My research for my project led me down a rabbit hole of legal and social systems steeped in what scholars call ‘homonationalism’. Defined as the process under which organized LGBTQ+ activism in North America and Europe have adopted nationalist rhetoric. The resulting dichotomy created between the ‘progressive west’ and the ‘homophobic east’ effect the legal systems that determine asylum policy by prioritizing western, homonormative assumptions on what it ‘looks like’ to be queer, and determinations on necessity of asylum cases on ‘how homophobic’ the country of origin is. A relevant example of homonationalism today is ‘pink washing’, a term used to describe governments or organizations promoting their inclusivity towards the LGBTQ+ community, compared with other ‘homophobic’ governments or organizations, as a way of concealing exclusive practices (see works by Jasbir Puar listed at end of post for more on Homonationalism).
I turned in the short essay I wrote on this subject with a bit of a bleak state of mind. You don’t spend a day writing about this subject without hating the world at least a little. But it’s also made me realize the value of transnational studies, and their potential to begin undoing and unlearning the harmful systems built on homonationalism, which I would like to spend this blog post touching on. As discussed in Clavin’s work, transnational history provides historians with the lens through which new understandings “of European imperialism and histories of indigenous responses to colonialism” can be reached. Homonationalism’s origins in colonialism, with the West now offering itself as a safe haven for queer refugees from bigoted systems they created through colonization in the Global South, is something that through postcolonial studies and gender history, which inform transnational thought, can be properly studied, dissected, and challenged.
Clavin’s discussion on the importance of ‘place’ is also something I feel can be better explored through transnationalism when studying queer history and culture. Transnational approaches to examining localities in a ‘bottom, up’ or ‘internal, external’ approach, rather than thinking of queer identities and culture as something universal or organized, will also help deconstruct homonationalist rhetoric.
While there are several scholars who have begun this work of questioning and deconstructing homonationalism, the majority of scholarship remains focused on contemporary legal conditions. Notable scholars who have focused on the social aspects, who I would encourage anyone reading this post to take a look at, include Shlomo Gleibman, Tamar Shirinian, Emily Channell-Justice, and Dr Nikolaos Papadogiannis (just to name a few). I’m confident there are many more ways a transnational lens can continue to engage with homonationalism.
My project, which I initially began with the intention of looking for queer joy and resistance through community building in Miami among queer immigrants, has been somewhat clouded by the legacies of homonationalism. However, I am grateful for this class and for this project for introducing me to this topic through which I can approach this and future studies as a way to deconstruct the rhetoric and attempt to rebuild from the harm homonationalism has caused.
Works by Jasbir Puar:
Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (Durham, 2007)
‘Israel’s gay propaganda war’ (2010)
‘Rethinking Homonationalism’ (May, 2013)