When was homosexuality accepted

Special Expertise. Turn on more accessible mode. Turn off more accessible mode. Rollup Image. Center for the Study of Politics and Society. Tom W. Main Content. I was bullied at school a lot.

My mother was working nights as a nurse and my stepdad and I watched the programme together. Looking back now, I can appreciate Quentin Crisp for the trailblazer he was. Aged 10, I was terrified of him.

I left Wales in and moved to London to study and become the person I knew I wanted to be. In I attended my first Pride march and I heard my first marching slogan. Give me an A! Give me a Y! What does it spell? What is gay? What else is gay? There was a lot to be angry about in the mids.

The age of consent for gay men was 21, which meant the law was being broken on a regular basis. Section 28 , with which the Thatcher government outlawed the promotion of homosexuality in schools, was just around the corner.

And soon a big disease with a little name would claim the lives of many of my closest friends. Around this time I had a friend called Tom, who was in his 60s and who would often tell me tales of life before the act.

He and his partner had been together for many years but slept in two separate single beds. Every time he told me this story, my eyes would fill with tears. It partially decriminalised it under certain conditions. In the years that followed, gay sexuality was policed more aggressively than before and the number of men arrested for breaching those conditions actually rose considerably.

As research conducted by Peter Tatchell recently found , in some men were convicted of the gay crime of gross indecency. Policing in the 80s and early 90s was virulently homophobic, whipped up by hysteria around Aids and gay-baiting newspapers such as the Sun, Daily Mail and News of the World. Sex in an opposite-sex marriage where the partners know that one or both of them are sterile is not done for procreation. Yet surely it is not wrong.

Why, then, is homosexual sex in the same context a long-term companionate union wrong Macedo, ? The natural law rejoinder is that while vaginal intercourse is a potentially procreative sex act, considered in itself though admitting the possibility that it may be impossible for a particular couple , oral and anal sex acts are never potentially procreative, whether heterosexual or homosexual George, a.

But is this biological distinction also morally relevant, and in the manner that natural law theorists assume? Natural law theorists, in their discussions of these issues, seem to waver. On the one hand, they want to defend an ideal of marriage as a loving union wherein two persons are committed to their mutual flourishing, and where sex is a complement to that ideal. Yet that opens the possibility of permissible gay sex, or heterosexual sodomy, both of which they want to oppose.

Then, when accused of being reductive, they move back to the broader ideal of marriage. Natural law theory, at present, has made significant concessions to mainstream liberal thought. In contrast certainly to its medieval formulation, most contemporary natural law theorists argue for limited governmental power, and do not believe that the state has an interest in attempting to prevent all moral wrongdoing.

They also argue against same sex marriage Bradley, ; George, b. There have been some attempts, however, to reconcile natural law theory and homosexuality see, for example, Lago, ; Goldstein, While maintaining the central aspects of natural law theory and its account of basic human goods, they typically either argue that marriage itself is not a basic good Lago , or that the sort of good it is, when understood in a less narrow, dogmatic fashion, is such that same-sex couples can enjoy it.

With the rise of the gay liberation movement in the post-Stonewall era, overtly gay and lesbian perspectives began to be put forward in politics, philosophy and literary theory.

Initially these often were overtly linked to feminist analyses of patriarchy e. Yet in the late s and early s queer theory was developed, although there are obviously important antecedents which make it difficult to date it precisely. Sticking with the example used above, of a specific conceptualization of lesbian identity, it denigrates women who are sexually and emotionally attracted to other women, yet who do not fit the description.

What may be of utmost importance, for example, for a black lesbian is her lesbianism, rather than her race. Many gays and lesbians of color attacked this approach, accusing it of re-inscribing an essentially white identity into the heart of gay or lesbian identity Jagose, Such a view, however, largely because of arguments developed within poststructuralism, seemed increasingly untenable.

The key figure in the attack upon identity as ahistorical is Michel Foucault. In a series of works he set out to analyze the history of sexuality from ancient Greece to the modern era , , Although the project was tragically cut short by his death in , from complications arising from AIDS, Foucault articulated how profoundly understandings of sexuality can vary across time and space, and his arguments have proven very influential in gay and lesbian theorizing in general, and queer theory in particular Spargo, ; Stychin, One of the reasons for the historical review above is that it helps to give some background for understanding the claim that sexuality is socially constructed, rather than given by nature.

Although the gender of the partner was more important in the medieval than in the ancient view, the broader theological framework placed the emphasis upon a sin versus refraining-from-sin dichotomy. It is difficult to perceive a common, natural sexuality expressed across these three very different cultures. The examples can be pushed much further by incorporating anthropological data outside of the Western tradition Halperin, ; Greenberg, Yet even within the narrower context offered here, the differences between them are striking.

The assumption in ancient Greece was that men less is known about Greek attitudes towards women can respond erotically to either sex, and the vast majority of men who engaged in same-sex relationships were also married or would later become married. Yet the contemporary understanding of homosexuality divides the sexual domain in two, heterosexual and homosexual, and most heterosexuals cannot respond erotically to their own sex. In saying that sexuality is a social construct, these theorists are not saying that these understandings are not real.

Since persons are also constructs of their culture in this view , we are made into those categories. Hence today persons of course understand themselves as straight or gay or perhaps bisexual , and it is very difficult to step outside of these categories, even once one comes to see them as the historical constructs they are.

Instead it is purely relational, standing as an undefined term that gets its meaning precisely by being that which is outside of the norm, however that norm itself may be defined. There is nothing in particular to which it necessarily refers.

By lacking any essence, queer does not marginalize those whose sexuality is outside of any gay or lesbian norm, such as sado-masochists. Finally, it incorporates the insights of poststructuralism about the difficulties in ascribing any essence or non-historical aspect to identity. This central move by queer theorists, the claim that the categories through which identity is understood are all social constructs rather than given to us by nature, opens up a number of analytical possibilities.

For example, queer theorists examine how fundamental notions of gender and sex which seem so natural and self-evident to persons in the modern West are in fact constructed and reinforced through everyday actions, and that this occurs in ways that privilege heterosexuality Butler, , The fluidity of categories created through queer theory even opens the possibility of new sorts of histories that examine previously silent types of affections and relationships Carter, Another critical perspective opened up by a queer approach, although certainly implicit in those just referred to, is especially important.

Since most anti-gay and lesbian arguments rely upon the alleged naturalness of heterosexuality, queer theorists attempt to show how these categories are themselves deeply social constructs. An example helps to illustrate the approach. In an essay against gay marriage, chosen because it is very representative, James Q. In contrast, he puts forward loving, monogamous marriage as the natural condition of heterosexuality.

Heterosexuality, in his argument, is an odd combination of something completely natural yet simultaneously endangered. One is born straight, yet this natural condition can be subverted by such things as the presence of gay couples, gay teachers, or even excessive talk about homosexuality.

If gayness is radically different, it is legitimate to suppress it. It is a common move in queer theory to bracket, at least temporarily, issues of truth and falsity Halperin, Instead, the analysis focuses on the social function of discourse.

Since heterosexuality is the natural condition, it is a place that is spoken from but not inquired into. In contrast, homosexuality is the aberration and hence it needs to be studied but it is not an authoritative place from which one can speak.

By virtue of this heterosexual privilege, Wilson is allowed the voice of the impartial, fair-minded expert. Yet, as the history section above shows, there are striking discontinuities in understandings of sexuality, and this is true to the point that, according to queer theorists, we should not think of sexuality as having any particular nature at all.

Through undoing our infatuation with any specific conception of sexuality, the queer theorist opens space for marginalized forms of sexuality, and thus of ways of being more generally. The insistence that we must investigate the ways in which categories such as sexuality and orientation are created and given power through science and other cultural mechanisms has made queer theory appealing to scholars in a variety of disciplines.

Historians and sociologists have drawn on it, which is perhaps unsurprising given the role of historical claims about the social construction of sexuality. Queer theory has been especially influential in literary studies and feminist theory, even though the dividing lines between the latter and queer thinking is contested see Jagose, ; Marinucci, One of the most prominent scholars working in the area of gay and lesbian issues in constitutional law has also drawn on queer theory to advance his interrogation of the ways that US law privileges heterosexuality Eskridge, Scholars in postcolonial and racial analyses, ethnography, American studies, and other fields have drawn on the conceptual tools provided by queer theory.

Doubtless the French republican self-understanding, which is universalist and often hostile to movements that are multicultural in their bent, was a factor in the slow and often strenuously resisted importation of queer theoretical insights. Similarly, queer theory has also been on the margins in German philosophy and political philosophy.

In sum, it is fair to say that queer theory has had a greater impact in the Anglo-American world. Queer theory, however, has been criticized in a myriad of ways Jagose, One set of criticisms comes from theorists who are sympathetic to gay liberation conceived as a project of radical social change. It desexualizes identity, when the issue is precisely about a sexual identity Jagose, A related criticism is that queer theory, since it refuses any essence or reference to standard ideas of normality, cannot make crucial distinctions.

How far does this extend? July - Illinois becomes the first state to decriminalize homosexuality by repealing their sodomy laws. September 11, - The first US-televised documentary about homosexuality airs on a local station in California.

Protests and demonstrations begin, and it later becomes known as the impetus for the gay civil rights movement in the United States. June 28, - Community members in New York City march through the local streets to recognize the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall riots. This event is named Christopher Street Liberation Day and is now considered the first gay pride parade.

Lambda also becomes their own first client after being denied non-profit status; the New York Supreme Court eventually rules that Lambda Legal can exist as a non-profit. January 1, - Maryland becomes the first state to statutorily ban same-sex marriage.

January 14, - The first federal gay rights bill is introduced to address discrimination based on sexual orientation. The bill later goes to the Judiciary Committee but is never brought for consideration. March - Technical Sergeant Leonard P.

Matlovich reveals his sexual orientation to his commanding officer and is forcibly discharged from the Air Force six months later. In , the Court of Appeals rules that the dismissal was improper. Matlovich is awarded his back pay and a retroactive promotion. Photos: Transgender identity in the news. It was rare for black models like Tracey "Africa" Norman to break into the cutthroat lily-white world of modeling in the s. Norman, who had exclusive contracts for Avon skin care and Clairol's Born Beautiful hair color, didn't tell anyone she was also transgender and had been born male.

Once her secret was out, the work dried up. Here are some other notable moments in the recent history of transgender identity. Hide Caption. Raffi Freedman-Gurspan is the first openly transgender White House staff member. She will serve as an outreach and recruitment director in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel. The Girl Scouts of the United States of America now welcomes transgender girls, a stance that was made public several years ago but attracted controversy from conservative groups when it became widely known in May.

She has now made a highly publicized transition from male to female as Caitlyn Jenner. Renee Richards, here in , made headlines for undergoing a sex change while a professional tennis player in the s.

She was barred from playing as a woman in the U. Open but played in the tournament the next year after the New York state Supreme Court ruled in her favor and overturned the ban. Born female, Brandon Teena was living as a man in Nebraska when he was raped and killed by two men in Teena was The indie film "Transamerica" starred Felicity Huffman as a transgender woman taking a road trip with her long-lost teenage son. Huffman was nominated for an Academy Award for the role. Bono was named Chastity at birth but came out as a lesbian in and later transitioned to living as a man.

His transformation was chronicled in a book and a documentary feature, "Becoming Chaz. Born Larry Wachowski, he made the "Matrix" trilogy with brother Andy Wachowski before transitioning to living as a woman.

Wachowski is the first major Hollywood director to come out as transgender. Cox became the first openly transgender person to appear on the cover of Time magazine. That year, thousands of fans signed a petition requesting that she be a model during the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, but the campaign was unsuccessful.

Actor Jeffrey Tambor portrays a divorced father who begins transitioning to a woman in the Amazon series "Transparent," which debuted in February Her memoir, "Redefining Realness," was a best-seller. Transgender activists hailed his speech.

After years as an androgynous male model, Australian Andrej Pejic underwent sex-reassignment surgery in and is now Andreja Pejic. Joshua Alcorn voiced a desire to live as a girl, but the Ohio teenager's parents said they wouldn't stand for that. In December , Alcorn, 17, was fatally struck by a tractor-trailer on an interstate after leaving a suicide note that said in part, "To put it simply, I feel like a girl trapped in a boy's body.

Now 14, she hosts a popular series of videos on YouTube and is starring this summer in a TLC reality show about her life. Richards challenges the decision and in and the New York Supreme Court rules in her favor. January 9, - Harvey Milk is inaugurated as San Francisco city supervisor, and is the first openly gay man to be elected to a political office in California.

White later serves just over five years in prison for voluntary manslaughter.