Abstract
European nation states increasingly hail LGBT identities as part of modern values; LGBT recognitions have become a symbol of secular achievements. Discourses around gay rights and sexual diversity are increasingly pitted against presumably homophobic and intolerant ‘others’. An increased intolerant and repressive attitude towards migrants and racialised minorities is justified by their supposed threat to exactly these values. LGBT tolerance is used as a marker for modern values and this positions LGBT people as ‘border patrollers’ who can count as part of the modern liberal nation. This paper analyses 92 interviews with LGBT participants who live in six small and medium sized ordinary cities in Europe. It discusses how their fear of homophobia is evaluated according to perceived sexual norms and attitudes at the neighbourhood level. Neighbourhoods are considered either LGBT friendly or unfriendly according to their socio-demographic characteristics that focus on social class and/or migration and that intersects with race, ethnicity and religion. Based on the findings, neighbourhoods are both a geographical and a cultural terrain that can be understood, organised and contested through a sexuality discourse in the production of border regimes that discipline and produce the confines of the normative, the ‘modern’ and the ‘backward’. Not only are LGBT people positioned as border patrollers but they express their fear of homophobia also through bordering. The neighbourhood can then be understood, organised and contested through a sexuality discourse in the production of border regimes.
Highlights
Many European countries have witnessed an increased recognition of LGBT people in society against the backdrop of wider social, cultural and legal changes
Sabadell’s Neighbourhoods: Bordering by Migration and Social Class In Sabadell, an imaginary LGBT friendly border seems to run between the city centre and the suburban areas and the discourse is frequently framed within the context of education, ethnicity or religion that make up a specific culture
Borders separate LGBT friendly or tolerant neighbourhoods from LGBT unfriendly neighbourhoods and the markers are social class and ethnicity and race, that intersect with religion
Summary
Many European countries have witnessed an increased recognition of LGBT people in society against the backdrop of wider social, cultural and legal changes This does not take away from the fact that the current generation of LGBT people have lived through a historical period of intense homophobia when hiding ones’ sexual identity was necessary to protect oneself (Ghaziani 2015). ‘Gay villages’ or ‘Gaybourhoods’ are areas with generally recognised boundaries that unofficially form a social centre for LGBT people. They have been perceived as fostering and sustaining a multitude of gay amenities, entertainment and leisure opportunities as well as businesses to serve the gay population. This paper studies sexuality in ordinary as they are lived across the whole city, not just the inner-city leisure zones and gentrified neighbourhoods and without comparing them to gaybourhoods
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