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LGBTQ+

TRANSLATION

Translation History and Theory

Julieta Mota

Ana Luísa Pinto

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FROM LGBT

TO LGBTQ+

TO LGBTQIA+

Original rainbow flag

Gilbert Barker (1978)

Rainbow flag

Gilbert Barker (1979)

Philadelphia flag

Tierney (2017)

Progress flag

Daniel Quasar (2018)

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.IDENTITY.

.ORIENTATION.

.SEX.

.EXPRESSION.

GENDER IDENTITY

Woman

Man

Genderqueer

GENDER EXPRESSION

Feminine

Masculine

Androgynous

BIOLOGICAL SEX

Female

Male

Intersex

SEXUAL ORIENTATION

Heterosexual

Homosexual

Bisexual

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TERMINOLOGY

Lesbian

Gay

Bisexual

Pansexual

Queer

Asexual

Aromantic

Demisexual

Graysexual

Transgender

Gender Non Conforming

Nonbinary

Genderqueer

Gender fluid

Gender neutral

Intersex

And more…

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QUEERING TRANSLATION, TRANSLATING THE QUEER

https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/47716

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INTRODUCTION

“How might the rendering of queer phenomena across languages and cultures challenge our understanding of translation as theory and practice?”

Allows access to queer stories and experiences from different cultures
Helps decrease prejudiced thoughts
Keeps queer scholarship honest
Representation of queers and for the queers

By Brian James Baer and Klaus Kaindl

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CHAPTER 9: TRANSLATION’S QUEERNESS

GIOVANNI BIANCHI AND JOHN CLELAND WRITING SAME-SEX DESIRE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

By Clorinda Donato

John Cleland

(c. 1709 – 1789)

Anonymously translated the book Breve storia della vita di Catterina Vizzani by Italian physician Giovanni Bianchi.
For a long time this book was used, by scholars of Sapphic literature and female love to study relationships between women in the 18th century.
However, it has been discovered that Cleland’s translation is not faithful to Bianchi’s original source text.

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CATTERINA VIZZANI OR GIOVANNI BORDONI?

CLELAND’S ERASURE OF THE MAIN CHARACTER IDENTIFYING AS TRANSGENDER

Print of Catterina Vizzani in men’s clothes.

Originally, Bianchi’s novel takes the reader through the vicissitudes of Catterina Vizzani’s life as a fourteen-year old girl from the moment of her sexual awakening through the discovery of her preference for women. Wherever she goes, under the protective disguise of men’s clothing and her pseudonym, Giovanni Bordoni, the protagonist always garners admiration for her/his proficiency as majordomo.

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BIANCHI (SOURCE TEXT)	CLELAND (TARGET TEXT)
Celebrates the protagonist’s queerness and validates the experience of being trans, explaining that Vizzani pursued young girls not as another girl but as if she were a man. To him, the protagonist is normal, one of the many shifting ways of presenting gender.	Attempts to reheterosexualize the protagonist by unqueering the language of the text through rewriting, cutting and domesticating the source text. Leaves out over a third of the original text, expanding, instead, the areas of narrative that serve his agenda. Projects a judgement of Italian gender and sexuality. To him, the protagonist is aberrant and queer.
Scientific, social and cultural acceptance.	Rejection, mockery and negative branding.

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EXAMPLES
FAITHFUL TRANSLATION	CLELAND’S TRANSLATION
The present case that I am about to recount shows that even in our day there exists a girl who neither to Sappho, nor to the other young girls of Lesbos was second in loving those of her same sex, but who far surpassed them, for which she suffered great troubles, finally meeting, cruelly, with death itself.	The Subject before me is an Instance, that the Wantonness of Fancy, and the Depravity of Nature, are at as great a Height as ever; and that our Times afford a Girl, who, so far from being inferior to Sappho, or any of the Lesbian Nymphs, in an Attachment for those of her own Sex, has greatly surpassed them in Fatigues, Dangers, and Distress, which terminated in a violent Death.

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WHY DID CLELAND CHOOSE TO TRANSLATE IT THEN?

IT SERVED TWO PURPOSES

To warn readers of the danger presented by gender-transgressing women.

To denounce Italy as the source of such practices.

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CENSORSHIP IN LGTBQIA+ TRANSLATIONS

By Zsófia Gombár

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HUNGARY AND PORTUGAL: APPROACHING QUEER LITERATURE
HUNGARY	PORTUGAL
Homosexual activity was decriminalized in 1961 Barely any evidence of book censorship reports Homosexuality as a theme was not censored, yet graphic descriptions of sexual acts of any kind Books could be censored and edited prior to publication but were never really confiscated after “Self-censors” were literary scholars, critics, translators, writers, literary editors and publishers	Homosexual activity was decriminalized in 1982 Book censorship reports stored at the National Archive of Torre do Tombo Homosexuality as a theme was censored, just like graphic descriptions of sexual acts of any kind Books were not subjected to censorship prior to publication but could be confiscated after “Self-censors” were part of the military

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KEITH HARVEY’S STUDY

Queer translations published during Kádar Regime and Estado Novo:

HUNGARY	PORTUGAL
24	20

While in Hungary, publishers were informed by readers about the author’s orientation or any references the book contained, in Portugal the authorities were unaware of the translations’ nature, allowing their circulation at first.

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THREE MODES OF TRANSLATING QUEER LITERARY TEXTS

Respects queerness

QUEER

Amplifies yet can antagonize queerness

MINORITIZING

Ignores and erases queerness

MISRECOGNIZING

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MISRECOGNIZING TRANSLATION

Fully erases queerness, usually replacing it for more platonic and “safe” narratives.
Very extreme censorship that rewrites the entire story.

Poems dedicated to love between men were censored

Homosexual desire was turned into Homosocial desire

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MINORITIZING TRANSLATIONS

Reduces the queerness in a text to the literal sense of the word, taking away the meaning and complexity of the story.
Some changes are made to the text.

Original title: Ballades en jargon

Completely revolves around the queer elements and nothing else

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QUEER TRANSLATIONS

Fully respects not only the queerness from the original text, but its contents as a whole. It simply translates the text without any sort of censorship or major changes.

Most common type of translation used nowadays.