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Title: Queerphobia in Vietnam Author: Mèo Mun Date: Apr 25 2021 Language: en Topics: anti-nationalism, decolonization, gender, queer, sexuality, Vietnam Source: https://libcom.org/blog/queerphobia-vietnam-25042021 Notes: Content warning: queerphobia, queerphobic slurs, discussion of genocide
There is a tendency in some post-colonial societies to blame all social
ailments, such as queerphobia, sexism, and misogyny, on colonialism and
Western imperialism. Whilst the evils and destructiveness of colonialism
are indubitably pervasive, such reductive thinking is overly simplistic,
and can be detrimental to marginalised groups in post-colonial
societies.
Let’s explore this in the context of gender and sexuality liberation in
modern Vietnam. Some Vietnamese claim that homophobia is solely a
product of French colonialism, often citing the fact that the Vietnamese
equivalence of the f-word — “pêđê” — originated from the French
“pédéraste.” But is it truly the case that Vietnamese society was free
of queerphobia before French colonisation? And for those fighting for
liberation today, does it matter?
Pre-French colonisation, Vietnam was under the influence of
Confucianism, which became the prominent ideology during the Lê Dynasty
(15–18^(th) century). An ideology that upholds patriarchy and places the
burden of preserving the bloodline on men will necessarily come with a
certain degree of homophobia. Historical records speak of prince Lê Tuân
(1482–1512), whose preference to dress in women’s clothing cost them the
favor of king Lê Hiến Tông (1461–1504), and subsequently the throne. To
this day, many still attack queer people using Confucian teachings. This
is, of course, a logical fallacy appealing to tradition; it should be
rejected wholeheartedly. In the olden days, Confucianism was used to
justify the divine right of kings; today, we cannot let violence against
marginalised groups be justified in the name of culture, religion, and
tradition. In modern parlance, bigots often combine this with an appeal
to nature, where they cherry-pick a slice of life from the animal
kingdom and apply it to humans, ignoring the fact that homosexual
behaviour, not necessarily sex, has been documented in hundreds of
species.
Nowadays, some groups amongst the Vietnamese LGBTQIA+ community are
beginning to expropriate queerphobic slurs for use in safe spaces: “Rất
đỗi bê đê”, “Ê Bê Đê cho ly cà phê”, “The Pónk Fellow” are a few
prominent examples. However, the process of reclaiming slurs is complex
and emotional for the targeted groups, and queer people’s expropriating
certain slurs is not a green light for non-queer people to use those
slurs at will.
As progress for LGBTQIA+ rights improves in Vietnam, so does the
reactionary backlash against it. Queerphobes, such as those amongst
nationalist and red-pill groups, are also evolving their vocabulary.
Let’s have a quick Vietnamese lesson on a few common slurs thrown around
by young Vietnamese:
Tràng” is a town of pottery makers in the outskirts of Hanoi, which has
the misfortune of sharing the same initial with the term LGBT. In the
beginning, it was used as a way to avoid automatic content filtering,
but has since become a full-fledged slur.
for the name of a TV brand are close enough to “Làng Gốm”. People would
come to queer spaces and post this intentional misspelling of LGBT as
thinly veiled aggression.
where it’s implied that queer folks (“bóng”) are somehow inferior
sub-humans.
[]
The view is that queer people should be content with the status quo, and
should not be so arrogant when demanding their rights. To these
reactionaries, the mere acknowledgment of queer existence is
unfathomable, and any further attempt at liberation is perceived as
“supremacy” to be resisted at all cost.
“cánh tả” — leftists, and hence also used as a slur. Gender and
sexuality equality initiative often comes from liberal, pro-democracy
NGOs, and is looked upon with suspicion by Vietnamese nationalists.
this seemingly random statement “nước Nga là thành trì cuối cùng”
(“Russia is the last bastion”) when discussing same-sex marriage? It is
a dog whistle, referring to Russia’s restrictive policies toward queer
people, and they don’t mean it as a bastion against the Nazi, but queer
people.
More often than not, this rhetoric leads people down the vile path to
fascism. Nowhere is this clearer than in Vietnam’s small but rapidly
expanding red-pill movement. In a private red-pill Discord server, the
members nonchalantly discuss gassing the gays with Zyklon:
[]
That’s horrifying, yet not surprising of red-pillers. Alarmingly, many
Gen-Zs in Vietnam today would tell you that they know at least one
friend or family member who is familiar or interested in red-pill ideas.
Another reactionary force is the nationalists, who are much more diverse
and numerous, with similar attitude toward queer people. Recently, a
9^(th)-grade high school student rightfully pointed out, in a Tiktok
video, that Vienam’s Giáo Dục Công Dân (Citizen Education) textbook is
homophobic, because it says: “The state does not recognise marriages
between persons of the same sex.”
For this simple observation, she immediately got dog-piled. One of the
reasons Vietnamese nationalists are against same-sex marriage is that
they view young people as the engine of economic growth, and thus are
horrified of losing that population makeup due to queer people’s not
making babies. Nationalists would prefer to keep same-sex marriage in
the limbo between not being criminalised but still unrecognised, for the
sake of the economy. There are two logical fallacies in their argument:
appeal to law and appeal to nature. Economic development should not
depend on the exploitation of young people. As anarchists, we recognise
that the institution of marriage is deeply rooted in the exploitation
and economic oppression of women, but at the moment, the legalisation of
same-sex marriage is vital, for it will afford queer people
life-altering rights related to insurance benefits, inheritance, and
medical emergency.
In another recent incident, a group of high school students performed a
dance on the 90^(th) birth date of the Hồ Chí Minh Communist Youth
Union. They faced so much vitriol from Vietnamese nationalists that they
had to take the video down. Their sin: waving and saluting to the
rainbow flag on stage. Nationalists claimed that these students had
violated the solemnity of the occasion, that flying the rainbow flag
next to the national flag, next to Hồ Chí Minh himself, was a blasphemy
worthy of harassing minors.
In both instances, the dog-piling was initiated or amplified by
nationalist groups with hundreds of thousands of followers. Of all the
affiliated organisations in Vietnam, the Hồ Chí Minh Communist Youth
Union should be the one leading the charge in youth liberation as well
as gender and sexuality liberation, yet they did not defend these
children in any meaningful ways. If you cannot fly a flag that
represents your gender, sexuality, and humanity, in a revolution, is
that revolution worth fighting for?
To blame all social issues on colonialism and Western imperialism is not
at all productive, and helps perpetuate the myth of the noble savage.
Queerphobia had existed in Vietnamese society long before French
colonisation, and is gravely harming Vietnamese queer people today. It
is tempting to rid ourselves of responsibility and blame all problems on
our oppressors, but by doing so we will inevitably victimise the most
vulnerable, the most marginalised of us. A large part of autonomy is
responsibility, and present-day Vietnam needs to account for the many
hardships with which its queer people are faced. Any vision of anarchy
or a communist society is incomplete without taking into account all
oppressed groups.