Held Identity and Academic Approaches

The following paper covers Humanitarian ideals and queerness, focusing on the intersection of held identity and academic approaches

With the topic of humanitarian ideals and queerness, a similar theme can be found that there is a false narrative present of a monolithic identity of queerness when the reality is much more nuanced and intersectional, thus having an effect on the false perception of ally-ship and the development of NGO work within the queer community. In this work I mainly focus on deconstructing the narrative of a monolithic queer community and how an intersectional understanding and approach can inform better practices and analysis of ally-ship from individuals and corporations as well as understanding the development of queer-focused humanitarian work. One such example I cover is the disconnect between the LGBTQ rights movement and the progress that was actually made, while many organizations focused on the rights of cis white gay men, other identities in the community were left behind and often ostracized by their own community as an assimilation mechanism for broader society. Also the performative ally-ship done by many people and corporations that focus on rainbow imagery (pink capitalism) without diving into the nuances that the queer community covers, further reinforcing a monolithic image that is harmful to the intersectional approaches of the community. An issue that arises from these positions and this monolithic community is this dialogue of monolithic acceptance of the gay/queer community were folx are led to believe that it is the acceptance of the community as a whole rather than select identities when in reality dispositions like transphobia, biphobia, etc are often the reality in corporate environments, ally-ship, and even in organizations that “fight for queer rights” like The Humane Society or the Daughters of Bilitis.

For me this paper is an example of how intersectionality can work with bringing identity and its nuance into academic approaches showing how that introduction can affect academic thought processes. Similar to the discussions of the last paper I think that this paper portrays another way in which intersectional approaches are important as it shows an orientation towards humanitarian ideals through the lens of a queer identity, including other types of perspectives, identity based, academic, or anything else can provide new thoughts and ideas to forward the discussion!