This week marks
fifty years since the introduction of the Sexual Offences Act which partially
the decriminalized homosexuality in England and Wales.
Originally,
that only meant two men aged 21 and over could have sex together in complete
privacy. Since then, UK law has evolved to mean an equal age of consent for sex
and even marriage equality.
The LGBTI
community seemingly gains more and more legislative protection each day. And,
in recent years, media attention has focused on the astoundingly
underrepresented subculture of the trans community.
As a community,
we have a long history of championing progressive rights and movements. But
recent trends in politics highlight worrying fractures along subsections and
cultures.
How the far
right has won LGBTI voters
Far right
movements have employed homonationalism – the union of LGBTI issues with
nationalist pride – to further espouse racist and fascist ideology.
In the midst of
the ongoing refugee crisis, we’ve seen Marine Le Pen manage to court a
significant proportion of French LGBTI voters. They seemed to not care the
National Front wanted to repeal France’s 2013 marriage equality law.
Similarly, only
a few years ago UKIP’s MEP David Coburn said of asylum seekers: ‘Many of these
people, as we’ve heard, are ISIS.’
‘I don’t know
about you but I am a homosexual and I do not want to be stoned to death,’ he
added.
Later that same
year, British anti-Europe party UKIP’s LGBTI faction had the gall to infiltrate
London’s Pride parade. They used a grotesque perversion of LGBT campaign
organization Stonewall’s slogan ‘Some people are gay, get over it’. The UKIP
version read: ‘Some gays are UKIP, get over it’.
We might think
Le Pen’s defeat and the collapse in UKIP’s vote in the UK general election may
indicate the end of this trend. But the ‘electoral pacts’ between UKIP and
Conservative candidates in Britain suggests the vitriol has not disappeared,
but simply changed appearances.
How are LGBTI
Conservatives able to hold their heads high in public despite Theresa May’s
abhorrent voting record on LGBTI issues? Our Prime Minister has also defended
fellow party members in spite of virulent homophobia. And now she has partnered
with overtly anti-gay Arlene Foster and the Democratic Unionist Party. I find
the LGBTI Tory attitude quite incomprehensible.
‘No rice, no
spice, no chocolate, no curry’
For queer black
and minority ethnics, this exclusionary ideological warfare fought on the
political stage manifests on the gay scene in twisted manner.
At times the
exclusionary nature is overwhelming. Owners of our some of our LGBTI biggest
venues have openly scapegoated us for knife crime and called for the boycott of
Muslim owned venues.
Folk on the
scene are far too eager to paint entire races as homophobic.
In fact
institutionalized homophobia was an export of British colonialism to many of
our countries of origin. Now, queer people of color experience more racism in
queer spaces than homophobia within their ethnic communities.
Gay apps and
dating websites openly parade ‘no rice, no spice, no chocolate, no curry’. When
challenged, the perpetrators staunchly defend this blatant display of racism as
a harmless ‘preference’.
In the little
positive representation queer people have in the media, we black and minority
ethnic LGBTIs find ourselves pushed to the fringes yet again.
Conversations
started by #gaymediasowhite across social media laid bare criminal levels of
representation. We are excluded from channels that purport to stand for
inclusivity and liberation.
The magnitude
of our erasure reached new appalling heights in Emmerich’s 2015 film Stonewall.
It boldly re-writes the Stonewall riots as the achievement of white cisgendered
males, whitewashing the known legacies of black and trans people.
Breeding
machines or submissive fantasies
On the other
hand, our racialized identities seem to be both the object of desire and nexus
of queer culture.
For black
queers, we are either the dehumanised as the big dicked, ripped manly breeding
machine or the curvaceous sassy, sultry and (sex) experienced ‘sista’. The
identities of those falling in-between and outside of the binary are often
completely erased.
For Asians the
objectification often revolves around a caricature of being a docile
submissive. This can be observed in a multitude of pornography movies.
Often, the
celebration and performance of drag, voguing and musical performance leads to
the grotesque adoption of black femininity and ‘blaccents’.
LGBTI racism
shames our diverse roots
The
undercurrent dehumanisation within queer spaces and culture ultimately calls
for a serious change in mindset.
LGBTI people
cannot seek equality whilst simultaneously being racist. It shames our diverse
and empowered roots.
There are a few
LGBTIs who have finally come to experience a small amount of legislative
privilege. Most of them are white gay men. They should not perpetrate the
mistakes wider society inflicts on them, onto the other members of their
community.
A simple mutual
awareness of experiences and oppression isn’t enough. We as a unified community
must invest a collective effort into reconnecting with our radical roots. And
we must resist the lure of corporate pinkwashing.
To this day,
the ban on gay and bi men donating blood still stands. Meanwhile, vast
inequality under the government’s policy of economic austerity hits our least
fortunate the hardest. And our histories and sexual relations still remain
absent from school curriculums.
We have plenty
to proud of, and plenty to be angry at.
Emmanuel Agu
was writing on behalf of UK Black Pride. Gay Star News is a media partner of UK
Black Pride.
