(Trans)Cultural Queer (In)Visibility

Abstract

Many people often believe that queerness is a Western phenomenon, and that the people living in the Western world are more accepting of queer identity. The historical and ideological processes of colonialism and neoliberalism have supported the idea of queerness as western, and language and labels around queer identity support the same notion. In reading about multilingual queer people’s experience, there are two general trends that emerge: 1) people claim that English labels are most useful for articulating queer identity, or that 2) English labels for queer identity are too tied to Western culture. I conclude that, although labeling separate queer identities very often helps individuals feel recognized and accepted, abolishing narrow labeling practices altogether may be necessary to prevent queer identity from being continuously framed as a Western phenomenon. Indeed, since most queer identity labels are coined in English, it is primarily people who speak English who have the ability to articulate who they are. This relegates non-English speakers to the imagined non-queer realm in modern, Western conceptions of thought and makes such people invisible. This paper suggests, also, that moving beyond hegemonic western narratives of queerness to talk about how people all over the world love, act, and exist rather than identify may be key for queer acceptance and liberation.