Undressing the Universal Queer Subject_ Nicaraguan activism and

Undressing the Universal Queer Subject:
Nicaraguan activism and
transnational identity
ALYSSA CYMENE HOWE
University of New Mexico
New modes of political organizing and increased attention to issues of sexual
identity in the South have led to a global proliferation of human rights discourses and diverse articulations of sexual "identity." Nicaraguan activists, in their
quest for a society more tolerant of sexual diversity, utilize the globally recognizable discourses of "identity" as a concept, and in political practice.
However, Nicaraguan "homoerotics" do not necessarily fit definitions or histories of "homosexuality" seen in the US and Europe, and are informed by the
historical particularities of Nicaragua. This article explores the ways in which
Nicaraguan activists strategically deploy concepts describing and elaborating
homosexuality in their bid to create a "sexuality free from prejudice." [sexual
identity, homosexuality, human rights, Nicaragua]
Confrontacion
by Venancia1
Que nos apliquen la ley...
vos y yo
Sonreiremos de la mano...
Y si me dan las ganas
Te dare un beso en medio de
la plaza.
Let them enforce the law...
you and I
smiling hand in hand...
and if I feel like it
I'll give you a kiss in the middle
of the plaza.
Vamos a ser evidentes
...Dos curvas
dos volcanes
dos montes de Venus
dos olores de hembras
...Aqui senores
We will make ourselves known
...Two curves
two volcanoes
two mounds of Venus
two scents of females
...Here sirs
THERE ARE TWO WOMEN
LOVING!!!
HAY
DOS
MUJERES
AMANDOSE!!!
City & Society 2002, XIV{2):237-279.
Copyright 2003 by the American Anthropological Association
City & Society
Introduction: positionalities and "pride"
T
HERE ARE MANY SULTRY NIGHTS IN MANAGUA and
this one was no exception. The evening's events to celebrate
"gay and lesbian pride" are reminiscent of similar celebrations
held in mid-June in much of the world. When I arrive at the
Galeria Praxis for the night's festivities, Enrique commands the
threshold, bedecked in a gold, glitter-covered fedora and wearing
shoes to match. The patio fills slowly as people congregate around
small tables under a canopy of banana trees strung with Christmas
lights. A tinny boom box playing salsa-pop tunes provides the
rhythm for sashaying travestis2 who will perform a lip-sync dance
number later. The event is sponsored by several gay and lesbian
coalitions from the Arcoiris (Rainbow) group to Entre Amigas
(Between Friends (feminine)). But some lesbian and gay organizations are noticeably absent. Across town there will be another
event, celebrating similar values, but under the title of "a sexuality free from prejudice." "Pride" it seems, is a complicated notion;
one that is not necessarily represented in a unitary, singular way.3
Maribel, one of the organizers who has invited me to this event,
explains that there will be plenty of dancing and two shows, but
the political debates and forums which she had planned may not
happen. "It is easy to get people to come to party," she says, "but
harder to get them to do political work." Within the hour Enrique,
the golden door diva, tells me about Arcoiris. Composed of
Nicaraguans and internacionalistas (foreigners living in Nicaragua),
members come together to discuss their lives and to provide support for one another. Enrique tells me his "coming out" story and
we begin a long conversation about sex, gender, representation,
and positionalities.4 I ask Enrique, "Do you know that right now is
the gay pride weekend in San Francisco, California?" Of course he
does.
New modes of political organizing and increased attention to
issues of sexual identity in the South5 have lead to a global proliferation of human rights discourses and diverse articulations of sexual "identity" (Adam, et al. 1999; Drucker 2000; Miller 1993;
Plummer 1992). Nicaraguan activists, in their quest for a society
more tolerant of sexual diversity, utilize the globally recognizable
discourses of "identity" as a concept, and in political practice.
However, definitions of sexuality which draw exclusively from
western models and discourses are at best unevenly applied in settings such as Nicaragua, where homoerotics do not necessarily fit
238
Universal Queer
Subject
either medico-scientific definitions or specific activist histories of
"homosexuality" seen in the US and Europe. Nicaraguan activists'
reckonings of identity are also informed by the historical particularities of their own nation-state, such as 500 years of IndoHispanic cultural mixing, the Sandinista Revolution, as well as
relationships with United States and European activists, agencies
and foundations. Since 1990 when the Sandinistas were voted out
of office, Nicaragua has been controlled by socially conservative
regimes which have enacted and upheld an anti-sodomy law
which Amnesty International has dubbed "the most repressive" in
Latin America. This law targets gays and lesbians and puts in jeopardy all citizens' rights to sexual freedoms. Nicaragua's economic
marginality in the global capitalist system has been exacerbated
under post-Sandinista, neo-liberal regimes and increased poverty
has resulted in a daily struggle for most Nicaraguans (Babb 2001;
Walker 1995)—including sexual "minorities" who advocate for
their human rights.
The purpose of this discussion is to explore the ways in which
Nicaraguan activists strategically deploy concepts describing and
elaborating homosexuality in their bid to create a "sexuality free
from prejudice." I will argue that Nicaraguan queer activists create
forms of queer subjectivity and ways to enact queer politics that
engage international discourses of identity and human rights, but
are not ruled by them.6 I begin with the proposition that the power
inequality between North and South creates the conditions for the
emergence of a particular type of sexual subjectivity. If, as Altman
(2001) has argued, "the United States remains the dominant cultural model for the rest of the world [in the arena of homosexual
rights]" (Altman 2001:87), then an "international lesbian/gay
identity" (Altman 2001:86) is likely one that derives much from
US models of homosexuality and gay/lesbian activist projects. I
will propose that the concept of a "universal queer subject" best
describes this phenomenon of international lesbian/gay identity.
Using ethnographic material, I will evaluate the ways in which
Nicaraguan activists negotiate and transform a universal queer
subject model in order to achiever their own, situated goals of
social change. A universal queer subject entails a set of discursive
tools concerning disclosure, consciousness, and identity based on
two primary characteristics: (1) a consciousness based on "sexuality" with "outness" portrayed as the public declaration of this consciousness and (2) a collective consciousness of shared "gay" or
"lesbian" or "homosexual" "identity." While a universal queer subject is not a model propagated by the North as a "correct" way to
Nicaraguan
activists
negotiate and
transform a
universal queer
subject model
in order to
achiever their
own, situated
goals of social
change.
239
City & Society
be nonheterosexual, it does represent a set of characteristics that
popularly define "the homosexual" and "the lesbian" so familiar in
the North.
A universal queer subject is a template for "identity" that circulates across national borders through the multiple channels that
theorists of globalization have enumerated: media, information,
and capital flows. I do not want to suggest that a singular model of
"lesbian (or gay) identity" exists and that all nonheterosexual people attempt to mold themselves to this identity formation. In fact,
anthropology, as a discipline, has documented ways in which various cultures during distinct historical periods have generated very
different meanings around desires, bodies and categories of "sexuality" and gender. Thus, in the context of this discussion, a universal queer subject should be understood as a discursive model or
a theoretical device, rather than a representation of lived experience. Because discourse and "lived experience," as Foucault has
taught, are not neatly segregated entities, I focus on the ways in
which discourses are operationalized and, in fact, "lived." My
attention to a universal queer subject highlights the interchange
between indigenous or local articulations of sexuality—as lived
experiences and/or as a sense of self that is consciously claimed—
and those discourses and experiences that filter into "local" contexts from across the globe, to become rearticulated by local actors.
US and European prototypes of "gay" and "lesbian" identity—
and the ideologies, rhetorics, political strategies, consumerism, etc.
which accompany them (D'Emilio 1983)— are widely circulated,
perhaps hegemonic, in the terrain of international lesbian and gay
activism (Adam, et al. 1999; Drucker 2000; Rosenbloom 1997).
Development agency expectations for gay projects often invoke
Northern models (Wright 2000). Hollywood and mass-media representations of nonheterosexual people often mirror particular
Northern constructs of lesbians and gay men (Doty 1993; Foster
and Reis 1996; Patton and Sanchez-Eppler 2000). However social
scientists have also demonstrated that "gay" or "lesbian" identities
are hardly monolithic, singular constructs in the North (Kennedy
and Davis 1993, D'Emilio and Freedman 1997; Lewin 1996) or
elsewhere (Altman 2001; Blackwood and Wieringa 1999; Drucker
2000). These identities are always intersected by differences in
gender, geography, class status, racial configurations and other factors.7 If "gay and lesbian identity" does not have a uniform quality,
it follows that lesbian and gay politics must also be attentive to cultural, gender, geographic and other differences.
A one-size-fits-all approach to nonheterosexual rights not only
240
Universal Queer
Subject
smacks of "sexual colonialism"8 but would likely be ineffective in
transforming culturally distinct societies. However, the terminology "lesbian, gay, homosexual" has proliferated across the globe, and
along with it, the notion that one can glean a sense of personal
identity—and sometimes even transnational solidarity9—that are
linked with the categories "lesbian, gay" or "homosexual."
Donham (1998) has described this proliferation of discourse as
"micro encounters ... thousands of messages that have come from
as far away as Amsterdam and New York." These messages come in
the form of Hollywood movies, UN conferences and gay and lesbian tourism to name a few. These micro encounters also have the
potential to create a model of gay and lesbian identity that is falsely transnational, transhistorical and western—a variant of
Foucault's homosexual "species." It is only by attending to the
"transnational conditions of knowledge production and consumption" (Kaplan, Alarcon, Moallem 1999:4) that scholars, as well as
activists, are able to discern the strategies and symbols that impact
their projects. Therefore, I want to warn against adopting a universal queer subject as an a priori model for the framing of nonheterosexual practices, political or "private."
The analytic terrain for this discussion is located at the intersection of international queer activism and Nicaraguan activists'
efforts to establish human rights for the nation's gay and lesbian
citizenry. I follow the reasoning of Laclau and Mouffe when they
write that "politics does not consist in simply registering already
existing interests, but plays a crucial role in shaping political subjects" (Laclau and Mouffe 2001:xvii).10 It is not a question of
whether "true" experience and "false" discourses are bedfellows.
Rather, it is a question of how discursive entities, such as "identity" and "sexuality" become articulated from particular subject positions—positions which are always imbricated in political processes. Further, how is it that specific discourses become hegemonic?
Certainly, to think of the formulation of identity as a purely local,
or individual, phenomenon would be incorrect when people and
discourses constantly cross borders (Lavie and Swedenburg 1996).
Given Nicaragua's current place in the global economic scheme of
things—an increasingly de-developed Third World nation—
financial support from Northern allies might easily be laden with
ideological baggage. Dollars translate into discourse, at least
potentially. And while this is nothing new in the global marketplace of development strategies, the possibility that Nicaraguabased gay and lesbian liberation projects are susceptible to hegemonic norms of what constitutes "queerness" raises the prospect of
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City & Society
The need to be
explicit, or
"visible" about
one's sexuality
has a particular
urgency in
Nicaragua, a
setting where
homosexual
acts are
criminalized as
well as
stigmatized
242
a universal queer subject, a proposition which should be queried.
Queer-positive NGOs, groups and networks (located primarily
in the capital city of Managua) evidence an array of activist cultures where identities are both created and contested.11 The
research I have conducted with these organizations reveals that
queer subjectivity in these "local" arenas is being formulated in
very specific ways. First, I suggest that queer activism in Nicaragua
is guided, predominantly, by lesbian and feminist initiatives and
leadership. Nicaragua lesbians have not been "homogenized"
under a queer identity which represents only the dominant sector
(gay, white, men) (Anzaldua 1991; Vicinus 1992; Weston 1996)
but have instead established relative dominance in the struggle for
sexuality rights. Second, I have found that activists reformulate the
tropes and representational devices that have become so familiar
in discourses of sexuality in the North. While "coming out of the
closet" is a strategic concept used in Nicaragua, there are other
ways of formulating identity. Masks, for example, arise in queer
Nicaraguans' ethnographic narratives and are similar to closet
doors in their ability to conceal, but they are also gender specific
motifs and perhaps less confining than locked closets. The need to
be explicit, or "visible" about one's sexuality has a particular
urgency in Nicaragua, a setting where homosexual acts are criminalized as well as stigmatized. Many activists cite a double imperative: to be declarado on the personal level, and to make—especially lesbianism—visible on a larger social and political level.
However, what constitutes "visibility" or to what degree one must
be "declared," and to whom, are complicated and often conflictladen questions. The quality of queer visibility, a positive image of
homosexual people, is at least as important as a quantity of
declared individuals. Lastly, I argue that drag performance in queer
activist events represents a key symbolic moment for queer community-making in Nicaragua. Through drag, activists critique gendered expectations of power within the queer community as they
simultaneously strive to construct a "real" imitation of femininity,
one that is not campy, but "truly womanish." Through these practices, Nicaraguan activists underscore the many ways in which
queerness can be formulated within the context of "sexual identity"—as a way of creating solidarity on an international level—but
without losing the unique attributes of Nicaraguan politics, and
cultural histories that necessarily inform the work of social transformation.
Universal Queer
Subject
Ammo and amor, histories of sexuality
N
icaragua's history is one of many incursions, from William
Walker's white supremacist power grabs to US Marine
occupation (1912-1933) to Contra warfare (Rosset and
Vandermeer 1986). Lesbian and gay organizing in Nicaragua has
also seen its share of incursions including the infiltration of a gay
and lesbian group by Sandinista State security in the mid 1980s to
the more recent, post-Sandinista anti-sodomy penalties.
Nicaragua's revolutionary era (1979-1990) can be characterized as
one that sought to address inequities based on gender, though
these goals were never fully implemented. While including sexual
minorities was never a part of the Sandinista agenda, neither did
the Sandinistas practice heavy handed persecution as had been the
case in Cuba (Arguelles and Rich 1984-85; Lumsden 1996). 12
Nicaraguan gays and lesbians, who were schooled in Sandinismo,
took distinct approaches to political organizing. Rather than
establishing "gay ghettos" and "spiritual" identities as was the case
in Costa Rica during the same era, Nicaraguan activists hoped to
revolutionize "how society conceives of sexuality [rather than]
defending their existence as individual members of a sexual minority" (Thayer 1997). One lesbian activist explained,
We realized that if we wanted to influence the population
and promote respect and tolerance for sexual preference,
we couldn't do it by staying in the ghetto. Gays and lesbians are not only those who are organized, but they are in
all sectors; the majority are in the closet. So we broadened
the groups we worked with. [Thayer 1997:394]
Feminists and gay and lesbian activists from northern nations
brought their perspectives and political organizing experiences
with them, making ideological exchanges between Nicaraguans
and "sandalistas" a notable characteristic of the 1980s.13 The sharing of political strategies and ideas was indeed a two-way street, "it
would be a mistake to say that [US and European feminist materials] planted the seeds of women's consciousness in Nicaragua or to
imply that Nicaraguan women learned their feminism from
abroad" (Randall 1994:6). Nicaraguan women's activist legacy
originated during the repressive years of the Somoza dictatorship
(V. Gonzalez 2001), though an explicitly "feminist" and
"autonomous" women's movement did not come into being until
the early 1990s. The conjunction of Sandinista principles, inter243
City & Society
national solidarity projects and ongoing gender critique formed the
foundation for sexuality-based organizing in Nicaragua, which
took on a further dimension with the threat of AIDS.
The potential AIDS crisis of the mid-1980s brought to
Managua health brigadistas from such places as San Francisco
where they conducted street outreach campaigns with local
activists. Solidarity brigades provided material support (such as
condoms and popular education materials) for grassroots campaigns already underway in gay "cruising" areas and among female
prostitutes. The Nicaraguan Department of Health provided partial funding for the initial AIDS prevention work, marking the first
"out" relationship between the state and lesbian and gay activists.
However, during this same period Sandinista State Security infiltrated a group calling itself "The Nicaragua Gay Movement." The
members of the Movement were men and women, internacionalistas and Nicaraguans, who identified as lesbian or gay. After the
group was infiltrated, members were rounded up and accused of
counter-revolutionary organizing. However, the majority of the
group had been, and continued to be, supporters of the revolutionary project. The state's wartime security precautions were not
unexpected, given that the US was pursuing a policy of "by any
means necessary" to topple the revolutionary regime (Bretlinger
1995; Prevost and Vanden 1997). When the Sandinista state asked
that the Nicaragua Gay Movement cease their meetings, members
agreed to do so, based on their support of the revolutionary cause
(Randall 1993). The organizing efforts of the Nicaragua Gay
Movement were intended to extend revolutionary privileges to lesbians and gays as a constituency, taking "gay and lesbian identity"
as the foundations for their claims of inequality. Similar to the situation encountered by feminist women, this brand of identity politics was not quite commensurate with Sandinista goals. Like feminist politics, lesbian and gay organizing efforts were often perceived as a "northern import." As one Sandinista supporter put it,
"when will you quit singing this lesbian song of European women
and let the true voice of Nicaraguan women be heard?" (quoted in
Collinson 1990:23).
The electoral demise of Sandinista rule in 1990 ushered in a
series of socially conservative regimes, the first headed by Violeta
Chamorro whose coalition party UNO was backed by US and
European interests. Chamorro's presidency, while remarkable in
the fact that a woman served as head of a Latin American state,
has also been called "a perversion of feminism" (Lancaster
1992:293)—one which relied on specifically anti-feminist cam244
Universal Queer
Subject
paigning to win the office (Kampwirth 1996). Chamorro's government proved itself even more perverted on issues pertaining to
sexual minorities. In 1992, the penal code was revised and Article
204 elaborated to mandate that "anyone who induces, promotes,
propagandizes or practices in scandalous form sexual intercourse
between persons of the same sex commits the crime of sodomy and
shall incur one to three years imprisonment" (M. Gonzalez in
Rosenbloom 1995).14 Petitions, demonstrations and an event
demanding a "Sexuality Free from Prejudice" were rallied in
response to the reforms which were, nonetheless, signed into law.
In support of local activists' militant opposition to the penal code
revision, international organizations such as Amnesty
International and the International Gay and Lesbian Human
Rights Commission asserted that,
while other countries are making progress on human rights
issues, the Nicaraguan government is moving backwards
by making homosexual relations illegal. . . [this is] Latin
America's most repressive anti-sodomy legislation.
[Panama n.d.]
In attempting to curtail "scandalous forms of sexual intercourse"
the regime revealed how moral codes were being embedded,
through force of law, in state and nation building processes. The
ambiguous language of Article 204 implicates any sexual
encounter between two people of the same sex. It is not "antisodomy,"15 which in Nicaragua is understood as sex between two
men, but rather, anti-homosexual. It is also one of the few antisodomy laws to implicate lesbian women as well as, potentially,
journalists, AIDS education workers, or maybe anthropologists
who might be found to be "propagandizing" homosexuality. What
Lancaster and di Leonardo have called a "sexualized state"
(Lancaster and di Leonardo 1997:4-5), has become, effectively, a
sexualized state of fear wherein all those who practice or "promote" homoerotic acts are susceptible to incarceration.
During this same era of conservative reforms, an autonomous
women's movement in the form of NGOs, networks, and women's
groups, adopted new strategies to enact gender politics (Bayard de
Volo 2001; Randall 1994) that would address the issues that the
Sandinista era had not (Fernandez Poncela 1997). Sexuality-based
activism was also re-invigorated by the repressive climate of moral
engineering and social conservatism. Members of the original
Nicaragua Gay Movement went on to establish NGOs which
addressed issues of sexuality and HIV/AIDS prevention, and such
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City & Society
small discussion groups of lesbians and gays have continued
through the 1990s into the present. The women's movement in
Nicaragua has been divided on three fundamental issues: partisan
politics, abortion, and lesbian rights. On the one hand, "the feminists," as distinct from those who advocate "women's rights" (cf.
Molyneux 1985; Sternbach, et al. 1992), have long advocated the
"right to choose," whether it is a matter of reproduction or sexuality. On the other hand, many women's movement activists have
not embraced lesbianism or "el aborto" as viable objects for their
activist projects. Within the women's movement there are a number of self-declared lesbians, who are "out" or "declarado" at various levels (Howe 2000); and the women's and feminist movement
in Nicaragua is both a cover and a catalyst for lesbian activism.
Women's organizing has generated forms of "consciousness" and
the structural conditions to rally for sexuality-based rights, but to
assume that the contemporary women's movement wholly supports
lesbian rights would be inaccurate. The issue of sexuality, within
gender-based, political struggles, remains a point of contention.
By the late 1990s, under the rule of Arnoldo Aleman, the
Nicaraguan state had engineered new ways to control the sexuality of its citizens by introducing pedagogical materials in the public
schools. These materials advocate what the Nicaraguan Ministry
of Education calls "Victorian morals" which "sees sex between people of the same sex and sex with animals" (Ministerio de
Educacion y Deporte 1994) as morally repugnant. Seamlessly
equating bestiality with homosexual activity, the state continues to
be in the process of discursively deploying its particular rendering
of Victorian morality. Despite these limitations Nicaraguan
activists continue to advocate the transformation of attitudes
toward lesbians, gay men, and beliefs about homosexuality's supposed immorality and disreputability. This struggle is not limited to
the boundaries of the nation state because activists draw from
international experience and international resources. They pull
from histories of queer organizing to inform their own, and develop particular ways of configuring "identity" in order to disassemble
the cultural, legal and political obstacles to their ability to "live
free."
AAaribel: writing rights
246
aribel and I first met in 1999 at a feminist conference held
, on the outskirts of Managua. It was there that she slipped
ime the flyer for her organizations' party for "Orgullo Gay"
(Gay Pride). In this, our third meeting, she hangs her head over a
Universal Queer
Subject
book of law. Maribel is studying for an exam at one of the private
universities in town where she will earn her professional degree in
derecho (rights). When I ask her, "why law?" she explains that she
needs to be a voice and an advocate that so that "lesbians," like
herself, can be "Out. In a free manner."16 Maribel describes the history of the group she founded in 1997, Grupo por la visibilidad lesbica (Lesbian Visibility Group). What began as an informal meeting of a few friends in Managua who all identified as lesbians, took
a more political shape after Maribel attended the Gay Games in
Amsterdam (1998).17 Before, she says, the Grupo had taken "the
soft approach. . . in hiding," but now they will do things differently. With financial support from a Dutch agency which Maribel
encountered at the Games, Grupo por la visibilidad lesbica was
able to publish the first lesbian magazine ever in Nicaragua.
The magazine's full-color glossy cover depicts Gustav Klimt's
rendering of three women romantically embraced in purples and
golds. The title, Humanas: Por la Visibilidad Lesbica y sus Derechos
de Humanas (Humans: For Lesbian Visibility and Their Human
Rights) is explicit in its use of the familiar refrains of human rights
discourse. Using the feminine form of "humans" and "human
rights" the magazine's title also highlights its gender specificity;
this is a magazine by and for lesbian women with the aim of creating "visibility." In this sense, the magazine is less representative of
a whole gay/lesbian continuum or movement than it is a forum for
lesbians, specifically. The need to emphasize lesbian visibility
specifically, according to Maribel, arises from two sets of circumstances. First, she explains, "lesbians suffer from triple and quadruple oppression . . . as homosexual people, as women, as poor
women, as women in a macho society . . . as women in an underdeveloped country."18 Second, Maribel describes how "los homosexuales" (meaning homosexual men) are "well known" in neighborhoods around town. That is, gay men are "visible" where "las
lesbianas" are not, at least according to Maribel. For these reasons,
Grupo has opted to create a gender-specific magazine, one that targets lesbian visibility as the next, necessary step toward a society
more tolerant of sexual minorities.19
The magazine is composed of articles about topics ranging
from lesbian motherhood to a Global Gay Pride Event. Lesbian
poetry, both romantic and political, fill a number of pages. The
inclusion of poetry follows a specifically Nicaraguan national tradition, a history of poetry writing and prominent poets whose work
ranges from the internationally acclaimed modernist Ruben Dario
to the more recent feminist poets of the Sandinista era (Dario
1988; Asis Fernandez 1986; Zamora 1992a, 1992b). Poetry in
Grupo has
opted to create
a gender-specific magazine,
one that targets
lesbian visibility as the next,
necessary step
toward a society more tolerant of sexual
minorities
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City & Society
Nicaragua has long been considered by Nicaraguan intellectuals
and others to be a central part of national identity. The magazine's
contents are written by members of the Grupo. However, all of the
authors use pseudonyms in deference to the anti-sodomy law.
Therefore, while the magazine is "out," in the sense that it is publicly distributed, the creators and contributors are forced to remain
anonymous fearing legal action.
The magazine's centerfold of two women kissing makes clear
that the magazine is not composed of purely textual ruminations or
political treatises, but is also a forum for sensuality. Humanas
authors are not just
writing about what
the
anti-sodomy
Gnipopurla Vwt
NICARAC1
law forbids, but representing it, graphically,
as
well.
Maribel explained
that she would like
to distribute a copy
of the magazine to
all the members of
the
Nicaraguan
National Assembly,
but her limited
funding precludes
this. When I ask
Figure 1: Centerfold from Humanas, the first and only, lesbian magazine to appear in
Nicaragua. The articles and poetry in Humanas are written under pseudonyms, a strategy of
Maribel
about
making queer subjects anonymous, but not without voice.
whether or not the
funding agency required any kind of oversight regarding contents
and form, she says, "Absolutely not. We did exactly what we wanted to do with the magazine. As Nicaraguan women. As Nicaraguan
lesbians." Maribel is adamant about her group's control over the
magazine's production. This is a point of pride for her. While one
might interpret the magazine's use of human rights and Nicaraguan
patrimonial poetic practices as derivative of past legacies and
modes of discourse, Humanas is distinct. Having adopted notions
of "visibility" as a key political strategy and human rights as a
viable way to construct that visibility, the magazine is a compendium of distinct, national modes of communication blended with
political tactics drawn from the global sphere to represent non-heterosexual women in a particular way.
As we talk, Maribel holds her hands together, almost prayerlike, with only her fingertips touching. She says,
248
Universal Queer
Subject
We need a space: critical and our own, to be able to talk
about identity, to struggle against homophobia. We must
confront it directly. We are not going to play this game
any longer. We need to show our visibility. . . to live without the mask of invisibility.. .to show that we can organize. .
. and the magazine is a place for that visibility [emphasis
mine].
In one sense, Maribel's comments about "invisibility" mirror
those of Roger Lancaster who wrote that, "in Nicaragua... there is
little popular interest in categorizing or regulating female same sex
relations" (1992:271): a lack of visibility. However, Maribel's comments also evidence real distinctions. For her, the "closet" is not
the operative trope. The closet, that dichotomous "in" or "out"
space that has provided, at least according to Eve Sedgwick
(1990), "an overarching consistency" to gay identity and culture
throughout the 20th century, does not appear in Maribel's reckoning of how to create visibility.20 Instead, she describes a mask. Like
Bakhtin's carnivalesque mask that "rejects conformity to oneself
(Lancaster 1997:21) the mask that Maribel describes provides
sanctuary from discrimination. But the mask is also a way of rejecting the "self." Maribel, and numerous others, explained that
accepting one's self as "a lesbian" was fundamental to many things,
including self-esteem and a sense that one is "not alone." In other
words, taking up the mantle of being "a lesbian" is configured as a
critical move toward self and collective consciousness.
The mask hides a "true self," and this mask can be traded-in
for an identity, as a lesbian. Masking itself also has a long history
in Nicaragua as part and parcel of Nicaraguan national identity
construction (Field 1999). The mask that Maribel describes, then,
can be understood as a uniquely Nicaraguan phenomenon, that
also shares characteristics with the more globally-known "closet."
While the mask is similar to the closet in that an individual must
consciously work toward revealing a "true self to themselves and
their larger social world, the mask also appears to be a gendered
trope. In all my conversations, the "mask" was only ever described
by women, "lesbian" and non-lesbian.21 The mask which alternately makes for invisibility and hetero-conformity is then, a gendered metaphor, a gendered experience of sexuality. The mask is
also culturally specific, drawing upon the masking patrimony of
the Nicaraguan nation, rather than universal concepts of closets,
inside or "out." It is a particular way of performing the sexual self.
Maribel's activist work—publishing a lesbian magazine
through her links with international queer activists—takes place
249
City & Society
within the confines of the Nicaraguan state's repressive legal apparatus. Her work also takes place within the marginal economic status of Nicaragua's structurally adjusted economy where international sources of funding are critical. However, Maribel and others
actively negotiate the semantics of queer subjectivity taking place
on a larger, international level. With her legal literacy, activist acumen, and human rights and identity discourses on hand, Maribel
may represent a particularly attractive queer subject, one that is
perhaps preferred by international funding agencies. In the context
of international laws, local legislations and global conceptualizations of identity, the ways in which Nicaraguan activists perform
their subjectivity, as queer people, may impact their ability to garner funding. However, while human rights and discourses of identity may be more and more ubiquitous in Nicaragua and other lessdeveloped nations, there is little doubt that distinctive, more
"local" articulations of queer subjectivity continue to operate with
masks rather than closets and gender specific expressions of how
visibility might be constructed.
Alfonso: cochones and caffeine
A
lfonso has offered me the same sweet coffee every time we
have met, sitting in front of his sister's pink house. We have
already toured the pictures on the walls, nearly nude poster
boys with honed muscles. I tell him that his collection rivals any
of the postcard shops in the Castro and he smiles. When we begin
to talk Alfonso explains that he has "no trouble with the neighbors
here."22 He was kicked out of his house earlier this year because his
brother didn't want cochones meeting in the house. He and his
group of friends call themselves Shomos (roughly, "we are
homos"). Shomos, "a homosexual collective," has existed since the
mid-1980s when the group did outreach education in conjunction
with the Sandinista state on HIV/AIDS in the barrios of Managua.
The members of the collective spent their nights in the meeting places of gay men, like the abandoned cathedral, and their days
in the gathering places of sex workers, like the market. Now, the
group has no money for condoms or to buy literature about the disease. When they began their AIDS education work in 1985, no
cases of the disease existed in Nicaragua, which is no longer true
(Fundacion Xochiquetzal 2000). In the beginning, explains
Alfonso, lesbians and gay men worked together on the issue of
250
Universal Queer
Subject
AIDS and garnered help, in the form of materials and labor, from
international health brigades. Now, Alfonso says, "lesbians do a
little about AIDS, but they don't have much interest because
AIDS doesn't affect them directly. . . supposedly." "But," he goes
on, "we don't have any fights with them [the lesbians]."
Alfonso is generous with his coffee, pouring cup after cup as
we talk. However, he cannot afford to be too generous because he
has been without work for three years now and partially for this
reason, Shomos has become more "social" than "political." I ask
him why why he thinks it is that feminist organizations in
Nicaragua are
(relatively)
well-funded, primarily by foreign
allies.
Alfonso begins
with history. He
details
how
women during
the Sandinista
era held positions of power
and how, in the
boom period of
NGO organizing in the early
Figure 2: Alfonso was dismissed from the Sandinista military because of his "broken wnsted" behavtnesc j OT an^ i^ remains one of the few Nicaraguan actiidsts who is, in his own words, "publicly declared
women, many of as a cochon." Here he sits in front his sister's house, holding a photo of himself in the Sandinista milthem feminists, '"ry in the 1980s [Photo by author].
1
QQ/-.
1
went on to establish their own organizations. They also used their
1990s-era connections with international allies in order to bolster
their projects (Randall 1994). But, he goes on. "Those feminists
are, you know, all just a bunch of lesbians who won't come out of
the closet."
Alfonso's comment resonates with comments you might hear
from anyone on the street in Managua: "the feminists are all lesbianas" or "they're all cochonas (dykes)." Feminists being "accused"
of lesbianism is nothing new to my US feminist sensibility, nor is
it new in Nicaragua.23 Alfonso may be reflecting upon the rumors
of lesbianism which have circulated throughout Nicaragua since
the 1980s, especially in reference to powerful female leaders
(Ferguson 1991). However, it appears as though Alfonso has some
hostility, maybe funding-envy, towards the feminists and/or the
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City & Society
lesbians. In a place where there are scant resources, tensions
regarding finances can often encumber common political goals.
As we talk further about the issue Alfonso describes that what
bothers him is that "these lesbians hide behind being a feminist,
behind being a woman." He explains,
Look if you go and talk to them right now, any of them,
they will tell you that they are a lesbian because you are a
chela [blond and/or light-skinned]. But if you send a
Nicaraguan, any Nicaraguan, really just try it, just do it,
they will say, 'I'm the director of this and that' or 'I'm a
psychologist' or 'I'm a feminist' and I don't know what all
else! But for you, sure, they are a 'lesbian'. The problem is
that they won't come out of the closet [he uses the English
word, "closet"] here. Not publicly. That's the problem.
For Alfonso, these women are prone to particular kinds of performances: one for visiting chelas (in the form of anthropologists
and perhaps, international development funding agents) and
another for fellow Nicaraguans. For him, their not "coming out of
the closet," in a specifically public way, is a problem. They are not,
for him, advancing the cause of homosexual rights. Alfonso is definitely not the only sexuality activist in Nicaragua who feels that
it is critical for people to be "out" or "declared" about their sexuality. However, he is certainly the most adamant I have encountered
on this point. I remind him, though, that it is actually illegal to
have sex with someone of the same sex in Nicaragua and that
claiming a lesbian or gay identity might open one up to serious risk.
Alfonso, though, doesn't think the anti-sodomy law is a significant
threat. "The law? It's not the law! Look what we did to overthrow
Somoza, the dictatorship and you think we should be afraid of
some little law!?" Taking a different tack, I ask why it is necessary
to "declare" one's self, to "come out." Must these women live under
the sign of "lesbian" in order for the work of liberation to proceed,
especially when feminist organizations do orient much of their
work toward "a sexuality free from prejudice" and have critiqued
the anti-sodomy law?2* Isn't there an intimate link, perhaps inseparable, between the twin projects of gender and sexuality-based
politics—with the personal as political for queer struggles as well as
feminist projects?
The question of name-calling versus self-naming seems relevant here. For Alfonso, there is an imperative to be "out" in order
to break the cycle of discrimination. The project of "coming out,"
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Universal Queer
Subject
according to many is an "inaugural event and pivotal, enduring
fixture in gay/lesbian politics [which is] part precondition, part
method; part message, part medium" (Lancaster and di Leonardo
1997:3). Alfonso advocates for this logic, seen in many places,
where coming out is "not simply a single act, but the adoption of
an identity where the erotic plays a central role" (D'Emilio and
Freedman 1997:323). Alfonso recognizes the debilitating effects of
"silence and invisibility" for queer people in Nicaragua, whose visibility is rarely one of respect, and more often one of burlar (joking, mockery). Thus, Alfonso wants to claim an identity, one that
has "respeto" and to make this claim in the most public way possible; he wants others to do the same, to share in this "adoption of
an identity."
Underlying Alfonso's proposition is a Nicaraguan rendition of
a universal queer subject who is overtly, and discursively, out of the
closet and who is part of a queer whole: a collective of shared identity based on sexuality. And yet, his position corresponds not only
with a universal queer sensibility, but with Maribel's perspective;
namely, that "visibility" is a key element in establishing rights for
non-heterosexual people in Nicaragua, specifically. Like Maribel,
Alfonso finds utility in living under the sign of
"homosexual/gay/lesbian" with others, a group or community of
queer people whose identity is in contradistinction to, and a critique of, heterosexual hegemony. Visibility is however, on the level
of lesbian and gay activism, a subjective enterprise. For Alfonso,
lesbians are not "out" enough. On the other hand, I have heard
lesbian leaders complain that there are no homosexual male leaders, with the exception of Alfonso, who are willing to be publicly
"declared." Degrees of "declared-ness" appears to be a point of
antagonism between gay men and lesbians; both agree it is critical
to be visible, in a positive way, but neither, according to the other,
are sufficiently out/declared/visible.
What constitutes "visibility" for lesbians or homosexual men
in Nicaragua is a complicated proposition. On one hand, there has
long been visibility for the neighborhood "cochon " whom everyone knows, gossips about and, often, ridicules (Lancaster 1992).
This visibility, while negative, still constitutes visibility in a pragmatic sense, though the negative quality of this visibility is likely
not commensurate with the ideals of equal rights. The cochon, as
fundamental to the structure of machismo in Nicaragua, is a wellknown character, if not one who is well-respected. The question,
then, is not a matter of being "seen," but how one is seen by oth253
City & Society
ers in Nicaraguan society at large. It is a matter of creating a "visibility" of quality rather than of quantity.
"Lesbians" have shared a similar kind of visibility in Nicaragua,
at least since the 1980s. It was during this time that women came
to occupy some high public offices, often through their revolutionary militancy (Collinson 1990; Chuchryk 1990; Field 1999;
Randall 1981, 1994). Some of these women were rumored to be
"cochonas" (feminine of cochona or "dyke"). For example, Dora
Maria Tellez (arguably the most influential of Sandinista women)
continues to carry the "nickname" she received in the early days of
the Revolution, "la cochona." "Cochona" like cochon, carries with
it negative connotations, and is used as an epithet. However, many
Nicaraguans explained to me that, in the case of Tellez, it was only
a "term of endearment." Likewise, most Nicaraguans I spoke with,
whether they were of Sandinista, Liberal or Conservative political
persuasion, had the utmost respect for Tellez. One former
Sandinista explained that, "if Dora Maria had only been a man,
she would have been president. This cochona is very, very intelligent."
Returning to Alfonso's commentary, powerful feminist leaders
and activists are also, routinely referred to as "lesbianas" (the more
polite, international word may be reserved for visiting chelas like
myself) or "cochonas."25 Marking powerful women as "dykes" may
be the product of machismo, a shorthand meant to denigrate
women who transgress traditional gender values of motherhood
and subservience to male authority. Whether "lesbian baiting" is
part and parcel of machismo, however, does not diminish the fact
that "las lesbianas" have a modicum of visibility in contemporary
Nicaragua—at times negative and at other times positive,
"cochonas" still register more than a blip on the screen. While 1 do
not want to suggest that the harassed, neighborhood cochon and
the masculinzed cochona, are ideal kinds of visibility, I do want to
highlight the question of what constitutes "visibility." In what
forms must visibility appear and under what conditions? Must
queers be out or "unmasked" in order to be "truly" queer, or to do
the work of liberation? Is visibility only viable when queerness is
seen in a "positive" (or non-derogatory) light? And which signature discourses and signs (such as "lesbian" vs. "cochona" or
Sandinismo vs. human rights) must be coupled with "identities" in
order for social equality to come about? It seems the key element
here is not one of visibility, but of self-claimed identities, declarations of the self, rather than imposed categories. It is not the same
to be called a cochona as to call one's self a "lesbian." The imper254
Universal Queer
Subject
ative to be out, which Alfonso so vehemently guards, entails a
complicated set of discursive and transformational practices.
Whether removing masks or pushing open the closet door, being
"declared" is not as simple as it first appears, personally or politically.
A sexuality free from prejudice:
transvestic festitivities and solidarities
B
ack stage at the "sexuality free from prejudice" event hosted
by Xochiquetzal26 the contestants for tonight's performance
are busy with final beautifications,
preparing to strut their stuff for the title of
"Miss Gay Nicaragua." The biologically
male, but definitely femininely-coiffed,
participants struggle for space at steamy
backstage mirrors. Participants' boyfriends
are an integral part of the backstage scene,
providing support (fetching last minute
necessities, like borrowing lipstick from
the on-site anthropologist) and gender
legitimacy (in their masculine performance). Boyfriends, or "cochoneros" (literally, those who "drive" the cochon, or the
dominant, inserting partner) provide a
priceless foil for the travestis' carefully
crafted femininity.27
Tensions are high, and this is a coveted prize. The club is full of ready spectators, most of them women, many of them
lesbians associated with Xochiquetzal.
Xochiquetzal, directed by a "declared" lesbian, publishes the magazine "Fuera del
Closet" (Out of the Closet) and provides
clinical services related to AIDS and sexuahty.^ T h e
s e x u a l i t y free f r o m p r e j u d i c e
e v e n t " is t h e l a r g e s t o f X o c h i q u e t z a l ' s
annual events and is held every June in
Figure 3: A contestant, waiting for her turn in a drag lip-sync
c o m f ) e n t l o n p poses
next
t0 fer boyfriend
Boyfnends
of
ttavesd
performers lend gender legitimacy to their biologically male,
though femmme-identifiedgirlfmnds. [Photo by author}
accord with Pride celebrations from Johannesburg to San
Francisco to Tokyo. Some of the people with whom I spoke were
critical of this late June timing, which commemorates the
255
City & Society
Figure 4."Exotic" competitor
[Photo by author].
256
Stonewall uprising in the US (1969). Instead, says Esperanza, "we
should have our pride celebration to commemorate the time that
Sandinista state security infiltrated Nicaragua's first gay and lesbian group. This has more relevance to us." On the other hand, she
explains, "it is good to be connected with other gays in the world."
What Esperanza unveils is an explicit consciousness of Nicaragua's
place in the global queer scheme of things: reliant on foreign funds,
practicing pride in accord with liberation moments in the North,
while aware that Nicaragua has its own distinct moments of queer
pride.
The crowd goes wild as the procession begins and the hosts
describe the significance of the gathering, "to create solidarity for
homosexuals in Nicaragua." The focus of the Xochiquetzal event is
to bring together gay men and women, to emphasize solidarity, or
similarity, amongst Nicaragua's sexual
minorities. The pageant is composed of
three events: the bathing suit competition,
the evening gown competition and the
"exotic" competition. The travestis careen
between cheering onlookers. Their elaborate costumes attest to the significant sums
of time and money that contestants have
invested in order to render themselves
wholly feminine. Padding and strategically
arranged appendages create the full effect;
there is no talk of surgery, silicone or hormones (Kulick 1998, Prieur 1998). The
gender performances of the contestants
resemble the body manipulations and high
style seen in other drag settings. However,
there is a qualitative difference in format.
This is a pageant, more akin to Miss
America than a campy performance. The
travestis do not compete on the basis of
campy schtick; there is no comedy here.
Unlike what Esther Newton has found in
gay male camp culture in the US, there is
at Miss Gay Nicaragua contest
no requirement to be "funny" (Newton
2000:64). The competitors for the title of Miss Gay Nicaragua are,
rather, judged on the creativity and uniqueness of their "exotica"
on the one hand and their seamless application of "femininity" on
the other. This is serious gender performance; a show of "realness."
The gender representations seen in the pageant are distinct:
Universal Queer
Subject
the pageant appropriates the North American beauty queen
model, but within the context of a feminist and lesbian dominated gathering. This is about Miss Gay, rather than Miss America,
and it is biologically male "misses" that covet the crown. The politics of transvestics are complicated. Some have determined that
men dragging as women is an example of misogyny. However, it is
more useful to understand gender imitation as a practice which critiques the very foundations of naturalized or essentialized gender.
Judith Butler, for one, has concluded that drag which strives to "be
real" highlights the instability of gender categories and norms.
Drag, for Butler, is an imitation of gender; but gender is also, itself,
an imitation of much repeated gestures (Butler 1990). If drag is a
copy of a copy, a simulacrum, or "performance" of repetitive codes,
norms and expectations then it is through drag that gender
becomes most exposed as a construct. These gender performances
are less about "mocking" male power (Donham 1998:9) as they are
a way to draw attention to the un-naturalness of gender in all contexts. In Latin America, since at least the beginning of the twentieth century, "men who assumed an effeminate persona or those
women who adopted masculine attire or comportment became
symbols of perverse sexual transgression" (Green and Babb
2002:6). Transvestics, as gender performances, have historically
provoked questions of "appropriate" gender and sexual boundaries.
Newton has written that, "the most important historical situation in which drag and camp have been implicated has been the
greater power of gay men than lesbians within every socioeconomic class and ethnic group" (2000:66). Thus, when lesbians
took the stage at Cherry Grove, New York in order to do dyke
drag, it was with the intent of destabilizing a "male monopoly"
(Newton 2000:66). Like Newton's description of drag in "Dickless
Tracy and the Homecoming Queen," (1996) it was, traditionally,
only biological men who took the stage, as "women."28 Male hegemony, if in gender-bending form, thus remained in place.
However, in the Xochiquetzal event, gender power performances
take a different twist. Rather than subsuming lesbians under the
monolith of a gay male subject, the women at the event are both
active participants as well as those who choose the winners.
Competition is decided, nominally based on audience applause,
but likely actually decided by staff from Xochiquetzal. So while lesbians are not participants in the pageant, they maintain more real
power than those on stage. It is lesbians who are the judges, the
funders and founders of the event. When the crown is bequeathed
it will be the director of Xochiquetzal who does the honors. When
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City & Society
Nicaraguan
travestis'
attempts to
replicate
femininity
draws attention
to the very
impossibility of
"gender" being
anything other
than
"performance"
258
smaller cash prizes are given throughout the night, they come from
the coffers of a lesbian-founded and lesbian-run foundation. This,
coupled with the fact that the great majority of the audience at the
event are feminist women, many from the NGO sector, points to a
variation in gendered power dynamics within the context of a
queer celebration in Nicaragua. While Newton's lack of lesbian
show-womanship in Cherry Grove leads her to find a dominance
of gay white men, in Managua things appear to be different. It is
women, and lesbians in particular, who hold relative power within
the context of the "libre de prejuicios" event.
There is a voice of dissent in regards to the drag shows; this dissent comes from North Americans and Europeans working for lesbian and gay rights in Nicaragua. The only people I ever heard
complain about the prominence of drag in political events, were
these international allies.29 "Why do they always have to do these
drag shows?," I heard repeatedly from Northern activists. Perhaps
they still see drag as misogynistic or a reification of the gay male
subject. In any case, it was never Nicaraguans who questioned the
validity, or inclusivity, of drag performance.
"Drag" performances have been a key element in queer festivities in Nicaragua throughout the 1990s. The way in which travesti pageantry is played-out, in the context of "pride" celebrations,
suggests that these performances are political; these shows are a
symbolic tool to create a sense of collective identity. Drag performances within Nicaraguan, nonheterosexual activist contexts
are also a fine example of how Butler's "gender performance" can
be made explicitly political, despite the many critiques to the contrary.30 Nicaraguan travestis' attempts to replicate femininity draws
attention to the very impossibility of "gender" being anything
other than "performance." In other words, through the repetition
of "feminine" gestures, gaits and giggles, travestis make the drama
so transparent that it is nearly impossible to walk away believing in
any kind of natural, biologically-determined gender.
While participants and audience members do not describe
these transvestic performances as a route toward diminishing gender binaries, they do emphasize that biological males dressing as
"women" is an affront to Nicaragua's particular brand of machismo.
Travestis, in many ways, reify Nicaraguan codes of femininity. But
their so doing, as males, is read by the audience as a radical transgression of traditional gender expectations. Gender bending also
occurs off-stage. For alongside the travestis who hope to perfectly
replicate femininity, are the relatively powerful feminists and lesbian activists who do not mimic traditional Nicaraguan forms of
Universal Queer
Subject
femininity—a femininity that calls for structural powerlessness
and acquiescence to machismo and heterosexuality. The values of
femininity that are popularly propagated in Nicaragua (fragility
and submissiveness) are not found in this event. Instead, women
take up the traditionally masculine roles of leaders, decision-makers, and financiers. Moreover, the drag show is an often-used way
to rally for a collective queer identity. It is not that drag is hegemonic, but rather, that drag represents the symbolics of identities
in formation. It is an adjunct to the relative dominance of lesbians
and feminists. It is a show of solidarity.
Conclusions: undressing the universal queer
subject
M
y framework for exploring a universal queer subjectivity,
transnational discourses, and political strategies includes
a focus upon how "sexualities" are made into "identities."
In our contemporary, transnationalized world there is a confluence
of international activism (in the form of new social movements)
and globally distributed media representations of non-heterosexual people which has the potential to create a universal queer subject. While globalization and ideological, media and capital
"flows" are not new (Harvey 1990), too little attention has been
given to the identity prototypes which circulate within these
"scapes" of meaning.31 Gay tourists in South Africa (Donham
1998), screenings of "Boys Don't Cry" in Central America (Babb
2001), Pride parades outside the Vatican (Stanley 2000), debates
about "sexual orientation" at UN meetings (United Nations
2002), and anthropologists discussing the aesthetics of
butch/femme in Taiwan (Chao 1999) are only a few examples of
these microencounters that might create a kind of universally recognizable queer subject. Through a tripartite process that includes
Hollywood representations, the dissemination of political discourses and funding—alongside traveling tropes of modernity—
particular traits appear to have become attributed to "lesbians" and
"gays" (or "homosexuals"). This process works to further proliferate discourses of "identity," which may foreclose other activist
strategies and conceptualizations of the sexual self.32
My concern about the potential of a universal queer subject
arises from a related phenomenon seen in feminist scholarship and
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City & Society
activism. In the 1980s, well-intentioned North American and
European feminist scholars writing about development issues in
the Third World constructed through their treatises and theoretical positions a hegemonic, monolithic prototype of universal
womanhood, what Chandra Talpade Mohanty (1997) calls the
universal "Third World woman." The logic which generated this
prototype was one of "global sisterhood,"33 or a belief that all
women, everywhere, have been, and continue to be, oppressed by
a kind of universal patriarchy (Mohanty and Alexander 1997:xix).
Feminist scholars managed to "discursively colonize" the material
and historical heterogeneities of Third World women, by creating
a composite, singular Third World woman. Discursive colonization, as opposed to essentialism, is one where, "the homogeneity of
women as a group is produced not on the basis of biological essentials but rather on the basis of secondary sociological and anthropological universals...[where women are] characterized as a singular group on the basis of a shared oppression" (Mohanty 1997:257259). In other words, discourses generated by the social sciences
can colonize with their analytic categories; a dynamic which is not
unfamiliar to anthropology.34
The "Third World woman" logic of shared oppression is similar to the collective "identity" model deployed by gay and lesbian
activists on a global scale. Both are minoritizing discourses. In
place of gender is, "sexual orientation," that "odd euphemism"
(Sanders 1997:75) which appears to "naturally" bind subjects,
much like the category of "woman." It is not a question of whether
women, or queers, are victimized by a dominant and structurallysanctioned bias. In fact many non-heterosexual people in
Nicaragua are the victims of heterosexist prejudice, discrimination
and, sometimes, violence. However, it is important that "the Third
World "gay" (or "lesbian") not operate, as the Third World woman
has, as a receptacle for western prototypes of "identity" and fantasies of discursive altruism.35 Non-heterosexual culture and critique becomes limited when researchers see only "lesbians" where
there are really, historically manfloras, p'os, and matis (cf. Chao
1999; Faderman 1981; Ferguson 1981). It is equally important to
distinguish the many differences between the way homosexual
males and homosexual females are interpreted by the social sciences as well as by the societies in which they live (Blackwood and
Wieringa 1999:48). These differences, of course, have many implications for sexuality-based activism and potential solidarities
across gendered lines.
The two elements of a universal queer subject that I have out260
Universal Queer
Subject
lined—identity and collective consciousness—are not without
utility. Identity consciousness, both personal and collective, is
often imperative to political mobilization. However, it is also
imperative to question who is included and excluded within the
discursive limits of identities (Nagengast 1996). In Nicaragua, as
in many places, there is not a singular, unitary "gay and lesbian"
identity. There are, however, collective actions, based on "personal" affirmations of the self that are rallied in support of a "sexuality free from prejudice" or "pride." There is a shared assumption
that nonheterosexual people regularly face discrimination and that
in collective action a solution may be found. This stance draws as
much from Nicaragua's revolutionary experience as it does from
gay liberationist struggles in the North. There are distinct voices
in Nicaragua's sexuality-based struggles,36 homosexual men or lesbian women for example. There are distinct trajectories, such as
those who have been involved with the struggle since the
Sandinista era or those who have only recently joined the homosexual "camp." However, there also appears to be a building consensus which embraces discourses of "identity" as "lesbians" and
"homosexual or gay" men. Strategically, this identity is codified
through "visibility," whether in the form of lesbian magazines or
increasing the number of "declared" individuals or public shows of
solidarity. "Identity-based" approaches, however, are not necessarily always effective in transforming social expectations concerning
sexuality.
Timothy Wright (2000), for example, has described how the
Bolivian state, attempting to combat AIDS, developed a center for
"the gay community." Bureaucratic language choice here, however, was not appropriate. Men who have sex with men (either occasionally or regularly) do not always call themselves "gay." Many do
not consider themselves, nor are they considered by others, to be
"homosexual." On the contrary, in many places in Latin America,
homoerotic sexual "conquests" actually heighten some men's status as "real men" or machos (Brown 1999; Carrier 1992; Green
1994, 1999; Higgins and Coen 2000; Lancaster 1992; Lumsden
1996; Murray 1995; Palmberg 1999). Thus, while these men may
practice homosexual acts, the translation of bodily practice into
identity consciousness is not automatic. Wright goes on to explain
that the Bolivian public health development model was one which
sought to manage and "control 'homosexual' objects" (Wright
2000:96). In other words, there was a form of what Mohanty would
call "discursive colonization" of "homosexual beings" who were
being made to fit, ideally, into state public health frameworks. In
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City & Society
addition to discursively marking a population, the "gay community" approach to AIDS prevention is also, in a purely utilitarian
sense, futile. If AIDS transmission is occurring between male sex
partners, it is foolish to provide services and education to only
those who live under the sign, "gay." In fact, as is the case in
Nicaragua, it is often married men who have sex with men who
spread the virus between men and women (often their wives
[Fundacion Xochiquetzal 2000]). However, when a universal queer
subject model exists—one that equates sexual behavior with identity consciousness—it is quite easy to mistranslate "sex" into signs.
Roger Lancaster (1992) has written that sexual identity, discourse and practice are "local" while at the same time, they are
transnational and open-ended. However, Richard Parker (1999)
and Lancaster (1992) have both maintained that an "identity consciousness" is necessary for political mobilization on the part of
"men who have sex with men" (MSMs). Parker maps an emerging
"gay world," in Brazil where political activism takes place primarily along the lines of AIDS prevention. While Parker includes
"entendidos" (those in the know) in this "gay imaginary," it is only
those who claim a "homosexual" identity who are engaged with
activism. In other words, identity consciousness motivates political
mobilization in the Brazilian case. Lancaster, however, mentions a
potential glitch in this system in the case of Nicaragua. He writes
that the matrix of machismo, with cochones as central to the tripartite Nicaraguan gender system, will probably not produce a constellation of identity consciousness for MSMs (Lancaster
1992:271). According to Lancaster, Nicaragua's macho gender system depends on some men's ability to sexually dominate other
men. Since sexually dominant MSMs benefit from machismo, it is
difficult to imagine their adopting a gay identity. This comparison
between Nicaragua and Brazil suggests that a "gay identity" consciousness may be politically efficacious in places where sexuality
is relatively neatly divided along two lines: heterosexual or nonheterosexual. However, this is not the case in regions where sexual behaviors are not necessarily defined as one or the other, or
where homoerotic sex acts are not necessarily confined to "homosexuals."
Questioning the possibility of an identity consciousness on the
part of MSMs raises another factor in the complex terrain of queer
subjectivity: gender differences among nonheterosexual people.
Because of the paucity of information concerning lesbians in Latin
America (except Mogrovejo 2000; Randall 1994; Thayer 1997;
Wieringa 1999) there is a limited amount of comparative material
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Subject
on women who have affective and sexual relationships with other
women. How "lesbians," marimachas, tortilleras, manfloras,
cochonas ("dykes") may configure a sense of themselves as sexual
subjects and how political strategies that embrace sexual "identity" are utilized, remains relatively unknown.37 In terms of strategies, however, Thayer (1997) outlines variations in political
organizing—variations which may point to differences in how lesbian identity is conceptualized. Contrasting lesbian political
movements in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, Thayer (1997) found a
differential use of what constitutes "lesbian rights" and lesbian
political goals. In Costa Rica in the late 1980s, "lesbians" rallied
around this identity, invoked human rights, and sought a separate
"women's community" within lesbian enclaves in urban centers.
Next door in Nicaragua, during this same era, activists took a more
comprehensive approach, focusing instead on societal transformation, rather than "lesbian rights." The concern for broad social
change, generated by the revolutionary consciousness of the
1980s, took precedence over sexual identity. Rather, theirs was a
broader approach to sexual freedoms more generally, many of
which dovetailed with feminist issues. It is not that lesbians chose
to privilege "gender" over "sexuality," but rather that lesbians
chose broad social change over enclave strategies.
Whether "sexual identity" in the form of categories such as
"lesbian" or "gay" is politically salient is context-dependent and
historically situated. While there is no "natural" reason why sexuality should or would be the basis for collective identity, clearly
sexuality has become a foundation for collective action and consciousness. However, it is critical to continue questioning in what
ways and "for what purposes...[sexuality has] this status?" (Phelan
1989:159). Just as philosophies of identity arose at particular historic moments, so too do identities become shaped by individuals'
deployment of "classificatory grids" (Donham 1998) that are globally circulated. On the academic front, it is also important to
attend to the ways in which "the predominance of works about
gays and lesbians in the "West" and of the gay movement "liberating" indigenous queers runs the risk of re-instituting the dichotomy between the "West" and the rest" (Blackwood and Wieringa
1999:2).
The ways in which queer people negotiate the state, transnational ideologies, funding agencies, and their own relationships to
gender and sexuality are not simply processes specific to the rights
of sexual minorities, but highlight how "minorities," "rights,"
"identities," and "sexualities" are conceived. The point is not
Whether
"sexual
identity" in the
form of
categories such
as "lesbian" or
"gay" is
politically
salient is
contextdependent and
historically
situated
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City & Society
whether these grids or prototypes are politically and personally useful, but rather, how and by whom are they deployed?37 Political
practices (to promote visibility for example) and constructions of
identity (as a "lesbian" for example) are not one and the same. Yet,
international discourses of identity construction as well as tactics
of gay and lesbian activism are, now, part and parcel of "local" or
"indigenous" queer lives. In Nicaragua Amnesty International
pamphlets condemning the anti-sodomy law and national newspaper articles—hot off the AP wire, speculating about whether
homosexuality is genetic—circulate alongside (very popular)
screenings of "The Birdcage" on satellite TV. This pastiche of
images and ideals, renders, over time, a homosexual and lesbian
"identity" that is as familiar in Nicaragua as it is in other "local"
settings, including the North.
Ultimately, in a global marketplace of ideas, and identities,
how queer subjectivity is appropriated and remade by activists provides an implicit critique of universal queer subjectivity. As both
politicized and persecuted subjects, the ways in which Nicaraguan
activists defend their rights and define their identities, enrich the
concept of queerness beyond the borders of the Nicaraguan nation
state. The identity negotiation which takes place at the interstices
of international gay and lesbian rights movements and a more geographically situated, or "local," Nicaraguan context, suggests an
opportunity to formulate new ways of being "queer" in a globalized
schema. Interpreting drag, lesbian/feminist power structures, visibility strategies and the method and medium of "coming out"
involves a complicated set of meanings that in Nicaragua are never
a-political. There is spectacle and fun, but there is also desire: to
build a sense of "community," and political "identity" that really
can overturn discriminatory practices by the state and in the street.
Notes
Acknowledgments: Many thanks go to the activists in Managua with
whom I have had the pleasure of working. Their time and insights have
been invaluable. I appreciate the comments and recommendations based
on earlier versions of this manuscript that were provided by Yarimar
Bonilla, Les Field, Louise Lamphere, Carole Nagengast, Emily Schultz,
anonymous reviewers for City and Society, and the committee for the
Sylvia Forman Award (Association for Feminist Anthropology).
Financial support for this research was provided by the J. William
Fulbright Foundation, and the Latin American and Iberian Institute and
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Subject
Student Resource Allocation Committee at the University of New
Mexico.
lr
T"hese stanzas are drawn from a longer poem printed in Humanas,
the first lesbian magazine to be printed and distributed in Nicaragua. The
magazine's first issue was distributed in March 1999 and published by
Grupo por la visibilidad lesbica (Lesbian Visibility Group). The poet's pseudonym means "to overcome."
2
"Travesti" is the term I have heard used repeatedly in Nicaragua to
describe biological males who dress as women (either occasionally or on
a daily basis). The term appears to derive from Portuguese (Brazil)
(Parker 1999), though I am unsure of its origins in Nicaragua.
3
The distinction between "a sexuality free from prejudice" and
"pride" in the Nicaraguan context appears to be one of degree regarding
"visibility," coupled with historic differences of opinion regarding strategizing for homosexual/lesbian rights. The "sexuality free from prejudice"
event has been ongoing since 1992 and is supported by particular NGOs
who approach lesbian and gay rights from the ideological perspective that
society, as a whole, should be tolerant of difference in "sexual preference." In general, these organizations utilize the concepts of human and
democratic rights as the basis for their argument regarding the legitimacy of homosexuality as a "choice." In this context, I would argue, "prejudice" is framed as a retrograde, non-modern form of discrimination. Thus,
by embracing diversity in terms of sexuality, the Nicaraguan populace is
encouraged to further adopt modernity and the liberal views of the
(more) developed nations. "Sexuality free from prejudice," as a strategy
to advocate for non-heterosexual rights, is meant to appeal to all of
Nicaraguan society. On the other hand, "pride" focuses on an "interest
group" and follows an ethnic model of rights-advocacy, not unlike some
approaches seen in the US (Phelan 1989). Organizations and groups
which have adopted the "pride" approach, as opposed to the "sexuality
free from prejudice" approach, have been critiqued by those who ascribe
to the latter. Those who have critiqued the notion of "pride" argue that
"pride" draws attention to difference, and further serves to segregate or
marginalize lesbian and gay people from the larger populace. There is a
common understanding among activists in Nicaragua that the concept of
"gay pride" originated in the US—a fact which may be positive for some
and negative for others.
4
For a discussion of how anthropologists' sexual identity can/does
impact their ethnographic fieldwork, see Lewin and Leap (1996) and
Markowitz and Ashkenazi (1999).
5
By the "South" I refer to "developing " or de-developed, "third
world" nation states as distinct from fully industrialized, "western" or
"Northern" nation states.
6
In this discussion I alternately use terms such as "queer," "sexual
minorities" and "nonheterosexual people" to refer to people who are sexually and emotionally involved with people of their same sex, and/or
both sexes. In the case of Nicaragua, women who have sexual and/or
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affective relationships with other women (whether they identify as "lesbian" or not) and men who have sex with men (MSMs) and/or have
affective relationships with other men are included in my shifting terminologies. My use of "queer," "nonheterosexual people" and "sexual
minorities," is meant to highlight the un-easy way in which identity
monikers, or markers, are often applied to a broad variety of people and
their proclivities. Part of my project is to problematize identity markers
(such as lesbian, gay, homosexual, etc.). Therefore, I am judicious in my
use of these terms in particular and use them only when they are explicitly articulated by the people with whom I have worked. The term
"queer" has its limitations, particularly because of its US origins. "Queer,"
is also limited in that it is incapable, as an umbrella term, of finer distinctions within nonheterosexual populations. For example, "queer" does
not distinguish between female and male same-sex erotic practices and
experiences. The terms I invoke in this discussion, including "queer,"
serve as a shorthand in order to denote a larger group of people who are
defined by themselves and/or others to be sexually distinct from the
norm. I do not want to suggest that "queer" as a term unto itself is being
utilized in any significant way in Nicaragua.
7
The different symbolic associations with male versus female bodies
also demands that women's same-sex sexuality and men's same-sex sexuality be evaluated on their own terms, and not under a monolithic understanding of an undifferentiated "homosexuality." In other words, male
and female homosexuality should not be conflated; while they may be a
structurally analogous practice, they do not mean the same thing for both
men and women (Blackwood and Wieringa 1999:44).
8
I owe this term, "sexual colonialism," to an anonymous reviewer
whose comments on my original manuscript have greatly enhanced this
final version.
9
While I agree with Altman's contention that globalization has facilitated a form of "international gay/lesbian identity" (one which I describe
as a "universal queer subject" who is both invested in being "out" and
embracing "identity consciousness"), I disagree with his proposition that
"members of particular groups have more in common across national and
continental boundaries than they do with others in their own geographically defined societies" (Altman 2001:87). Certainly, the political goals of
new social movements, cultural, and identity politics have highlighted
the common goals of "subcultures" residing in various nation states.
However, to assert that shared political or cultural goals constitute a more
potent sense of commonality than that provided by nation states or
national or local cultures is to overstate the issue. It is not an impossibility, but more empirical evidence has yet to be gathered in regards to ranking affinities and uncovering whether sexual minorities do indeed have
"more-in-common" with each other than with members of their own cultural groups.
10
Laclau and Mouffe (1985, 2001) have emphasized the importance
of hegemony as a "double void" which emerges "in a context dominated
by the experience of fragmentation and by the indeterminacy of the artic266
Universal Queer
Subject
ulation between different struggles and subject positions" (Laclau and
Mouffe 1985:13). One's "subjectivity" is neither determinative of, nor
determined by, the kinds of political struggles with which one will
engage. Political struggles and political affinities are not based on a predetermined social category, but rather, it is through political engagement
(which for Laclau and Mouffe constitutes the social field) that one's subjectivity becomes constructed. Thus, following Wittgenstein's "family
resemblances," or nodal points of continuity, Laclau and Mouffe insist
that we not rely on essentialist forms of "identity." Rather, they argue for
a chain of equivalence amongst different democratic struggles. In their
view, the voice of "the workers" in a classic Marxist sense, should be combined with the voice of "women," or "homosexuals," or "environmentalists," etc. A radical and plural democracy, according to Laclau and
Mouffe, is one that does not abandon "cultural" or "identity-based"
issues, but rather combines these issues with "class" struggle (Laclau and
Mouffe 2001:xviii). A radical plural democracy is one which questions,
not what is the unifying essence of "women" (for example), but rather,
how is "woman" constructed as a category within different discourses and
how is this category then made to be a salient distinction within social
relations? The project is to abandon the search for unity in essence
(ontologically based) and instead strive for a continuum of a "common
good" (Mouffe 1995:326).
n
This article is based on 14 months of field research in Managua
over a three year period (1999-2001) where I worked with various lesbian, gay and feminist NGOs, groups and networks.
12
Young notes that Cuba purged homosexuals in the mid-1960s on
that grounds that their sexuality was a symptom of bourgeois decadence
(Collinson (1990:24)). Further, early AIDS policy in Cuba mandated
that those infected by the HIV virus be quarantined. While policies of
homosexual exclusion and persecution in revolutionary Cuba have been
critiqued by the international community (often by North American gay
activists) recent work provides a more historically situated perspective.
Lumsden (1996) writes that Cuban policies toward homosexuals must be
understood within the context of colonialism and US hemispheric domination. In his analysis dating from the 16th century to the present,
Lumsden concludes that the potential for gay liberation in Cuba is conditioned by Cuba's economic marginality (especially after the collapse of
the Soviet Union and continuing US trade embargo) and location in a
"broad political and historical context" (xxi). While Sandinista
Nicaragua, in contrast, had no official policies of homosexual repression,
I agree with Lumsden's position of situating issues of sexuality within historical context. In revolutionary projects like those in Cuba and
Nicaragua, liberal individual notions of sexuality must be carefully
assessed in the context of nations advocating communitarian reforms.
13
Field (1999) describes that "thousands of foreigners, especially
North Americans and Western Europeans, flocked to Nicaragua following the triumph of the Sandinista Front on July 19, 1979, [and these] foreigners were officially accorded a semi-insider status as internacionalistas
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(foreigners in solidarity with the revolutionary process)" (12).
14
The complete wording of the code is as follows: "Comete delito de
sodomia el que induzca, promueva, propagandice o practique en forma
escandalosa el concubito entre personas del mismo sexo. Sufrira la pena
de uno a tres anos de prision. Cuando uno de los que lo practican, aun en
privado tuviere sobre el otro poder disciplinario o de mando, como ascendiente, guardador, maestro, jefe, guardian, o en cualquier otro concepto
que implique influencia de autoridad o de direccion moral, se le aplicara
la pena de la seduccion ilegitima, como linico responsable."
15
The Oxford English Dictionary defines sodomy as "an unnatural form
of sexual intercourse, esp. that of one male with another." In Nicaragua,
I have never encountered "sodomia" used to refer to any kind of sex act
except that of sex between two men.
16
Each of these quotes is taken from a series of interviews I conducted with "Maribel" (a pseudonym) in June 1999, August 2000, and April,
August 2001 in Managua, Nicaragua.
17
The "Gay Games," a kind of Olympics with homosexual athletes,
was first held in San Francisco, California in 1982. While the primary
purpose of the event is to showcase queer athletes, the event has taken on
an increasingly political component. Social justice activists make up a
large proportion of the attendees and meetings, workshops and networking around social and cultural issues pertinent to lesbians and gays have
become central to the Games.
18
MaribeFs invocation of double and triple oppression is reminiscent
of critiques rallied by women of color against a "white liberal" feminist
project in the US beginning in the 1980s (cf. Moraga and Anzaldiia
1981).
19
Blackwood and Wieringa (1999) point to a similar kind of "invisibility" on the US/European academic landscape, namely that "female
homosexuality is nearly invisible in the anthropology of homosexuality
written by men scholars" (1999:47) even though "reports of female samesex practices [have been reported] in ninety-five societies" (1999:49). In
academic works, as in the opinions of lesbian activists in Nicaragua,
"invisibility" does not mean that lesbians, or same sex practices between
women, do not exist, but rather, that they are not as readily found, or
cited, as are those about males.
20
Sedgwick (1990) has concluded that an epistemology of the closet
has pervaded western thinking since at least, following Foucault (1978),
the 17th century. In contrast to a "gay and lesbian" approach, Sedgwick
insists that "the open secret," behind closet doors, has structured the
western binary gender system and undergirds our entrapment in these
dualisms. To disclose or not to disclose: that is, and has been, the (fundamental) question. Working with social constructionist theories, which
denaturalize bodies from their culturally prescribed roles, Butler (1990;
1993) has also emphasized the need to destabilize categories. She suggests
that the social performance and psychic scripting that compose "gender"
and "sex" are simulacra: an imitation of something that never existed.
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Subject
Further, living under the "sign" (gay or lesbian) can affirm (one's selfidentity and group membership) but the danger is that these signs also
constrain—particularly in the legal realm (Butler 1997). Butler's more
recent work takes a decidedly more "political" approach by emphasizing
the legislative perils associated with sexual categorization, particularly
"hate speech" (Butler 1997). Foucault also had an uneven relationship
with politics and identity categories. He did, according to his friend and
novelist, Edmund White, march in the Parisian gay pride events and
named the first gay newspaper in Paris. However, Foucault, too was suspicious of categories, especially the scientific-medico variety (from a
radio interview with Edmund White, Pacifica Radio, Berkeley, CA.
1991).
2
'Women's use of "la mascara," (the mask) to describe non-disclosure
of one's sexuality may also be a play on the English word, "mascara" (the
cosmetic). In Nicaragua, and other Latin American nations, "mascara" is
the common term for mascara and often, for make-up in general. This
word play might indicate a further component of the transnationality of
gendered "performances" and gendered evocations of sexuality, whether
"lesbian," "lipstick," or both.
22
Each of these quotes is taken from a series of interviews I conducted with "Alfonso" (a pseudonym) in July 1999, June 2000 and May 2001
in Managua, Nicaragua.
23
Similar to feminism in the US, Nicaragua's feminist history contains examples of "lesbian baiting." For example, after accusing Daniel
Ortega (the former president and influential Sandinista leader) of incest
and rape, Zoilamerica Narvaez (Ortega's adopted step-daughter) was
"accused" of being a lesbian, primarily because she herself, and her
claims, were supported by feminists. Narvaez's proximity to feminists thus
colored speculations about her sexuality.
24
For example, many feminist activists (many of whom work for
NGOs or are part of national networks) signed a response claiming the
unconstitutionality of 204- This "recurso" was submitted to the Supreme
Court soon after the anti-sodomy legislation was introduced; however, it
was not repealed. The Comite National Feminista (National Feminist
Committee) claims to publicly support sexuality rights, including those
of sexual minorities. A feminist NGO, Puntos de Encuentro (Common
Ground) has published numerous commentaries and articles in their
nationally-distributed, free magazine, "La Boktina." La Boletina has
included surveys on questions of "tolerance" toward homosexuality in
Nicaragua, accounts of Nicaraguan lesbians, poetry, and accounts of the
annual "Sexuality Free from Prejudice" events.
25
In the course of my fieldwork, individual feminists and feminist
organizations were regularly referred to as "cochonas," or "those lesbians."
It is surprising then, that Lancaster has written that the "subject of lesbianism" never arose in conversations, unless he was the one to raise it.
While attempting to slander feminists by calling them lesbians is hardly
equivalent to a discussion of "lesbianism," there is evidence now (ten
years after Lancaster did his work) that "lesbian" as a concept does circu269
City & Society
late quite readily in Managua.
26
Xochiquetzal is a Managua-based NGO which provides AIDS education, sexuality workshops, sexuality-oriented radio programs and a callin hotline for questions about sexuality. Xochiquetzal spearheads the
"Sexuality Free from Prejudice" week of festivities, along with other
NGOs and groups. The organization's founders were involved with early
struggles for lesbian and gay rights. Funding for most of Xochiquetzal's
projects come from the Dutch government.
27
For an in-depth analysis of travesti's boyfriends see Don Kulick
(1998).
28
Recent work in the US has explored the differences between
female drag (drag "kings") and their male predecessor (the drag "queen").
See for example, Halberstam (1997, 1998). I have not encountered any
"drag kinging" activities in Nicaragua.
29
Dennis Altman echoes this sentiment when he writes "I remain
unsure just why "drag," and its female equivalents, remains a strong part
of the contemporary homosexual world, even where there is increasing
space for open homosexuality and a range of acceptable ways of "being"
male or female" (Altman 2001:91). In response, and following the argument that I make about drag shows in Nicaragua, I would re-invoke
Butler's contention that drag is not so much about homosexuality,
(despite the fact that it has long found a home in "homosexual culture")
as it is about gender parody. Drag is not so much born from a desire to "be"
(in Altman's terms) the other gender, but to play with, critique and make
a farce of, gender as a system—maybe "consciously" and maybe not.
30
Butler's "gender performance" is "the reiterative and citational
practice by which discourse produces the effects that it names" (Lancaster
and di Leonardo 1997:532). In other words, through repetitively talking
about, marking, naming what is "feminine," (or macho, or faggoty, or
butch) "femininity" is produced, not only in discourse but in bodily practices. Gender performance has been critiqued, often by feminists, because
performance implies that one may do the drag of gender as one pleases in
a kind of off-hand, de-politicized way. Butler has responded to this, what
she calls the "bad reading" of gender performance, by suggesting that far
from being "merely" performance, "bodies [do] matter." For Butler there
is no "choosing subject" (Butler 1993:x) who decides on their individual
gender as though "one woke in the morning, perused the closet or some
more open space for the gender of choice, donned that gender for the day,
and then restored the garment to its place at night" (Butler 1993:x).
While gender is not agentively decided, gender norms and their repetition do work to "decide" the subject (Butler 1993:x). Thus, "bodies only
appear, only endure, only live within the productive constraints of certain
highly gendered regulatory schemas" (Butler 1993:xi). These schemas are
manifested through linguistic practices, hailing particular subjects into
being through naming and discursively situating their bodies (1997).
31
Altman (2001) makes a similar contention in Global Sex where he
argues that our understandings of sexuality both reflect, and are affected
by, changes due to globalization. Altman also notes that while sexuality
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Subject
studies have come into academic vogue of late (particularly in literary
and cultural studies), the relationship between sexuality and studies of
economics and political economy have not been adequately addressed.
32
Blackwood and Wieringa's (1999) assert that "the adoption of an
identity... .always implies a closing off of other options... [identity] entails
a fixed character" (15).
33
Robin Morgan's Sisterhood is Global (1984) is another, more popular, example of this discursive move toward creating global, gender-based
alliances.
34
Feminist anthropology, for its part, has also not been immune to
this universalizing tendency (Behar and Gordon 1995; Clifford 1986).
Beginning in the 1970s the "issue-based" (Lamphere 1988) approach
toward discerning women's apparent pan-cultural and pan-historical
"sexual asymmetry" (Rosaldo and Lamphere 1974:1) was the motivation
for a series of ethnographic case studies, feminist re-readings and critical
feminist analyses. With the increased application of Marxist prototypes,
and later, post-structuralist readings, many feminist ethnographers ultimately abandoned the "issue-based" approach, and the categories of
analysis were renovated (di Leonardo 1991). What began as an analysis
of a transcultural/transhistorical "woman," later became a variegated
evaluation of "women" and their relative power in the world. Ultimately,
"gender," as a dynamic system, would provide a more appropriate framework for considering the diversity of power relationships with which
women, and men, engage (Visweswaren 1997). Feminist anthropologists
have grappled with the ways in which universalizing prototypes can ultimately, if unintentionally, rob women of their agency.
35
Like the mistaken "Third World Woman" approach, many scholars' inattention to issues of sexuality in the South (providing instead an
emphasis on economistic gender analyses) have reinforced the wrongheaded notion that "Northern women have body politics and Southern
women have 'gender and development'" (Blackwood and Wieringa
1999:14).
36
A11 of the sexuality activists with whom I have work deny that
there is a "gay and lesbian movement" in Nicaragua. They state that
there is not enough visibility, or participation, to constitute what they
would consider a "movement." I would argue, however, that it is a matter of scale and degree. There are at least four well-established NGOs in
Managua that address homosexuality in their work (often alongside
AIDS and feminist issues). There are also a varying number (two to
eight) of "rap" groups comprised of lesbians or gay men who meet regularly to discuss their experiences of coming-out, discrimination, family
conflict etc. Every June there are a series of events, including the
Xochiquetzal event, presentations at the Jesuit University, film screenings, research presentations, etc. which promote "a sexuality free from
prejudice." I concur, reluctantly, with my informants who insist that
there is not a "movement." However, I believe that there is a significant
amount of activism and public participation around issues of homosexuality in Nicaragua.
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City & Society
"Little ethnographic work has been done with lesbians in Latin
America, so there is a paucity of information about how lesbians figure in
the passive/active paradigm found in Latin American, homoerotic male
behavior. In Nicaragua I have found the use of the terms "cochona"
("dyke") and "cochonera" (one who "drives" the "dyke"). The use of
these terms, so similar to the gay male terminology and reflecting passive/active roles, suggests that the passive/active paradigm is also applied
to women who have sex with other women. The cochonera, or driver,
suggests active-ness, yet she was described as muy mujer (very womanish),
or perhaps, "femme." Rather than the "butch" or masculinized woman
"driving" sexual practices, it is the femme who "drives" and takes the
more active (read masculine) role. This constitutes an "inversion" of the
Nicaraguan homosexual male construct, where it is the macho who is the
actively controlling partner. Though in terms of gender conformity, it is
always the "driver" who suits gender expectations, whether they be "masculine" or "feminine." For detailed discussions of the distinctions between
"butch" and "femme" in the US see Case (1993); Kennedy and Davis
(1993) and Stein (1997).
38
It is not difficult to imagine, after all, how the conservative, political right might deploy fear-mongering about "the homosexual agenda"
(as a singular, monolithic entity) to many corners of the world.
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