The conversation around sexual orientation and gender identity has come to divide and describe the world in an entirely new way.
Author of The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World’s Queer Frontiers Mark Gevisser joined The Breakfast Show to discuss his book which has been described as an exploration of how the conversation around sexual orientation and gender identity has come to define divide and describe the world in an entirely new way over the first two decades of the twenty-first century.
Gevisser says that his book was not just aimed for the LBGTQ people but was interesting in how geopolitically the LBGTQ rights were being used patriots, church leaders and political leaders amongst others. He wrote the book through telling the stories of nine different people and their families in nine different countries around the world.
So I look at the way geopolitically LBGTQ rights are being weaponised by leaders, patriots, priests and politicians in Eastern European countries and of course Africa too.
Mark Gevisser, Journalist and Author- The Pink Line
I look at the way this pink line which I think is sort of new human rights frontier is coming to define, describe and divide the world in ways that were imaginable a generation ago.
Mark Gevisser, Journalist and Author- The Pink Line
Gevisser says he chose to use the word ‘queer’ in his book as he liked its double valence and even though it has been re-appropriated by many people it means different and skewed.
To see things from a queer perspective is to look at things askance and to see the world afresh and as a gay or queer man myself and also as a writer I like to think I have that queer perspective but I do acknowledge that it is a complicated word.
Mark Gevisser, Journalist and Author- The Pink Line
By 702 Siyamthanda Matiso
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