Global Homophobia: States, Movements, and the Politics of Oppression

Chapter 11 Conclusion: On teh Interplay of State Homophobia and Homoprotectionism

11 Conclusion On the Interplay of State Homophobia and Homoprotectionism christine (cricket) keating Referring to bias, discriminatory actions, attitudes, or beliefs directed toward people that either have or are perceived as having non-heterosexual identities such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people (LGBTQ), the term homophobia has been used by LGBTQ groups since the early 1970s to organize against discrimination and persecution. The essays in this volume center specifically on state homophobia, or what some authors call political homophobia, a neglected category of analysis, especially given its high-profile and often violent deployment in several contexts across the globe, and convincingly assert that states mobilize, consolidate, and foment homophobia to further particular ends, whether it be to consolidate national identity, to quash or to build opposition, and/or to legitimate the centralization of authority. By underscoring ways that political homophobia is tactical, purposive, and transnational, these essays highlight that there is nothing primordial, static, or traditional about homophobia, rather that it is a set of practices and discourses often generated and deployed by political elites for very particular political ends. In this concluding essay, I will explore the interplay between state homophobia and discourses and policies geared toward the protection of sexual minorities, what I will call state “homoprotectionism.” Like state homophobia , state homoprotectionism can also be instrumental and purposive, serving to legitimate political authority both on a national and on a transnational scale. Although seemingly opposed, I will suggest that these two approaches are closely linked and that political authorities rely on a complex interplay of both approaches in order to mobilize consent (or at least to minimize dissent). conclusion · 247 Drawing on the essays in this volume, I will explore ways that activists might maneuver the interplay between state homophobia and state homoprotectionism in struggles for sexual justice. This maneuvering, as both colonial and postcolonial history exemplifies, necessitates a deeply coalitional approach to politics, one that challenges intra and intergroup hierarchies across a range of power relations and that fosters alternatives to state-centered configurations of sexual justice. The essays in this volume underscore the centrality of state homophobia in contemporary national and transnational politics and point to ways that the state and other political actors consolidate heterosexist power and privilege through discriminatory, persecutory, and exclusionary legal frameworks and political discourse. All too often overlooked because homophobia, in the words of Michael Bosia and Meredith Weiss, “is reduced to nothing more than a variable [or a restraint] reflecting static religious values and traditional attitudes about sexuality,” state homophobia is an approach to contemporary statecraft that is being developed, shared, and replicated in states throughout the world (Bosia and Weiss, this volume). Like the racial state, the bourgeois state, and the patriarchal state, the homophobic state gives legitimacy to heterosexist power and privilege, consolidating this power through laws and policies, and establishing mechanisms for the enforcement of these laws and policies. In addition to state homophobia, contemporary politics is marked by what might be called state homoprotectionism, an approach in which political actors harness the power of the state to protect LGBTQ people from persecution and domination. In the protectionist framework, the state works to secure the allegiance of vulnerable groups by offering protection to these groups from other groups from within society. Indeed, whereas the homophobic state secures heterosexist power and privilege, the homoprotectionist state challenges it. Hillary Clinton’s landmark 2011 International Human Rights Day speech is illustrative of homoprotectionist discourse and policy. In her speech, Clinton calls upon states around the world to protect the rights of their LGBT citizens and pledges the U.S. government’s commitment to protecting gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people on a global scale. In doing so, she positions the state as the vehicle for anti-homophobic social transformation, arguing that “progress comes from changes in laws . . . Laws change, then people will” (Clinton 2011). Key to homoprotectionist narratives is a version of state–society relations in which the state functions as an arbiter between groups, working to ensure that one group does not dominate or persecute the other. In her speech, 248 . christine (cricket) keating Clinton outlines the many forms of homophobic discrimination, marginalization , and persecution that LGBT people face and notes that all too often, “authorities empowered to protect them [LGBT individuals] look the other way or . . . even join in the abuse.” While acknowledging the participation of state actors in acts of homophobic abuse, Clinton...