LGBT Rights

           Individuals worldwide face inequalities, violence, social alienation, hate crimes and in some cases death simply because of their sexual orientation, physical appearance or who they are.  Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans* (LGBT) rights are human rights.  There are several societal factors that impact the views that individual countries have about the LGBT community.  In some cases, the dominant religious beliefs impact common attitudes about the queer community.  In other cases, the beliefs about the LGBT community are rooted in traditional fundamentalist views.  Russia has very split views on LGBT rights and the views about the queer community are intertwined with political affiliation and fundamentalist ideals.  India has continued to slowly progress toward LGBT equality and has made progress as far as understanding sexuality and sexual fluidity.  China has made great progress in terms of queer studies being taught in educational classrooms, but LGBT rights in terms of marriage and other access to human rights have proven to be very difficult because of the historical view of what is considered to be Chinese versus what is considered to be “un-Chinese.”

Russia

            Russia has recently made international news because of the disgust that many Russian politicians have openly voiced about the LGBT community.  These problematic and narrow-minded views of the queer community have become a central aspect in politics and the ideology that many Russian citizens share (LGBT sexuality as a sexual perversion) (Kon 43).  In 1993, homosexuality was decriminalized in Russia (Kon 45).  The efforts to “normalize” or humanize the LGBT community in Russia have proven extremely difficult.  Despite the difficulty, European Parliament created legislation defining homophobia a decade ago.  They define homophobia as: “an irrational fear and revulsion toward homosexuality, lesbians, bisexuals and trans* individuals” (Kon 45).  This definition was formulated with the understanding that homophobia should be treated in a similar way as racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and sexism.  The way that Russian Parliament defines sexuality:  heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality, does not allow for sexual fluidity.

            Although Russia has legalized “same-sex love”, and have made it more visible and has created opportunities for open dialogue many older individuals and politically conservative people feel that the democratization that calls for tolerance of different life-styles impedes on their individual freedoms (Kon 45).  It should be noted that in Russia, the use of the term “life-style” is used to describe an individual’s sexual orientation.  Ordinary homophobia has proven hard to eliminate because it is not only being implemented at the individual level, but homophobia has become engrained into the larger societal practices and institutions (Kon 46).

            At present, there is a culture of fear around the LGBT community in Russia.  A culture of fear involves large-scale fear for the purpose of achieving political goals.  In this case, the LGBT community is seen as a group of individuals who violate unwritten societal rules.  The fear of the LGBT community in Russia is rooted in the irrational political agendas that people in power are trying to enforce.  One specific example involves a political leader who was quoted as stating, “gays demonize and are scapegoats not only for their own sins but also are the cause of all of the misfortunes and contradictions of life, from the demoralization of the armed forces to the decline in birthrates (Kon 46).

            Russia and the United States have developed opposite political and ideological directions in terms of sexual minorities.  Russia views the United States’ acceptance of the LGBT community and the recent legalization of gay marriage in a number of states as “promoting homosexuality” (Kon 46).  In fact, a recent study in Russia, in which participants were asked how homosexuals should be treated, showed that there are definite differences in opinions among Russians.  Of the respondents 54 answered that homosexuals should receive medical/psychological treatment, 49 respondents said that homosexuals should be isolated from society and left completely alone, 3 respondents believed that homosexuals should be physically eliminated (Kon 49).  A related study was conducted not long after, and this study aimed to determine how many of the participants believed that homosexual relations between consenting adults should be prosecuted.  The results showed that 41 of the respondents stated that they believed that it should be prosecuted and 40 respondents believed that it should not be prosecuted (Kon 52).

India

            India has very diverse views regarding the LGBT rights.  Historically, French philosopher Michel Foucault played an instrumental role in shaping scholar’s ideas about sexuality and sexual fluidity.  Gender histories, including those of South Asia, have been used to argue that in the nineteenth century the relationship between sexuality, knowledge and power took on explicit shape.  During this time, there was an escalation in the policing of human sexuality within colonized nations.  This policing of sexuality and sexual expression helped to ensure and maintain social order (Gupta 1).  The historical records of sexuality illustrate a dynamic relationship between the apparent division sexual expression and everyday social reality (Gupta 1).  Foucault believed that the social convention created a discourse around sexuality, and as a result sexuality is ever-present (Gupta 1).  These discourses have created sexual identities and an array of sexualities that would not have existed were it not for the insights of Foucault (Gupta 4).

Although Britain criminalized same-sex love by law in 1861, Indian reformers—both revivalists and nationalists—were attempting to regulate the LGBT community by limiting their rights.  They rationalized their actions by claiming that LGBT individuals and their behavior were “alien to Indian culture” (Gupta 1).  Additionally, the political leaders at the time were trying to render the relationship that exists between a husband and wife as ideal because of the cultural importance of procreation and sexual pleasure (Gupta 2).  The fact that a widely-held belief that the LGBT community is not having intimate relations for the purposes of reproduction means that members of that community are directly disobeying the unwritten societal rules that surround same-sex relations.

            Contemporary LGBT activists have questioned and challenged the current socially constructed norms and taboos that thrive in Indian culture.  Scholars argue that colonialism and modernity led to the increasing opinion that sexuality among members of the LGBT community and particularly queer women are insignificant and thus, people who have political power have continued to ignore calls for reform of LGBT rights.  In the past, LGBT individuals have been alienated and homosexual relations have been referred to as “sexual obscenities” (Gupta 4).  The widely held beliefs about the importance of masculinity and patriarchal societal institutions have exacerbated the societal isolation of the LGBT community in India.  Gayness has been viewed as a threat to the masculine cultural ideals, which have been upheld for several generations (Gupta 4).

China

            China has made enormous progress in the past fifty years regarding LGBT rights.  In fact, universities throughout China stress the importance of queer studies.  One of the most notable advances in terms of LGBT rights in the past decade was the release and mass publishing of queer novels.  The first queer novel ever published in China featured a homosexual male character (Liu 301).  The story revolved around this man’s personal journey of self-discovery.  Even though China has made progress, the concept of “paper marriage” has become very problematic.  Paper marriage involves several legal documents that need to be obtained and presented to the Chinese government before the couple can be legally married.  This has created obstacles for members of the LGBT community who lack access to the legal resources and necessary legal documentation of their right to marry (Liu 300).  Several written works in China have been written about the complex nature of paper marriage and the problematic nature of homophobia, fundamentalist perspectives in terms of the LGBT community and the societal standard of what is considered to be Chinese versus what is considered to be “un-Chinese” (Liu 306).  One of the essential documents that are required for “paper marriage” is a document that an individual’s family submits to the government stating that they are marriageable and that the family approves of the match.  Often times, families have conflicting beliefs about the acceptability of LGBT marriage rights.  Without the legal documentation submitted by the family, the couple cannot legally be married (Liu 304). 

            The insights of Foucault were essential in shaping the ideas that the Chinese culture values in terms of sexual identity.  However, Foucault’s insights become problematic when one considers that his viewpoints do not always acknowledge the fact that the construction of homosexuality as an embodied identity requires, first and foremost, the construction of a location (Liu 304).  In Chen’s work, the modern construction of “the homosexual” is created through sexual experimentation during adolescence and self-discovery (Liu 300).  Through Chen’s representation of homosexuality, China and America have come to dialectically define each other’s conceptual borders (Liu 301).  The historical development of queer theory indicates that an empiricist description of alternative sexualities and heterosexist assumptions are no longer satisfactory, and queer theory is constantly evolving, changing and searching for intellectual tools to develop more current and accurate assertions about sexuality (Liu 301).

            Fundamentalist viewpoints are prevalent in each of these countries.  The views and ideas that people have about the LGBT community become muddled up in fundamentalist ideas about gender and sexuality.  The key ensuring equality for LGBT people is altering the widely-held beliefs about traditional marriage, sexuality, procreation and sexual identity.

References

Gupta, Charu.  2011.  Writing Sex and Sexuality:  Archives of Colonial North India. 

Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. 

De Kloet, Jeroen.  2008.  Gendering China Studies:  Peripheral Perspectives, Central

Questions.  Leiden, China:  Leiden University Press.

Kon, Ian.  2009.  Homophobia as a Litmus Test of Russian Democracy.  New York, NY: 

M.E. Sharpe, Inc.

Liu, Petrus.  2010.  Why Does Queer Theory Need China?  Durham, NC:  Duke

University Press.

Misra, Geetanjali.  2009.  Decriminalizing Homosexuality in India.  New Delhi, India: 

Reproductive Health Matters Press.