Priscilla, (White) Queen of the Desert Queer Politics and Representation in a "Postcolonising" Nation — Page 3:
11 One of the key problems that arises from this location of white queer identities within the terms of a white national imaginary is that it is premised upon the exclusion of particular queer identities that do not or cannot conform to those deemed acceptable (Phelan). Thus, for instance, whilst white lesbians or gay men may be granted recognition by the white nation, it is far less likely that bisexual or transgendered individuals or those in polyamorous relationships will be recognised as equally entitled to rights. This draws attention to the distinction between access to rights, and acknowledgement of being — whilst some white lesbians and gay men may be able to gain acknowledgement of the validity of our relationships within the national imaginary, this may come at the expense of those queer families or relationships that are not accorded acknowledgement (Stoler).
12 Furthermore, it is not only the case (as previously outlined) that some white queers are able to claim a space within the white nation as a result of ongoing colonising violence against Indigenous people (e.g., in regards to the refutation of land rights claims and the refusal to offer an apology or negotiate a treaty). The white nation also reinforces its hegemony by positioning certain groups of people (e.g., asylum seekers) as being enemies of the nation. Whilst of course many white men and women, both heterosexual and queer, do indeed challenge the government's policies on mandatory detention and other forms of human rights violations against asylum seekers, this does not negate the fact that our belonging as white people is further secured through the construction of certain groups of people as enemies. Indeed, recent political and media representations in Australia of the "children overboard" scandal demonstrates one of the ways in which the white nation is constructed as inherently good through contrast with those groups of people positioned as being "dangerous" or "unworthy" of belonging. Reports of asylum seekers threatening to throw their children overboard in order to be granted asylum (reports which have since been shown to be false) are but one example of claims made by the white nation in order to bolster the contrast between white Australians who "deserve to belong," and asylum seekers who do not (O'Doherty & Augoustinos). Here the motivations for any person seeking asylum are marginalised, and asylum seekers are instead positioned as threats both to their own children, and to the integrity of the white nation (Hage).
13 As I have outlined in this section, white queer belonging in Australia, much like white belonging in general, is highly contingent upon the disavowal of ongoing histories of white violence. White queers who seek a place within a white national imaginary, whilst potentially doing so in order to secure rights and protection, do so by accepting the terms set for belonging through the possessive logic of patriarchal white sovereignty. By failing to acknowledge the privileges that white queers experience as white people, queer rights campaigns may do very little to engender a form of politics that is critical of white hegemony. And it is to this point that I turn in the following section.
Race, gender and queer politics
14 Queer theory has played an important role in developing understandings of subjectivity that focus on its multiplicities and fractures: subjectivity in this sense is seen as ever-changing rather than fixed, and thus as flexibly deployed towards particular ends in everyday interactions. The purpose of such theorising is in part to demonstrate how particular (sexual) identities achieve hegemony, and how others are positioned as deviant. Queer theory also questions sexual and gendered categories themselves, and interrogates how they are involved in maintaining hierarchical relations. However, as Barnard suggests, queer theory has often implicitly (and at times explicitly) been white queer theory — it is more often than not written by white queers, it often fails to engage with the critiques elaborated by queers who do not identify as white, and it neglects to adequately theorise how queer identities are always already racialised. This may in part be seen to result from the location of queer theory within the Western academy: queer theory, and the politics that it arose from, are largely the product of the standpoints of white queers, and in particular white, middle-class, queer men. This group of people (of which I am a member), whilst obviously facing considerable social oppression and prohibition, nonetheless benefit from living in a social system that is founded upon the values of white men (Riggs, "Possessive"). Obviously it would be naïve to suggest that queer theory has not been influenced by a wide range of theorists from all walks of life, but as Barnard points out, this has not stopped the canon of queer theory from being mainly white, and thus largely written by people who enjoy considerable privilege.
15 These points about queer theory (and its connections to contemporary queer politics) suggest to me the pressing need to think through the ways in which particular identity categories (no matter how multiple or fragmented) are valourised within Western societies. As I have already suggested, Moreton-Robinson's ("Possessive") framework of the "possessive logic of patriarchal white sovereignty" provides us with one means of examining how identity categories shape our politics. The utility of this approach is that it seeks to understand how practices of racialisation are central to identities, and it draws attention to the considerable privilege that white people experience in Australia as a result of our racialised subject positions. This is of particular relevance to queer rights campaigns that are often primarily predicated upon the experiences of white lesbians and gay men. Thus as Moreton-Robinson (Talkin' 45) suggests, "white lesbian women do not give up all of their race privilege because of their sexuality": the possessive logic of patriarchal white sovereignty affords white queers the privilege to claim an intelligible subject position within colonial nations (i.e., one who is in some way or another committed to a white national imaginary), and it provides us with the voice through which to speak out about our experiences of oppression and to expect them to be heard.