1. Spencer Ruelos
Prof. M. Scoggin
Anthropology Capstone
8 March 2013
Queer(y)ing Globalization: Theories of Transnationalism within Queer Anthropology
Gay people are born into— and belong to—every
society in the world. They are all ages, all races,
all faiths. They are doctors, and teachers, farmers
and bankers, soldiers and athletes.
Hillary Clinton, 2011
The Secretary of State’s above response to homophobic political leaders in other countries
represents one of dominant public perceptions regarding homosexuality. With the globalization of
the mainstream U.S. LGBT movement, gay and lesbian identities have ‘popped up’ all over the
world. There are people who identify as ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ in China, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia,
and Egypt, among many other places. However, within the fields of both queer studies and
anthropology, the globalization of these gay, lesbian, and—more broadly—queer identities has been
scrutinized and debated for more than a decade. The bulk of these debates can be summed up in
two questions that Megan Sinnott (2004:24) posits: “Can we say that these identities and behaviors
are results of transnationalism and globalism? [D]oes the presence of these strangely familiar terms
mean that these identities are products of the globalization of the Western gay/lesbian movement?”
In this paper, I will articulate my position within these debates through a review of some of
the literature that has emerged from the field of queer anthropology. I will draw upon some of the
recent theorists who have tackled this question of globalization; ultimately, I will argue that, in order
to understand the rich complexities of same-sex sexual desire and practice in other societies and
cultures, we need to apply a more nuanced theoretical problematic of globalization and
transnationalism to our analysis of queer identities and practices. I will begin by contextualizing what
I mean by transnationalism and globalization. Following such contextualization, I will summarize
one of the dominant theories of transnationalism by Dennis Altman, ultimately to set up an

2. Ruelos 2
oppositional framework for complicating his notion of westernization of ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ subject
positions. Finally, in the bulk of this essay, I will frame some of the counter-arguments to Altman’s
work by theorists in the field of queer anthropology and position my own theoretical perspective
therein.
Contextualizing Transnationalism and Globalization
First of all, what is meant when I refer to theories of transnationalism? This has been one
area that has been largely contested from its origins. In their pivotal feminist and queer work,
“Global Identities: Theorizing Transnational Studies of Sexuality,” Grewal and Kaplan (2001)
articulate several ways that ‘transnationalism’ has been defined within academia, which are summed
up into bullet points below:
1. ‘Transnational’ describing migration at the present time,
2. ‘Transnational’ signaling the demise of the importance of the nation-state,
3. ‘Transnational’ as a synonym for ‘diasporic,’
4. ‘Transnational’ designating a form of neocolonialism through multinational corporations,
5. ‘Transnational’ illustrating the NGOization of social movements and human rights.
Despite transnational being used in these many different contexts, Grewal and Kaplan still stress
that the term has immense usefulness in the study of sexuality. “Since ignoring transnational
formations has left studies of sexualities without the tools to address questions of globalization, race,
political economy, immigration, migration, and geopolitics, it is important to bring questions of
transnationalism into conversation with the feminist study of sexuality” (Grewal and Kaplan
2001:666). Many previous studies regarding (homo)sexuality has often ignored questions of the
transnational and situated their analysis on more essentialist claims that reproduce the
tradition/modernity dichotomy. These are the studies that have sought out gender and sexual
diversity that has been ‘untouched’ by global capitalism and cultural imperialism, thus more ‘pure’
indigenous understandings of gender and sexuality. But because of the increasingly visible forms of
globalization and inter-cultural relations, recent theorists or both queer studies and anthropology
have applied a more transnational analysis to their discussions of gender and sexuality.

3. Ruelos 3
To place my perspective within these new theoretical engagements, I conceptualize
transnationalism as a broad term that encapsulates the history of economic and cultural imperialism
due to colonization; the influences this history has on the constructions of nation-states; and the
cultural, political, and economic interplay between nations, which constitute both localized and
globalized systems. This view on transnationalism includes the discussion of both colonialism and
globalism, and in fact, sees them as intimately connected. It also problematizes the binaries of
tradition/modernity, local/global, and West/Rest by examining the ways that each of these elements
in these categories co-constitute the other. For example, the West has only gained its political and
economic power it has now through the successful extraction of wealth and resources from the
Third-World. The history of colonialism links the West to the Rest, rather than seeing them as
separate with distinct non-overlapping histories. With this, let me turn first to Altman’s
conceptualizations of transnationalism and globalization
Altman’s Theories of Global Queering
One of the earliest theories of globalization of queer subjectivities comes from Dennis
Altman. Altman (1996, 2000) argues that the emergence of ‘Western-style gay/lesbian subcultures’ in
non-Western locations are linked with the expansion of consumer society, global capitalism, and
global mass media. I am inclined to agree with Altman in this sense. However, Altman takes it one
step further by arguing that the Western homosexual subcultures have spread to the rest of the
world, creating the Western archetype of the ‘macho’ gay man and the ‘lipstick’ lesbian in many
locales. “The ‘macho’ gay man of the 1970s, the ‘lipstick lesbian’ of the 1990s, are a global
phenomenon, thanks to the ability of mass media to market particular lifestyles and appearances.
[…] American books, films, magazines and fashions continue to define contemporary gay and lesbian
meanings for most of the world” (Altman 1996:2, emphasis added). It is clear to Altman that
“economic and cultural globalization is creating newly universal sense of homosexuality as a basis for
identity and lifestyle, not merely behavior” (1996: 7). While this dominant discourse echoes the U.S.

4. Ruelos 4
public’s perception of the globalization of gay/lesbian identities, it is naïve to believe that various
sexual cultures have simply adopted Western constructions of sexual selfhood wholesale and just
abandoned previous conceptualizations of gender and sexuality.
In addition to this theory of Westernization and homogenization of gay and lesbian
identities, Altman suggests that, because of the globalization of gay and lesbian identities, societies
have transitioned from ‘traditional’ gender-based practices to ‘modern’ identities based on sexual
orientation. As we can see in this argument, Altman’s work, while applying a transnational analysis to
studies of sexuality, reproduces the problematic binaries of tradition/modernity, West/Rest, and
local/global. As Sinnott (2004:26) and several others that I will draw up show us, “Altman’s
proposal of a globalization of Western homosexual culture has generated controversy as well efforts
among researchers to situate these sexual/gender forms…in a local context” (emphasis added). It is through
the examination of the negotiation of multiple discourses from both local and global contexts that
elicits a nuanced account of same-sex desires, sexual practices, and gender performance.
Glocalizing and Hybridizing Same-Sex Sexual Desires
Arjun Appadurai (1996:17) has so brilliantly pointed out that globalization is a “deeply
historical, uneven and even localizing process. Globalization does not necessarily or even frequently
imply homogenization or Americanization” (original emphasis). This is the basis that many theorists
and researchers have taken up in response to Altman. Because of this, I refer to the process of
‘glocalization’ as a transnational analytic that allows us to examine the ways in which sexual and
gendered subjects in various cultures and societies navigate and negotiate multiple and often
contradictory subject positions and discourses. Another term that I—and others—will use to refer
to this glocalization of queer identities is hybridization.
Lisa Rofel (2007) is one queer anthropologist who problematizes Altman’s framework. Rofel
ultimately argues that we need to decenter the universalism of Euro-American notions of what it
means to be gay; “To move toward a study of transcultural practices, we need to emphasize the

5. Ruelos 5
complexity of cultural production in the interactions of the West and non-West—with attention,
that is, to the transcultural practices and representations” (2007:92). Rofel’s work on gay Chinese
men then resists homogenizing their experiences in terms of either global impact or indigenous
cultural evolution. One of the ways in which Rofel articulates this glocalization or hybridization of
gay men’s subjectivities is by incorporating the cultural logics of kinship, family, and cultural
citizenship. While the category of ‘gay’ has influenced same-sex desire among men in China, Rofel
argues that gay men still often desire to get married and have children in addition to having extra-
marital same-sex relations. “In China ongoing discursive productions of family are indispensable
sites for establishing one’s humanness as well as one’s social subjectivity. For gay men to establish
their normality as men, they must marry not to prove their virility but to produce heirs” (Rofel
2007:100). Thus rather than simply adopting the global ‘gay’ identity category and the cultural
meanings that go along with it, men in China appropriate the term and situate their subjectivity
within national Chinese contexts.
Tom Boellstorff (1999) has also seen this phenomena occur in Indonesia. “Most gay
Indonesians marry and have children and see these actions as consistent with their subjectivities.
Most also assume that gay men in the ‘West’ marry women” (Boellstorff 1999:225). In this case,
Boellstorff articulate the ways in which gay Indonesians view marriage as not only compatible, but
also desirable within their gay subjectivities. Simultaneously, gay Indonesians also tie themselves to
the broader global ‘gay’ community, which they too suspect is compatible with heterosexual
marriage. Boellstorff ties this hybridized form of same-sex sexual subjectivity to the mass media,
similar to Altman. However, Boellstorff emphasizes that both gay and lesbi Indonesians construct
their translocal subjectivities through the competing discourses of the local–global and the national–
transnational (221, emphasis added).
Megan Sinnott’s work (2004) examines the ways in which Thai toms and dees can also be seen
as a hybridized subject position. Toms are biological females who embody and perform masculinity

6. Ruelos 6
and seek sexual and conjugal relationships with dees, biological females who are positioned as
normative women. However, tom and dee subjectivities are crafted through the transnational
relationship with Western constructions of sexuality. Linguistically, tom and dee come from the
English words ‘tomboy’ and ‘lady,’ respectively; yet are appropriated in the Thai language to create a
new, meaningful subject position—one that is simultaneously foreign and local (Sinnott 2004:36).
Sinnott analyzes tom and dee subject positions as hybrid identities to refer to the simultaneity of the
Thai-ness and Western-ness which influence same-sex sexual relations and gender performance in
Thailand.
Delving into Afro-Surinamese women’s sexual culture also warrants a transnational analysis
that is contingent on the history of colonization. Gloria Wekker (2006) argues that women’s same-
sex sexual desire and practice through the mati work is forged through the interrelationship between
the Netherlands’ economic exploitation of Suriname and global capitalism. Because of origins of
Suriname are found at the height of colonialism, Wekker argues that Suriname has always been
modern—it has had a huge impact on the success of the Western extraction of wealth and economic
exploitation. Wekker points out that the mati work as a form of relationship emerged out of the
competing discourses of working-class women’s culture, West-African constructions of gender
egalitarianism, and histories of slavery and diaspora. Even with the history of both colonization and
globalization, the mati work as a cultural construction has not been supplanted by global
conceptualizations of lesbianism, as Altman’s work suggests would happen.
However, because of the cultural and economic ties to the Netherlands, many women who
participate in the mati work end up travelling back and forth between the two nations. According to
Wekker, “The multiple directions of cultural influence under globalization necessitates focusing on
the Netherlands as a postcolonial space and the meeting ground of two models of female same-sex
desire, lesbianism and the mati work (2006:225, emphasis added). This cultural interchange is illustrated
in one of the most interesting cases of the transnationalism of the mati work through cultural

7. Ruelos 7
hybridization and the redeployment of the Western concept of lesbianism. After moving to
Amsterdam, Lydia “coined a new phrase by saying ‘to love the lesbian work,’ showing the mixing
and matching of two different models of same-sex desire. She illustrated, in fact, the ways in which
lesbianism could be infused with new meaning, holding on—in the new formulation—to the mutual
obligations implied by ‘work’” (Wekker 2007:240). Examining the transnational mobility of the mati
work allows us to understand the context of sexual globalization and blending of meanings and
categories beyond national boundaries. Thus, Wekker’s analysis of the mati work illustrates both the
hybridization of competing discourses as well as the problematizing of the Westernization of global
gay and lesbian identities.
One additional controversy that goes along with examining the transnational effects on
same-sex sexual subjectivities is the issue of terminology. As you can see above, many of the
theorists above attempt to situate categories of identity within local contexts. Thus, queer
anthropologists in particular have tried to foreground using autochthonous terminologies where
relevant, rather than prescribing the terms ‘gay,’ ‘lesbian,’ ‘bisexual,’ or ‘homosexual.’ But what does
that say about the term ‘queer’? Because queer in the academic sense has meant examining ‘non-
normative sexualities and genders’ (see Corber and Valocchi 2003), queer has become less about
identity and more about power relations. Boellstorff (2007) explains that queer has a history of both
etic and emic analysis. In an etic sense, ‘queer’ should be no more controversial as the term ‘woman,’
‘exogamous,’ or ‘cross-cousin marriage’ (Boellstorff 2007:20). ‘Queer’ as a conceptual tool is then
useful for examining how same-sex sexual desires and practices as well as gender performance which
fall outside the (hetero)norm. However, the issue comes about when we attempt to ontologize and
prescribe ‘queer’ as an emic category that it becomes problematic. Thus, I agree with Boellstorff in
that “the pressing issue with regard to ‘queer’ is not one of adequation because this is a general issue
of analysis and critique; instead, the pressing issue is one of timing” (2007:21). A careful use of

8. Ruelos 8
‘queer’ can provide useful analysis for expanding our discussion of transnational sexual and gendered
subjectivities.
Conclusion
As I have shown, a transnational analysis applied to the anthropological study of sexuality is
an important conceptual tool for understanding the richness and complexity of sexual and gendered
subjectivities. This transnational analysis is one that I hope to apply to my own anthropological
inquiry in the near future, examining the complex cultural negotiations of identity and desire with
the postcolonial locales. The theorists that I have cited above have had a great influence on the
conceptualizations of how to do queer anthropology. This influence is already very apparent in past
works, such as my literature on transnational queer tourism as well my description of my research
interests in my personal statement. Queering the concept of globalization to examine the
glocalization, hybridization, and transcultural exchanges of identities and same-sex desires has come
to problematize both the dominant public perception of the inherency of a global gay identity as
well as simplistic transnational analyses that foreground the westernization of sexual identities across
cultures. In the end, this transnational approach that complicates notions of globalization of
sexuality and gender is what ultimately situates my understanding within the debates of theories of
transnationalism in the fields of both queer studies and anthropology. Queer anthropology still has
quite a ways to go to continue this work, but I’m looking forward to both reading and contributing
to this theoretical foundation within the discipline.

9. Ruelos 9
Works Cited
Altman, Dennis. 1996. “On Global Queering.” www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/AHR/archive. July.
---. 2000. Global Sex. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Vol. 1. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
Boellstorff, Tom. 1999. “The Perfect Path: Gay Men, Marriage, Indonesia.” Pp. 218–236 in Queer
Studies: An Interdisciplinary Reader. Ed. Robert Corber and Stephen Valocchi. Malden:
Blackwell Publishing.
---. 2007. A Coincidence of Desire: Anthropology, Queer Studies, Indonesia. Durham: Duke University Press.
Corber, Robert and Stephen Valocchi. 2003. Introduction to Queer Studies: An Interdisciplinary Reader.
Pp. 1–17 in Queer Studies: An Interdisciplinary Reader. Ed. Robert Corber and Stephen Valocchi.
Malden: Blackwell Publishing.
Grewal, Inderpal and Caren Kaplan. 2001. “Global Identities: Theorizing Transnational Studies of
Sexuality.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 7(4):663–679.
Rofel, Lisa. 2007. Desiring China: Experiments in Neoliberalism, Sexuality, and Public Culture. Durham:
Duke University Press.
Sinnott, Megan. 2004. Toms and Dees: Transgender Identity and female Same-Sex Relationships in Thailand.
Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Wekker, Gloria. 2006. The Politics of Passion: Women’s Sexual Culture in the Afro-Surinamese Diaspora. New
York: Columbia University Press.