Repression
Video: students walk out of graduation in protest against Gaza genocide
University of Michigan graduates walk out holding Palestine flags
Student graduates at the University of Michigan have walked out of their graduation ceremony, holding Palestinian flags an challenging Israel ‘How many kids have you killed today?’, in protest at Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
The protest is part of a growing trend of students protesting at their graduation that has been added to the student encampment movement, holding placards and calling out the horrors being perpetrated on Palestinian civilians despite increasingly brutal state repression of students, including many Jewish students who are playing a prominent role in the demonstrations, for exercising their freedom of speech.
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Huge victory for Goldsmiths students for Gaza as uni accepts divestment demand and more
Six months of demos and five weeks of sit-ins see university climb down in face of students’ determination
Students at London’s Goldsmiths university have won a huge victory after months of solidarity with Palestinians, forcing their university to accept their demand to divest from involvement with the Israeli occupation and to set up scholarships for Palestinian students.
Organiser Fatima Zaid explained in a Twitter/X thread what the students have achieved, including the end of an investment contract with a firm closely connected to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu – and a review of the university’s use of the unfit (and non-definitional) so-called ‘IHRA definition’ of antisemitism, that has been widely used to suppress criticism of Israel:
2. Statement on Genocide
Goldsmiths will release a collaborative statement between management, @Gold4Palestine and the student union.
Goldsmiths has also agreed to write to the UK government and the local MP to call for a ceasefire and support rebuilding education in Gaza.— Fatima (@fatimazsaid) May 3, 2024
4. Palestinian Scholarships
Goldsmiths will introduce undergraduate scholarships for Palestinian students + an additional fully funded postgraduate scholarship will be implemented from this year.
This will be the only undergraduate Palestinian scholarship offered in Britain!— Fatima (@fatimazsaid) May 3, 2024
6. Immortalise the Student Occupation
One of the lecture theatres that students occupied in the media department will be renamed after Shireen Abu-Akleh.
The @Gold4Palestine occupation will also be memorialised in an exhibition wall in the Professor Stuart Hall Building.— Fatima (@fatimazsaid) May 3, 2024
The news will strengthen even further the determination of students at a string of other UK universities who have set up encampments – and is already encouraging students in the US facing brutal state repression and foul smears.
Congratulations and solidarity with the people of Palestine and all those who are fighting for an end to genocide, occupation, apartheid and repression.
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Fresh audio product: criminalization of protest, hidden agenda behind anti-trans panic
Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link):
May 2, 2024 Adam Federman on the criminalization of protest (article here) • Kay Gabriel on how the right is using the anti-trans panic to make war on public schools and teachers’ unions (article here)
Breaking video: LA police smash UCLA camp, violently arrest peaceful students
US state mobilises to break protest after taking hours to act against violent pro-Israel mob last night
Los Angeles police have stormed the pro-Gaza protest camp set up by peaceful student protesters at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).
Riot-clad police are violently arresting students and faculty taking part in the protest against the university’s complicity in Israel’s genocide – which has killed well over 40,000 civilians, mostly women and children – and is smashing up tents and makeshift buildings, despite free speech and association rights being guaranteed by the US Constitution:
Video by Middle East Eye
Solidarity with the people of Gaza and with students everywhere demonstrating against genocide and for peace.
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Breaking: ICJ rules that Germany can continue Israel arms sales despite genocide
International Court of Justice reject Germany’s attempts to strike out case but refuses by 15 votes to 1 to issue emergency measures banning weapons sales
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has refused Nicaragua’s request for a provisional order banning Germany from exporting weapons to Israel, despite its earlier ruling that Israel is ‘plausibly’ committing genocide in Gaza. Nicaragua had argued that Germany is enabling genocide. The court rejected Germany’s request to strike out the application.
Germany is Israel’s second-largest arms supplier. The court expressed continued concern about the situation in Gaza but has allowed Germany to continue supplying the slaughter, despite Israel’s complete disregard of the court’s existing orders to protect Palestinian lives and Germany’s repression of pro-Gaza protest. The genocide case continues and is expected to take more than a year to conclude.
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Video: thousands gather for Gaza at Columbia as professor condemns uni’s ‘day of shame’
History professor Christopher Brown describes scandal of university president setting riot police on peaceful anti-genocide demo and condemns craven congressional testimony
Thousands have again gathered on the lawns of Columbia University in New York, despite the attempted repression of the university’s management and the New York police – where they heard speeches from faculty members as well as students against Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the authorities’ attempts to silence them:
Despite the state’s aggression, which has included the use of riot police and state troops in various locations – and the shameful demonisation of peace protesters by politicians and pro-Israel lobby groups willing to collude in Israel’s war crimes, mirroring the tactics used in the UK – the protest movement is growing and the US public is increasingly aware and condemning of Israel’s mass murder of Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children.
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US unis even arresting TEACHERS as Israel lobby group demands anti-Palestine crackdown
Students and teachers targeted by police as ADL demands government breaks student anti-genocide protest movement
At least one US university has called in police to arrest faculty members as well as students, as the so-called ‘Anti-defamation League’ (ADL) demanded a crackdown on the spreading anti-genocide protest movement among US students.
NYPD officers took NYU teachers as well as students away from a demo against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, as demonstrations spread to universities around the country. Columbia University, also in New York, has seen further student arrests as a sit-in demo by students against Israel’s slaughter of innocents continues undeterred.
In a tactic reminiscent of the recent rigged stunt in the UK by the Israel-linked, so-called ‘Campaign against Antisemitism’ (CAA), the ADL has claimed Jewish students are unsafe and demanded the immediate suspension of anyone who dares protest against mass murder:
Innocent women and children in Gaza are being slaughtered by the tens of thousands by Israel – and Palestinian students have been attacked, leaving at least one paralysed, by morons whipped up by the Islamophobic speech of politicians and pro-Israel lobbyists – but it seems we are meant to treat the feelings of the friends of genocide and apartheid as more important, on both sides of the Atlantic.
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Q and A with Jill Liddington on As Good as a Marriage: The Anne Lister Diaries 1836-38
Anne Lister of Shibden Hall, Yorkshire has garnered interest over the past several decades, reaching vast audiences through the 2019 TV drama series about her life, Gentleman Jack. A highly educated landowner and businesswoman and intrepid traveller, Lister is best known for her diaries, which run to about five million words. Sections of the diary written in a secret code, cracked 50 years after her death, detail her intimate relationships with women, which led to her being dubbed “the first modern lesbian”.
In this interview with Anna D’Alton (LSE Review of Books), historian Jill Liddington speaks about her latest book, As Good as a Marriage: The Anne Lister Diaries 1836-38, an annotated selection from Lister’s diaries which provides fascinating insight into her relationship with (or “marriage” to) local heiress Ann Walker and her working life.
Jill Liddington will give a talk at LSE, Was Anne Lister a pioneer feminist or ‘at heart nothing but an old Tory squire’? on Wednesday 20 March from 6.00 to 8.00 pm. Find details and register here.
Q: Who was Anne Lister and why do her diaries provide such remarkable evidence for feminist and lesbian history?
Anne Lister was born in 1791 and lived in and inherited Shibden Hall outside Halifax in West Yorkshire. From when she was a teenager, she started to write a diary, and the more confident she grew in herself and the more powerful she grew, particularly after she inherited Shibden Hall on the death of her uncle in 1826, she wrote more and more. The diary is extraordinary in that it is
estimated now to be five million words, of which a sixth is in a secret code she devised to describe the more intimate details of her life. It is this combination of romantic and sexual intimacy, entrepreneurial activity and intellectual breadth that makes the diaries so magnificent. In 2011, UNESCO added them to its Memory of the World Register.
It is [the] combination of romantic and sexual intimacy, entrepreneurial activity and intellectual breadth that makes the diaries so magnificent.
Q: When was the diaries’ code (describing the more intimate details of her sexuality and relationships) cracked?
Lister, who was a great traveller, died in 1840 in Russia, and the diaries were packed away behind secret panels at Shibden Hall. Ann Walker, Anne Lister’s “wife” (they had an unofficial lesbian marriage in 1834 and lived together thereafter) inherited Shibden Hall, and on her death it went to indirect descendants, of whom the most important was John Lister. He was particularly interested in her politics, and between 1887 and 1892 he transcribed great sections of the diaries and had them published in the Halifax Guardian.
While working with a fellow scholar, Arthur Burrell, in about 1892, he succeeded in cracking Anne Lister’s code, though it wasn’t until decades later, after John Lister’s death in 1933, that an account of this was discovered in a letter by Burrell to the Halifax Librarian. He wrote, “The part written in code turned out to be entirely unpublishable. Mr. Lister was distressed, but he refused to take my advice, which was that he should burn all 26 volumes. He was, as you know, an antiquarian, and my suggestion seemed sacrilege, which perhaps it was.” Burrell continued, “The coded passages presented an intimate account of homosexual practices among Miss Lister and her many “friends” […] this ver unsavoury document contained evidence that these friendships were criminal.”
We might wonder what made and Anne Lister’s lesbian relationships criminal. […]The 1885 Laboucher Amendment […] didn’t include women at all, but the words that scholars use, rightly, I think, is cultural silencing.
We might wonder what made and Anne Lister’s lesbian relationships criminal. The historical context is the 1885 Laboucher Amendment which harshened the criminalisation of male homosexual activity. It didn’t include women at all, but the words that scholars use, rightly, I think, is cultural silencing. Even though there was no law against lesbian relationships, they weren’t to be spoken about, which is why we didn’t know about the code being cracked until a few years after John Lister’s death in 1933.
Q: When did the diaries came to public attention, and how did your own fascination with them arise?
In the 1950s, two other scholars, Dr Phyllis Ramsden and Vivien Ingham, started working on the code. By that stage Shibden Hall had been taken over by Halifax Borough Council. Ramsden and Ingham wrote to the town clerk for permission to publish extracts, who agreed on the condition that they be approved by the local authority committee – essentially censoring the content about her lesbian relationships.
Things changed in 1967 because of the Sexual Offenses Act which decriminalised homosexuality. Again, it only pertained to men, but it allowed more lifting of the cultural silence for women. In 1984 the Guardian published a feature called “The 2-million-word Enigma”, (it was thought at that stage that the diaries were just 2 million words) based on an interview with Phyllis Ramsden and historian Dorothy Thompson, both based in Halifax. A local woman, Helena Whitbread then produced a book on the early Anne Lister in 1988, called, I Know My Own Heart, which had quite an impact. The Halifax Antiquarian Society (which John Lister had helped to form) held a day school in 1989 on Lister which I attended. It was the most disputatious day school I have ever attended, and I thought, there’s more to this woman than meets the eye. I went into the Halifax Archives and decided to write a history of the Anne Lister diaries, published in 1994 as Presenting the Past: Anne Lister of Halifax 1791-1840.
Q: Why did you decide to edit selections from her diaries into the volume Female Fortune, published in 1998, which covers 1833 to 1836?
I did a word count of the diaries using microfilm and found that they were double the initial estimate. I felt the only tactic as a historian was to take three or four samples of this four-million-word document. I looked at the very earliest diaries which Helena Whitbread hadn’t had access to, starting from when Lister was 15 and detailing her first lesbian relationship with Eliza Raine. I then decided to look at 1819 because I was teaching my students about the Peterloo Massacre, and then 1832, because it was the year of the Reform Act.
For Female Fortune, I focused on the 1830s. That period is interesting to me because it’s when Anne Lister is at her most powerful, after inheriting Shibden Hall, living there with Ann Walker. I wanted to look at the 1835 elections, and how she ran her estate.
Q: What persuaded you to go back after 25 years to work on a sequel, As Good as a Marriage: The Anne Lister Diaries 1836-38 (2023)?
Female Fortune received a fair amount of interest, including from the scriptwriter Sally Wainwright, who had grown up locally and was gripped by Anne Lister’s story. At that stage she was a jobbing scriptwriter and couldn’t get backing for a series about this little-known figure, and so both of us had to pursue other projects. Sally went on to become quite well known, and she returned to the idea. This time, when she pitched a series about Anne Lister’s life, the BBC said yes. What followed was Gentlemen Jack Series One which came out in 2019 on BBC One and HBO, introducing Lister to a new cohort of LGBTQ+ fans across the US and beyond.
Sally Wainwright (left) and Jill Liddington (right) in the Book Corner, 2022.
Q: As Good As A Marriage focuses on the relationship between Anne Lister and Ann Walker as one of its central subjects. What do these writings reveal about their “marriage”?
From 1836, after Anne’s father and aunt died, the couple were on their own, with their servants, at Shibden Hall, and we can see the marriage up close and personal. It was a volatile marriage, as we can sense from the following quotations from the diaries. On Thursday, 17th August 1837, Anne wrote in code:
“Slept in the blue room [ie, didn’t sleep with Ann Walker], my mind seems comfortably made up. Ann has been preparing Crow Nest [her own house] and has wanted to be away from here. [Shibden] for a long time. How lucky I have not to have introduced her to anyone [Anne was a consummate snob, and the fact she hadn’t introduced Ann Walker to anybody was vital] the sooner she goes, the better.”
Later that day: “She must make up her mind to go or stay. She ought to go properly [ie, decisively]. [The doctor] was right, I should have a great deal of trouble with her. Well, I shall suit myself. I can have excuse enough for being off anytime and letting her do her own way. But while she is with me, I must hold the rein tighter.”
When I first transcribed that, the colour drained from my face: you hold a rein tighter with a horse, it isn’t how you talk about your wife. However, the next day, Friday the 18th, Anne writes, again in code: “Slept with A [Ann], good kiss, [orgasm], she saying it did not tire her at all.” And on Saturday 19th: “Slept with Ann, and she lay down naked after washing, and stayed with me, I grubbling [caressing] her.”
How I interpret this shift is the volatility and complexity of this very unorthodox marriage documented in the diary. Anne Lister does use this coercive, harsh language about Ann Walker, but while she thinks and writes these things, she doesn’t do them. She’s often kind to Ann Walker, and vice versa. They look after each other when they fall ill, and there’s a loyalty there.
Q: What new insights do readers gain about Lister’s life as a landlord and entrepreneur from this latest selection from the diaries?
One of the things that saddened and annoyed Ann Walker was that after breakfast, Anne Lister would be off to her estate and business contacts, leaving her (Ann) behind. Increasingly by the late 1830s, Anne Lister was almost more interested in Shibden and the legacy she would her leave in her estate than she was in Ann Walker.
Increasingly by the late 1830s, Anne Lister was almost more interested in Shibden and the legacy she would her leave in her estate than she was in Ann Walker.
Anne Lister spent her days attending to business, seeing her tenants to find out if they had paid their rent and how they voted in the 1837 election. Though the 1832 Act excluded women from voting (and that remained so till 1918), if you were a landowner with enfranchised tenants, you could check how your tenants voted. Anne Lister doorstepped her tenants rigorously, not allowing any of them to deviate from voting blue, (for the Tories later the Conservative Party) and then checking this in the poll book. Almost every one of her 30 enfranchised tenants voted Tory. So, politically, she was very active and far more powerful than one woman with one vote would have been.
She was also a scholar and read very widely, including in science. She was very interested in geology and read everything by leading geologist Charles Lyell. She kept up to date as far as she could, though women weren’t allowed to go to university, let alone to be members of the learned societies. She read engineering books to aid her in developing her coal mines, which were profitable. She had also inherited Northgate House in Halifax which she turned into a hotel and casino – in the 1830s, “casino” meant a social room with music and drinking rather than a place where you would lose your shirt over a game of cards.
Note: This interview gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Image credit: Elizabeth O’Sullivan on Shutterstock.
Video: pensioner among 3 peaceful anti-genocide protesters arrested in Hastings
State repression of civic rights and protection of weapons manufacturers continues to escalate
A pensioner and two other protestors were arrested by police on Thursday 29 February during a peaceful demonstration outside the General Dynamics arms factory in Hastings, East Sussex. The local people were among a broad coalition of community groups that came together to protest against Britain’s role in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
The three were arrested and taken to Hastings police station where they were held for nearly fourteen hours before being charged with aggravated trespass and then released on bail. They will appear before magistrates on April 3.
Laurie Holden, 71, a retired train driver from Burwash, was one of those arrested at the demonstration. He said:
It is outrageous that the police are treating us as criminals. We are not the criminals here – we are highlighting the criminal complicity of our government and arms companies in continuing to supply arms to Israel which is in the dock for genocide in Gaza. We will always stand on the side of the people of Palestine.
The Hastings & District Palestine Solidarity Campaign [HDPSC] united with representatives of Jewish groups, trade union bodies, Quakers, climate justice groups, parent groups and political parties to draw attention to the part Hastings is playing in arming Israel.
HDPSC Chair Katy Colley said:
Our brave and principled friends have shown enormous courage in the face of disproportionate and heavy-handed policing of a peaceful, community-led protest.
In January, the International Court of Justice put Israel on trial for genocide in Gaza but since then the slaughter and starvation have worsened. Over 30,000 are dead and thousands more will die if this continues. Yesterday Israeli troops gunned down starving civilians in the north of Gaza as they waited for food – over 100 were killed and 700 injured in the ‘the Flour Massacre’. This latest horror underscores the urgency of stopping all arms sales to Israel. UN experts have warned that any arms transfers to Israel will breach international law and ordered all countries to stop all arms sales immediately.
Our government has refused to halt export licenses to Israel so it is our duty as citizens to stand up for peace, international law and human rights.
We will not stand by as the UK continues to arm this genocide of the Palestinian people. It must end now.’
The protest started at 7am at the Sidney Little Road factory, one of the two General Dynamics sites in Hastings, timed to coincide with workers as they arrived for work. Demonstrators held placards, sung songs for ‘Ceaefire Now’ and handed out leaflets which informed workers of their right to refuse to take part in handling components used in breach of international law.
Israel’s brutal campaign in Gaza has run for five months so far, killing almost 40,000 people and wounding and maiming double that number. The UN is now warning that a quarter of the population is at risk of death from famine and the World Health Organisation has said that more than a million are starving. Protests have been mounted outside arms factories all over the country, including in Kent, Leicester, Bristol, Bournemouth, Glasgow, Cambridge, Brighton, London, Lancashire, Belfast and Monmouthshire, to demand an end to UK’s ongoing complicity and enabling of genocide. This is HDPSC’s fourth protest at General Dynamics’ sites in Hastings since the campaign began.
According to the organisers, almost all of the ‘MK80’ bombs being dropped on Gaza are made by General Dynamics, which is the 5th biggest arms company in the world. The Hastings facilities provide avionic systems for fighter planes and tactical communications equipment for ground vehicles.
At the demo, Leah Levane of Jewish Voice for Labour said that Israel could no longer ‘act with impunity’.
It is shocking that the UK government is granting arms licences to Israel,’ she said. ‘This makes the UK partners in the occupation and the genocide in Gaza. As a Jewish organisation, we are one of several Jewish groups in the UK and the many more across the world who are protesting loud and clear – NOT IN OUR NAME.
Jen Rouse, representing Parents for Future Hastings & St Leonards, said:
We’re here today because as parents we cannot stand by and watch as our government supports a genocide of children.
The thought of our own kids having to live through even a fraction of the terror and trauma that Israel inflicts on Gazan children every day is unbearable. So the only right thing for all UK parents to do is to be here today, demanding an immediate end to the bloodshed. We will never give up until we see a free Palestine.
Simon Hester, Chair of Hastings & District Trades Union Council, added:
Hastings & District Trades Union Council supports the calls for end to all arms sales to Israel and for an immediate ceasefire to end the genocide in Gaza.
We demand that General Dynamics UK stop supplying equipment to the Israeli army or to get out of Hastings. We stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine.
Olivia Cavanagh of Hastings Community of Sanctuary and Hastings Supports Refugees said:
We continue to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and the West Bank.
We support an embargo on arms sales from the UK to Israel and stand with the Hastings community to call on the local General Dynamics factories to stop supplying arms to Israel and to act to end the unprecedented killing of Palestinian civilians.’
Yunis Smith from Hastings Green Party said:
Years from now the children of the world will ask what did you do to stop this calamity? I for one hope I will have a good enough answer!
And Chris Goodchild of Hastings Quakers said:
The poor tell us who we are, the prophets who we can be. Yet we kill the poor and kill the prophets. We are all Palestinian and civil disobedience is divine obedience. Stop arming Genocide.
The arrest form part of an escalating campaign of repression and demonisation of peaceful protesters demonstrating against genocide. PM Rishi Sunak, who like ‘opposition’ leader Keir Starmer has constantly backed Israel’s murderous actions, has today smeared demonstrators as divisive and hateful and has threatened to deport those who fall foul of what he considers the limits of acceptable protest.
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Sexuality and the Rise of China – review
In Sexuality and the Rise of China, sociologist Travis Kong examines the experiences of post-1990s gay men in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Through interviews and historical analysis, Kong explores the societal values, familial pressures and political influences shaping LGBTQ+ identity in modern China, making a unique contribution to Asian queer studies. writes Linqiu Li .
Travis Kong’s latest book, Sexuality and the Rise of China continues his longstanding research focus on “generational sexualities.” Unlike his previous works that shed light on the life experience of East Asian elderly gay men (Chinese Male Homosexualities, 2012 and Oral Histories of Older Gay Men in Hong Kong, 2019), this book examines the post-90s generation of gay men within three distinct Chinese societies: mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Since 2017, Kong has interviewed 90 young gay men in Shanghai (mainland China), Hong Kong and Taipei (Taiwan). The book begins by providing a brief characterisation of this demographic in the three regions, in the context of The People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s political and economic rise in mainland China, young gay men exhibit confidence and pragmatism, yet “still struggle with their sexual identity.” In Hong Kong, most post-90s gay men express a collective desire to distance themselves to varying degrees from the influence of the Beijing government and “are generally comfortable with their sexual identity,” whereas the participants in Taiwan “are strongly Taiwanese nationalistic and “are generally accepting of their sexual identity and engage with gay communities and gay activism to different degrees” (3).
In Hong Kong’s case, British colonisation influenced the progression of its tongzhi culture.
In the first chapter, Kong adopts a historical perspective, elucidating how factors such as the decriminalisation of homosexual relations in 1991, the pink economy (which refers to the consumer economy of the LGBTQ+ community), the impact of colonisation, religious influence, and government surveillance have shaped the formation of tongzhi (a local parlance for LGBTQ+, which translates as “people who share the common will”) identity in the three regions to varying degrees. In Hong Kong’s case, British colonisation influenced the progression of its tongzhi culture. The rise of LGBTQ+ social groups and the boom of the pink economy have characterised homosexuality in Hong Kong with inclusive and diverse features. In Taiwan, as a consequence of Japanese colonisation and support from the US, the government has skilfully presented Taiwanese society as an open and pro-LGBTQ+ community (in contrast to the PRC government’s perceived human rights abuses) and aimed at gaining international recognition for its independence from China. Mainland China, on the other hand, experienced a void in gay culture from the Maoist era to the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. Trailing its two counterparts, the tongzhi identity began to develop gradually in the 1990s, but under Xi Jinping’s regime, regulations and restrictions have intensified, leading to the constant constriction of tongzhi population in recent years.
Kong further highlights the differences between Asian LGBTQ+ communities and Western gay societies […] underscoring the imperative for de-Westernisation in Asian queer studies.
Kong further highlights the differences between Asian LGBTQ+ communities and Western gay societies in Chapter Two, underscoring the imperative for de-Westernisation in Asian queer studies. The application of neoliberalism differs across the three regions: Mainland China promotes the idea that families should support the elderly to alleviate economic burdens for the government, Hong Kong advocates intra-familial assistance over government aid, and Taiwan emphasises familial responsibility for the elderly to address its ageing population. However, these diverse approaches have collectively resulted in the family unit becoming a central regulator for individuals’ private lives in all three places. Thus, in addressing the matters of tongzhi identity and coming out, Kong highlights the perpetual existence of a “double closet” in Chinese tongzhi identity (65). That is to say, in addition to the societal aspect of coming out, unlike in Western societies, gay men in PRC also confront the challenge of being either a good (filial) or bad (unfilial) child within the family.
Kong applies Berlant’s discussion of ‘cruel optimism’ to each of the three societies, pointing out that while one-on-one exclusivity remains the aspiration in gay men’s intimate relationships, most respondents failed to achieve this.
Following the exploration of tongzhi identity, Kong delves into the dynamics of engagement within the tongzhi community in Chapter Three. Here, Kong elaborates on the emergence of a new masculinity hierarchy among young gay men across the three locales. Kong argues the Chinese tongzhi community is characterised by a combination of homonormativity and hegemonic masculinity (91). Gay men who are young and have athletic bodies, practice exclusive one-on-one intimacy, and enjoy a consumerist urban lifestyle are admired within the community. Kong continues the discussion of homonormative masculinity in the Chapter Four, offering insights from the perspective of love and sex. Kong applies Berlant’s discussion of “cruel optimism” to each of the three societies, pointing out that while one-on-one exclusivity remains the aspiration in gay men’s intimate relationships, most respondents failed to achieve this. The possible reasons for this varied across the three societies. The high cost of private space presented a hurdle in Hong Kong, the immense pressure to marry in mainland China, and the flexible gay environment and easy access to online dating in Taiwan all contributed to the difficulty of maintaining monogamous relationships.
The varying degrees of presentation of homonationalism in the three regions is what Kong focuses on in the final chapter. Based on the definition of homonationalism by Puar (2007), that homonationalism is a political ploy by the government to gain support and co-opt LGBTQ+ people. Kong argues that the Taiwanese government exhibit an incorporative form of homonationalism, but with the premise to only recognise gay men who conform to the archetype of the “good citizen”(133). The situation differs in Hong Kong, whose government has a closer relationship with the PRC government compared to Taiwan. Due to the avoidance of addressing homosexuality as a prominent social issue, coupled with an emphasis on traditional Chinese family values, Kong sees Hong Kong’s homonationalism as deficient (141). In the context of mainland China, Kong proposes that PRC’s homonationalism exhibits “Chinese characteristics” or a “pragmatic homonationalism,” which accrued through negotiations with LGBTQ+ nongovernmental organisations, leveraging them as a platform to underscore public health concerns, or emphasising Confucian values such as parental love, and downplaying the sexual aspect in the topic of homosexuality (150).
Kong’s book is a significant contribution as the first study that discusses all three societies together and presents the lives of gay men from a variety of perspectives, including historical, cultural and political contexts.
Although there has been, and continues to be, a growing body of research literature addressing the life experience of LGBTQ+ (or Tongzhi) in the three locales, many of them have concentrated on either one single society or two. Kong’s book is a significant contribution as the first study that discusses all three societies together and presents the lives of gay men from a variety of perspectives, including historical, cultural and political contexts. In addition, acknowledging the intricate historical and political interrelations among the three societies, Kong proposes a new theoretical approach: a transnational queer sociology. This approach allows for a cross-national comparison of LGBTQ+ issues and discourse, combining sociology and cultural studies, and contributes to the de-Westernisation of queer studies in the Asian context. Whether for a general reader who wants to learn more about queer life in Asia or an academic scholar with a research interest in Asian queer studies, this book is definitely worth reading.
This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
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