QUEERING BORDERS: TRANSANTIONAL FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE ON GLOBAL HETEROSEXISM

Traditionally, transnational feminists have examined the fields of gender, sexuality and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ) studies by critically addressing issues of colonialism, white supremacy, globalization, capitalism, and heterosexism. Like most fields within higher education, gender and sexuality studies, women's studies, and LGBTQ studies are still dominated by white scholars; moreover these are predominately scholars from colonial 'western' cultures. In 2010 in the journal Pedagogy, Donald E. Hall asks the question: Can queer studies be taught across borders? Many universities and activist groups are arguing for a global queer community and movement for rights, protection, and freedoms for members of LGBTQ communities. From the academy to the streets, members of the LGBTQ community and their allies are challenging global heterosexism. This special issue of Wagadu is dedicated to an interdisciplinary, intersectional, multi-movement, and multi-dimensional critique of heterosexism, from a global social justice queer perspective.Outside of LGBTQ and ally communities and the world of Queer studies, the general public may understand sex, gender and sexuality as binary constructs: There are males and females, and males should be masculine and sexually attracted to females while females should be feminine and sexually attracted to males. Even within Queer studies, some scholars have chosen to hold on to the binary of gay and straight identity but over time, Queer studies has created an intentional shift from the binary to a more intentional fluidity within gender and orientation. Scholarly journals, including Wagadu, purposefully publish manuscripts that embody this notion of fluidity and intersectionality of gender and orientation. These fluid and multidimensional constructs include male, female, cisgender, trans*, which can include transgender, transsexual, gender queer and gender fluid, intersexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, asexual and heterosexual. Among LGBTQ communities and scholars, there is still a debate about whether to include the T and Q in the acronym. The varied trans* community often has different concerns and needs as the gay community. And queer, a term reclaimed from a derogatory slur, to that of pride, can be used as an overarching label that encompasses anyone with non-conforming gender identity and/or sexual orientation. Hall (2010) considers the challenge of defining the term queer as it can be used as a broad social identifier or a term based in poststructuralist theory. Others have transformed and expanded queer to be inclusive of the interrelationship of gender, race and class. Building on E. Patrick Johnson's (2001) use of the term Quare as an alliteration of queer and queer theory to include race and class, Lee (2003) coins the term as a transliteration, using the pinyin system, of two Mandarin Chinese characters kua and er (p. 165). Unlike much of queer theory, Lee's kuaer theory is race-conscious, womanist and transnational. These additions speak to the critiques of queer theory being by and about a homogenous population.Heteronormality and heteronormativity are prejudices that favor heterosexuality as the norm and have a biased against those in the queer community. Heteronormality/heteronormativity is the view that all humans are either male or female in gender and sex, and that biological sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender roles are in alignment from a heterosexual point of view.In this Special Edition of Wagadu, we explore the concept of a global queer community and examine multiple critiques of institutionalized heterosexism starting with the analysis of changing meanings of same sex desire in China, to challenging heterosexist U.S. immigration laws. We then examine the notion of metronormativity in Central New York and heteronormativity in China and Jamaica through a queer reading of The Pagoda. Lastly, we study U. …