The coloniality of queer theory: The effects of “homonormativity” on transnational Taiwan’s path to equality

Abstract

This study extends the “Queer” Asia s critique to deconstruct the coloniality of queer theory in transnational Taiwan. Focusing on Duggan’s critique of homonormativity, I used 22-months ethnographic data to examine its Taiwanese glocalization and influences on American scholars’ denigration of Taiwanese marriage equality campaigns. I argue that the glocalization of homonormativity theory has generated the disruption between queer theory and embodied experiences, falsely assumed the universalism of queer theory, and failed to recognize practices of diversifying families and resistance to neoliberalism. The homonormativity glocalization also produces “radical queer temporality” and Orientalist double standards that collude with imperialist epistemology. I conclude with strategies for a decolonial queer theory.

Seeing China differently: National contestation in Taiwan's LGBTQ (tongzhi) movement

“…Globalisation scholar Jan Nederveen Pieterse (2020: 5) clarifies that “the issue is not nationalism but what kind of nationalism: outward looking nationalism, engaged in regional and multilateral cooperation, international law and global public goods; or inward‐looking nativist nationalism, provincialism of a complacent or an angry kind.” Moreover, as Craig Calhoun (2017: 26) reminds us, “[t]o think that nationalism is always bad, and that banal nationalism simply underwrites the always available potential for more evil, obscures the importance of nationalism to some much more positive projects.” The inclusive practices of pro‐Taiwan tongzhi encompass a broad agenda from building a more equal society where sexual minorities are legally protected, to supporting the progressive domestic agenda of political parties like the Green Party, New Power Party and Taiwan Statebuilding Party, and ultimately to defending Taiwan's liberal democracy and contested sovereignty. The co‐constitutive relationship between sexual minorities' rights and national self‐determination in Taiwan—what I term tongzhi sovereignty (see Chen‐Dedman, 2022, forthcoming)—is animated by concrete concerns such as legalising and expanding the scope of same‐sex marriage to protect the rights of domestic and transnational couples, “the efforts of LGBTQ parents to secure legal protections for their families” not enshrined in the 2019 ‘special law’ on same‐sex marriage, despite “deep ambivalence about the power of law” (Friedman & Chen, 2021: 553, 554), “channel[ing] resources to people with HIV/AIDS and their partners, creating a sex‐positive space for BDSM and polyamorous practitioners” (Kao, 2021: 4), organising Asia's largest and regionally popular Pride Parade, hosting LGBTQ rights workshops for Asian activists and other collaborative activities that enhance Taiwan's visibility and positive contribution to the international community (Chen & Fell, 2021). For a contested state such as the Republic of China (Taiwan), working to mitigate its global exclusion and perpetuate its autonomy through strengthening a locally derived national identity should not be equated with exclusionary forms of nationalism in other contexts.…”

Grind Your Way Out: Hegemonic Homosexuality as an Alternative Conceptual Framework to Apply Homonormativity in Gay Cultural Politics

“…Moreover, when such intersectional gay subjectivities are considered, negotiation or even resistance becomes more evident because a 'non-conforming' gay man is not de ned by a master identity that deviates from the normativity but by the intersectionality of multiple gender and sexual performances. Kao (2021) reminds us to prevent the coloniality of homonormativity, turning the notion into a new regime of truth. In this article, I proposed an alternative framework called hegemonic homosexuality to allow more mobility in the analysis of gay normativity.…”

Perverts or Heroes in the Post‐Socialist “Cold War”: Formula Stories of Lesbian/Bisexual/Queer Women and Transgender People in Ukrainian Media

“…Regardless of individual histories, post‐Soviet countries appear to be interpreted as either on the “successful ‘Western’ road to the ‘gay utopia’ or failing ‘Eastern’ collapse to the ‘dark ages’” (Kondakov 2021:8). Decolonial critiques of the Western progress narrative take on Western queer studies as a colonialist project in global context (Kao 2021; Kondakov 2021; Pagulich 2020). While some engagement with Western politics and academia has proven productive (Lelea and Voiculescu 2017), there is a dark side to global sexual politics turning on assumptions of Western utopias (Kao 2021; Mayerchyk and Plakhotnik 2019, 2021; Ye 2021).…”

“…Decolonial critiques of the Western progress narrative take on Western queer studies as a colonialist project in global context (Kao 2021; Kondakov 2021; Pagulich 2020). While some engagement with Western politics and academia has proven productive (Lelea and Voiculescu 2017), there is a dark side to global sexual politics turning on assumptions of Western utopias (Kao 2021; Mayerchyk and Plakhotnik 2019, 2021; Ye 2021). Post‐colonial interventions into the postsocialist moment beg attention to gender and sexuality as tools of coloniality in the form of Europeanization and require reflection on Eurocentrism (Shchurko and Suchland 2022) as well as Europeanization as a process of white supremacy (Husakouskaya and Gressgård 2020; Shchurko and Suchland 2022; Suchland 2021).…”

“…The historical emergence of U.S. identities from “lesbian and gay” to “LGBT” to “queer” is of contested relevance outside of the “West.” The U.S./European timeline of queer politics has problematically been held out as an imperialist exemplar, ostensibly for other countries to follow—an example of the West exporting sexual politics to other countries in the so‐called periphery (Istodor 2022). Much post‐socialist and decolonial literature rightfully contests the usefulness of the West as the “model” of sexual politics, often re‐writing the chronology and value of Western LGBTQ+ politics outside the West (Kao 2021; Kondakov 2021; Liinason and Alm 2018; Mayerchyk and Plakhotnik 2019; Moussawi 2020; Puar 2007; Shchurko and Suchland 2022; Suchland 2018, 2021; Ye 2021).…”