"We cannot be included on your terms": a queer critic of the imperialist view in "Gaycation: Ukraine"

Abstract

In March 2016, a camera crew from the television show “Gaycation” visited Ukraine as a part of their mission to “explore LGBTQ cultures around the world”. This article critically questions the show's solidarity with Ukrainian LGBT+ and analyzes it as a manifestation of the neoliberal imperial “queer” view. We demonstrate how “Gaycation Ukraine” under the guise of global queer solidarity reproduces practices that reinforce inequality and asymmetrical power relations between the West and the rest, as well as within Ukrainian society. The article exposes the show’s reliance on the tropes of homonormativity and homonationalism and analyzes characteristics of mainstream Ukrainian LGBT+ activism. The text is available in Ukrainian [1].