Are LGBTQ+ people, in explanation 1 of the most open and tolerant and at the same time the most discriminated groups, peculiarly delicate to the political usage of feeling and incitement against another marginalised groups?
Both past and experience of the past fewer years show that not necessarily. Moreover, part of the rainbow community supports utmost right-wing parties, which openly talk about it or even officially announce a regulation or a fight against its rights.
There's nothing fresh about that either.
„Take warm in a brown house“
Let's decision for a minute to the early 1930s.The head of the Nazi Party's (SA) assault troops is Ernst Röhm, whose social democratic press has routed out as a homosexual to exposure the hypocrisy of the Nazis, proclaiming highly homophobic slogans long before taking power. There are far more homosexual men in the environment around Röhm, and 1 of the social politician newspapers wrote in this context with a snack about "a combination of warm brothers in a brown house". Later many of them, including Röhm himself, will fall victim to “night long knives”.
In the late 1920s, around 30 percent of people belonging to the League of Human Rights (BfM), the largest umbrella organization of the group of non-heteronormatives from all over Germany, declared support for the Nazi organization in an interior survey. BfM chief Friedrich Radshuweit, in August 1931 writes an open letter to Hitler, in which he encourages the NSDAP leader to correct his stance on homosexuality and which any historians perceive as an effort to fraternize with the Nazis.
Needless to say, the letter remained unanswered. However, thanks to Röhm's strong position and his environment, many homosexual men believed that reaching Nazi power would paradoxically improve their situation. It will shortly be revealed how incorrect and tragic this calculation was.
AfD twine
In modern times, 2 months before the Bundestag election, a extremist alternate for Germany (AfD) seems to be a group that cannot specify its position on LGBTQ+ rights.
On the 1 hand, close to this organization to the PiS or the Confederacy: systematically accuses the rainbow community of pedophile and sexualisation of children, he speaks of "gender madness" (Gender-Wahnsinn), a Some AfD politicians support the thought of punishing same-sex sexual relations by prison.
On the another hand, AfD cynically puts itself as defenders of sexual minorities against Muslim refugees and migrants, invariably portrayed in their rhetoric as homophobic fundamentalists. Date of birth: about 1969. At Nollendorfplatz, in the heart of Berlin's rainbow district, Schöneberg, was taught by Islamophobic, on which the AfD electoral poster depicts 2 men and bears the inscription: “My partner and I do not deserve to know Muslim immigrants for whom our love is simply a mortal sin.”
We're dealing with an even bigger twine than the Nazis. An emblematic example of this paradox is Alice Weidel, co-chair of AfD and 1 of her most key figures – a lesbian surviving in Switzerland in a registered partnership with a Sri Lankan movie maker and raising 2 sons with her. As an affluent and privileged person, he enjoys the freedom of the erstwhile generations of activists, but signs his name to the degree of his party's homo- and transphobic program, not risking besides much if he becomes a reality. To ask how he reconciles these 2 worlds, responds that she does not feel discriminated against, “why would I?”
How paradoxical it would not be, this strategy – which American investigator Jasbir Puar in her book Terrorist Assembly, written under the influence of debates and social unrest surrounding the September 11, 2001, she referred to as “homonationism” as slow beginning to bear fruit.
A fewer months ago, German media reported sensational news: according to the Romeo.com portal and the magazine “Männer”, 22% of gay dating app users Romeo pointed out AfD as a organization they intend to vote for in this year's European elections – 6% more than the consequence of this group. If we consider fresh AfD electoral successes in Brandenburg (29.2%), Saxony (30.6%) and Thuringia (32.8%), we can safely presume that a large proportion of these votes belong to LGBTQ+ people.
National shades of homosexuality
Examples of homonationalism in Europe alone could be multiplied further – it is adequate to think of voters (yes, to a large degree it is the men of the country) Marine Le Pen in France is Geert Wilders in the Netherlands. There is simply a akin phenomenon in the US, partially at organization level.
In the 1970s, a group of LGBT people was formed in the bosom of the Republican organization – they are known as Log compartment Republicans (LCR). If In 2016, the LCR divided the issue of giving support to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, it was in the 2020 and 2024 elections that the group explicitly sided with him.
Before the 2016 U.S. elections, there was besides an informal association of Gays for Trump, which became a bridgehead various ointments of alt-right activists, both veterans and only trying their forces in activism. Gays for Trump combine elements of Islamophobia, white supremacy, but besides transphobia. 1 of the GfT activists, Scott Presler, was co-organizer of a series of marches against the introduction of Sharia law (which, let's add, no 1 in the States always planned), which took place in 2017.
Polish backyard
There are fewer politicians or politicians in Poland who would operate in any of the ultra-right-wing political parties, specified as Łukasz Jasina (PiS). Western-style homonationalism has not yet had a chance to make with us, due to the fact that the LGBTQ+ community has not yet enjoyed any freedoms – and this phenomenon is connected with any institutionalization and the rooting of the rights of this community in the society of a given state.
This does not mean that there is no specified thing as homosexuality in the Polish backyard. It is adequate to enter the discussion forums to see that racism and transphobia in the rainbow community are well.
We do not know how much anti-immigrant and anti-immigrant sentiments are common among LGBT+ people in Poland, due to the fact that no 1 has done specified investigation yet, but anecdotal evidence shows that this is not a marginal attitude.
It would be even more interesting to examine how many of these people decide to vote for the PiS, the PSL or the Confederation. So far, no of these parties have had an thought to delight this election group, although any That's how they interpreted the idea. Confederations to liquidate inheritance and donation tax. The homophobic image of the organization will not change quickly, which shows, among others, an unequivocally hostile reaction to a regular social media account specified as the "Confederation – LGBT section".
Understanding Homonationalism
In addition to Islamophobia and transphobia, sex is the key to knowing homonationalism. His political avant-garde is mainly made up of cisper men. Homosexual men are denied the cultural stereotypes of masculinity and its attributes, specified as strength or courage, which in their symbolism are empathized by parties of the extremist right.
Paradoxically, this besides applies to women who do not want to be denied femininity. In favour of the anti-female right, they want to distance themselves from the masculinizing in their sense of feminism.
Another dependency can be seen in the case of women from the Confederacy, both electoral and political. They are frequently privileged, well-placed people who do not straight affect the problems of most women and who do not want to be associated with the conflict for women's rights, frequently for individual reasons and social circles in which they turn.
That is why homonationalism usually goes hand in hand with transphobia – demonstrating a patriotic or even nationalist attitude can and frequently is linked to the desire to prove its “real” masculinity or femininity and to effort to redirect the misunderstanding or hatred of the right to another segments of the LGBTQ+ community, e.g. those supposedly more “radical”, undermining popular notions of sex roles and demolishing the conventional binary sex order.
This besides shows that emancipation demands (though pro-abortional, but besides about the introduction or conduct, specified as in France or Germany, of marital equality) are not a precedence for all, as the American women have late found painfully convinced. This may be due to overriding economical considerations or concerns related to, for example, migration or, on the contrary, social and economical advantages and the consequent deficiency of rights or exclusive access to alternate supply channels (e.g. safe abortion).
Homonationalism is simply a challenge not only for the LGBTQ+ community, but for politics in general. This phenomenon shows not only the request to integrate anti-racist and anti-transphobic actions and education into the activities of rainbow organisations, but besides the fact that the legitimate and traditionally understood socio-cultural concepts, specified as sex or nationality, for many LGBTQ+ and another social groups are inactive of large importance. If we want to free ourselves from the yoke of these constructs, we will request to make fresh categories and solutions, un stiffened by a strong identity collar and eluded by gender, political or social stereotypes.
* Oh, my God *
Article is modified text version, which originally appeared on Deutsche Aidshilfe's blog – IWWIT.
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Mathias Foit – Ślązak from Gliwice, graduated from English philology at the University of Wrocław and obtained a PhD in queer past from the Free University of Berlin. In investigation he deals with local and regional queer history, nationalism and cultural past of private weapons. Co-creates the podcast “Polish in German. Queery in Lower SilesiaIt’s okay. ”
