by Yana Sitnikova
LGBT issues in Russia receive a lot of attention from the media worldwide. However not all groups that are included in LGBT, or even broader LGBTQI, abbreviation are covered equally. While problems faced by Russian lesbian and gay people are considered in detail, queer, bisexual, transgender and intersex issues remain almost invisible. This article is aimed at filling this gap by describing the situation that Russian trans* people live in and our struggle as trans* activists.
by Erel, Umut; Haritaworn, Jin; Rodríguez, Encarnación Gutiérrez and Klesse, Christian
Queer theory ofers itself as a radical epistemology to uncover pervasive forms of power, not only around sexuality but also around ‘race’ and transgender. Queer of colour theorists and some trans theorists have re- mained sceptical about these grand claims, and pointed out the notorious silence about racism and transphobia in the mainstream of queer theorising (Helen (charles) 1993, Cathy Cohen 2001, Jin Haritaworn 2007). Their critique echoes an older tradition of theorising multiple relations of oppression that has been particularly advocated by lesbians of colour like Audre Lorde (1984), Gloria Anzaldúa (1987), Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell Scott and Barbara Smith (1982; 1983). While the anti-racist feminisms of the 1980s have produced their own silences, especially around transgender and dissident sexualities, we will here argue that their call to positionality is vital in developing a queer theory and research practice that addresses the silences around raciality subject to this volume. This article is an attempt to ind a language for our dissatisfaction with the silencing of the knowledge productions and political activisms of trans people of colour, queers of colour, women of colour and migrant women in the UK and Germany, as at the same time it is about exploring the possibilities and limits of the concept of ‘intersectionality‘. In nearly two decades of critical debate about how multiple oppressions around gender, ‘race‘ and class interlock, ‘intersectionality‘ has emerged as a concept which promises a comprehensive theorising of various power relations. In this article we explore the potential of an ‘intersectionality perspective‘ for critical queer theorising and research practice. We argue that the concept has been used as an umbrella term for divergent debates and political projects, both radical and hegemonic ones. This is relected in its reception and dissemination in diferent political, cultural and historical contexts.
Adi Kuntsman and Esperanza Miyake (ed.)
Raw Nerve Books, 2008
Out of Place asks daring and timely questions about the silence at the heart of queer studies. Discussing ‘race’ alongside ‘queer’ often submerges raciality within queerness, leaving racialised groups silent and silenced -‘out of place’. Out of Place creates a space where queerness/raciality are brought together in creative tension to disturb these silences: to hear the invisible, to see the inaudible.
Out of Place takes the reader through an inspiring, illuminating and at times painful journey. The book explores queerness/raciality in the context of the ‘war on terror'; corporeal and social practices in and of space;relations between visibility and politics; and cultural, literary, linguistic and theoretical mechanisms of translation. The papers in Out of Place cut across academic theory, arts, activism, the media and everyday life. All the contributors to Out of Place address queerness/ raciality as a theoretical and political tool to analyse and challenge their own fields, epistemologies and ontologies. This groundbreaking and fascinating book is not just about what happens at the intersection of ‘queer’ and ‘race’, but also about how this intersection relates to and animates other aspects of life.
