Immigration and Queerness: Missing the Mark

There's been a trend recently to track the "progress" of nations in the Global South, particularly places like Iran, by how "well" they treat non-straight citizens. This is obviously problematic for a number of reasons, particularly since Western concepts of "gay"/"lesbian"/"bisexual"/"homosexual"/etc. do not map so easily onto other cultures, and that, of course, the motive behind these criticisms is rarely (I'd say maybe even never) a genuine concern for oppressed peoples.

Andil Gosine, a professor at York University, contributed an article to the Queer Youth Cultures anthology that seemed like a promising critique of Canada's "queer-friendly" image, but turned out to be a pretty disappointing article regurgitating already popular (and incorrect) perceptions of non-straight sexuality in the Global South.

In “FOBS, Banana Boy, and The Gay Pretenders: Queer Youth Navigate Sex, ‘Race,’ and Nation in Toronto, Canada” Gosine examines the status of queer immigrant youth in Toronto, and where they locate themselves within supposedly “queer-friendly” Canada. He first provides a framework for why queer youth are apparently “outside their ‘home’ nations” as a result of their queerness, and then looks specifically at two cultural works by young queer immigrants to Toronto. Gosine first considers "Banana Boy," a film made by Samuel Chow, a gay-identified immigrant from Hong Kong, and then a personal story written by a lesbian-identified Iranian immigrant. He plots these narratives against the multi-cultural, queer-friendly state discourse of Canada. The personal narratives offered by Chow and the Iranian immigrant clearly problematize Canadian state rhetoric by displaying the intersecting forms of oppression they experience.

Although in the second half of his article Gosine utilizes immigrant-produced narratives to (rightfully) criticize the supposed queer utopia Canada presents itself to be, he momentarily reinforces this very idea. After a series of quotes from immigrants that display how their queerness was viewed more positively in their home nations, Gosine explains that “citation of these passages is not meant to suggest that Canada is a more repressive place for queers than [their] home countries…Instead, it compels reconsideration of assumptions about the easy ‘welcome' Canada is said to offer queers, and it also calls for more critical appreciation of the complex cultural contexts in countries that are generally dismissed as inferior” (237). Instead of taking this opportunity to examine how these immigrants may have had more complex reasons for emigrating to Canada, or the possibility that their queerness did not impact their decision to emigrate, Gosine simply ignores these possibilities.

Gosine misses an opportunity to examine, for example, the economic circumstances that may force a person to emigrate to the Global North. It is telling that the Iranian immigrant, who provides the most compelling story by facing death in her home nation for her queerness, describes her immigration to Canada (and not her death sentence) as “the worst experience of [her] life” (231). It is, in fact, only the Iranian immigrant who presents a case severe enough that her queerness can be considered the primary factor for her immigration. The other immigrants Gosine speaks to seem to consider their home countries as more comfortable places to be queer. It is therefore clear that other factors are encouraging emigration to Canada, but Gosine ignores them, and instead only offers these stories as an opportunity for a “more critical appreciation of the complex cultural contexts in countries that are generally dismissed as inferior” (237). In other words, Gosine uses these stories to offer an alternative view of these home nations as not entirely oppressive, but goes no further than that. He does not use them to contextualize people’s immigration and experiences in Canada, as he evidently does not want to suggest that Canada could be “a more repressive place for queers” than countries in the Global South, like Iran.

All in all, I was incredibly disappointed by the lack of depth in the article, and how Gosine still seems loyal to the tired (and, as proven by his own article, oftentimes incorrect) Third World = bad/repressive/evil for queers line. Aren't people tired of this false narrative yet? Don't folks want to engage a little more critically with what is happening in the Global South and with other ideas and categories of sexuality and gender that are not as restrictive as Western ones?