Introduction of the special issue on ‘Translating the queer popular’

This special issue focuses on the translation of queer popular culture. While much of the existing work on LGBTIQA+ translation (e.g., Baer, 2021; Baer & Kaindl, 2017; Epstein & Gillett, 2017; Gramling & Dutta, 2016; Harvey, 2003) focuses typically on literary translation, with some work on autobiography, or has a more activist focus (e.g., Baldo et al., 2021), by analysing popular culture, the articles in this issue can explore more wellknown texts that have greater circulation around the world, as well as exploring the shifts in LGBTIQA+ representation that have been taking place in the last two decades. In order to understand the complexity of the global situation for LGBTIQA + and queer media, it is first worth reviewing work on sexual identities around the world. The globalisation of sexualities has been a focus of research in sexuality studies since the mid 1990s, though little of this research has been widely discussed in Translation Studies and little of it draws from notions of translation to discuss how sexualities have travelled. Dennis Altman’s work, especially 2001s Global Sex, was particularly pioneering in its discussion of the global expansion of sexual identities. Homosexuality (and other forms of non-hetero sexuality) exists around the world, but how that becomes part of the construction of self is central to Altman’s (2001, p. 86) work. In other words, not sexual acts, but rather sexual identities are his focus. Contrary to the title of his book, and the chapter most relevant to this discussion (‘Globalisation of Sexual Identities’), much of what Altman writes about in that chapter is actually the diverse manifestations of homosexual identities around the world, which are not reducible to ‘Western’ gay and lesbian identities. Yet he also argues that identities around the world do connect to and are influenced by identities seen in the USA, Europe or Australia, as part of people’s will to be connected to global (which typically means Global North) cultures (Altman, 2001, p. 93). These imported or translated identities can unsettle or clash with existing and traditional homosexual identities (Altman, 2001, p. 88) which are often somewhat different from the prevalent ones in the USA and Europe. As such, the situation is far more complex than a simple homonationalist approach of thinking that gay and lesbian identities are imported or translated from the Global North would suggest, and that sexual identities around the world are, like other forms of identity, constructed from local and global ideas and practices, with a negotiation between the two taking place.