Volume 22, numéro 3, 2023 Special Issue: Heteroactivism, Homonationalism, and National Projects

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Oppositions and reactions to contestations of the hetero-patriarchal order are becoming a main site of engagement for feminist and queer activism and scholarship. Yet further spatial and intersectional attention to these oppositions, dubbed “anti-gender politics”, is needed to move beyond single-issue analyses of their geographical ‘placings’. This special issue seeks to develop geographical analyses of such contestations by situating them within nationalisms and racial politics. The papers in this special issue develop the concept of heteroactivism to deliver conceptual and empirical insights into the spatialities of oppositions and resistances against gender and sexual equalities that are manifest as part of broader racial and national projects.

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During the previous decade (2012–2021), in Ukraine, political pressure from the European Union combined with the efforts of the local civil society resulted in the adoption of legislation to prevent and eliminate discrimination, protect women from domestic violence, and promote LGBT people’s rights. Nevertheless, these changes were met by the opposition from various conservative and religious groups that have, over time, become more sophisticated in their resistance strategies. The present article applies the concept of heteroactivism to examine the role of women within such groups in Ukraine. It argues that Ukrainian heteroactivism is a product of the “clash of values” largely influenced by the geopolitical position of Ukraine and its historical and cultural context. Studying the cases of the Sisterhood of St. Olga, the Association of Sexologists and Sexual Therapists of Ukraine (ASSU), and several prominent scholarly figures, the article identifies the mobilization frames these activists use, specifically, Women as Wives and Mothers, Protection of Family and Minors, and Religion (heteroactivism as martyrdom). This study shows that in attempts to influence national policymaking, Ukrainian women heteroactivists set rigid standards of “proper” Ukrainian femininity and the role of women (that of a mother and wife staying outside of politics) within a “proper” Ukrainian family, which must be heterosexual, Christian, and monogamous.

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Based on a conceptualization of heteroactivism as a transnational phenomenon manifesting in local contexts to spread and express resistance to gender and sexual rights, this article aims to illuminate new dimensions of heteroactivism beyond a sole focus on gender and sexuality by bringing its specificities in the Swedish context to the fore. Drawing on digital ethnography with members of the neo-conservative, far-right thinktank Oikos and the ethnonationalist political party the Sweden Democrats (SD), the article shows how heteroactivist forms of resistance seek to reshape the state and the nation through the gender–sexuality nexus and how these resistances enter into negotiation with spatiohistorically established notions of gender equality and sexual rights. Through a multiscalar transnational approach, the article brings forth how heteroactivism connects several levels horizontally—from the local to the national and the transnational—and vertically and establishes linkages among gender, sexuality, the state and the nation. The analysis reveals how care, love and gratitude for the shared home are core elements used in heteroactivist negotiations, with contextually established notions of gender equality and sexual rights as national values. It also demonstrates how the home, which these actors seek to cherish and protect, takes shape as an exclusive and exclusionary space.

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Fears of immigration and demographic change have fueled nativist, pro-natalist movements that support the reproductive, heteronormative family as a vital political project shaping their rhetoric and politics. This paper argues that right-wing populist movements can be situated within heteroactivsm, as reactionary movements positioning themselves against challenges to the heteronormative family. I suggest that understanding the populist character of these movements can help theorize why so many right-wing populists echo specific claims about gender and race. By situating their political claims in biological claims about sex, gender and race, these movements contrast themselves with abstract ideals of universal human rights, neoliberal rationality, and cosmopolitan globalism, embracing the traditional family, gender norms, and heterosexual reproduction. They encourage normative family promoted through state policy of rewarding proper families and punishing improper social reproduction—whether literal reproduction or the cultural reproduction of values. Tracing the broad outlines of a political project anchored in the reproductive bodies of women, I argue for greater attention to the ways the heteroactivist project is central to right-wing populism and its multi-scalar manifestations.

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This article is about one of the most violent and visible form anti-LGBTQI activism in Sweden, conducted by Neo-Nazis. Through a critical discourse analysis of 189 texts published in Swedish newspapers and Neo-Nazi alternative media, it argues that contemporary Swedish Neo-Nazi anti-LGBTQI activism draws upon and constructs transnational heteroactivist discourses. They claim to “protect the nuclear family” to deflate accusations of homophobia while gaining substantial visibility through news media covering their actions. The findings demonstrate the three ways Neo-Nazi texts use heteroactivist strategies. First, the texts argue that LGBTQI rights and feminism are societally harmful.  Second, through intertextuality they refer to both local and international alternative media as the basis for their arguments. Third, they rationalise homophobic hatred. This paper contributes to discussions of heteroactivism, revealing the need to grapple with the ways it is intertwined with race and nationalism. Empirically, the analysis also highlights the significance of anti-LGBTQI activism in contemporary white power and extreme-right movements. The inclusion of news media texts that frame and represent heteroactivist strategies reveals that, despite their rationalising efforts, Neo-Nazi anti-LGBTQI activism is represented as homophobic and hateful in news and debate articles describing them. Additionally, news media representations of Neo-Nazi heteroactivist discourse present a nationalist contradiction, with authors re-constructing narratives of Sweden as a “LGBT friendly nation”, bringing to light complex relations between heteroactivism, homophobia, racism, and nationalism.

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This article employs heteroactivism as a frame of analysis to examine recent shifts in resistances to gender and sexual equalities in Israel. Using ethnographic, visual, and textual methods, I examine as case studies the oppositions to two academic conferences, Issues in Therapy with Polyamory and Queer Utopias, that were both held at Bar Ilan University in 2019. The oppositions, which were led by three organisations affiliated with the Religious Zionist public (Leeba; Shovrot Shivion; Boharim Bamishpacha) reveal how Israeli heteroactivist discourses invoke familism, pro-natalism, religious sentiments, Zionist narratives, and collective trauma, in their attempts to recentralise the heteronormative Jewish family. LGBT equality in Israel has been achieved through legislative court-rulings, instead of being legally secured by the parliament, as it was in other countries previously explored by research on heteroactivsim. Nevertheless, this article shows, how this quasi-equality, combined with public sentiments of growing acceptance, induced by homonationalist and homonormative trends, sufficed to create a fertile ground for heteroactivist resistances. Through a discussion of the symbolic meaning of Bar Ilan University as an academic institution, affiliated with the Religious Zionist public, this article also illustrates how heteroactivist resistances may be embedded in specific localities and events, and not just on grand national campaigns.