Because We Are Human

Cynthia Burack

Description

Finalist for the 2018 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award in the LGBT category

Around the world, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people continue to be threatened, attacked, arrested, tortured, and sometimes executed just for being sexual or gender minorities. Since the final months of the Clinton administration, agencies and officials of the US government have been engaging in programs and projects whose stated purposes are to serve goals of justice and equity for LGBTQ people outside the United States. Because We Are Human gives readers an inside look at US sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) human rights assistance programs. Cynthia Burack explores settings where indigenous and transnational human rights advocates meet to fund and strategize SOGI human rights movements. This book also examines key arguments against these programs, policies, and interventions that originate on both the conservative right and the progressive academic left. Burack ultimately recommends support for a US commitment to SOGI human rights and programs that serve the needs of LGBTQ people.
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Putting the SOGI in Human Rights

1. The US Government and SOGI Human Rights Abroad: The Early Years

2. SOGI Rights Are Human Rights, and Human Rights Are SOGI Rights

3. The US Government and SOGI Human Rights: After Geneva

4. No Human Right to Sodomy: Christian Conservative Opposition to SOGI Human Rights

5. Dispensing Human Rights? Critical Humanists and SOGI Human Rights

Afterword Reflections on SOGI Human Rights and Democracy

Appendix A Barack Obama, Presidential Memorandum
Appendix B Hillary Clinton, Remarks in Recognition of International Human Rights Day
Notes
Index

Sujets

• Civil Rights
• Gay Studies
• Human rights
• Central
• National

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438470153
• Langue: English

Extrait

because we are human
SUNY series in Queer Politics and Cultures

Cynthia Burack and Jyl J. Josephson, editors
because
we are
human
Contesting US Support for Gender and Sexuality Human Rights Abroad
cynthia burack
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2018 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Burack, Cynthia, 1958– author.
Title: Because we are human : contesting US support for gender and sexuality human rights abroad / Cynthia Burack.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, Albany, [2018] | Series: SUNY series in queer politics and cultures | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017033591 | ISBN 9781438470139 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438470153 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Gay rights. | United States—Foreign relations.
Classification: LCC HQ76.5 .B87 2018 | DDC 323.3/264—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017033591
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For the members of the LGBT Caucus of the American Political Science Association, past and present. Their scholarship on politics has made my work, and this book, possible.
Contents
Acknowledgments Introduction Putting the SOGI in Human Rights Chapter 1 The US Government and SOGI Human Rights Abroad: The Early Years Chapter 2 SOGI Rights Are Human Rights, and Human Rights Are SOGI Rights Chapter 3 The US Government and SOGI Human Rights: After Geneva Chapter 4 No Human Right to Sodomy: Christian Conservative Opposition to SOGI Human Rights Chapter 5 Dispensing Human Rights? Critical Humanists and SOGI Human Rights Afterword Reflections on SOGI Human Rights and Democracy Appendix A Barack Obama, Presidential Memorandum Appendix B Hillary Clinton, Remarks in Recognition of International Human Rights Day
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
As always, I am thankful to many friends and colleagues. Those who have read a portion of the manuscript and given me their unvarnished views and suggestions are a real blessing. So, to Michelle Abate, Phillip Ayoub, Elizabeth Bloodgood, Amy Bonomi, Felon Evans, Suzanne Franks, Charles Gossett, Dan Lewis, Laree Martin, Bonnie Morris, Linda Nicholson, Franke Wilmer, and Diana Zoelle: thank you! I’m also grateful to Brooke Ackerly, Michael Goodhart, and Karen Zivi for patiently answering my questions. Huge thanks to Jeff Mann for squiring me to Saints and Sinners, giving me the vampire makeover, and conducting the very best Big Queer Convocations.
I’m grateful to SUNY Press and the editor of the Queer Politics and Cultures book series when this book went to press, Beth Bouloukos. Jyl Josephson is an excellent colleague and coeditor, and I’m glad we started down this road together. Because I am closer to the end of my career as an academic than I am to its beginning, I look back with gratitude to my professors, especially Fred Alford, Steve Elkin, Jim Glass, Karol Soltan, and Ron Terchek (Steve: I’m sorry I was so slow to pick up that thing about the importance of institutions).
In the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Ohio State, I am grateful to Katelyn Hancock for research assistance with this book when it was in its early stages and to Cara Clark for assistance at the end of the process. Thanks are also due to the small but hardy band of grad students who read with me on the subject of “LGBTQ Human Rights” in spring 2015: Jon Branfman, Rorie Dean, Lee Evans, and Courtney Hammond. The Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Department provided funds for a 2015 research trip that was crucial to completing this book, and the Department and College supported publication by way of a subvention grant.
A big thank you to Diana Zoelle for sharing her human rights library and inviting me to talk about the project at Bloomsburg University, and to Marie Griffith and Rebecca Wanzo for inviting me to talk at the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL). I deeply appreciate the engagement of so many WUSTL faculty and grad students in the political theory seminar where I presented some of this project, particularly Elizabeth Borgwardt and Frank Lovett. I am indebted to the government officials and LGBTQ people who spoke with me in the course of my research and writing. Finally, I was thrilled to have this book project selected as a recipient of Eastern Michigan University’s Equality Knowledge Project Research Award for 2016–2018.
Excerpts from this book first appeared as two chapters in edited volumes: Christine (Cricket) Keating and Cynthia Burack, “Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Human Rights,” in Human Rights: Politics and Practice , 3rd edition, edited by Michael Goodhart (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 182–97; reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press; and Cynthia Burack, “Top Down, Bottom Up, or Meeting in the Middle? A SOGI Human Rights Case Study,” in LGBTQ Politics: A Critical Reader , edited by Marla Brettschneider, Susan Burgess, and Cricket Keating (New York: NYU Press, 2017), 477–92.
A personal note: one of the most important lessons my mother taught me when I was growing up was the opposite of what she intended, but I give her credit for the lesson nonetheless. No doubt hoping I would fit in and keep a low profile, my mother often told me: “Cindy, everyone can’t be wrong.” What a great relief it turned out to be when I realized that many people, at least, can be wrong. What wonderful freedom it is not to obey God, Christian conservatives, community standards, political leaders, radical academic colleagues, or the students who correct me when they discover I haven’t appropriately internalized the political beliefs and values they associate with my office. I’ll keep reminding myself to be deeply grateful for the opportunity I’ve had to speak, write, and teach my mind.
Introduction
Putting the SOGI in Human Rights
From Human Rights to SOGI Human Rights
Since the turn of the millennium, agents and agencies of the US government have been engaging in programs and projects with the stated purpose of protecting the human rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender women and men, men who have sex with men (MSM), women who have sex with women (WSW), and same-sex-loving adults outside the United States. 1 As I have learned more about these programs and projects and discussed them with academic colleagues and other well-educated citizens, I discovered that the existence of such initiatives has not been well known. More fascinating is the variety of responses I received to describing this project since I began working on it in early 2013.
These responses came in two basic types: some interlocutors stated their conviction that no such initiatives existed and that I would look for them in vain. Had these colleagues been correct, this would have been a short project indeed. Others conceded that if such initiatives existed, I might be able to discover their true purpose, which surely would be a covert geopolitical or economic interest of US elites and not a commitment—however fruitful or misguided—to aiding lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) people outside the United States in their struggles against discrimination and violence. Even though I believe it’s possible for policies and projects to serve multiple purposes at once, as well as fail to serve any or all of the purposes for which they were designed, I don’t think these colleagues are correct, either. On these disagreements, the reader ultimately can judge for herself.
At the outset, it is important to clarify what this book is and what it is not. My first goal is to construct an empirical account of US government programs, policies, and interventions outside the United States on behalf of the human rights of LGBTQ people, those who engage in sexual relations with same-sex partners, and those whose gender identity or expression puts them at odds with—or in danger from—people, including government authorities, in their own countries. Another way of pointing to this same object of research is to use the term “sexual orientation and gender identity” (SOGI) human rights, a phrase that isolates and directs attention to forms of discrimination and human rights jeopardy aimed at people of minority sexuality and/or gender identity.
The SOGI human rights programs and projects with which I concern myself here have been designed by a variety of government actors and have taken a variety of forms. US government officials have created programs to advance gender and sexual minority human rights abroad; funded individuals and groups engaged in social, legal, or political advocacy on behalf of LGBTQ people abroad; worked closely with local and regional activists and groups to provide support and resources to LGBTQ people; provided resources to protect individuals who are targeted for their minority sexual identity or behavior, or for their minority gender identity or presentation; brokered relationships among human rights actors that inc