Hi I’m Shon Faye and this is 'Shon This Way'. And in this instalment I am going to
be asking “what is homonationalism?’
‘Homonationalism’ is a term that was coined by academic Jasbir Puar in her landmark text
‘Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times’ which marks it tenth anniversary
this year. And if you're unsure how to celebrate the tenth birthday of a landmark text in queer
theory and Foucauldian biopolitics – then look no further, because I've already thrown
the party!
At times, especially in activist circles, the concept has become somewhat simplified to just mean
any time that LGBT liberation politics could be co-opted by the nationalisms of the far right.
For example, the National Front’s appeal to white gay people in France based on racist
fearmongering about Muslim homophobia or, in the US, the rise of pro-right LGBT slogans and groups
and slogans including, among others, ‘Twinks 4 Trump’...
While this phenomenon – of fascism or white supremacy co-opting LGBT politics for its
own ends – is real and alarming it is not exactly what homonationalism is.
Homonationalism, as Puar intends it, is an analysis or organising principle of global
politics - not a personal ideology you can choose or disavow as an individual. This isn't
about 'good' gays or 'bad' gays.
'Terrorist Assemblages' was a rejection of the idea sometimes found in feminist and queer
theory of the 90s that the nation state is always heteronormative and the queer citizen
is always an alien or outlaw within it. Instead Puar instead argues that homonationalism is
So what does this mean? Well, in other words, it means that it's not about when LGBT people
and racism visibly join forces but a critique. A critique which basically argues that ALL
liberal lesbian and gay rights movements uphold certain ideas of social progress and modernity.
In particular, LGBT equality movements rest on the basic assumption that the Western nation
state is capable of expanding to include all marginalised populations and capable of being
a benefactor to all its subjects.
Puar argues that these assumptions and discourses cannot be true as they always afford some
populations full legal and cultural citizenship at the expense of others – specifically
racialised Others both at home and internationally.
A simple example would be the progress towards equal marriage equality. Marriage has been
considered the pinnacle of gay and lesbian participation in civic life. And marriage
does provide equality with straight citizens. But it also upholds an institution which – for
example, entrenches Western sexual and family norms as supreme and exceptional in comparison
to those of other cultures.
Marriage also upholds the nation state as the supreme aribiter of sexuality in the way
that it sometimes allows those inside the institution right to remain or citizenship
while those outside of it can be deported.
A more modern example ten years on could be transgender rights. So, for example, as part
of the social and legal process of 'transitioning' within a nation state a trans woman - like me
- may apply to obtain a female passport.
While this can be considered a success of a modern trans rights movement and an
example of the excellence of a liberal nation state which allows its trans citizens
full participation in national life, the very existence of passports still upholds the sovereignty
of the state to police its borders, to arrest, detain and deport those who do not have documentation,
and its role in using the passport system for surveillance and monitoring of racialised
minorities as part of its counter terrorism efforts, as well as all of the capitalist
exclusions that come with non-citizenship.
Does that mean I am not going to apply for a passport? Of course not – and this is
what's meant by homonationalism being more of a lens to view queer politics through than
a bad political philosophy you can simply disavow.
However, ten years on from the release of 'Terrorist Assemblages', which was largely
considered the leading queer analysis after 9/11 and the War on Terror we find ourselves
in a rather different political landscape.
How, for example, do queer communities alive to the critique of homonationalism respond
to President Trump’s attempt to ban transgender people from serving in the US military this
year? Trump’s intention was not merely to signify that trans people are a burden to
the health and vitality of the nation state but to use the publicly funded healthcare
of trans service personnel as a wider testing ground for policies around publicly funded
healthcare and whose bodies are disposable.
However, in order to contradict the symbolism of the move it's difficult not to recreate
homonationalist discourses – namely, that US trans citizens are fully entitled to participate
in their country’s military industrial complex. Or, to put it more bluntly, that American
trans people are just as good at killing brown people overseas as cis people.
When LGBT rights for the white and/or citizened become actively forced into reverse, homonationalist
discourses entrench themselves in response. So what is the solution?
Well perhaps it's to look at the point of universal healthcare instead of the military
and to fight Trump on the position that some bodies are entitled to public healthcare while
others are not? Applying the lens of homonationalism should be a call to greater debate and critique
of what liberation looks like – its shape, its form and its limitations.
Homonationalism is a huge, complex and expansive subject which I can only begin to touch on
in social media sharable but if there's one thing I'd like you to take away from this
video, it's that it is not a political position designed to separate good politics from bad
politics but, rather, bet thought of as a structrure through which queer politics and
liberation are formed.
Rather than providing us with answers on the right way to struggle - if only things
were that easy - homonationalism invites us to harshly critique our own role in global
politics even as we gather under the banner of queer liberation or antiracist politics.
I want to know absolutely anything you think about anything I've discussed in the video
today - whether that's homonationalism, whether it's Jasbir Puar's book, whether it's passports,
whether it's Trump and trans military personnel. Any of it!
Hit me up in the comments below. Tweet me @shonfaye. Use the hashtag #shonthisway. And
dont forget to follow Novara Media. Thank you so much for watching. Bye!