Are Gay Rights Islamophobic? A Critique of Some Uses of the Concept of Homonationalism in Activism and Academia

Abstract

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.

RETRACTED: National construction and LGBTI rights: Exploring Catalan homonationalism

“…of institutional co-option of LGBTI discourse should not question the actions taken by the different groups when defending their own rights (Zanghellini, 2012).…”

Sexuality and Citizenship in Europe

“…Crucially, this chapter draws attention to the 'Pink Agenda' and how sexual minority human rights are used by European organisations as a rhetorical tool to oppose the queer-friendly Europe to the homophobic and transphobic 'other' (p. 44). Ammaturo links this idea to the fundamentally racist notions of 'homonationalism', 'homonormative Islamophobia ' and 'homo-emancipation' (Altman, 1996;Jivraj and De Jong, 2011;Massad, 2008;Puar, 2007;Zanghellini, 2012). These are well-known polemics and critiques.…”

Being [in] the center: Sexual citizenship and homonationalism at Tel Aviv’s Gay-Center

“…Zanghellini (2012: 358) warns that the imprecise use or overuse of homonationalism as a master narrative may lead to ‘inappropriate rhetorical moves and inaccurate or unsubstantiated claims, and to project structural undercurrents of racism onto certain texts or events, rather than unearthing such structures from them’. In the same vein, Ritchie (2014: 6) asserts that ‘Homonationalism has morphed from an argument about the tentative and incomplete incorporation of some (white/citizen) queers by the neoliberal nation-state in a specific time and place […] into a totalizing framework that depends on a dangerously simplistic construction of reality’.…”