Veganism, Sex and Politics. C. Lou Hamilton
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understood as a category of human identity it actually takes attention away from animals and centres it on people. For that reason identifying “as vegan” carries the risk of anthropocentrism.
The philosopher Chloë Taylor writes of ethical vegetarianism that “it is always constitutive of the vegetarian’s identity. We do not say that we eat vegetarian but that we are vegetarian.”44 Extending this observation to veganism, we could say that it too is “always constitutive of the (vegan)’s identity.” But in order to avoid reductive or static uses of “vegan” and “veganism,” it would perhaps be useful to think of veganism as something we practise or do rather than vegan as something we are. This would allow us, in the words of Dinesh Joseph Wadiwel, “to explore veganism as a set of imperfect practices which are situationally located as forms of resistance to the war on animals, rather than as a mode of identity.”45 Our ethical and political commitments, what we eat and wear, the company we keep — these are all expressions of complex collective and individual identities. They say something about who we are or want to be; in the contemporary world they can form part of what Taylor, following Michel Foucault, calls self-fashioning.46 In this sense, the practice of veganism is entangled in our identities without in itself being an identity. Similarly, we can recognise that practising veganism involves an ongoing process of personal transformation, and impacts on the ways in which we live our lives, even while veganism is much more than a lifestyle. One of the things I want to try to convey in these pages, against a negative representation of veganism either as trendy lifestyle choice or moralistic holier-than-thouism, is the joy of striving to live as people, caring for ourselves and others, without depending upon the endless exploitation of other animals.
Vegan stories
Stories are a great way to educate, share information, pass on pearls of wisdom in ways that can adapt to each individual that hears them, and our ability to reflect on our own stories, integrate the learnings and then reframe them and share them with our insights are powerful acts of magic.47
I am not the first to tell my vegan story. Over the past several years more and more people are writing or talking about veganism, including its relationship to gender, sexuality, race, class and disability. Their tales appear in blogs, online magazines and social media; newspapers and television; documentary and fiction film; PhD theses, academic books and journals; and at conferences where academics and activists converge.48 There is also a popular tradition to be found in zines and pamphlets, and in the recorded oral histories of animal rights activists, as well as autobiographical writing by vegans. This book draws on a number of these sources, interweaving them with my own autobiographical experience and reflection.
The stories I tell look at veganism from different angles: how and why people come to practise veganism; how we face different difficulties, including practical challenges and those of combining veganism with other priorities in our lives; how veganism relates to our different identities, including sexuality and gender; people’s encounters with other animals — dead, alive and imaginary — and how these shape our ideas about veganism; and some of the pleasures of practising veganism. The topics I cover include: comparisons between violence against animals and violence against women and other human groups (chapter 1); feminist arguments for and against veganism (chapters 1, 2 and 4); the relationship between veganism and environmentalism, including climate change activism (chapter 3); how some people have confronted the ethical dilemmas of practising veganism in the face of serious illnesses, and other issues related to caring for ourselves, other people and other animals (chapters 4 and 5); real and fake fur and leather, especially their use and meanings in some queer subcultures (chapter 5); anti-colonial and anti-racist arguments for and against veganism (chapters 5 and 6); the mainstreaming of veganism and the rise of vegan consumerism (chapter 6); and fictional representations of vegans and vegan futures (interludes 1 and 2). This list is not exhaustive. New research, writing and artistic work on veganism — and, in the academic context, critical animal studies — are appearing on a daily basis, and I apologise in advance for missing any important new evidence or arguments. Many themes are not covered in detail in the book: religious arguments for and against veganism; the dilemmas of vegans sharing our lives with carnivorous companion animals; veganism and debates about women’s eating and body image. Where I have not trod this time other writers have, and more will surely follow.49
At points in the subsequent pages the reader may say, “What on earth does this have to do with a plant-based diet?” The sections on sex work, naturopathic cancer treatments and queer leather communities (in chapters 1, 4 and 5 respectively) might make a few readers squirm. So let me say from the start that mine is a personal, and hence idiosyncratic, take on the sexual politics of veganism. I have followed my experiences, desires and passions as well as the stories and theories of others who have sparked my interest. By retracing my particular path I aim to present aspects of veganism that I believe are underexplored, especially in relation to queer politics and feminism. As veganism becomes more popular and widespread I think it is vitally important to honour its longer associations with radical political movements and alternative communities. And against the common perception that veganism is only for the young and the fit, I want to provide some insight into the peculiarities of coming to veganism in middle age, and about the forces and factors that enable us to change our ways at different stages in our lives. In my own reflections and those of others I have tried to find tales that go against the grain either of stereotypes or mainstream writing. By taking some unexpected turns, I encourage readers to think of veganism from different perspectives, and above all to be open to its powers, possibilities and pleasures, as well as its necessities.
DREADED COMPARISONS AND OTHER STORIES
The Vegan Papers
August 2014London
It’s almost six months since I stopped eating animal products. This short voyage into new habits has been accompanied by fits of writing, sorting thoughts and observations. I am going to call this haphazard diary “The Vegan Papers.” I’m writing because I want to make sense of why, at this relatively late stage in my life, I became vegan virtually overnight. What was behind and around this personal and political turning point? What were the connections between this change and my other ideals and commitments? These questions are striking: posing them reminds me that in the omnivore culture in which I grew up and continue to live, eating, wearing and otherwise using animal products for our human-centred ends is the norm. Giving up the habit of exploiting animals is abnormal. A little deviant even.
I also need to make sense of others’ opposition to this giving up. I write in part because I want to understand why veganism sometimes encounters resistance, even provokes other people to anger. The most difficult anger to face has been the accusation that vegans don’t care about people. That by not eating meat, milk and eggs, or not buying leather or wool, we are complicit in violence against other human beings. The first time I heard someone accuse me directly of being a privileged vegan who didn’t care that millions of people in the world don’t have enough food to eat it felt like a kick in the gut. Red rage rose to my cheeks, anger shielding against anger. But after the defensive reaction came the questions: How could choosing to minimise my complicity in violence against other-than-human animals be equated with complicity in violence against other humans? Why does veganism sometimes become a flashpoint for anxiety and anger about differences and power relations among people? And how can vegans and animal advocates tell stories about our relationships to other animals that honour the lives of those creatures without making simplistic comparisons to the ways in which human beings do harm to one another?
Shortly after starting “The Vegan Papers” — excerpts from which appear throughout this book — I started to look for answers to these questions by investigating veganism’s connection to feminism. I took that focus because feminism was the broad movement and community in which much of my political formation had taken place. My aim was not to