Immigrants on Grindr

Race, Sexuality and Belonging Online

Andrew DJ Shield

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9783030303938
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030303945
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This book examines the role of hook-up apps in the lives of gay, bi, trans, and queer immigrants and refugees, and how the online culture of these platforms promotes belonging or exclusion. Within the context of the so-called European refugee crisis, this research focuses on the experiences of immigrants from especially Muslim-majority countries to the greater Copenhagen area, a region known for both its progressive ideologies and its anti-immigrant practices. Grindr and similar platforms connect newcomers with not only dates and sex, but also friends, roommates and other logistical contacts. But these socio-sexual platforms also become spaces of racialization and othering. Weaving together analyses of real Grindr profile texts, immigrant narratives, political rhetoric, and popular media, Immigrants on Grindr provides an in-depth look at the complex interplay between online and offline cultures, and between technology and society.

© The Author(s) 2019

A. D. ShieldImmigrants on Grindrhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30394-5_1

Begin Abstract

1. “We all have a responsibility… to save them”: Immigrants, Gays, and Those Caught in Between

Andrew DJ Shield¹

(1)

Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

Andrew DJ Shield

Email: [email protected]

Keywords

GrindrSocial mediaImmigrantsLGBTQSexual politicsDenmarkSwedenEurope

End Abstract

In order to contextualize that an Arab immigrant in a European metropolis in 2015 might sign onto his favorite gay hook-up app and receive a message accusing him of links to ISIS , or that a young Danish man with Pakistani parents might glance down at a Grindr pop-up notification telling him to “go back to your country,” we must first understand the complex politics of immigration and sexuality—and however they overlap—in northwest Europe in the early twenty-first century. Then we can explore how these politics play out in a sexually charged online platform for primarily gay men, such as Grindr, and ascertain the consequences for LGBTQ immigrants attempting to build social connections in Europe today.

For decades, LGBTQ rights have grown increasingly intertwined with political and journalistic discussions of immigrant cultures and integration, particularly in Scandinavia but also notably in the Netherlands. A peculiar strand of “pro-gay, anti-immigrant” rhetoric grabbed Dutch national attention around 2000, when an emerging populist party (List Pim Fortuyn) argued that immigrants from particularly Muslim-majority countries were homophobic and sexually conservative, and that their cultural attitudes were enough to justify not only new policies on integration, but also restrictions on immigration. Since 2006, this pro-gay, anti-immigrant rhetoric has been a cornerstone of the Dutch politician Geert Wilders ’ populist Party For Freedom; further, Wilders (a heterosexual) has attempted to export this political framework to Denmark and Sweden, among other countries, by pronouncing to politicians and journalists that “violence against homosexuals…ha[s] become part of daily life” in the Netherlands (due to Muslims), and thus politicians and journalists must “express [their] opinion[s] about Islam,” since imams expressed their disapproval “about our freedoms and… about gay men and women.”¹ While elsewhere in Europe and the United States, this pro-gay, anti-immigrant rhetoric has not taken hold within the political Right—which still tends to ignore or reject LGBTQ issues—Wilders ’ rhetoric has become strategically effective in Scandinavia.

With the dramatic increase in especially Syrian asylum applications in 2014–2015—also known as the European refugee “crisis ”—the porous border between Copenhagen (Denmark) and Malmö (Sweden) closed for the first time in over five decades, and immigration laws tightened (especially in Denmark, which attracted international condemnation for passing a “jewelry law” allowing authorities to confiscate asylum seekers’ valuables, including wedding rings). Denmark elected a right-wing government (led by Venstre from 2015 to 2019) that pledged to introduce an “emergency brake” to stop the alleged “uncontrolled flow” of refugees and migrants, while “setting higher demands on refugees and immigrants’ ability and will to integrate into Danish society.”²

At the same time, and for the first time, a Danish right-wing government acknowledged that sexual orientation, gender identity , and the right to choose one’s partner were “fundamental” rights; and they pledged to protect equality “regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity .”³ It is within this context that a right-wing Minister responded to a report on homosexuality and immigration in Denmark—a report that actually showed that over 70% of immigrants felt homosexuality “must be accepted in society”—by proclaiming that there were still “pockets of Danish society where you cannot take your freedom and equality as givens,” and that “we” must “say very clearly to these groups” that Danes “do not take religion into consideration when it comes to freedom and rights.”⁴ This problematic religion was clearly Islam; indeed, the Minister altered her statement when speaking to a Christian newspaper, but still emphasized that “certain ethnic minority” groups needed to learn Danish (sexual) freedoms.⁵ It is also within this context that one can establish the motive of a non-LGBTQ member of the populist and anti-immigrant Swedish Democrats who attempted to host an LGBTQ Pride event in an immigrant-heavy Swedish suburb, and who insisted coyly that the event was certainly not an attempt “to provoke a Muslim aggression.”⁶ Gradually over the past decade, pro-gay, anti-immigrant politics became an undisputable facet of the Scandinavian Right.

The liminal figure of the LGBTQ immigrant—if mentioned at all in these political and media discussions—seems to do little to destabilize the dominant understanding of immigrants as sexually conservative and homophobic. When a politician or journalist does acknowledge LGBTQ people with immigration background, there is usually the assumption that their largest obstacle in Europe is overcoming the homophobic oppression of their families and diasporic communities. A 2015 survey of young LGBTQ Danes did indeed find that those with migration backgrounds were less likely to “come out” (that is, to declare an LGBTQ identity) to both parents, and more likely to have received threats of physical violence.⁷ However, the report also showed that 71% of these queer migrants were open about their sexuality “most of the time” (compared to 83% of “overall” LGBTQ Danes); indeed, 87% of these respondents were open about being LGBTQ to (at least some) friends (comparable to the 91% of “overall” LGBTQ Danes). Nevertheless, media outlets across the spectrum fixated on findings that underscored differences between these groups—such as that respondents with immigration background were more likely to report violent threats from family than “overall Danes” (19% vs. 1%)—and this brief media moment helped solidify public opinion that LGBTQ people with immigration background faced fierce oppression and had “mental problems,” in contrast to the adjusted population of tolerant, white Danes.⁸

Fahad Saeed, the foreperson of the Danish organization for LGBTQ ethnic minorities “Sabaah ,” addressed this 2015 survey to the media: “This investigation is really, really important. It would be a shame if this was merely used to established facts that confirm prejudices about ethnic minority groups, and then nothing more is done.”⁹ Despite Saeed’s urging, the report did little to disrupt the pervasive idea that “we” Danes were tolerant to LGBTQ issues, in contrast to “them,” those Muslims who need saving.¹⁰

On the eve of Copenhagen’s city elections in 2017, a mayor of Copenhagen took the microphone at Oscar Café, a cozy LGBTQ bistro on Copenhagen’s newly Christened “Rainbow Square,” and steered the debate toward a topic close to his heart, immigration:

I think that if we look at [LGBTQ] people with a foreign background—especially with Muslim background—there are homosexuals who could use an extra hand. That’s something that we all have a responsibility for—to try to save them from it. Because that’s not an easy environment to be a homosexual in. So that’s an extra task we have.¹¹

The (heterosexual) politician was Copenhagen’s first mayor from the notoriously anti-immigrant Danish People’s Party (DF ).¹² DF’s attendance at Oscar that night was not obvious: for years, the party had been on the forefront of political campaigns against LGBTQ issues like marriage and adoption rights (until...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. “We all have a responsibility… to save them”: Immigrants, Gays, and Those Caught in Between
• 2. “The glittering future of a new invention”: Historicizing Grindr Culture
• 3. “Remember that if you choose to include information in your public profile … that information will also become public”: Methods and Ethics for Online, Socio-Sexual Fieldwork
• 4. “I was staying at the camp, and I met this guy on Grindr, and he asked me to move in with him”: Tourists, Immigrants, and Logistical Uses of Socio-Sexual Media
• 5. “Tend to prefer sane, masculine, caucasian (no offense to other flavours though)”: Racial-Sexual Preferences, Entitlement, and Everyday Racism
• 6. “White is a color, Middle Eastern is not a color”: Drop-Down Menus, Racial Identification, and the Weight of Labels
• 7. “Vi hygger os!”: Challenging Socio-Sexual Online Cultures (Conclusions)
• Back Matter