The 1990s, Fulcrum of Change: Politics and Culture

In his campaign for president in 1992, Bill Clinton did something surprising: he advocated for gay rights. After winning the presidency, however, he was unable to integrate gay soldiers into the military as he had promised to do. Congress instead created a program known as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, which forced gay soldiers back into the closet. Congress also passed, and President Clinton signed, the Defense of Marriage Act, which prevented the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages and allowed states to continue to deny marriage rights to same-sex couples. In 1997 television star Ellen DeGeneres came out as a lesbian both in person and in character on her TV show Ellen, becoming one of the most prominent out-of-the-closet gay people in the US.

Atmospheres of Violence

Advances in LGBTQ rights in the recent past—marriage equality, the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and the expansion of hate crimes legislation—have been accompanied by a rise in attacks against trans, queer and/or gender-nonconforming people of color. In Atmospheres of Violence, theorist and organizer Eric A. Stanley shows how this seeming contradiction reveals the central role of racialized and gendered violence in the United States. Rather than suggesting that such violence is evidence of individual phobias, Stanley shows how it is a structuring antagonism in our social world. Drawing on an archive of suicide notes, AIDS activist histories, surveillance tapes, and prison interviews, they offer a theory of anti-trans/queer violence in which inclusion and recognition are forms of harm rather than remedies to it. In calling for trans/queer organizing and worldmaking beyond these forms, Stanley points to abolitionist ways of life that might offer livable futures.

Unspoken SPS-Plus and SPS-Minus Aspirations: Biotechnologies in EU and US Trade Agreements

In the World Trade Organization (WTO), the US approach to science-based risks and trade restrictions prevailed over that of the European Union (EU). The EU, dissatisfied with the margin of action available when “relevant scientific evidence is insufficient”, largely kept intact its internal practice on marketing and importing genetically modified (GM) crops and GM-containing products. The goal of this article is to ascertain whether these regulatory preferences of the US and the EU translate into their post-Biotech external trade efforts. US and EU preferential trade agreements are scanned for rules on trade in biotechnology goods or the use of precautionary elements in regulation. It transpires that neither bloc systematically tries (or manages) to bend trade agreements to accommodate its defensive or offensive trade interests in this field. Among the possible reasons for this apparent inertia are the US confidence in the WTO baseline and the EU preference for a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to its trade-restrictive policy in this area.

Creating access : an examination of the viability of Toronto's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy as a tool of access for undocumented residents

In 2004, the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy was proposed to community service organizations, police and school boards in Toronto, Canada as a strategy for providing undocumented residents with access to basic services and protections. Under this proposal, service organizations would implement policies against collecting status information from clients and would agree to refrain from reporting undocumented clients to immigration enforcement. While there has been some positive reception to DADT in the city, numerous challenges have threatened its long term viability. This study examines the problems involved in implementing this policy and explores how this initiative may be effective in providing undocumented residents with access to basic services.

Creating access : an examination of the viability of Toronto's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy as a tool of access for undocumented residents

In 2004, the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy was proposed to community service organizations, police and school boards in Toronto, Canada as a strategy for providing undocumented residents with access to basic services and protections. Under this proposal, service organizations would implement policies against collecting status information from clients and would agree to refrain from reporting undocumented clients to immigration enforcement. While there has been some positive reception to DADT in the city, numerous challenges have threatened its long term viability. This study examines the problems involved in implementing this policy and explores how this initiative may be effective in providing undocumented residents with access to basic services.

What’s in a Name?

The film Private Romeo shows two male cadets falling in love as they speak the lines of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. While intended as an affirmative depiction of gay love without any homophobia, the film for three reasons has the opposite effect. First, whereas the film’s main intertext (Shakespeare’s play) and key historical context (Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, here read through Butler’s Excitable Speech) foreground the significance of naming desire, no character in Private Romeo actually speaks the word “homosexuality.” Second, the image of two young men kissing is superseded by the primacy of the Shakespearean characters and their heterosexual romance. Third, even if the spectator chooses to ignore these first two reasons and takes Private Romeo as a representation of homosexuality, this can only be achieved by assuming a homophobic context for the portrayed romance.