Editors Speak: Katherine De Chant
Editors Speak
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Editors Speak *
Queer Voices of the World is a Rapid Response anthology published by IHRAM Press in 2023. Fulbright scholar Katherine De Chant helped with the making of this publication by serving as its editor. This month, we connected with Katherine again to discuss Pride month, social justice, and working with IHRAM.
Thank you, Katherine.
How did you become involved with IHRAM Press?
Tom Block, IHRAM’s Founder and Publisher, invited me to edit Queer Voices of the World over a cup of coffee after I expressed interest in contributing to IHRAM somehow. At the time, I'd just finished my master's degree in human rights and was returning to New York after a year in Paris on a Fulbright study grant with my wife. I wanted to direct my expertise in international human rights and gender studies toward an exploration of queer marginalization and resistance around the world.
Tell us about “Queer Voices of the World”, which you edited.
In the face of a global surge of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and bigotry, Queer Voices of the World brings together an international cohort of queer poets, essayists, and storytellers who refuse to let their voices be silenced. From Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act to Florida's Don't Say Gay law, extremist legislation has been targeting any public expression of queerness—but queer people continue to exist regardless, speaking out with resilience and pride.
In what way do you find that the themes of this anthology, at the time of editing, are relevant now?
The themes of this volume have only become more pressing since I curated and edited its contents in 2023. What I diagnosed at the time as a disturbing groundswell of right-wing attacks on LGBTQ+ people around the world has erupted into a full-blown authoritarian takeover in the United States.
For queer Americans, this Pride Month is less about celebrating our community and more about defending each other, organizing systems of mutual aid, and fighting for our rights. Recent court rulings in the United States and the United Kingdom have taken aim at trans people specifically, attempting to rewrite civil rights laws to uniquely exclude trans people. But what those judicial bodies do not realize is that an attack on some of us is an attack on all of us—there is no LGB without the T—and the queer community will not allow this discrimination to stand.
What is the importance of making space for Queer stories and books like this one, especially today?
Authoritarians worldwide all follow the same playbook: They marginalize and otherize LGBTQ+ people, framing queerness as something foreign and invasive to be stamped out, in order to consolidate their own power. That's why we need books like these—in a world attempting to legislate us out of existence, our art is resistance. Queer voices are evidence that queer people have always and will always exist, in every corner of the world.
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