‘Where the state freaks out’: Gentrification, Queerspaces and activism in postwar Beirut Nagle, J. (2021). ‘Where the state freaks out’: Gentrification, Queerspaces and activism in postwar Beirut. Urban Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098021993697 Published in: Urban Studies Document Version: Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Queen's University Belfast - Research Portal: Link to publication record in Queen's University Belfast Research Portal Publisher rights Copyright 2021 the authors. This is an open access Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction for non-commercial purposes, provided the author and source are cited. 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Sep. 2021 Article Urban Studies 1–18 ‘Where the state freaks out’: Ó Urban Studies Journal Limited 2021 Article reuse guidelines: Gentrification, Queerspaces sagepub.com/journals-permissions and activism in postwar Beirut DOI: 10.1177/0042098021993697 journals.sagepub.com/home/usj John Nagle Queen’s University, UK Abstract In this article I illuminate the production and erasure of Queerspaces in Beirut as part of postwar gentrification. A dual Beirut has emerged within assemblages of sectarian power, sexual citizen- ship and political economy. Commercial Queerspaces tacitly incorporated into the neoliberal and sectarian state exist while the ‘Queer unwanted’ – spaces and people deemed transgressive to the moral order – are violently erased by state and non-state actors. These dual spaces expose the limits on life for Queer communities. To analyse these dynamics, I turn to the testimonies of LGBTQ activists in Beirut in relation to the possibilities offered by Queerspace. While activists note the exclusions – class, gender and sexuality – of commercial Queerspace that restrain politi- cal agency, they have powerfully asserted radical intersectional politics into recent revolutionary anti-sectarian waves of protest. This politics is marked by articulating Queerness as a project of connecting marginality for all excluded groups in Lebanon’s postwar order and by a queering of sectarian/neoliberal space that has hitherto cleansed undesirable LGBTQ bodies. This article draws on extensive fieldwork in Beirut (2011 to 2020), thus permitting longitudinal research of LGBTQ activism. Keywords community, displacement, gender, gentrification, public space, queer, social movement Corresponding author: John Nagle, Faculty of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Queen’s University Belfast, 69–71 University Street, Belfast BT7 1HL, UK. 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On the one hand, gentrification has ‘Gayrut’, the ‘gay paradise of the Arab created a space of implicit tolerance for spe- world’ (Reid-Smith, 2012), an oasis noted cific assemblages of sexuality, class and for its purported sexual liberalism relative to power, which are non-threatening to institu- the rest of the Middle East (Healy, 2009). tionalised homophobia, especially gender- The ‘gay scene’ – coinciding in a select few normative and middle-class LGBTQ people bars and clubs – generates the ‘rainbow (see Moussawi, 2018). On the other, this economy’, adding up to an estimated dynamic is mirrored by the ruthless, violent US$83 million annually (Sioufi, 2013). In cleansing of spaces and forms of sexuality the second narrative, Beirut is marked by deemed to be transgressive. Working-class state and non-state actors engaged in a joint gays, sex workers, refugees and transpersons, enterprise to violently erase other and the spaces they inhabit, are brutally cast Queerspaces and of harassment against outside of the domain of acceptable sexual LGBTQ individuals and activists framed as citizenship. threats to morality. These acts of persecu- The reinforcing nexus between gentrifica- tion are carried out under the auspices of tion and Queerspace is one of the most sig- Lebanon’s Penal Code, which criminalises nificant bodies of research in urban studies sexual relations ‘against the order of nature’ (e.g. Brown, 2007; Castells, 1983; Doan, (Helem, 2008). 2007; Doan and Higgins, 2011; Ghaziani, Rather than contradictory representa- 2015; Hanhardt, 2013; Knopp, 2004; Nast, tions, these two narratives expose the logic 2002; Oswin, 2005). A core debate centres on of the city’s postwar order wrought through whether gentrified spaces can be harnessed Nagle 3 for Queer counterpublics to emerge or if it social cleansing, population displacement, channels LGBTQ activism into assimilation- sectarian segregation and violence (see Akar, ist and exclusivist politics that reproduce 2018; Fawaz, 2009; Krijnen, 2018; Krijnen inequalities. These debates are often posi- and De Beukelaer, 2015). Gentrification in tioned within broader analyses of neoliberal Beirut intersects with the colonisation of forms of entrepreneurial urban governance political and social life by sectarian networks that construct some queer lives as economi- and with the rise and erasure of various cally important while others are cast as Queerspaces. Thus, rather than see worthless sexual citizens. Gentrification may Queerspace as bound up with entrepreneur- open up opportunities for new Queerspaces ial governance, in which sexual difference is but its corollary is a ‘tightening regulation of increasingly marshalled for fostering urban the types of sexualised spaces in cities’ (Bell competitiveness (Bell and Binnie, 2004; and Binnie, 2004: 1818). Thus, rather than Hartal, 2019; Hubbard, 2013; Kanai, 2014), permit opportunities for LGBTQ rights to Beirut is marked by plural and uneven advance, critical scholars express anxieties modes of governance characterised by sec- with how ‘liberal queer strategies’ have tarian groups exercising control over space. become aligned with ‘urban modes of gov- In this environment, the policing of sexuality ernance that are often inseparable from neo- is not always performed by state actors but liberal, racist, nationalist, and militarist is devolved to non-state groups. logics’ (Oswin, 2015: 560). Queer activism in Beirut has drawn signif- The relationship between gentrification icant scholarly attention, particularly since and Queerspaces in postwar cities in which the first public queer movement in the Arab LGBTQ populations are criminalised is world emerged here (Merabet, 2014; lacking in existing analyses (though see Moussawi, 2018, 2020; Naber and Zaatari, Moussawi, 2015, 2018, 2020), particularly in 2014). Moussawi (2018, 2020), notably, connection to activism. In the postwar city, analyses the different strategic choices the logic of gentrification is bound up with deployed by activists contesting and enga- reconstruction, which drives new forms of ging with dominant models of Euro- social exclusion and violence rather than American LGBTQ organising. While some rebuilds peace (Akar, 2018; Fawaz, 2009; activists form professional NGO advocacy Nagle, 2016). It is to this absence that this groups that pursue LGBTQ rights, others article speaks. Towards this, I address two engage in more radical formations involved interrelated dynamics. First, I examine the in intersectional struggles that embrace coproduction and erasure of Queerspaces in multiple political projects, including anti- Beirut within the context of postwar gentrifi- imperialism, anti-racism and resistance to cation and reconstruction. Second, I turn to sectarianism and patriarchy (Naber and the testimonies and debates of activists in Zaatari, 2014). The potentiality of urban Beirut about the potentiality of Queerspaces space for queer political projects is central to as sites where new claims of local citizenship these analyses. Yet, while ‘gay spaces’ have arise out of insurgent place-making (Greene, emerged in Beirut, Moussawi (2018: 174) 2019). warns us not to assume that they can be Beirut is an important case study to read as evidence of societal tolerance since examine these issues. Postwar Beirut has wit- gender