Iatrogenic necropolitics: forced anal examinations and state-sanctioned homophobia

Abstract

In 2016, Human Rights Watch, an international human rights organisation, published a report on the use of forced anal examinations to identify and prosecute putative ‘homosexuals’. The report provided detailed descriptions and first-person accounts of these examinations in several countries in the Middle East and Africa. Drawing on theories of iatrogenesis and queer necropolitics, this paper uses these accounts and other reports of forced anal examinations to explore the role of medical providers in the ‘diagnosis’ and prosecution of homosexuality. The goal of these medical examinations is explicitly punitive rather than therapeutic, making them quintessential examples of iatrogenic clinical encounters which harm rather than heal. We argue that these examinations naturalise socioculturally derived beliefs about bodies and gender that construct homosexuality as ‘readable’ on the body through close medical inspection. These acts of inspection and ‘diagnosis’ reveal broader hegemonic state narratives of heteronormative gender and sexuality, both within countries as well as internationally as different state actors circulate and share these narratives. This article highlights the entanglement of medical and state actors, as well as contextualises the practice of forced anal examination within its colonial roots. Our analysis offers the potential for advocacy and holding medical professions and states accountable.

Keywords:

• Iatrogenesis
• homophobia
• heterosexism
• human rights

Disclosure statement

;No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 For more on heterosexual-identified people engaging in same-sex behavior, see: Ward 2015; Dean 2014; Gibson and Hensley 2013.

2 English terms for sexual and gender minorities (e.g. homosexual, gay, lesbian, transgender) continue to circulate globally. Notable examples are explored in the work of Boellstorff (2005, 2007, Boellstorff 2011) and Blackwood (2010).

3 For more detail on these histories, see Crozier 2005; Brady 2011; Parkhill and Stephens 2011; Rousseau 2008.

4 See Katz 2007; Blank 2012; Greenberg 1988; and Foucault 1990 for more on the development of the terms ‘heterosexual’ and ‘homosexual.’

5 In this paper, we do not address the lived experiences of people ‘on the ground.’ Rather, we use available sources to think about the ways iatrogenic diagnostic procedures play out on biological and social bodies. Ethnographic research of lived experiences of those who have suffered forced anal exams is vitally necessary. What we offer here is a framework for thinking through such future ethnographic projects.

6 ‘Bottom’ is a lay term referring to gay men who engage in passive anal sex. Interestingly, this term is becoming medicalised in this particular clinic since this category and others referring to sexual activity preferences were documented in their medical charts and used to determine patient disease risk profiles.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.