Reflection Paper

Sexualities

2017, Vol. 20(1–2) 159–175

! The Author(s) 2016

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DOI: 10.1177/1363460716645787

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Special Issue Article

Sexual citizenship in a
comparative perspective:
Dilemmas and insights

Carol Johnson
University of Adelaide, South Australia

Abstract

In this article, the author explores some of the key dilemmas that are involved in

attempts to apply concepts such as ‘sexual citizenship’ in a cross-cultural perspective,

with particular focus on Australia and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The

concept of sexual citizenship can usefully be applied to gay and lesbian rights issues in

Australia relatively easily. However, it is not quite so easy to apply this concept to

some of Australia’s Asian neighbours. Any comparative analysis needs to take differing

priorities, conceptions of sexuality, gender, identity, rights, state and civil society into

account but, nonetheless, useful insights can be gained. The author argues that

the concept of sexual citizenship is even more widely applicable if aspects of other

conceptions of citizenship are incorporated into it, such as conceptions of ‘hetero-

normative’ citizenship and ‘affective’ citizenship.

Keywords

Affective citizenship, heteronormativity, intimate citizenship, sexual citizenship

Introduction

In this article, I address issues of the relevance of sexual citizenship to the ‘Asian’
region in two ways. Firstly, I apply the concept of sexual citizenship to a particular
country in the Asia-Pacific region, namely Australia. I use the Australian case
study as an example of how relatively easily conceptions of sexual citizenship
can be applied to ‘Western’ societies. However, I then ask whether the concept
of sexual citizenship works quite so well if applied to some other ‘Asian’ countries
in Australia’s region.

In order to explore this issue, I problematize the initial Australian analysis by
providing a range of examples from other countries in the Asian region that
‘trouble’ the specific ‘Western’ concept of sexual citizenship that was applicable

Corresponding author:

Carol Johnson, School of Social Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia.

Email: [email protected]

http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1177%2F1363460716645787&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2016-07-23

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in the Australian case, using examples from Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong,
Singapore and India, amongst others.

1
The point here is not to provide a detailed

analysis of the workings of sexual citizenship in those diverse societies (given the
detailed case study of an Asia-Pacific country provided here is of Australia)
but rather to use such varied examples to critique one-size-fits-all, universalizing
concepts of sexual citizenship. Nonetheless, while opposing universalizing con-
structions of sexual citizenship, I also disagree with perceptions that the concept
is so flawed because of its Western origins that it is best abandoned. Rather,
I conclude that the conception of sexual citizenship can, indeed, be more widely
applicable – but only if conceptions of both the ‘sexual’ and ‘citizenship’ are not
taken as fixed but are adapted to be able to take non-Western social and political
constructions, including gendered and sexualized power relations, into account.

Finally, I also argue that the concept of sexual citizenship can be made more
flexible and widely applicable by acknowledging the important role played by
intersections with related forms of citizenship, such as heteronormative, intimate
and affective citizenship, in shaping the form that sexual citizenship takes in diverse
societies.

The concept of sexual citizenship

Weeks (1999: 36) has argued that the emergence of the category of the sexual
citizen is related to what he sees as a now ‘commonplace’ development ‘at least
in the metropolitan heartlands of Western Societies’. In that political trajectory,
members of previously marginalized sexual groups claim an identity on the basis of
a sexual identity and then rights related to that identity. Such developments also
contribute to a breakdown of a clear public/private division. The concept of sexual
citizenship therefore draws on work which emphasizes the social and political sig-
nificance of intimate life, including issues regarding gender, identity, relationships,
family, the body and emotional life, or what Plummer has termed ‘intimate
citizenship’ (Plummer, 2003: 13–16). However, sexual citizenship focuses on the
sexual aspects of the politics of intimate life, given that intimate citizenship can
cover a range of non-sexual intimate relationships, including friendships (Roseneil,
2010).

Theorists of sexual citizenship emphasize that the sexual has played a key role in
how citizenship rights are constructed by Western governments (Bell and Binnie,
2000: 10). Feminists have long pointed out that Western citizenship rights and
entitlements developed around the conception of the citizen as a male head of
household where women were subordinate (Okin, 1979). In other words, although
many earlier feminist analyses did not make this point explicitly, citizen rights,
benefits and entitlements were constructed in a way that assumed the citizen was
heterosexual. They were a form of heteronormative sexual citizenship (Johnson,
2002: 316–336, 2003: 45–62). The concept of sexual citizenship is therefore particu-
larly useful in drawing attention to the heteronormative nature of the way in which
many citizenship rights were originally constructed and in explaining why,

160 Sexualities 20(1–2)

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as discussed below, obtaining such rights can sometimes have normalizing conse-
quences given their origin in a heterosexual model.

It is not possible to give a more detailed aetiology of the concept of sexual
citizenship here (see further Bell and Binnie, 2000; Richardson and Monro, 2012:
60–83). Additional contributions to debates, including critiques of the concept, will
also be analysed later in this article. Diane Richardson (2000: 83–100), however,
has identified three major aspects of sexual rights which are implicated in sexual
citizenship. These three aspects involve sexual practice, rights of self-definition and
identification, and rights gained via social and political institutions. Note that
sexual citizenship issues are not just political in the narrow sense involving gov-
ernment; they are also economic and social, and include the rights of minority
sexual groups to be recognized and represented symbolically as legitimate (Bell
and Binnie, 2000: 20) in both mainstream political discourse and popular culture.
Sexual citizenship is implicated in how citizenship is conceived more broadly and in
particular forms of governance of the individual. Neoliberal versions of sexual
citizenship, for example, are partly shaped by a commodification of citizenship
which places particular emphasis on consumer ‘lifestyle’ choice (Evans, 1993).
Given the wide range of potential issues that could be covered, it has been neces-
sary to narrow the focus of the analysis here. Consequently, this analysis will focus
largely on examples drawn from the field of same-sex politics, but many aspects
analysed are potentially applicable to other aspects of sexual citizenship mentioned
above.

Applying the concept of sexual citizenship to Australia

I argue here that applying existing concepts of sexual citizenship to Australia is a
relatively straightforward matter. This is partly because some of the most influen-
tial concepts of sexual citizenship were initially developed by British academics.
Australia was established as a British colonial-settler society, resulting in similar
constructions of sexual identity, of the public and private, of citizenship and of the
respective roles of the individual and the (liberal democratic) state. Australia is
also, however, located in the Asia-Pacific region – which makes it a particularly
interesting site to apply conceptions of sexual citizenship and then to compare and
contrast the results with issues that arise in other countries in the same region.

However, this article does not aim to give a detailed account of the impact of
British settler colonialism on issues of sexuality in Australia. Rather, the key points
being made here are that British colonialism introduced both political institutions
for white settlers and British-inspired laws criminalizing male homosexuality via
a sodomy offence (Kirby, 2011: 1–32) that facilitate applying British-influenced
conceptions of sexual citizenship to the Australian case.

As Povinelli (2006: 17, 4) points out, imposing Western heterosexual norms of
conventional couple relationships on colonial societies is ‘a key transfer point’ of
‘liberal forms of power in the contemporary world’ and is seen as being ‘constitu-
tive of Western civilization’. There were therefore particularly detrimental

Johnson 161

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implications for Australia’s indigenous peoples, whose traditional sexual relation-
ships and behaviours, both same and different sex, frequently transgressed Western
norms (Povinelli, 2002: 11–152). British laws also attempted to impose respectable
British sexual norms on colonial settlers (and convicts), constructing particular
heterosexual and (deviant) homosexual identities in the process.

Initial struggles over homosexual sexual citizenship therefore took a form that
would be familiar to many British readers (albeit fought out at state level
in Australia’s federal system), namely the struggle for decriminalization.
Richardson and Monro (2012) have characterized this stage in the fight for equal
citizenship rights as a struggle over mis-recognition, challenging the negative character-
ization of gays and lesbians as pathologically deviant (and, more specifically in the
case of men, as criminal). Arguments were often influenced by a liberal public/
private division (Berlant, 1997; Richardson, 2000: 105–135), where it was argued
that same-sex acts in private between consenting adults simply should not be sub-
ject to criminal charges by the state. Such liberal arguments (Reeves, 1994), derived
from British colonial influences, played a significant role in homosexuality first
being decriminalized in South Australia (in the years 1972–1975). Male homosexu-
ality was subsequently decriminalized in other Australian states and territories
(Australian Capital Territory in 1976, Victoria in 1980, Northern Territory in
1983, New South Wales in 1984, Western Australia in 1989, Queensland in 1990,
and Tasmania in 1997) (see further Willett, 2000). Decriminalization in Australia
proceeded more slowly than in Britain (1967) but faster than in some US states
(where the 2003 US Supreme Court case of rence vs Texas was to play
an important role in decriminalizing homosexuality in those states that still
criminalized it).

There were, however, some more specifically Australian aspects to the fight for
decriminalization. The public mobilizations of the gay and lesbian community,
including Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parades (Willett, 2000: 203),
rather than arguments over privacy, played a significant role in hastening decrim-
inalization in New South Wales. Australia’s internationally innovative public
policy response to HIV/AIDS, with its focus on co-operation, public education
and prevention (Dowsett, 1998) encouraged a climate favourable to decriminaliza-
tion in some states that had not yet followed South Australia’s lead. AIDS councils
and activists were encouraged to participate in the policy process, thereby bringing
‘gay men into the political mainstream in a way that would have been unimaginable
a decade before’ (Willett, 2000: 174–175). Nonetheless, British-influenced liberal
arguments about the rights of homosexual individuals to live their private lives free
from state intervention continued to be used as late as the 1990s. The Keating
federal government justified its measures against the Tasmanian state government’s
criminalization of male homosexuality on the grounds of the right of adult
Australians ‘to pursue their . . . private sexual lives, free of unjustified government
intrusion’ (Crowley, 1994: 2481).

The struggle for same-sex rights, post-decriminalization in Australia, was fought
out at various levels: state, federal and bureaucratic (Johnson et al., 2011: 27–42;

162 Sexualities 20(1–2)

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Willett, 2000). The issues moved incrementally beyond decriminalization of indi-
vidual behaviour carried out in private to broader conceptions of the need for equal
citizenship entitlements for same-sex couples, following the common Western tra-
jectory of demanding rights based on a previously marginalized sexual identity
(Weeks, 1999: 36). Consequently, Australian same-sex couples began to challenge
the heteronormative constructions of citizenship that I have referred to above.
Unlike the US and the UK, however, key rights and entitlements were not
dependent on couples being married. In Australia, de facto heterosexual couples
were generally entitled to the same rights and thus same-sex couples began to fight
for de facto relationship recognition.

In Australia, differences between heterosexual and same-sex de facto sexual
citizenship rights had implications for over 80 pieces of federal legislation in
areas ranging from taxation, welfare and superannuation to immigration. They
impacted on bereavement benefits, superannuation benefits, students living away
from home allowances, health rebates and the ability of same-sex couples to immi-
grate together (HREOC [Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission],
2007). Such discrimination was justified by then Prime Minister Howard (The
Australian, 1996: 3) on the basis of a conservative version of the liberal privacy
position, namely that ‘sexual preference is something very private’ and same-sex
relationships (unlike heterosexual ones) should be tolerated but not endorsed. For
Howard, legislatively recognizing same-sex relationships involved endorsing them.

In 2008, after a long struggle (Johnson et al., 2011: 27–42), and the election of a
new Labor government, most forms of formal citizenship discrimination were
removed. Once Labor’s legislation came into effect in 2009, same-sex couples
basically had the same entitlements as unmarried heterosexual couples in a de
facto relationship at federal level. Meanwhile, same-sex couples were increasingly
recognized for state government benefits too, including same-sex family rights,
although the models used in various Australian states and territories differed.
The changes were largely welcomed by the gay community as important equality
measures.

There is an ongoing debate, however, about whether religious organizations
should continue to have exemptions which allow them to discriminate against
gays and lesbians when providing employment and services (Hepworth and
Rout, 2013). Because most Australian government entitlements are means-tested
if legally recognized couples live together, some Australian same-sex couples lost
benefits. Means-testing had normalizing consequences. Same-sex couples could find
themselves being required to be financially dependent on their partner in a way that
mimicked the old heterosexual family model of a (male) citizen breadwinner with a
dependent spouse. The concept of sexual citizenship therefore helps to explain the
historical underpinnings of a citizenship model that is still having real effects on
gays and lesbians.

Australian forms of sexual citizenship are therefore vulnerable to arguments that
they are implicated in the ways in which the state constructs ‘good’ and ‘bad’
homosexual citizens (Smith, 1994), with those homosexuals who ape heterosexual

Johnson 163

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marriage relationships being constructed as ‘good’ homosexuals (see further Bell
and Binnie, 2000: 30; Butler, 2002: 14–34). The financial dependence and means-
testing of couples also reduces government welfare expenditure, potentially reflect-
ing a neoliberal form of homonormativity, critiqued by Duggan (2003: 65–66),
where homosexual domesticity reinforces a minimalist state. Nonetheless, recogniz-
ing same-sex love clearly also challenges heteronormativity by moving away from
the traditional construction of the citizen as exclusively heterosexual.

There has, therefore, been steady progress in terms of reform, even though there
were downsides. Nonetheless, same-sex marriage continued to be opposed by the
majority of Australian federal parliamentarians (including by some Labor MPs
who have been granted a conscience vote on the issue) and by former Prime
Minister Abbott. His successor as Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, endorsed
holding a future plebiscite on same-sex marriage.

2

Sexual citizenship, however, is not only a form of heteronormative citizenship,
but it also intersects with forms of intimate citizenship, affective citizenship and
social citizenship that can go well beyond the sexual. I argue below that drawing
out these intersections facilitates the concept being more flexible and applicable to a
range of countries. As already noted, sexual citizenship is a form of intimate citizen-
ship, implicated in people’s personal identity and their most intimate personal
relationships (Plummer, 2003: 69; Roseneil, 2010: 77–82). Intimate citizenship
is therefore not confined to the sexual. Some Australian state legislation does
recognize non-sexual Domestic Partnerships (South Australian Government,
2007) — partly due to assuaging the religious right which did not want to privilege
the sexual component, but sometimes due to arguments that this could potentially
lead to the recognition of broader friendship and kinship relationships, including
those found in indigenous communities.

Sexual citizenship is also a form of affective citizenship (Johnson, 2010: 495–509)
in that citizenship identity and entitlements are partly shaped around which
emotional relationships between citizens are recognized as legitimate (as well as
how citizens are encouraged to feel about ‘others’).

3
Analyses of affective

citizenship would therefore emphasize the importance of legally recognizing
loving same-sex emotional relationships, given the implications for policy issues
ranging from immigration and medical decision-making rights to the care of child-
ren in same-sex families.

Applying the concept of sexual citizenship in regard to Australian examples of
same-sex relationships has therefore been a relatively straightforward matter
whereby same-sex relationships have been increasingly recognized by the state,
accompanied by changes in intimate and affective citizenship. Despite some
national specificities, the story is not dissimilar to that in many other Western
countries. The major grounds for opposition to same-sex marriage amongst
Australian politicians remain religious Christian, and social conservative, ones
that are not dissimilar to traditional positions in the UK or US (Johnson et al.,
2011: 31–32). Some conservative Australian politicians have also, however, cited
examples from Australia’s Asian neighbours. When confronted with the fact that

164 Sexualities 20(1–2)

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the US, like most other English-speaking countries, had now legalized same-sex
marriage and Australia still had not, senior government senator Eric Abetz (2015)
responded by saying ‘the Labor Party and other journalists tell us, time and time
again, that we are living in the Asian century. Tell me how many Asian countries
have redefined marriage?’

Given that the answer to Abetz’s question is currently ‘none’, what happens if
we try to apply the concept of sexual citizenship to some of the other (highly
diverse) societies in the Asian region? The following analysis does not seek to
provide a detailed analysis of additional societies in the Asia-Pacific region,
given that the main case study of an Asia-Pacific society given here has been of
Australia. Rather, the analysis will problematize attempts to provide a one-size-fits
all, universal concept of sexual citizenship by providing some examples from
diverse countries in the Asian region that ‘trouble’ key concepts, such as public
and private, citizenship, sexual identity and individual rights versus the state. These
are concepts that have been central to the analysis of the Australian case that has
been discussed above. In the process, I argue for the need for more flexible and
varied conceptions of sexual citizenship and ones that can be strengthened by
incorporating insights from related forms of citizenship, such as intimate, affective
and heteronormative citizenship. It should be emphasized that the differences to be
discussed below are not just ‘cultural’ ones. Rather, they involve differing social
and economic power relations and differing relations between the individual and
the state.

Applying the concept of sexual citizenship to
other societies in the Asia-Pacific region

Bell and Binnie (2006) have acknowledged that different geographies of sexual
citizenship must always be taken into account. Similarly, Ken Plummer (2005:
79) has noted that issues of intimate citizenship, including sexual citizenship,
differ greatly between the Western world and the ‘low income ‘‘poor’’ rest of the
world’ where, for example, struggles are over inequality involving ‘selling body
parts, sexual slavery, the death of children at early ages, living with HIV-AIDS
and all kinds of illnesses, executions for criminal sex, female genital mutilation,
forced and arranged marriages, and so on’.

Nonetheless, conceptions of sexual citizenship can work relatively well when
analysing issues of state criminalization and decriminalization, not least because
some of the laws which criminalize particular sexual acts result from European
colonialism (Kirby, 2011: 1–32). Various countries still have Section 377 of British
colonial law on the books (such as Malaysia, Singapore and India) (Sanders, 2009:
165–189). Indeed, in 2013 the Indian Supreme Court overruled a 2009 New Delhi
High Court ruling that found section 377 to be discriminatory, thereby effectively
making homosexuality illegal again in India (Mahapatra, 2013; Supreme Court of
India, 2013). It should not be assumed, however, that the struggle for decriminal-
ization will take the same trajectory as in Western countries such as Australia or be

Johnson 165

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formulated in the same way in regard to issues of rights, identities or Western
liberal divisions between public and private.

4

In particular, the concept of sexual citizenship needs to be sufficiently broad to
encompass societies where an authoritarian state can still intervene much more
directly in civil society, and in individuals’ private lives, than would be acceptable
in many societies. Baden Offord has pointed out that the Singaporean government
micromanages homosexuality and has ‘sustained an instrumental approach to
managing sexual citizenship’ (Offord, 2011: 139), including using ‘surveillance,
repression, regulation and control’ to contain the gay and lesbian movement
(p. 137). The concept of ‘citizenship’ also needs to be flexible enough to recognize
that, precisely because of the authoritarian nature of such states, struggles by the
gay and lesbian movement over citizenship issues and ‘mis-recognition’ (to refer
back to the arguments of Richardson and Monro, 2012) may also take more indir-
ect and less explicit forms. These include the use of forms of popular culture and
electronic communication where the state may have less control. Arguments over
the right of the state to interfere in citizens’ behaviour and in the private sphere
may also have to be formulated differently in countries where liberal discourses on
individual freedom and limits on the state’s rights to intervene, such as those used
in the Australian case, are not so well recognized. Lynette J Chua (2014) gives a
detailed analysis of the forms of ‘pragmatic resistance’ developed by Singaporean
gay and lesbian activists, who often present their case within the context of existing
state and public discourses. So, activists have argued that police harassment of gays
operated outside of Singapore’s established legal rules rather than citing explicit
individual rights or civil liberties arguments (pp. 20–21). Or, they have argued that
accepting diverse sexuality, and the freedom to love, can strengthen social stability
and loving ties between family members (pp. 129–130). Finally, forms of normal-
ization related to sexual citizenship can be radically different too. ‘Good’ homo-
sexual citizens in Singapore may at times be expected to suppress their sexuality
altogether, or stay in the closet (Offord, 2011: 138). At other times, a slightly more
tolerated homosexuality has been seen as an expression of a Singaporean cosmo-
politan and commercial ‘creative class’ (Chua, 2003) that it is necessary to foster in
the context of globalization.

Indeed, globalization is opening up some interesting problems for authoritarian
governments, conservative movements and LGBTI activists in terms of sexual
citizenship. Chong (2011: 571, 575, 580) argues that globalization has led
Singaporean governments to partially deregulate and liberalize some areas of
social and economic life on purely pragmatic grounds. The Christian right, how-
ever, moved to fill the moral vacuum left as the state partly moved out. Such
developments are not confined to Singapore. Ho (2008) argues that, despite
hopes that forms of UN-sponsored ‘global governance’ would result in a reduction
in authoritarian government, an expanded civil society and more chance for diverse
human rights arguments to flourish, in practice, Asian Christian right NGOs,
amongst others, have seized the opportunity to pursue populist moralistic agendas
attacking homosexuality in countries ranging from Singapore, Taiwan and

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Hong Kong to South Korea. The religious right is also responding negatively to the
globalized commodification of gay sex, and the consequent export of particular
forms of global gay identity, politics and community, as analysed by Evans in his
critique of limited, capitalist conceptions of homosexual citizenship (Evans, 1993:
89–113; Ho, 2008: 465, 471). In short, gays and lesbians can face narrow, neo-
liberal, commodified constructions of sexual citizenship at the same time as facing
what Altman (2001: 139) has identified as a ‘politicization of issues around sexual
morality’, and a growth of religious fundamentalism, in response to the rapidity of
the social, political and economic changes related to globalization.

Furthermore, some authoritarian governments in the region responded to both
globalization and gay rights arguments by simply depicting homosexuality as a
foreign ‘other’. Gay rights arguments based on liberal individual rights arguments
were depicted as alien to ‘Asian values’ and constituting a new form of colonialism.
Former President Mahathir of Malaysia articulated such arguments particularly
clearly:

The world that we have to face in the new decades and centuries will see numerous

attempts by the Europeans to colonize us either indirectly or directly. If our country is

not attacked, our minds, our culture, our religion and other things will become the

target. In the cultural and social fields they want to see unlimited freedom for the

individual. For them the freedom of the individual cannot be questioned. They have

rejected the institutions of marriage and family. Instead they accept the practice of free

sex, including sodomy as a right. Marriage between male and male, between female

and female are officially recognized by them. (Mahathir, 2003)

Mahathir does not mention that it was the British who introduced Malaysia’s laws
against homosexuality (which the Malaysian government used against Opposition
Leader Anwar Ibrahim). Nor does Mahathir mention that, at the time he was
speaking, US President George W Bush in the US and Australian Prime
Minister John Howard were opposing same-sex marriage on Christian religious
grounds. Furthermore, while …