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On May 29, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda signed one of the world’s stringent anti-LGBTQ legislations, that restricts LGBTQ rights and introduces harsher penalties for certain types of homosexual acts. While the new legislation enjoys support from a significant portion of the population in this East African nation, it has faced widespread condemnation from rights … Continued

There are 64 countries whose laws criminalise homosexuality, and nearly half of them are in Africa. Many of the laws have origins in colonial times.

Punishable by death in Iran, homosexuality is also condemned by many member sof the Iranian diaspora. Yet thanks to a few exiled activists, things could be changing outside the country.

Sexual and gender minorities are under attack in several African countries. For instance, over the past couple of years, extreme anti-LGBTQ+ legislation has been introduced in Ghana and Uganda, where homosexuality was already illegal. Kenya and Tanzania could well …

Explores the differential political effects created by the production of knowledge & culture of lesbian & gay life by community intellectuals vs university intellectuals. It is suggested that a tension has always existed between these groups because of their differential access to resources of authority. The examples of the spread of camp & the idea of safe sex show that community intellectuals can exercise profound influence in shaping a sense of collective identity; however, the forms of vernacular knowledge they use are inherently fluid & unstable. Academic intellectuals are in a much stronger position to exercise cultural authority, because they have access to the material & symbolic power bestowed by academia. It is argued that the continued progress of cultural politics in the gay & lesbian community requires both vernacular & disciplinary knowledges so that the community can strenghten its solidarity while maintaining its legitimacy. D. M. Smith

This blog is based on an article in Social Policy and Society by Sam Wai-Kam Yu and Jack Wai Chik Yue. Click here to access the article. In recent years, notable strides have been made in Hong Kong towards accepting and legally protecting sexual minorites. The decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1991 stands as a significant… Continue reading Mutually Compatible? Exploring the Rights of Sexual Minorities and Confucianism →

The interface between an institution concerned with the administration of justice (the London Police Dept) & the body is examined, using as points of departure a London map used to investigate sex-related offenses (homosexuality & prostitution) & a London police report on plainclothes officers' surveillance of public lavatories. These documents present law as a cartographic technology that produces a spatial order for law & a set of practices of the body as legal technique. The map portrays the landscape of bodily perversion in London. Policing is accomplished with the visible body as agent, or the invisible body in the case of surveillance. When policing a public urinal, the public/private nature of this space & the corporeal practices generating the space are ambivalent. 23 References. M. Pflum

The ascription of lesbianism to the butch body is examined historically, through the pathologization of homosexuality in 19th-century sexology to the more recent elevation of the butch body in lesbianism. The other site of the pride/shame dichotomy in lesbianism is the stone butch, both the ideal & abjected sense of butchness. The reality of a butch body with its erotic surfaces & lines of force, the butch performance as a sense of autonomous embodiment, & the instability of the butch configuration are discussed. 13 References. M. Pflum

Draws on documentary & academic/popular writings & research on friendship among gay men & lesbians to focus on the nature & functions of friendships in the gay male community, highlighting their potential for enacting sociopolitical change in the larger heteronormative society. The nature of communities as potential bases for social action is discussed, & the unique sense of community created among homosexuals, particularly in urban areas, is described. Gay males' perceptions of friendship are reported, drawing on narrative data obtained via interviews & questionnaires from 191 respondents, emphasizing the sense of belonging, acceptance, & identity that they foster. 40 References. K. Hyatt Stewart

Reflects on the experience of participating in the gay & lesbian protest in San Francisco, CA, against the Persian Gulf War. Gays & lesbians have considerable political clout in San Francisco, especially since 1990, when three of the eight members of the Board of Supervisors were openly gay. Further, because of its experience of organizing in the face of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome epidemic, the gay & lesbian community has developed important skills, resources, & traditions for political activism. However, the mainstream press rarely portrayed the extent of gay & lesbian involvement in the antiwar protest. To become more visible & politically effective, it is suggested that gays & lesbians form larger coalitions with other subordinate groups to express their grievances. The university is an excellent place to mobilize across groups. While it is acknowledged that racism & homophobia pervade the university as they do all institutions in US society, gays & lesbians must work to break down these walls if positive change is to occur. D. M. Smith

Chronicles the development of the lesbian & gay movement in VT, focusing on activists' pursuit of a politics of recognition based on identity as a minority group. Data are drawn from movement documents, informant interviews, secondary sources, & activist accounts. A distinction is made between ethnic identity & queer strategies of identity construction in the political realm, comparing their "essentialist" vs "antinormalizing" tendencies. The intersection between the law, the state, & identity construction is examined, demonstrating how it contributed to overcoming diversity & binding gay & lesbian social movements into a cross-gender alliance for homosexual rights beginning in the early 1980s. 1 Table. K. Hyatt Stewart

Chronicles the development of the lesbian & gay movement in VT, focusing on activists' pursuit of a politics of recognition based on identity as a minority group. Data are drawn from movement documents, informant interviews, secondary sources, & activist accounts. A distinction is made between ethnic identity & queer strategies of identity construction in the political realm, comparing their "essentialist" vs "antinormalizing" tendencies. The intersection between the law, the state, & identity construction is examined, demonstrating how it contributed to overcoming diversity & binding gay & lesbian social movements into a cross-gender alliance for homosexual rights beginning in the early 1980s. 1 Table. K. Hyatt Stewart

The "new men's studies scholarship" is critiqued & directions are outlined for the development of a new Chicano/Latino dimension in men's studies, arguing that these ethnic groups have been largely ignored in theory & research. A particularly egregious omission has been recognition of gay Chicano/Latino males & their position in these traditionally "macho" societies. Lessons to be gleaned from feminist studies of oppression among Chicanas/Latinas are reviewed. 30 References. K. Hyatt Stewart

Postmodern theories of subjectivity, identity, & agency are applied to an analysis of the ways that masculinity is constructed by cultural scripts of normativity. Various sites of resistance to the centrality & power of such scripts in Western society are described, including resistance to the heterosexual matrix & profeminist activities by men. Ways that identity & coalition politics can be utilized to overcome dominant conceptualizations of masculinity & forge new masculine identities are outlined. 23 References. K. Hyatt Stewart

Considers the production & conduct of politicized identities, eg, those of gays & lesbians, in late-capitalist societies to ascertain the kinds of political strategies that might be effective for these groups. The production of politicized identities in this period is taken to be a consequence of late-modern capitalist, liberal, disciplinary, & bureaucratic processes instrinsic to the period. Politicized identities have arisen in protest against this period's liberalism & its disciplinary instruments. To the extent that these identities posit a unified "we" disciplined by a fixed "they," they merely reiterate the term of the liberal discourse they seek to transcend & often end in a similar regulative, disciplinary, political program. This tendency to reiterate the terms of one's oppression is symptomatic of the politicized identity's desire in liberal-bureaucratic regimes. Friedrich Nietzsche's (1969) notion of forgetting is proposed as one method by which politicized identities may reorient their investments & so create more emancipatory political projects. D. M. Smith