Sexuality as a national idea : the narratives of homophobia and homonationalism in the Netherlands

Sexuality as a National Idea:

The Narratives of Homophobia and Homonationalism

in the Netherlands

MSc Cultural and Social

Anthropology

Department of Anthropology,

GSSS

March 2019

Word count: 20123

Pavel Getmantsev (12012890)

p.getmantsev@gmail.com

Supervisor: Dr. Rachel Spronk

2nd Reader: Dr. Oskar Verkaaik

3rd Reader: Dr. Paul Mepschen

Declaration on Plagiarism and Fraud:

I have read and understood the University of Amsterdam plagiarism policy [http://student.uva.nl/ binaries/content/assets/studentensites/uva-studentensite/nl/a- z/regelingen-enreglementen/fraude-en-plagiaatregeling-2010.pdf?1283201371000]. I declare that this assignment is entirely my own work, all sources have been properly acknowledged, and that I have not previously submitted this work, or any version of it, for assessment in any other paper.

Name:

Abstract

The thesis explores how the narratives of homophobia embody homonationalism in the Nether-lands. Based on the interviews with the white Dutch gay men, the paper presents homonationalism as a process which can be traced on three different levels: a public discourse, a political organiza-tion, and a personal narrative. On the discursive level homonationalism is investigated through the respondents’ images of Amsterdam’s gay scene. Further, a gay organization is studied to find out how the practices, ideology and the language of the political movement practice homonationalism. Finally, the research explores the personal narratives of coming out to illustrate that nowadays in the Netherlands such narratives are incorporated in the discourse of homonationalism. All the three levels illustrate that homonationalism is a complex process and has various modalities. It cannot be reduced to a single political discourse only.

Introduction ...5

Political and cultural context ...7

Theoretical framework ...9

Research question and operationalization ...14

Setting and methodology ...15

Fieldwork process and the profiles of respondents ...17

The diversity of data ...19

Thesis structure and overview of the chapters ...20

Chapter 1. The nostalgic narrative. The Netherlands as a gay-friendly country and Amsterdam as the worlds’ gay capital ...21

Nostalgia as a concept ...21

Opinions ...23

A bit of history of gay Amsterdam and the dynamics of Amsterdam’s gay scene ...25

Amsterdam Gay Pride ...27

Chapter 2. Dutch GayServatives/De Roze Leeuw: The narrative of homophobia embodied in a conservative gay organization. ...31

First meeting with the member of DGS/De Roze Leeuw ...32

Opposition to COC and anti-establishment agenda ...33

The employment of left-wing/right-wing categories ...34

Homonormativity and masculinity of the organization ...35

Pim Fortuyn ...37

Chapter 3. Coming out narratives and personal experiences ...40

Sexual stories ...40

Bart ...42

Felix ...44

Conslusion ...48

Introduction

Before I moved to the Netherlands from Russia to start the master’s program, I was thinking about the topic of my future thesis. Back then I came across an article in the Russian independent media Meduza. The article was called “Record appearance as the means against nationalism” and was written by Carnegie Moscow Center; it reflected upon the results of the Dutch election which was held in March 2017. The text starts with the mention of “Dutch Trump” Geert Wilders and the de-scription of his political program which, among other articles, included “the protection of the ‘tradi-tional minorities’ - Jews and homosexuals, the threat to which he sees first of all the immigrants of from the East” . This piece surprised me. How come, I thought, a politician who is described in the 1 article by such words as “right-wing” or “populist” can talk about the protection of sexual minori-ties? My idea was that it used to be mainly “left-wing”, more progressive parties which support LGBT community, while conservative politicians of Western European countries would claim that “traditional family values” are under threat nowadays. After reading this article and exploring the issues a bit further I assumed that it might be the case for my thesis. I was curious about how the acceptance and protection of sexual minorities in the Netherlands became a part of the nationalistic, anti-globalist and anti-immigration discourse. Moreover, why is this the case of the Netherlands in particular? What is so specific about this country, what is the context in which the acceptance of homosexuality turns out to be not just the object of the populist manipulations but connected to the national values and sometimes even nationalism?

During the further exploration of the topic I was curious if the links between the acceptance of sexual minorities in the Netherlands and the Dutch values of tolerance and sexual freedom go be-yond the “populist” or “right-wing” discourse. During fieldwork I talked with the gay men with var-ious political views and experiences, including those who are the followers of a conservative anti-immigrant organization as well as the members of the progressive political parties. Listening to the stories and opinions of both sides, I found out that being open about one’s homosexuality in the Netherlands is possible, according to the respondents I interviewed, because of what they call the Dutch culture and the Dutch values. In the end, after listening to the stories of the informants, the tolerant and friendly attitude to homosexuality is more rooted in the national context than I original-ly imagined. When I came across the term “homonationalism” introduced by Jasbir Puar, it helped me to understand this case better. For me the paradox of the whole situation consisted in the fact the modern narratives about homosexuality and homophobia in the Netherlands, indeed, become a part

of the “right-wing” discourse. At the same time, the articulation of these narratives specific for the “right-wing”, anti-immigration policies, becomes common among the progressive, or “left-wing” gay men.

To understand the case that interested me, I discussed with my informants homophobia in the Netherlands. Even though the country has the image of one of the most gay-friendly nations, there should be some cracks and tensions which worried Dutch gay men. The conversations I had nor-mally started with a discussion of homophobia in the Netherlands in general and finished with per-sonal experiences of dealing with homophobia. Almost every time we talked about the Netherlands itself, its culture and traditions.

I decided to use the term “homonationalism” because it helps to trace the different ways in which the narratives of homophobia become nationalized, whether it is a narrative of a discourse, a narra-tive elaborated by the particular organization, or a personal narranarra-tive which involves coming out experiences. The main research question of the study is the following: How is homonationalism

embodied in the Netherlands through the different narratives of homophobia? So, in my research I

will focus on three different levels of homonationalism. In the first chapter I will investigate how homonationalism is practiced on the discursive level through the articulations of the images of Am-sterdam and its gay scene. In the second chapter I will move to the embodiment of homonationalism on the level of a particular organization. I will show how the practices, ideology and the statements of the conservative organization invest to homonationalism. Finally, the third level of homonation-alism is the personal narratives, which I study in the last chapter. These narratives not only tell about coming out experiences, they are also placed within a particular cultural and political context. I choose exactly these three levels to illustrate that homonationalism is not an abstract notion that describes the current political situation in the Netherlands. Homonationalism is a process that can be found not in the public discourse only, it can also be found in the private spheres of our lives (e.g. the stories about personal experiences). Homonationalism in the Netherlands, I argue, is a part of new nationalism which can be traced in everyday life (Verkaaik 2010). The focus on these three levels also allows to see how homonationalism is practiced not only by the “right-wing” policies but also by the people with more progressive views.

While Puar studies homonationalism within the context of the United States, the Netherlands is one of the countries in which homonationalism can be well explored. What is the political and cul-tural context of the Netherlands, in which the today’s narratives of homophobia become national-ized, linked to what is described as typically Dutch?

Political and cultural context

The Netherlands is one of the few countries that was the earliest to accept its sexual minorities and to start their integration into society. But before the rise of the welfare state of the 1950s and the emergence of sexual revolution, which in the 1960s embraced many Western European nations in-cluding the Netherlands, the country was a deeply religious (both Catholic and Protestant) country. Until then the Dutch society was divided into four so-called pillars, or communities. These included Protestant, Catholic, socialist and liberal communities which were separated from each other. “Everything in society was organized according to these pillars. The Dutch pride themselves on their long tradition of tolerance, but this was part of a broader system of noninterference with other pillars” (van der Veer 2006: 118). Each pillar used to have its own church, political party, schools, shops, etc. The organization of the Dutch society by the four pillars meant that the people who come from those different pillars had to look for compromises and manage to reach consensus to be able to live together in one country. Thus, tolerance and the ability to negotiate, which later played a significant role in the acceptance of the gay movement by the Dutch government, come from the earlier period in the history of the Netherlands when the nation was divided into these pillars.

In the beginning of the 20th century the Catholic community of the Netherlands reintroduced legal discrimination of gay people (after the law which criminalized sodomy was abolished in 1811 under the influence of the French Revolution) (Tielman 1987: 9-10). As a reaction to this new law, the Dutch Scientific Humanitarian Committee was founded by a liberal lawyer Jacob Schorer, who was inspired by the German scientist Magnus Hirschfeld and his Scientific-Humanitarian Commit-tee which is considered as the world’s first organization created to support homosexual and trans-gender people’s rights. The Dutch organization also sought for equality between homosexual and heterosexual men and women.

During the World War II, an underground gay subculture was promoted by the periodical Leven-srecht (Right to Live). After the war, in 1946, the world’s first LGBT organization - COC (Cultuur- en OntspanningsCentrum) - was founded by the editors of Levensrecht in the Netherlands. After the late 1960s, when sexual revolutions burst out around Western Europe, including in the Netherlands, the Dutch government began to negotiate with the gay rights organization to integrate sexual mi-norities. For example, sexuality was promoted to discuss by the society. Also, homosexual move-ments of the students and intellectuals played a significant role in making gay people more visible and accepted (Tielman 1987: 13-14). Tielman states that, although COC was mainly opposed by the Roman Catholic church, the organization “was tolerated by the Dutch authorities, for the existence

of that group enabled them to keep a better eye on the homosexual subculture”. In the end, “the government treated COC more and more as a ‘mini-pillar’: the COC had a certain autonomy that enabled them it to maintain order in the gay subculture” (Ibid.: 12).

During the 1960s, “in a relatively short period the Netherlands was transformed from a highly religious to a highly secular society” (van der Veer 2006: 118). In 1971, article 248bis of the Dutch law made the age of consent for same-sex partners the same as for opposite-sex partners - 16 years. Moreover, homosexual people stopped being discriminated in the Dutch army in 1973 (Hekma 2006: 134-135). During the 1980s, more rights were provided for sexual minorities. In 1973, COC was granted a legal status by the government. Later on, in the 1980s, other forms of discrimination of sexual minorities were prohibited by the Dutch authorities. Tielman argues that, when AIDS was discovered in early 1980s and when it became a major threat all over the world, the ability of the Dutch gay movement to find compromises and to cooperate with other minority communities as well as the Dutch authorities, homosexual people in the Netherlands avoided being discredited and scapegoated (Tielman 1987: 16).

The legalization of same-sex marriage in 2001 made the Netherlands the first country to grant marital rights to gay and lesbian couples (Hekma 2006: 134-135). All these processes and events made sexual minorities more normative and inclusive into Dutch society. Mepschen, Duyvendak and Tonkens argue that “the popular representation of gay identity has changed from a deviant other to the mirror image of the ideal heterosexual” (Mepschen et al. 2010: 971). The authors note that gay identity in the Netherlands exists in accordance with heteronormativity and does not threaten it (Ibid., 2010). The rights of gay couples to create families and adopt children goes hand in hand with heteronormative way of life. Such way of life is the opposite of the aims of the radical gay move-ments of 1960-1970s. Those movemove-ments, in such countries as the USA or the UK, aimed at the transformation of a heteronormative society itself. The processes which happened in the Nether-lands in 1900-2000s have a completely different, assimilationist but not radical character.

For the better understanding of the population of my thesis - native Dutch gay men - it is also important to note that the homonormative discourse is mainly attributed to homosexual men rather than lesbians or transgenders (Ibid., 2010: 963). The homonormative discourse implies the assimila-tionist strategies of the homosexual policies, capitalist consumerism of gay people, and its relation to heteronormativity. Wekker states that all the above-mentioned achievements of the Dutch homo-sexual movement concerned primarily assimilation of gay men with a heteronormative Dutch soci-ety. “The gay movement - and white men have populated this movement more thickly and thus have

been at the forefront here - has from its inception been more interested in equality: equal rights, gay marriage, the right to adopt children, the right to copious consumption of all manner of material goods, and has pursued a more assimilationist agenda with the social, political, and cultural powers that be” (Wekker 2016: 115). Unlike the women’s movement, the white male homosexual move-ment was less reflexive upon racial categories.

Thus “homonormativity” and assimilationist agenda of the Dutch gay movement were, among others, the circumstances due to which sexual minorities became a part of the Dutch anti-immigrant discourse. “Public visibility of gay life has its limitations. The dominant representation of homo-sexuality after sixty years of intense postcolonial, labor, and refugee migration to the Netherlands still is that gay and lesbians belong to the dominant racial group; that is, in public eye gays are white” (Ibid.: 117). The public images of homosexuality in the Netherlands lacks diversity. Normal-ly it does not include more marginalized identities, such as ethnic sexual minorities. This is impor-tant for understanding why some gay movements against violent homophobia, for instance Dutch GayServatives/De Roze Leeuw, which I discuss in the second chapter of the thesis, turn against globalization, immigration from Muslim countries, and ethnic minorities who are presented as a threat to white Dutch gay men.

Theoretical framework

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To understand homonationalism, which is the key concept and the main analytical term of the the-sis, Jasbir Puar introduces the term in her book “Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times” and defines it as a “sexual exceptionalism”, national homosexuality. She claims that “this brand of homosexuality operates as a regulatory script not only of normative gayness, queerness, or homosexuality, but also of the racial and national norms that reinforce these sexual subjects” (Puar 2007: 2). She states that heterosexuality and heteronormativity are constitutive parts of every na-tional identity. Nowadays, when homosexuality is becoming normative in Western societies, white gay men are no more excluded from the nationalistic discourse and opposed to it as the Other. On the contrary, homosexuality becomes a part of the sexual exceptionalism. “…homosexual sexual exceptionalism does not necessarily contradict or undermine heterosexual sexual exceptionalism; in actually it may support forms of heteronormativity and the class, racial, and citizenship privileges they require” (Ibid.: 9). Puar relates sexual exceptionalism of white homosexual people to the impe-rialistic exceptionalism of the United States. “Produced in tandem with the ‘state of exception’, the

demand for patriotic loyalty to the United States merely accelerates forms of sexual exceptionalism that have always underpinned homonormativities” (Ibid.: 77). In her book the author uses a dis-course analysis and introduces the term “homonationalism” as a critical tool to put into question the modern political situation of the USA. Thus, in this work she places her notion within the context of the leading position of the United States in the world.

Nevertheless, in her later article “Rethinking Homonationalism” Puar redefines the term that makes it applicable to other countries in which homosexuality is becoming normative as well as heterosexuality. She states that

“homonationalism, thus, is not simply a synonym for gay racism, or another way to mark how gay and lesbian identities became available to conservative political imaginaries; it is not another identity politics, not another way of distinguishing good queers from bad queers, not an accusation, and not a position. It is rather a facet of modernity and a histori-cal shift marked by the entrance of (some) homosexual bodies as worthy of protection by nation-states, a constitutive and fundamental reorientation of the relationship between the state, capitalism, and sexuality” (Ibid.: 337).

The term homonationalism can be attributed to the national identity of the Netherlands. The nar-ratives of homophobia which are explored in the chapters of the thesis involve the topics of progress, modernity and backwardness; freedom and religious conservatism. The acceptance of homosexuality becomes in the Netherlands the condition of being recognized as progressive and secular, the kind of values which are today considered to be the key values of the country.

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The cases which I am investigating are the ones in which liberal values become nationalised and presented as exclusively Dutch or European. Theoretically, such values are considered to be univer-sal, applicable to all the nations, while national values can only be particular. Lægaard suggests that “the presentation of liberal values as national values may either be understood as a non-truth-apt statement, that is as a claim that is not supposed to be evaluated in terms of truth and falsehood...” (Lægaard 2007: 47). Populist parties tend to make “loud” and emotional statements possibly exaggerating troubling issues to persuade as many people as possible (such statements also can be defined by Frankfurt’s concept of “bullshit” (2005)). In this way, populists’ politics become rather performative than concerning facts or statistics. Within such performative statements, values of sexual freedom are utilized and presented as specific for a particular culture (for example,

West-ern or European culture) and in opposition to other cultural identities. Muslim culture usually be-comes the main target. In this way, the populistic statements regarding specifically Dutch or French values are given in the context of the broader Western culture.

Fassin proposes his notion of sexual democracy to illustrate how sexual liberties and gender equality are instrumentalized in different national contexts. Opposing the expansionist logic of the United States to the protectionist politics of France and the Netherlands, he discusses the various approaches to supporting sexual liberties which are utilized to highlight a “clash of civilisations” and legitimize an invasion of hostile nations or oppose immigration within the countries (Fassin 2010: 512-513). In this case “Frenchness” and “Dutchness” represent two slightly different models of liberal nationalism (Fassin claims that the nationalism of France is more heterosexual). Neverthe-less, the boundary mechanisms are the same. Populists of both countries use the values of sexual freedom to oppose immigration. “If sexual democracy is about sexual freedom and equality be-tween the sexes, its application to the exclusion of “others,” that is, its racialization, can eventually transform these lofty ideals into a practice that hinders sexual liberty by racializing sexual discrimi-nations” (Ibid.: 522-523). Indeed, when nationalistic politics employ the values of sexual freedom and gender equality, it neglects the fact that the LGBT community, which is allegedly defended by the populist parties, is very different and multi-layered within itself. Thus there is always a risk of exclusion of the members of sexual minorities who are appealed to in order to justify nationalistic views. For example, those who belong not only to a sexual minority but also to an ethnic minority may be racially discriminated.

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The politics that sustain the dichotomy of “us/them” rely on a notion of culture which is described as static and unchanging. In this view, the world is represented as consisting of many cultures which are not just separate from each other but may also be threatening each other. Today the duscussion of immigration in the Netherlands especially sustains such concept. Investigating this problem in the context of the Netherlands, Uitermark, Mepschen and Duyvendak use the term “neoculturalism” which indicates cultural protectionism and strictly opposes cultures against each other. The pragma-tist policy preceded the neoculturalist policy and it was directed towards rather smooth and politi-cally correct negotiation between the conflicting social actors. Today, the authors claim, neocultur-alists began to manipulate with class issues and produce populism causing public exclusion of im-migrant minorities. There there are two main features which are used by the neoculturalist way of

thinking. “First, neoculturalists employ a populist schema to challenge the political establishment and allegedly multicultural of leftist elites in particular. Dutch neoculturalists have used a trans-posed class discourse that pits the white working class against a state-entrenched progressive elite” (Uitermark, Mepschen and Duyvendak 2014: 236). Moreover, emancipated sexuality is used to define European nations in opposition to conservative and homophobic Muslims. Thus, the val-ues of sexual freedom become the instruments of neoculturalism. The authors also emphasise that the ascent of such forms of populisms in Europe are treated my mistake as conservative. Neverthe-less, “neoculturalists combine the framing of Dutch national culture as morally progressive with a virulent anti-immigration agenda” (Ibid.: 251).

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Another key symbolic resource that is used to construct national identities is the term “modernity”. The values of sexual liberty, gender equality and open-mindedness suppose that they are all possible due to the historical period which is called “modernity”. Van der Veer states that this period started in the Netherlands (and also throughout Europe) when the sexual revolution and the student protests of the late 1960s occurred. Before this, the country was highly religious and separated into several ideological “pillars” which never intruded each other (van der Veer 2006: 118). Again, this analysis displays how a nation can be redefined in public discourse in a relatively short period of time. By examining the notion of modernity, Butler states that the culture which propagates progress and sexual liberty is not just viewed as homogeneous and the one that should be protected from out-siders but it is also hegemonic. “This uncritical domain of ‘culture’ that functions as a precondition for liberal freedom, in turn, becomes the cultural basis for sanctioning forms of cultural and reli-gious hatred and abjection” (Butler 2008: 6). The political message of Butler calling for considera-tion of how “time” becomes instrumentalized geopolitically allows to see that the opposiconsidera-tions of sexual politics and religious conservatism are displayed as essentialist and within the temporal framework. The Dutch values are presented as dominant because they are modern and progressive while the conservatism of Muslims indicates their historical and cultural “infancy”.

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Meanwhile, sexual freedom as a part of the discourse of modernity is also a concept worth investi-gation. Sexual freedom relates to non-discrimination of homosexual people and depathologization of homosexual practices. Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) was one of the first scientists to study

homosexuality and propagate its depathologization and decriminalization. However, the struggle for sexual freedom became a distinctive political activity in the 1960-1970s, when sexual revolutions spread around Western Europe and the USA. The generation of baby-boomers who were in conflict with their parents - witnesses of the Second World War - was the generation which created the stu-dent, feminist and the first homosexual movements. Thus, sexual freedom became the aim of the radical social struggle of that period. Nowadays, when many rights and liberties are granted to sex-ual minorities, especially gay men, sexsex-ual freedom became an instrument of the nationalist policies. Sexual freedom, among other liberal values, becomes nationalized.

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The notions of modernity and the secular mentioned by Butler are revised in an anthropological perspective by Verkaaik and Spronk (2011). Instead of looking for power relations “in a deconstruc-tivist and critical manner, denaturalizing discourses on culture, identity, and religion, and pointing out the disparities within these discourses” (Ibid.: 83), the authors suggest that the processes of sec-ularization intertwined with sexuality can be studied by anthropologists as a cultural practice. Thus, they oppose a deconstruction of the secular discourse to an ethnography of secularism as a cultural practice. The text suggests studying the concrete cultural and historical practices of people and their everyday lives to understand how exactly a secular worldview is shaped today. The ethnographic approach, according to the article, allows to understand the existing paradoxes of secularism. For example, it helps to investigate and understand how the populists support both the sexual minorities and the working class.

The authors refer to Scott’s notion of sexularism (Scott: 2009) which “denotes a particularly salient form of body-politics that is part of today’s secularism in Europe” (Verkaaik and Spronk 2011: 85) and raise the question of the forms in which today’s sexularism is embodied. The argu-ment of Spronk and Verkaaik is similar to the one of Scott: a historical approach helps to put into question common deconstructionist and critical oppositions such as modern/traditional secular/ reli-gious and others. By introducing the term “sexularism”, Scott states that “secularism” and “sexism” are not always completely opposite to each other.

The text of Verkaaik and Spronk mentions the case of Geert Wilders’ “Party for Freedom” and its claims to represent not only the working class but also sexual minorities. The authors suggest that an ethnography of sexular practices might investigate in a productive way this at first glance para-doxical combination of both nationalist populism and the progressive values of sexual freedom. The

article emphasises the usefulness of anthropologists’ ethnographical method along with Scott’s his-torical and genealogical approach to understand populism and secularism in Europe.

Research question and operationalization

In my thesis I argue that homonationalism in the Netherlands is an ongoing process which is sup-ported by the discourse of homophobia as well as nostalgic discourse, which include the stories about Amsterdam that used to be a gay capital of the world. This process is also embodied by the narratives which are presented by a conservative organization along with its practices. Finally, the personal narratives, such as the coming out narratives, invest to homonationalism in the Netherlands as well. Thus, the research question is: How is homonationalism embodied in the Netherlands

through the different narratives of homophobia?

To answer this question, I need to find out first how an imaginative, nostalgic narrative invests

to homonationalism. I am using the term “nostalgia” for the analysis of the feelings of loss

ex-pressed by my respondents. Such feelings of loss, which I discovered in the interviews with various respondents, are related to the changes in Amsterdam’s gay scene and the increasing number of the cases of anti-gay violence in the Dutch capital. The use of this term allows to understand that such feelings are caused not only by the images of the imagined past. They are not just the longing for an idealized past but they also represent a vision of a desired future.

The next step is to investigate how the ideology, practices and the language of a conservative

gay organization invest to the process of homonationalism in the Netherlands. The activities of the

organization Dutch GayServatives/De Roze Leeuw, whose members I interviewed, are a good ex-ample of one of the modalities of homonationalism. Anti-immigrant and anti-establishment state-ments, which express their opposition to multiculturalist policies, along with such practices as op-position to COC, the attendance of Rotterdam Pride, or visiting Pim Fortuyn’s monument are the cases of when nationalistic discourse and gay activism are intertwined.

And finally, to answer the research question, I should explore how the coming out narratives

em-body homonationalism. The stories of coming out are not only personal stories about early-age

ex-periences, growing up being gay, and the relationship with relatives, friends, classmates, etc. These narratives (at least in the cases of my respondents) also include today’s evaluations of the circum-stances and situations happened in the past. These personal stories also include comments about how it “should” be, meaning

Setting and methodology

Amsterdam and Rotterdam were the main Dutch cities where I conducted interviews with the ma-jority of my informants. As I myself live in Amsterdam, I already knew some gay men whom I asked whether they would like to be interviewed or whether they know people who would be will-ing to have a conversation. Moreover, Amsterdam has the largest gay scene in the Netherlands which made it easier to find informants. Apart from the Dutch capital, I travelled to Rotterdam twice to have talks with the members of Dutch GayServatives/De Roze Leeuw. I also travelled to Rijswijk, the small town near The Hague, and unexpectedly found myself in Bergen op Zoom in the province Noord-Brabant to meet with the other two followers of DGS/De Roze Leeuw.

For my research I preferred to meet with the people individually and conduct semi-structured interviews which also included life histories. This method appeared to be the most feasible for my work. Before the official start of fieldwork I went to an event that I thought might be helpful in finding respondents. The event is called “Jongeheerenborrel” and is usually organised every two months. It is a gathering of Dutch gay men that I discovered on UvA’s website. Although later I met with several board members of this event and interviewed them, I did not manage to discuss the topics relevant for my research with the others during the meeting itself. The main reason why it was not feasible is because my research involved the issues (such as coming out or experiencing discrimination and violence) that could be discussed more profoundly via private interviews. This

borrel was first of all an informal leisure event where people would have entertaining and relaxing

talks. Thus, later I contacted some of the organizers of “Jongeheerenborrel” to meet with them sepa-rately.

There was also a conservative organization from Rotterdam called “Dutch Gayservatives/De Roze Leeuw” which I discovered on Facebook and whose members I wished to meet with and po-tentially do a participant observation. Unfortunately, this organization very rarely organises collec-tive events. It operates mainly in the social media. Nevertheless, I met with its members individual-ly and discovered the topics useful for my project.

During fieldwork I also attempted to meet with new informants in gay bars and clubs of Amster-dam. However, in gay bars there was a problem for me to join a group of people hanging out with each other. In those cases when I did manage to meet someone, the situation itself did not allow me to elaborate the topics regarding politics or personal experiences and discuss them more profoundly. Thus, I decided to focus instead on tête-à-tête semi-structured interviews. Already having some ac-quaintances, including foreigners living in the Netherlands, I used a snowball sampling technique

and asked them if they do not mind to be interviewed or whether they have any friends who are Dutch gay men and who would wish and find time to meet separately and have a conversation. As meeting with respondents combined walking around a city/park and going to a cafe/bar I decided not to use a voice recorder and instead use my smartphone to write down the notes and quotes. I think this fact made the conversations less formal. After each meeting I went home a wrote field notes.

After the first two interviews I decided that I have to correct my interview questions listed in the research proposal. As I was about to meet gay men with opposing political views I wanted to make the new questions more politically neutral and appropriate for respondents with all political back-grounds. After starting my fieldwork, I found the original interview questions mentioned in the re-search proposal somewhat intrusive. Thus, the final questions were the following:

1. Can you tell something about yourself and your life? How old are you? Where were you born? Where did you study, work? What do you do at present?

2. Can you tell something about your life as a gay man? (coming out, relations with rela-tives, friends and co-workers in terms of acceptance of your homosexuality, gay scene, etc)

3. Is there homophobia in the Netherlands, in your opinion? If so, what are the forms of homophobia in your country?

4. Which political party do you support? What is its stance on sexual minorities?

5. What do you think about other political parties’ attitudes towards sexual minorities (if you are familiar with them)?

6. What do you think about the changes (positive or negative, in your opinion) in terms of acceptance of gay people in the Netherlands?

Of course, as I was conducting semi-structured interviews, I did not ask all the questions in every case. Sometimes, depending on the personality and background of my informant, I could skip some question(s) and focus more on the other ones. There were also situations when a respondent himself touched upon the topic mentioned in one of the questions so I did not have to voice them separately. In other cases I asked some sub-questions to poke into the topic which was mentioned by my in-formant and seemed relevant for my research.

Moreover, speaking of the methods and the ways I collected data, the topics I discussed with the respondents depended on how I met with them. For example, for some reason it was easier for me to walk around Rotterdam with the members of DGS/De Roze Leeuw and discuss rather political issues existing in the Netherlands along with their activities as the followers of the organization.

Thus, in their case I focused more on discussing discourse and politics rather than their own person-al experiences of encountering homophobia and the aspects of coming out. On the contrary, when I met with other Dutch gay men, we chose to meet either in the park or a cafe where we could sit down and I could listen to their own personal stories.

Another source of data, apart from the semi-structired interviews, is the social media. I used Facebook to analyze some of the posts published by the members of DGS/De Roze Leeuw. Such posts, including the language used in them, along with the followers’ comments which I heard per-sonally, contribute to the whole ideology of the organization and also say much about the main ac-tivities of it. For example, I learned from their Facebook page that they attended Pim Fortuyn’s monument on the anniversary of murder of the politician.

Fieldwork process and the profiles of respondents

The first month of my fieldwork was rather worrisome for me. As I did not find informants at bars and clubs, I was a bit confused about what to do and where do I find the people to interview. In the beginning of June I sent a message to Lars, the person who founded “Dutch GayServatives” in Rot-terdam. For the next couple of weeks I was waiting for his respond. Luckily, in the end he replied and agreed to meet in Rotterdam. After we had a long talk walking around the city I asked him if it was possible for me to meet with other members of his organization. During the next weeks I was expecting to receive their contacts.

Meanwhile I met with one of my foreign friends who had been living in Amsterdam for seven years and was already rooted in the city’s gay scene. He offered his help and asked his Dutch friends if they would be willing to meet and talk with me. As a result he provided me with four new respondents (Bart, Bram, Paul, and Gert) with whom I arranged meetings in the next weeks.

Besides, I had contacts of the organizers of “Jongeheerenborrel”, the event which I attended ear-lier in Spring. All three of them - Alex, Felix and Jonas - agreed to meet in Amsterdam. Later Jonas gave me a contact of his friend Rick.

By mid July Lars sent me a message with contacts of his friends who are the members of “Dutch GayServatives” - Gerard, Krijn and Thomas. Thomas introduced me to one of his friends, Jacob. I met with him in September, he was my last interviewee.

I also decided to include in the research some topics I discussed with Jan - a Dutch friend of mine with whom I met several times during fieldwork. He was interested in my project and asked me about its details. Sometimes, apart from his personal stories of being gay that he shared with me,

I listened to his opinions on homophobia in the Netherlands, the acceptance of gay people and the way he sees the current political situation.

Before the fieldwork period I planned to contact “COC Nederland” to find potential informants. Later it seemed more appropriate to talk to the members of the organization because the topics relat-ing to COC were mentioned by some of the people with whom I already talked. I sent emails to several offices of COC (the ones in Amsterdam, Utrecht and Rotterdam) but, unfortunately, I did not receive any response. Only the office in Amsterdam replied and suggested that I contact Dutch political parties instead.

Below I list the profiles of the people I interviewed during my fieldwork. I purposely omit the profiles of the members of Dutch GayServatives/De Roze Leeuw to maintain their anonymity. In the chapter dedicated to DGS/De Roze Leeuw I use the pseudonyms instead of the real names of the members. During fieldwork I asked my respondents about the political parties they support and/or vote for. Although in some cases I did not use this for the analysis, I believe it is nevertheless im-portant to mention the parties (along with their hometowns, education and current occupation) to demonstrate the identities of the informants.

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Ams-terdam at 26. During the last several years worked as a freelancer. Currently lives in Southern France and studies Buddhist practices in a monastery. A member of GroenLinks.

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lives in Utrecht. Currently finishes master’s history program at University of Leiden. A member of Christian Unie party.

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at GreenPeace and lives in Amsterdam. Supports GroenLinks.

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management in Berlin. Currently lives in Amsterdam, works as an account manager in a tailor company. Supports GroenLinks.

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mem-ber of Forum voor Democratie. Also partially supports PVV.

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Ams-terdam and works at Heineken. One of the organisers of “Jongeheerenborrel”, a drinks event for young gay men in Amsterdam. Does not support any political party, according to him.

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business administration in human resources in Rotterdam and at Vrije Universiteit in Amster-dam. At the moment lives in AmsterAmster-dam. Jonas is one of the three organisers of “Jongeheeren-borrel” I talked to. Votes for D66.

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studied law at University of Amsterdam. Currently he is a PhD candidate at UvA’s department of law. Organises “Jongeheerenborrel”. Supports D66.

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current-ly studies at master’s Spiritual care program at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Supports PvDA.

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Sociolo-gy at UvA. Recently worked as a journalist for VolksKrant.

The diversity of data

I should also comment on the kind of date I collected while arranging interviews in summer 2018. Although my respondents were relatively of the same age category and all of them received bache-lor’s and master’s degrees, they nevertheless had different experiences and varying political views and opinions on the issues I was interested in. This is why, for example, with the members of Dutch GayServatives/De Roze Leeuw I discussed rather their organization along with the political and so-cial issues that disturbed them while in the cases of other respondents I was more interested in their personal experiences and/or coming out stories. Because of this the pieces of data I collected during fieldwork turned out to be quite different from each other which made me organize the chapters of the thesis in the way it is. The diversity of data brought out the modalities of homonationalism, dif-ferent levels on which homonationalism is embodied in the Netherlands through practices, signs, language, narratives, etc.

I also focus particularly on the Dutch gay men and not women because exactly the homosexual men represent the Dutch homonational discourse (Wekker 2016). Homonationalism is closely linked to homonormativity, which is in turn associated with masculinity (as the study of DGS/De Roze Leeuw will show). Besides, gay men are the main figures who participate in the assimilation-ist policy and practice consumerism within the homonational discourse.

Thesis structure and overview of the chapters

The three chapters of the thesis are organized in a way to show the different levels on which homonationalism in the Netherlands is embodied. These levels are a discourse, an organization, and personal stories.

In the first chapter I am showing how nostalgic feelings and narratives regarding the image of Amsterdam as the world’s gay capital become a part of the current political discourse in which the Netherlands is seen as threatened by conservative values and anti-gay violence. The places that used to be safe for sexual minorities are nowadays dangerous for men walking hand in hand and drag queens wearing make up. My argument is that such discourse is also a part of the Dutch homona-tionalism.

The second chapter is dedicated to a young Rotterdam-based organization which was created with the aim to stop gay bashing and punish the attackers who are claimed to be homophobic Mus-lim immigrants. This section explores the ideology, the language and the practices of Dutch Gay-Servatives/De Roze Leeuw to illustrate how activism against homophobia distinguishes and oppos-es itself to social groups (such as ethnic minoritioppos-es) and other movements and organizations (in this case, COC along with the activism supporting multiculturalism) that become the Other of the Dutch nationalistic discourse.

In the final chapter I tell the stories of gay men whose coming out experiences as well as the ex-periences of being gay are evaluated by them in terms of how the see the Netherlands, their native country, which is visualised as emancipated and progressive in relation to sexual minorities. This is the chapter in which personal narratives are intertwined with the images which originate from the modern Dutch sexual discourse.

In the conclusion I summarize all the chapters and argue that homonationalism is an ongoing process and its forms and manifestations can be contradictory to each other even within one country - the Netherlands. Particularly ethnography makes it possible to discover such kinds of contradic-tions.

Chapter 1. The nostalgic narrative. The Netherlands as a gay-friendly country

and Amsterdam as the worlds’ gay capital

Nostalgia as a concept

In this chapter I would like to introduce the examples of what the Dutch gay men whom I inter-viewed think about Amsterdam and the way it is changing. Most of the respondents believe that the capital of the Netherlands used to be the world’s centre of the gay scene but lost this status due to the increasing number of anti-gay violence perpetrated by the Muslim population of the country. However, the conservative reaction to the male homoerotic images, as I will show further, is com-mon not only acom-mong the immigrants. Fundamentalist Protestant and Catholic Dutch activists also express discontent with such images.

The term “nostalgia” reflects the feelings and opinions of the men I talked with while doing fieldwork. Nostalgia can be defined as a “longing for an idealized past” and is essentially related to the concept of loss (Pickering & Keightley 2006: 923). But the term does not mean only the desire to go back to the past which is imagined as better than the present, it can also mean that those who have nostalgic feelings want to use the images of the past for a brighter vision of the future. Thus, Pickering and Keightley claim that

“we should perhaps reconfigure it in terms of a distinction between the desire to return to an earlier state or idealized past, and the desire not to return but to recognize aspects of the past as the basis for renewal and satisfaction in the future. Nostalgia can then be seen as not only a search for ontological security in the past, but also as a means of taking one’s bearings for the road ahead in the uncertainties of the present. (…) Nostalgia can be both melancholic and utopian” (Ibid.: 921). The argument of the authors is that the term is not always a direct opposite of progress. “In being negatively othered as its [progress’ - P.G.] binary opposite, nostalgia became fixed in a determinate backwards-looking stance” (Ibid.: 920). To avoid such binary opposition (nostalgia - progress), they call for recognizing mul-tiple nostalgias, or different modalities of nostalgia. “Nostalgia is neither an absolute nor singularly universal phenomenon” (Ibid.: 934).

One of the key scholars who closely investigated the term is Svetlana Boym. In her book “The Future of Nostalgia” she defines the concept (from “nostos” - return home, and “algia” - longing) as “a longing for a home that no longer exists or has never existed. Nostalgia is a sentiment of loss and

displacement, but it is also a romance with one’s own fantasy” (Boym 2001: 8). She also explores a history of the term and reminds that originally it came from medicine:

Similar to the argument of Pickering and Keightley, Boym states that the term can sometimes be related to the images of the future. “Nostalgia is not always about the past; it can be retrospective but also prospective. Fantasies of the past determined by needs of the present have a direct impact on realities of the future. Consideration of the future makes us take responsibility for out nostalgic tales” (Ibid.: 11). Finally, exploring the history of the concept discussed by the intellectuals of the modern era, she argues that “modern nostalgia is a mourning for the impossibility of mythical re-turn, for the loss of an enchanted world with clear borders and values; it could be a secular expres-sion of a spiritual longing, a nostalgia for an absolute, a home that is both physical and spiritual, the edenic unity of time and space before entry into history” (Ibid.: 20).

Jan Willem Duyvendak in “The Politics of Home: Belonging and Nostalgia in Western Europe and the United States” (Duyvendak 2011) investigates the case of Dutch nostalgia and associates the latter with “homelessness”, or the debates about “the stolen home”. In the chapter dedicated to the Netherlands, he argues the common idea the politics of multiculturalism caused such feelings of homelessness among the native Dutch population. However, he states that there was no multicultur-alist policy and the alienation of the white Dutch was triggered by a different process. “The 1970s policy on cultural identity can easily be misunderstood as multiculturalist, for its central tenet was that ‘guest workers’ should maintain their identities. The reason for this, however, was not to ac-commodate pluralism in the Netherlands, but to facilitate guest workers’ return after they had ful-filled their function as unskilled laborers in the Netherlands.” (Ibid.: 86). Later, in 1980s, it turned out that these workers did not wish to go back to their homeland. Thus, it is irrelevant to speak about a coherent multiculturalist policy in the Netherlands. The reason for the native Dutch people feeling not at home anymore is the process of culturalization. Since the rapid secularization of the nation in 1960s, the majority of the Dutch people believe in gender equality as well as the equality of homosexual and heterosexual people. In this way, Dutch culture is portrayed as progressive and modern. With such strong perception of what is called the Dutch culture and its progressive values, there is a demand that the immigrants share the same values. “Pillarization may once have accom-modated pluralism in the Netherlands. But pluralism today is a weak shadow; the growing consen-sus about progressive values has created a wider values gap between the native majority and Mus-lim immigrants than in countries with less progressive majority cultures” (Ibid.: 90). This means that the newcomers who wish to stay in the Netherlands, must adopt such values and norms to

be-come citizens. Such strict opposition between “we” (the progressive native Dutch) and “them” (the newcomers, the bearers of the different (commonly backward) cultures) makes the former feel not at home in their native country because of the immigrants who live in the same place but allegedly not follow the norms and values of the former. “… people can only feel at home with those who have been part of that home for a long time and who share the same norms and values” (Ibid.: 97). “(…) ‘we’ emphathize with those who no longer feel at home in what was once their hopeful neigh-bourhood and country. The native Dutch, it is argued, have become like foreigners in their own country, feeling that foreigners should allegedly feel: not at home” (Ibid.: 98).

Below I will show how on a discursive level the images of Amsterdam presented by my infor-mants differentiate the native Dutch population and its gay scene from the migrant Others who, ac-cording to the respondents, are the main reason of the transformation of the gay capital. The feeling of nostalgia and homelessness is frequently articulated by the gay men I interviewed.

Opinions

The stories about how Amsterdam used to be the most popular city of the world among gay people were told by many informants. First I heard it from Lars, the member of DGS/De Roze Leeuw from Rotterdam. When he was explaining to me why the cases of anti-gay violence increase in the Netherlands (which I will disclose in the next chapter), he suddenly commented on the gay scene which existed in Amsterdam in 1990s. Although he could not witness it himself, he told me how flourishing and safe it used to be. “Drag queens could walk wearing make-up in the streets! Now they would get beaten.” Lars stated that today gay people going to gay bars and clubs as well as drag queens performing there used to feel safer but not today. Nowadays, according to the follower of DGS/De Roze Leeuw, they are attacked by Muslim youngsters who are more violent today and the streets are less safe than they used to be earlier. Another member of the Rotterdam organization, Thomas, whom I met later after the interview with Lars, mentioned one of the gay venues of the Dutch capital, Reguliersdwarsstraat. He confirmed Lars’ view that today the Dutch cities are much less safe now. “Amsterdam used to be the gay capital of the world in 1960s.” But these years Reg-uliers is “one of the most unsafe streets in Amsterdam” because of the “guys on scooters” who yell swear words at the visitors of gay bars.

It is noteworthy that such nostalgia was expressed not only by the followers of conservative po-litical organizations - such as members of DGS/De Roze Leeuw - but also by the supporters of more liberal Dutch parties. When I talked to Gert, a gay man who votes for VVD and critisized Gert

Wilders (PVV) and Thierry Baudet (FvD), said that “Amsterdam used to be more accepting but maybe that’s because the city was different. It used to be a gay capital but not anymore. Muslims also are not that tolerant.” Another informant, Paul, who supports the green party GroenLinks, shared the very same words about Amsterdam that used to be the gay capital, but, according to his view, it was in 1970s. The main gay venues, he stated, used to have more gay bars and clubs. He admitted that the number of places for homosexual people is decreasing because of the acceptance of sexual minorities today. The gay scene itself “is more mixed now”. But he also mentioned the street violence which happens nowadays and linked it with the idea that ethnic minorities are not integrated into the “Dutch culture”. “We live in a city with lots of immigrants. They live their own rules. They’re from Syria, Afghanistan. And the government is not doing enough about integration.” Another case related to the gay-friendly image of Amsterdam is worth mentioning. One of the respondents, Alex, who organizes a drinks event Jongeheerenborrel along with the other two men, briefly mentioned the Suitsupply case which dates from February 2018. When I arrived in the Netherlands from Russia in early February 2018, I saw the posters of the two men kissing with each other or touching each other. The banners were the advertising of the Amsterdam-based suit compa-ny called Suitsupply. Looking at those posters while already having the image of the Netherlands as one of the most LGBT-friendly countries of Western Europe, I thought that my expectations of the place I moved to were certainly justified. However, later, when I started following the official page of COC on Facebook, I came across the posts with the pictures of Suitsupply banners which were either damaged or crossed out with a black tape in the parts where the two men were kissing. After a while the advertising completely disappeared from the streets of Amsterdam. I was confused when I found out that such reaction can be possible in the Netherlands.

Commenting on the accidents with these billboards, Alex said that he found that “disturbing”. Again, the case was linked to today’s image of the Dutch capital. “Amsterdam positions itself as a gay capital. But we are not there yet.” He claimed that recently the city “has become more multicul-tural” and there are people different from each other who live in it. Nevertheless, he quickly turned to the native Dutch who, in his opinion, “try to be more tolerant than they really are”. He brought another example of erotically explicit advertising, the one of Radio 538 which depicted two half-naked women kissing and touching each other and covering their faces with a boombox. Alex claimed that while so many people were disturbed by the two men kissing on Suitsupply posters, no one cared about the two women on Radio 548 advertising billboards, which appeared in the streets of Dutch cities in summer 2018.

Many of my respondents, when they spoke about Amsterdam which “used to be the world’s gay capital”, including the followers of DGS/De Roze Leeuw, see the reason of the negative changes in the city in the Muslim population of the Netherlands. The increasing numbers of anti-gay violence are regularly linked to ethnic, Muslim minorities. However, as Alex mentioned, it is also the white Dutch people who remain sensitive to such homoerotic images (particularly male) as the ones on the posters of Suitsupply. In March 2018, young people from a Catholic organization Civitas Chris-tiana held a demonstration in Nijmegen against the advertising of Suitsupply. The slogans on their banners said "Stop Suitsupply" and "God's marriage = 1 man + 1 woman.” The Catholic movement, founded in 2014, claims that its aim is to protect a tradition, family, and private property. “Follow2 -ing the protest, Civitas Christiana announced the start of a new campaign called ‘Family in Danger.’ Campaign leader Hugo Bos stated its goals: ‘This protest was just the beginning. We now are going to campaign intensively and persistently for the family. We will not stop until the family is com-pletely protected from the sexual revolution.’” Although there are indeed existing cases of homo3 -phobia among the native Dutch population, for example, the protest of the Catholics against the Suitsupply billboards, the problem remains less visible and discussable. It is the Muslim population which is normally triggered in the media as well as in the stories of my respondents. The dichotomy “us/them”, which relies on neoculturalism and the ideas of progress, emphasizes first of all the ho-mophobia of the migrant minorities.

Homophobia of the native Dutch population, in particular the fundamentalist Protestant and Catholic parts of it, was discussed in the media not only in the case of Suitsupply. In the last chapter of the thesis I will investigate the story of my respondent Bart, who personally experienced discrim-ination by his conservative religious relatives.

A bit of history of gay Amsterdam and the dynamics of Amsterdam’s gay scene

The informants’ beliefs that the Dutch capital used to be the world’s centre of the gay scene are in-deed justified. When the Dutch government took steps to achieve the emancipation of sexual mi-norities in 1970-1980s, Amsterdam was the first municipality to assume measures. “These include various issues such as education, social support for the elderly, better health care services particular-ly for STDs, sport facilities, equal rights in city services, and the promotion of gay and lesbian visi-bility. The City of Amsterdam promised to stop tearing down public toilets and ordered the police to

https://civitaschristiana.nl/?page_id=19 [accessed 22.01.19]

stop harassing gay men who were cruising. Since the 1990s, special projects that enhance the eman-cipation and visibility ethnic minority queers have been added to the list” (Hekma 2006: 134). Moreover, in 1987 Homomonument was opened in the Dutch capital. It is situated right next to Westerkerk and consists of the three pink triangles which form a larger triangle. A public toilet was placed next to one of the triangles as they used to be a common spot for gay men to meet and cruise. Homomonument is one of the world’s first monuments that commemorates the victims of homophobia. In 2001, the first gay marriage was held in Amsterdam. So, all these events con4 -tributed to the image of Amsterdam as a gay friendly city.

As some of my respondents mentioned the changing gay scene of the Dutch capital, it is worth investigating what were the exact changes that influenced the city as a “gay capital”. Amsterdam used to have (but from my own impressions it still has) many gay and lesbian venues all over the city. The main streets full of LGBT clubs and bars are Reguliersdwarsstraat, Amstel, Kerkstraat, Warmoesstraat, and Spuistraat. Reguliersdwarsstraat, the largest gay-friendly street of the city, has its own history. In 1981, a very popular gay cafe called “Cafe April” was opened in that street. “Di-rectly from the start April became famous for its big and fancy parties with spectacular decorations. Gay people from all over the world came here on their trip to Amsterdam. When this bar was ex-tended and a rotating bar was installed in 1996, it was the biggest gay bar in Europe.” When AIDS 5 reached Amsterdam and became a large problem, the owners of the cafe organized a fund to help the diseased gay men. Other venues, where gay people could be open about their sexual orientation, such as April’s Exit, Havana, Reality Bar, and Soho, were opened in Reguliersdwarsstraat during the 1980-1990s. In 1996, the owners of Havana club organized Amsterdam Pride for the first time. The Gay Games were held in 1998 and gathered thousands of athletes from many countries. “Ams-terdam Pride and the Gay Games added to the self-confidence of the gay community and were new impulses for the gay night life scene, for which Reguliersdwarsstraat, with flourishing venues like April, Exit and Havana, acted as the flagship.” 6

The beginning of the 21st century marked the decline of the gay venues of Amsterdam as it was mentioned by my informants. With the appearance of the Internet and the fact that it became more and more popular, there was less need for sexual minorities to meet in the special places like gay bars. Around 2010, several bars and clubs in Reguliersdwarsstraat faced financial issues and had to

http://www.homomonument.nl/sinds1987/geschiedenis.php [accessed 04.01.2019]

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http://www.reguliers.net/history.php [accessed 20.01.19]

close down. Besides, the appearance of the dating apps, such as GayRomeo or Grindr, made the gay bars less attractive for homosexual people to meet with each other. Up until now online communi-cation stays the most convenient way of dating for many gay men.

Moreover, some streets of Amsterdam lost their status of being gay streets due to the increasing number of tourists from around the world. Warmoesstraat is an example of this process. From the conversations I had not only with my “official” informants but also with my gay friends and ac-quaintances living in Amsterdam, I had an image that this street, along with the bars and shops lo-cated there, is loosing its gay visitors because of the tourists and the business and crowdedness they cause in the area. Earlier in 2018, a gay fetish store MisterB has moved from Warmoesstraat to Prinsengracht due to this reason. The owner of the shop claimed that in Warmoesstraat regular cus-tomers did not feel comfortable at the shop when tourists came in just to laugh at the fetish products and take selfies. 7

Amsterdam Gay Pride

Amsterdam’s famous Gay Pride is the key event that invests to the image of the city as a gay capi-tal. The event originates from the activities of COC in 1970s. In the beginning, the largest gay rights organization of the country did not want to hold a Gay Pride parade like the activists did in the United States after the Stonewall riots of 1969. COC saw the Dutch gay community as similar to heterosexual people and strove for the inclusion of gay people into heteronormative Dutch society (as mentioned in the introduction of the thesis). But after the policy of the organization had changed and it strived for visibility of gay people, the first Gay Liberation and Solidarity Day was held in the Dutch capital in 1977. This parade was organized in June and was later called Pink Saturday. This march was a political demonstration rather than a celebration of sexuality. The latter became more popular when Amsterdam Pride was invented by a group of people from above-mentioned Havana bar in August 1996. “The new Amsterdam Pride was different from Pink Saturday and most other Gay Prides, as it was solely meant to be a celebration of freedom and diversity in Amsterdam, and not as a political demonstration for equal rights or against discrimination.” 8

After several years younger Amsterdam Pride held in August became more and more popular than June’s Pink Saturday due to the fact that the city was mentioned in the name of the former.

https://www.ad.nl/amsterdam/fetishwinkel-mister-b-verhuist-vanwege-overlast-toeristen~a575046d/ [ac

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Moreover, in 1990s there were less political issues to fight with in Amsterdam because gay men were less marginalized and more assimilated into the Dutch society. “The Amsterdam Pride was unique, because instead of a march with trailers through the streets, there's a parade of boats over some of the city's world famous canals.” Moreover, Pink Saturday was not attached exclusively to 9 the Dutch capital and was organized in other provinces of the Netherlands. Since 2012 Amsterdam has its own march which has a political background - Pride Walk. This march was created as a reac-tion to anti-gay violence in the Netherlands and abroad. Every year, one week before the canal pa-rade of Amsterdam Pride, the marchers walk through the city starting from Homomonument near Westerkerk to Vondelpark. When I talked with one of my respondents - Rick - in the end of the con-versation he mentioned that he was going to participate in Pride Walk. He also characterized it as a mainly political march and stated that he was taking part in the demonstration because the party he was a member of - Dutch Labour Party - was one of the march’s organizers. He suggested that I should better go to Milkshake dance festival (which was held on the same day as Pride Walk) be-cause it was more fun than the demonstration.

Amsterdam Pride emerged at the time when it seemed that the main issues related to homopho-bia were gone. Five years after the first canal parade same-sex marriage became legal in the Nether-lands and gay men and women gained adoption rights. In this political context Amsterdam Pride was and still remains predominantly a party, a celebration of emancipated sexuality. Moreover, more and more heterosexual people join the parade. Paul, the informant whom I already mentioned in this chapter, also stated that, in his opinion, the canal parade today is a party rather than a politi-cal demonstration. He said that because of the special format of the event - the fact that the parade is organized with boats sailing in the canal - there is no enough contact and interaction between the participant of Amsterdam Pride and the viewers. Thus, political issues cannot be addressed properly there. Having a conversation with me, Paul mentioned that, for example, the issue of homophobia in Russia should be addressed better during the parade. He also said that, unlike in the Netherlands, there are more political activists in Germany during the parades. For example, in Berlin, where Paul used to live while studying there. When I attended Amsterdam Pride myself in August 2018, I also had an impression that the parade is a huge party at which the few activist boats (like the ones of COC or Amnesty International) did not look relevant sailing together with the party (Club Church, MisterB) and commercial (Netflix, Phillips, Google) boats. In the next chapter dedicated to a