Abstract
The chapter discusses how the modern Iranian gay subject has been constructed outside of Iran. The discourses reproduced by Western (pink) media on same-sex desires have mostly been framed around victimization and the persecution of gays within Iran. The gay international movement and organization in the global north, as well as sexual Iranian refugees, have promulgated this narrative of victimhood. Thus, the gay subject within Iran has solely been depicted as a victim and in constant danger of being killed or persecuted by a repressive/oppressive Islamic regime. However, as argued, within Iran, the picture is often at odds with the one painted in the global north. Although not being a “gay paradise” in terms of livability and sexual rights, Iranian gays try to find ways of accommodating their desires within those limits set by the legal-social and historical context of today’s Islamic Republic of Iran.
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Notes
- 1.
The pink press is used here as a synonym for various online publications that are directed toward the LGBTQ community.
- 2.
The search on Google with the keyword “Gay executions” was conducted on the April 4, 2018.
- 3.
I use the term “sexual minority” for those individuals whose sexuality/sexual orientation differs from the majority of the surrounding society. The term incorporates a variety of sexual identity categories, such as men who have sex with men, bisexual individuals, gays, and lesbians.
- 4.
Here it needs to be emphasized that I am not denying the fact that gay-identifying Iranian men and those who have sex with men have been executed on the basis of their sexual activities/orientation during the time of the Islamic Republic. In fact, various human rights reports indicate that executions of sexual minorities take place in Iran, although the official explanation rarely mentions “sodomy” as a cause of the death sentence. Rather, my aim here is to address the polyphonic nature of the discourse in order to try to understand more fully how gay-identifying Iranian men are constructed, not only by their local context or by themselves but also through the international discourse in the Western gay/pink press.
- 5.
I started this research project by collecting online data in 2013. In 2015, I went to Iran three times to conduct my fieldwork. I have therefore limited the discussion about the gay/pink online publications to this period.
- 6.
Long (2009), in his discussion about the case of Makwan, where he, for example, refers to a “small town-vendetta” influencing his conviction.
- 7.
The concept of homonationalism was developed by Jabir K. Puar (2007) in her book Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. Although some scholars have raised some criticism regarding the concept and its applicability (see e.g., Zanghellini 2012) it is in my view still a valuable concept in analyzing the rhetoric and discourse in the pink press in relation to sexual minorities in Iran.
- 8.
I am not denying that LGBTQ rights are well established in Israel today, manifested, for example, in laws on same-sex marriage and other progressive policies/laws on sexual/gender equality. However, the argument I am making here is that these progressive laws and developments within Israel in terms of LGBTQ equality have often been used politically, especially by some right-wing parties, both within and outside of Israel, in their rhetoric against Muslim societies, Islam, and Iran particularly, drawing on the homonationalist discourse, and depicting these societies as backward and barbaric (see e.g., Schulman 2012).
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Kjaran, J.I. (2019). The Construction of the Iranian Gay Subject Outside of Iran. In: Gay Life Stories. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12831-9_4
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