Katyal, ‘Exporting Identity’, 2002
- Category: Literature
- Source: Academic
- Subject: Sexual Orientation/Sexuality, Gender Identity, Refugee/Asylum, Human Rights, LGBT+
- Place: International
- Year: 2002
- File: ae9a4ab6772c4b9db8828c7da95233ded06f
- URL: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5151/ae9a4ab6772c4b9db8828c7da95233ded06f.pdf
Sonia Katyal, ‘Exporting Identity’ Yale Journal of Law & Feminism 14 (1), 2002
Abstract
This is a time of great irony in gay rights. At no other time has global gay rights been so successful and so deeply contested. The recent emergence of gay or lesbian-identified individuals across the globe have created complex ruptures in existing social fabrics, calling into question the universality of legal constructs involving sexuality and culture.
As I have argued, global gay rights movements may eventually do serious harm to themselves if they continue to exclude alternative constructions of the relationship between identity and conduct among sexual minorities, and to propagate a single, substitutive, formulation of the two.
[…]
Consequently, reassessing the utility of the substitutive paradigm carries important lessons for gay rights activists in any locality. And ultimately, by studying how different frameworks are excluded, we can create a more sophisticated, inclusive approach that integrates protections for sexual minorities with preexisting social meanings. By utilizing a vision of deliberative sexual autonomy while seeking civil rights protections based onboth privacy and identity, we can honor the complex process of identity formation while still recognizing the need for equality on the basis of sexual orientation.