Queer Capitulation: The Historicizing of Homophobic Violence, Homonormativity, and Joining Forces with the Police

• In Event: Fraught Relations: LGBTQIA2S+ Populations and Police

Abstract

Relationships between LGBTQ2+ communities and the police have often been fraught. In recent decades police have participated in Pride parades and outreach programs including the creation of formal gay and lesbian police liaison committees. Yet, it is unclear why LGBTQ2+ activists historically made allegiances with the police - an institution that historically violently arrested LGBTQ2+ people. This paper draws upon historical archival material and 334 newspaper articles between 1978-2001 on the tense relations between gay and lesbian communities with the police in Toronto. This paper argues gay and lesbian activists were forced to form alliances with the police through liaison committees beginning in the early 1990s due to homophobic violence from both the police and the general public. Therefore, this paper proposes the idea of “queer capitulation” best captures the ethos of homonormative investments in policing. "Queer capitulation" is a term describing the crucial context of violence that pushed LGBTQ2+ people to assimilate into mainstream institutions at the expense of erasing the radical and non-normative elements of their experiences.

Author

• Andy Holmes, University of Toronto