Nationalism Studies program at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. For over 20 years, he has lived a vegan lifestyle, and he is married to the Canadian author and animal rights activist Sue Donaldson.
LGBT culture is a culture shared by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals. It is sometimes referred to as queer culture, while the term gay culture may be used to mean either "LGBT culture" or homosexual culture specifically.
Feminist separatism is the theory that feminist opposition to patriarchy can be achieved through women's separation from men. Much of the theorizing is based in lesbian feminism.
The gay liberation movement was a social and political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s in the Western world, that urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride. In the feminist spirit of the personal being political, the most basic form of activism was an emphasis on coming out to family, friends, and colleagues, and living life as an openly lesbian or gay person.
Civic nationalism, otherwise known as democratic nationalism, is a form of nationalism that adheres to traditional liberal values of freedom, tolerance, equality, and individual rights, and is not based on ethnocentrism. Civic nationalists often defend the value of national identity by saying that individuals need it as a partial shared aspect of their identity in order to lead meaningful, autonomous lives and that democratic polities need a national identity to function properly. Liberal nationalism is used in the same sense as 'civic nationalism', but liberal ethnic nationalism also exists, and "state nationalism" is a branch of civic nationalism, but it can also be illiberal.
LGBT movements in the United States comprise an interwoven history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and allied social movements in the United States of America, beginning in the early 20th century. A commonly stated goal among these movements is social equality for LGBT people. Some have also focused on building LGBT communities or worked towards liberation for the broader society from biphobia, homophobia, and transphobia. LGBT movements organized today are made up of a wide range of political activism and cultural activity, including lobbying, street marches, social groups, media, art, and research. Sociologist Mary Bernstein writes: "For the lesbian and gay movement, then, cultural goals include challenging dominant constructions of masculinity and femininity, homophobia, and the primacy of the gendered heterosexual nuclear family (heteronormativity). Political goals include changing laws and policies in order to gain new rights, benefits, and protections from harm." Bernstein emphasizes that activists seek both types of goals in both the civil and political spheres.
Among scholars of nationalism, a number of types of nationalism have been presented. Nationalism may manifest itself as part of official state ideology or as a popular non-state movement and may be expressed along civic, ethnic, language, religious or ideological lines. These self-definitions of the nation are used to classify types of nationalism, but such categories are not mutually exclusive and many nationalist movements combine some or all of these elements to varying degrees. Nationalist movements can also be classified by other criteria, such as scale and location.
The following outline offers an overview and guide to LGBT topics.
Pinkwashing, also known as rainbow-washing, is the strategy of promoting LGBT rights protections as evidence of liberalism and democracy, especially to distract from or legitimize violence against other countries or communities. The concept has been used by Sarah Schulman in 2011 with reference to Israeli government public relations, and is related to homonationalism, the exploitation of sexual minorities to justify racism and xenophobia. Pinkwashing is a continuation of the civilizing mission used to justify colonialism, this time on the basis of LGBT rights in Western countries. More broadly, pinkwashing can also be defined as "the deployment of superficially sympathetic messages for [ends] having little or nothing to do with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) equality or inclusion", including LGBT marketing.
Rainbow capitalism is the involvement of capitalism, corporatism, and consumerism in appropriating and profiting from the LGBT movement. It developed in the 20th and 21st centuries as the LGBT community became more accepted in society and developed sufficient purchasing power, known as pink money. Early rainbow capitalism was limited to gay bars and gay bathhouses, though it expanded to most industries by the early-21st century.
Homonationalism is often seen as the favorable association between a nationalist ideology and LGBT people or their rights, but is further described as a systematic oppression of queer, racialized, and sexualized groups in an attempt to support neoliberal structures and ideals. The term was originally proposed by the researcher in gender studies Jasbir K. Puar in 2007 to refer to the processes by which neoliberal and capitalist power structures line up with the claims of the LGBT community in order to justify racist, xenophobic and aporophobic positions, especially against Muslims, basing them on prejudices that immigrants are homophobic and that Western society is egalitarian. Thus, sexual diversity and LGBT rights are used to sustain political stances against immigration, becoming increasingly common among far-right parties. In Terrorist Assemblages, Puar describes homonationalism as a "form of sexual exceptionalism [dependent on the] segregation and disqualification of racial and sexual others" from the dominant image of a particular society, most often discussed within an American framework.
Scholarship on nationalism and gender explores the processes by which gender affects and is impacted by the development of nationalism. Sometimes referred to as "gendered nationalism," gender and nationalism describes the phenomena whereby conceptions of the state or nation, including notions of citizenship, sovereignty, or national identity contribute to or arise in relation to gender roles.
Gay separatism is the political belief in and advocacy for gay male separatism. Separatism for gay men has included explicit political calls for men-only spaces; the creation of communes for gay men; and the lived social practice of self-segregation in "gayborhoods."
