Lil Watan: Queer patriotism in chauvinistic Lebanon

There exists a robust literature on the impact of the sexualisation of the war on terror as an imperial endeavour on both queer and non-queer subjects in the Middle East. This article explores the consequences for LGBT activism of the localisation of the war on terror in the region and the securitisation of governance, taking Lebanon as its focus. I argue the importance of thinking through the ways in which the war on terror is localised, taken advantage of and used as a means of strengthening state power in the Global South, and the effects of such processes on activism. I explore how LGBT activists in Lebanon have engaged the war on terror as an instrument of local rather than foreign power. The weaponisation of the war on terror as an instrument of governance by the Lebanese state, I argue, has reshaped the field within which LGBT activists in the country articulate and lobby for their rights and has enabled a turn towards what I call proto-homonationalism amongst some LGBT actors in Lebanon – attempts at positioning certain segments of the LGBT population as not only of the nation but beneficial to the security state.

LGBT Russians and Political Environment for Activism

This article examines the impact of external and internal state policies on Russian LGBT activism. Drawing on the political opportunity structure (POS) framework, it focuses on the analysis of two factors (the level of state repression on LGBT people and the direction of state foreign policy) and their impact on LGBT activism. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia’s goal for closer relations with the West facilitated the decrease of pressure on LGBT people. That created positive conditions for LGBT activism. Since the late 1990s, however, Russia’s direction in foreign policy has become more assertive. That has facilitated the increase in state repression on LGBT people and activists. Such negative changes in POS have posed challenges for LGBT activism complicating its further development.

Migrant workers and LGBT activism: A comparative study of Filipino and Indonesian domestic workers in Hong Kong

Situating LGBT activism in a gendered, Asian migratory context, this study asks why and how LGBT migrant workers are able to organize themselves and come out publicly as lesbians, bisexual women, or transgender people in Hong Kong. Which factors are enablers for this phenomenon? A comparison of two migrant groups, namely, the Filipinos and Indonesians, who reside in the same city, will shed light on both the commonalities and diversities of their understanding of LGBT rights as well as their approaches for engaging in the LGBT movement. The study examines the different immersed contexts of the two migrant groups rather than homogenizing “migrant domestic worker” as a universal description of these women. The study adopts an intersectional approach to examine how multiple subject positions, including gender, race, class, and non-citizen status, affect migrant domestic workers who have a same-sex relationship in the host city as well as their practices and activism. Besides, it also adopts an inter-Asia approach to shed light on the flows of knowledge as well as inequalities among Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Indonesia and provide insights into how LGBT activism in Asia is culturally hybrid and diasporic. Qualitative research methods, including participant observation and in-depth interviews, were conducted from 2016 to 2018. I attended LGBT parades and events and conducted in-depth interviews with three Filipinos, two Indonesians, and two Hong Kong people. I also used data from my earlier field work in 2010 to 2012.