Disrupting queer inclusion

About this book

Canada likes to present itself as a paragon of LGBTQ rights. This book contends that rather than being a beacon of justice, Canada's newfound acceptance of the LGBTQ community is a smokescreen that obscures and abets multiple forms of oppression--including the marginalization of queers who do not fit within accepted norms. As the title to this provocative volume implies, Disrupting Queer Inclusion: Canadian Homonationalisms and the Politics of Belonging seeks to unsettle the belief that inclusion equates to justice. The contributors draw from a range of interdisciplinary perspectives to detail how, in the fight for acceptance within mainstream society, "liberal gays" have unwittingly become complicit participants in a system that entrenches racialization as structured by white supremacy, furthers settler colonialism, advances neoliberalism, and props up imperialist mythologies (such as the one that Canada is a safe haven for homosexuals). They do this by highlighting the uneven relationships produced by normative articulations of sexual citizenship in a wide-range of contexts--in prisons, at PRIDE House, Pride marches, fetish fairs, and the feminist porn awards--as well as within the laws and regulations governing marriage, hate crimes, citizenship, blood donation, and refugee claims.