International Discussions of Homosexuality: Boomeranging Effects in Power Currents

Abstract

Homosexuality has recently become a matter of international politics. UNO General Secretary announced LGBT rights a global agenda and called for rejection of discriminatory laws in national legislatures. Former president of the USA supported widening of sexual citizenship by inclusion of same-sex couples. Similar tendencies have been demonstrated by the European Union countries. Yet, simultaneously, there are attempts to criminalize homosexuality in a somewhat concurrent camp of the global debate: new round of criminalization in India, prison terms for gay men in Uganda, or capital punishment in Zimbabwe. Ban of so called ‘propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations’ stands in this row. It was enacted in Russia in 2013 to protect children from becoming gay by learning information on LGBT issues. This initiative has been interesting for members of parliament in other post-Soviet republics. It seems like the world is divided in two parts by the question of homosexuality. But this perception is an oversimplification. Both inclusive and exclusive approaches use the same power technics and come from the same source. I use ideas of Michel Foucault and queer theory to show the ways how a complex analysis of the situation might be brought about. In this sense, power does not come from only one source, but is always embedded in relations between forces. Hence, there are intersecting currents of power that make the international discussion of homosexuality possible.