Challenging the logic of progressive timeline, queering LGBT successes and failures in Ireland and Russia

Abstract

This article offers a critical view of progressive timeline that is a characteristic trait of composing LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans*) world maps and, in general, of thinking about queerness globally. I regard linear narratives of time as the manifestations of power that assign progress to the imagined ‘West’ and backwardness to the ‘East’. In this effort, I, therefore, advance critical scrutiny of spatio-temporal notion of progress, but centre on time rather than space which has been the focus of previous studies. The discussion of the work of Muñoz and Edelman helps to propose criticism of progress inherent even in queer approaches to time. Conclusions from the review of this discussion are then used to study developments of ‘LGBT progress’ in two countries, namely Ireland and Russia. My analysis shows that evaluation of the countries’ experiences on the progressive timeline fails to account for nuances and heteronormativity still present in both contexts regardless of their spatial polarisation.