Adam Zivo: The necessary rise of ‘homonationalism’

Throughout Europe, the gay community is increasingly supporting populist parties — and that's a good thing

LGBT communities are increasingly embracing nationalist politics and proudly acknowledging that, when it comes to protecting gender and sexual minorities, western societies are morally superior to the developing world. While progressive activists condemn this as “homonationalism,” it is, in fact, a rational political development that should be encouraged, not disparaged. The term “homonationalism” was first coined in 2007 by Jasbir Puar, an American gender studies professor, to describe how, during the War on Terror, the United States positioned gay rights as a symbol of modernity, and, in contrast, portrayed Middle Eastern adversaries as homophobic and uncivilized.

Recommended Videos Queer theorists quickly popularized the term as a pejorative against any alignment between gay and nationalist politics — especially if criticisms of Islam and immigration were involved. In western gender studies departments, denunciations of homonationalism became a bona fide obsession, akin to “decolonization,” such that a 2014 academic paper, published in the radical