Description
Book SynopsisLGBT political movements in the United States have been successful in expediting the growing acceptance of sexual and gender minorities and increasing public support for LGBT rights. However, not all segments of what has come to be called the LGBT community have benefited from these gains; even marginalized identity groups have internal hierarchies that determine whose political claims are heard or ignored. In Terms of Exclusion, Zein Murib looks at the LGBT community in the US as it formed into an identity-based social and political group. Drawing on an extensive archive of movement documents and publications, Murib argues that the strategic use of rightful citizenship claims, or the assertion that lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender people are owed rights as citizens, created opportunities for the recognition of white, gender-normative, monogamously partnered gay men and lesbians at the expense of other community members. The rights wins made as a result of these opportunit
Trade ReviewTerms of Exclusion is a triumph of intersectional scholarship that reshapes our thinking of who gets elevated to represent 'a group' and who is relegated to the back-or even left behind-in processes of brokering identity. Murib combines a richly documented history and masterful theoretical framework for understanding how marginalizations overlap, as well as how the lived experience and political power of people identifying as LGBT are far from singular. It is among the most thoughtful books to-date on US LGBT politics and activism. * Phillip Ayoub, Professor of International Relations at University College London, and author of When States Come Out *
In Terms of Exclusion, Zein Murib argues against an LGBT politics premised on 'rightful citizenship claims,' arguing that such demands privilege the rights and interests of those who most fully conform to normative depictions of the citizen. Driven by a desire to center the political interests and needs of those LGBT subjects most subject to violence and harm, Terms of Exclusion demonstrates why the need to think creatively and generously about the politics of membership is more urgent than ever. * Cristina Beltrán, author of The Trouble with Unity and Cruelty as Citizenship *
The argument's tight, the tone's polite, but the critique this book offers is scathing. Murib calls out the exclusionary politics of 'rightful citizen claims' advanced by minority populations that do little more than secure the blessings of provisional belonging for the most normative and privileged of their members. It invites us to move beyond a liberal politics of inclusion towards a more fundamental sense of living fairly and freely amidst all of our differences-and helps guide us toward that goal. * Susan Stryker, author of Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution *
