The Dutch Homo-Emancipation Policy and its Silencing Effects on Queer Muslims

Abstract

The recent Dutch homo-emancipation policy has identified religious communities, particularly within migrant populations, as a core target group in which to make homosexuality more 'speakable'. In this article we examine the paradoxical silencing tendencies of this 'speaking out' policy on queer Muslim organisations in the Netherlands. We undertake this analysis as the Dutch government is perhaps unique in developing an explicit 'homo-emancipation' policy and is often looked to as the model for sexuality politics and legal redress in relation to inequalities on the basis of sexual orientation. We highlight how the 'speakability' imperative in the Dutch homo-emancipation policy reproduces a paradigmatic, 'homonormative' model of an 'out' and 'visible' queer sexuality that has also come to be embedded in an anti-immigrant and specifically anti-Muslim discourse in the Netherlands. Drawing on the concept of habitus, particularly in the work of Gloria Wekker, we suggest that rather than relying on a 'speakability' policy model, queer Muslim sexualities need to be understood in a more nuanced and intersecting way that attends to their lived realities.

Urban encounters and sexual health among gay and bisexual immigrant men: perspectives from the settlement and aids service sectors

“…Critical migration researchers have attended to many of the political and cultural issues that might influence the mental and sexual health of gay newcomers, including heteronormative immigration policies (Simmons and others ), “liberal” national agendas that frame Arab/Asian and gay identities as mutually exclusive (Puar ; Bilge 2010; Jivraj and DeJong ), and the imposition of a white, middle‐class, Anglo‐American notion of gay culture on racialized individuals (Puar ; Manalansan ). Others attend to logistical issues that might impede healthier sexual behaviors, such as managing employment, housing, immigration status, and family‐related challenges upon arrival (LaViolette ; Ramirez ; Romero ; Mai and King ).…”

Bisexuality

“…Some national identities have become bound up with the LGBT rights agenda, with progressive attitudes towards LGBT people being used by politicians as an indicator of democracy and 'modern' society, which may (or may not) translate into a better human rights record. This 'homonationalism' (Puar, 2007) can then become linked with anti-immigrant, ethnocentric discourses, where people of colour and Southern peoples are framed as homophobic (see, for example, Jivraj and de Jong, 2011). It can also be used cynically by nations to present themselves as progressive, despite their human rights abuses, as in the case of Israel (Puar, 2011).…”

Relational Comparison and LGBTQ Activism in European Cities

“…While Fortuyn was outspoken in his defence of supposed Dutch values of tolerance with regard to sexual politics, Haritaworn (), Butler () and Wieringa () have drawn attention to the reproduction of the presumptions of migrant homophobia in the Dutch citizenship test, which includes questions on attitudes to homosexuality. Jivraj and de Jong (: 156) have been highly critical of the Dutch ‘homoemancipation policy’, arguing that it disciplines the sexual subjectivities of queers of colour and noting that ‘there is an inherent paradox within the Dutch policy that seeks to make sexuality “speakable”, yet silences the diversity of queer of colour sexualities, as well as limits their political and social self‐organisation’.…”

“…While Kulpa's and Mizielinska's critiques of Western European representations of sexual politics in Central and Eastern Europe tend not to differentiate between Western European states, Mepschen et al (2010: 970) have argued that 'the performative power and scope of the entanglement of gay rights with Orientalist discourse -as well as with Occidentalist responses is remarkably salient in the Netherlands'. Other scholars such as Jivraj and de Jong (2011) and Wieringa (2011) have examined how lesbian and gay rights have recently become mobilized with practices of contemporary Dutch nationalism. Duyvendak (1996) and Hekma (2005) have written about the depoliticization of Dutch gays in recent years as many of their political claims have been realized.…”