With the enactment of anti-homosexuality laws in the 1960s, Cameroon’s government officially endorsed heterosexualist ideologies which legitimize the alienation and criminalization of minority and nonconforming sexual and gender identities. One group, the so-called garçons manqués, embodies the stigmatized masculine or “butch” lesbian identity. The political management of lesbianism in Cameroon is ambivalent, however, with respect to sport, and particularly regarding the national pastime, football. Whereas masculine lesbians are routinely branded as “butches” or “sexual predators” who threaten African hetero-patriarchy, “strong women"” (femmes fortes) are celebrated as pivotal to the national ambition. Cameroon’s government strategically amalgamates both heteronationalism and homonationalism in the interest of national pride.

Cet article fait l'analyse des discours homonationalistes dans un contexte qui a été peu exploré à ce jour, soit celui d'une nation minoritaire (le Québec) à l'intérieur d'un État multinational (le Canada). Dans la mesure où le nationalisme se construit souvent en opposition avec un « Autre », nous tentons de cerner qui est cet « Autre » dans l'homonationalisme québécois. En particulier, nous explorons si cet « Autre » peut également prendre la forme de la nation majoritaire par l'entremise d'une analyse d'articles publiés entre 1990 et 2017 dans différents journaux québécois (La Presse, Le Devoir et le Journal de Montréal). Nos résultats démontrent que si c'est le « Canada anglais » qui était plus susceptible dans la première moitié des années 2000 d’être « l'Autre » du nationalisme sexuel québécois, depuis la fin des années 2000, ce sont davantage les musulman/es (ici et ailleurs) et les immigrant/es qui font l'objet d'une altérisation dans les discours homonationalistes au Québec.

Despite campaign promises to be the most “gay-friendly” Republican president, since assuming office, Donald Trump has been proactive in what many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) advocates call a “rollback” of gains made during the Barack Obama administration, shocking many observers and bringing sexual and gender politics to the fore. How can we make sense of the contradictions and consequences of Trump's sexual and gender politics? I argue that examining the transnational processes of democratization, political homophobia, and homonationalism illuminates the significance of the administration's actions. A democratization approach reveals how Trump's reversal of Obama-era policies and appointment of conservative judges signifies a greater effort at de-democratization through the contraction of citizenship rights and weakening of the judiciary; political homophobia clarifies how the administration legitimizes its governance through opposition to LGBT people and issues with the appointment of openly homophobic and transphobic individuals to prominent positions; and homonationalism, or the entry of certain queer subjects into the nation at the expense of racialized “others,” aptly characterizes forms of queer inclusion still taking place under Trump. For these reasons, putting Trump's sexual and gender politics in transnational perspective can help us better understand this moment in U.S. politics.

Scholarship on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) politics argues that political claims, such as access to the military and marriage, are most effective when representatives from the group articulate that the desire for inclusion and participation in those institutions is similar to the desires held by their straight and nontransgender counterparts. This strategy of assimilation has yielded many positive legal changes. And yet the Donald Trump administration marks a period in which these gains have been repeatedly challenged and particular segments of the LGBTQ group are increasingly under attack. This article offers a preliminary analysis of how LGBTQ politics has been impacted by the 2016 election. Using a historical case study of LGBTQ identity construction and agenda development during the second half of the 1990s, I ask: how might the LGBTQ group mine its recent history for clues to rethink its political agenda and political strategies? Having shown that opportunities to advance a different movement—one focused on more radical, broadly inclusive changes—were bypassed during this period, I conclude by putting forward several recommendations for contemporary LGBTQ movement building and resistance strategies.