No liberation can be built on racism

Beeld door Annika Hagen4

When queer rights become a weapon

Every time I watch content online made by queer people openly supporting Palestine, I find the most infuriating, disgusting comment: Do you know what they would do to you in Gaza?

And I am always appalled by how racism gets packaged as a tool to defend LGBTQIA+ rights. I struggle to believe that people are not aware of the fact that most of the world is actively trying to erase queer people from the face of the earth. If you believe what I am saying is an exaggeration, in most of the US states, supposedly 'secular' and 'progressive', it is not possible to safely access gender affirming care. In the 'hyper civilized' Europe, there are still plenty of examples of countries that still do not allow queer people to marry, share goods and properties and inherit each other's possessions after a lifetime together. In Poland, parties like PiS constructed an identity of European or Christian values ??that often equate LGBTQIA+ rights with Western liberalism; However, they simultaneously position Islamic migration as a threat to these values, showing how Islam happens to be the most convenient scapegoat. I was born and raised in the over-romanticized Italy, the land of pasta, wine, and the scary tendency of remaining one of the lowest-ranking countries in Europe when it comes to social acceptance of LGBTQIA+ people over the years. There is no need to look at non-Western cultures to find homotransphobia.

The orientalist gaze of the Western world

It feels humiliating to have to explain that homophobia reinvents itself in the cultural context in which it is located, much as misogyny, and that it is a systemic problem. And it feels even more humiliating to explain how hypocritical it is to justify racism, violence and discrimination 'in the name of' LGBTQIA+ rights. Last-minute advocates of human rights that conveniently pick and choose which human rights are worth fighting for.

While this does not cancel the fact that in some countries of the so-called “global south” being queer is not safe, it is extremely orientalist [1] to start worrying about the well-being of queer people only when it concerns other cultures. 

Homonationalism and Racism

But this is not even the point of my article. What surprises me the most is that this type of comment often comes from right-wing people who support and vote for politicians who come from puritanical perspectives. Puar (2007) calls “homonationalism” the concept of promoting the integration of LGBTQIA+ individuals, to show how liberal a nation is, while excluding marginalized groups (especially Musli immigrants). The Netherlands is a prime example of this reality. Historically, openly homosexual politicians such as Pim Fortuyn declared that Islamic immigration is a threat to the safety and well-being of queer people in the country. In his book Against the Islamization of our Culture (1997), Fortuyn expresses concern about the Islamic immigration queer culture, mainly Moroccan and Turkish people, as a possible threat to LGBTQIA+ rights. And this line of thought is still present in today's Dutch politics.

What shocks me the most about this vision is that it stems from the idea that there are no queer people in East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. And queer people and allies in these regions have no agency to gather, rebel, and fight for themselves and their rights. This desire of 'saving other queers' is a collateral effect of the post 9/11 rhetoric of 'exporting democracy', completely disrespecting the self-determination of populations deemed as 'morally inferior'. Feminist and Queer BIPOC/ Muslim voices are rarely given space in the media, where the spotlight is still heavily occupied by white, corporate feminism. That is also because silencing them is more convenient than deconstructing white savior biases, or understanding the complexity of the intertwining of sexuality and culture outside of the Western World.

While we ignore the data that shows that LGBTQIA+ rights are drastically declining over the years, we focus on the uncanny other . This strategy has been used all over history: from blaming immigrants for 'stealing jobs', raising crime levels, corrupting traditional culture and so on.

The liberation of queer people does not come from racism. Being queer goes much further than being a homosexual, bisexual or transgender individual. In this moment, Gaza is the canary in the minefield. Those who believe there is an exception to respecting human rights are going to betray the LGBTQIA+ community as soon as it becomes convenient for them – even if they are LGBTQIA+ individual themselves.  

[1] From Edward Said (1935-2003) essay Orientalism (1978), where he defines this term as the trope of describing the cultures of East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa in imperialistic terms.

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