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Larry Houston

Inventing
the
“Homosexual”
Inventing the “Homosexual”
Larry Houston

Inventing
the
“Homosexual”

www.banap.net
Copyright © 2012 Larry Houston. All rights reserved.
Published at www.banap.net.
Chapter 1
Who or What

Who one is, a homosexual or what one does,


homosexuality. The support is greatest for the latter.
Homosexuality and the “homosexual” have a history. The
history of the “homosexual” began during the 1860s in
Germany. While homosexuality, same-sex sexual behavior has
been a part of all most every culture and society throughout
history. The majority of the following quotes are by those
advocating for homosexuality or who self-identify as a
homosexual. Three exceptions are from Mondimore’s book,
The Natural History of Homosexuality, Kronmeyer’s book,
Overcoming Homosexuality and the article by Byne and Parsons,
Human Sexual Orientation.
It is easy to determine homosexuality, homosexual behavior.
But who is a homosexual? This is a question that cannot be
answered. And there is a simple reason, there is no homosexual
as a distinct person, only behaviors and physical sexual acts that
a person commits. There are people who during their lifetime
often change their sexual behavior, and this makes it impossible
to state that a particular set of behaviors defines a person as a
homosexual. Also, there is no one set of sexual desires or self-
identification that uniquely defines who a homosexual is.
Throughout history sex acts have contained directional qualities
and they are divided into active and passive roles. Even in
cultures and societies today the individual who takes the active
role in sexual acts between two members of the same sex is not
seen as a homosexual. Also in history, many cultures and
societies did not have the modern concept of gender, masculine
and feminine, but they did have the concept of sex, male and
female. And there were often specific roles according to sex,
male and female.
Up until the 1860s the concept of homosexuality was seen
as a sin or a crime. Then it began to take on medical and
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scientific concepts. Within these concepts there rest the
premise of biological or organic causes for homosexuality. I
want to talk about what one does, “homosexuality” over and
above the idea of a “homosexual” who one is. Throughout
history in all most every culture and society it was
homosexuality, homosexual behavior that may be seen and in
some instances it is was a part of carefully structured roles. The
norm has always been marriage, male and female relationships
for procreation. There are historically significant events that
may be marked in the development of the concept of the
modern homosexual’ as a distinct person.
“The history of homosexuality has to consider the
distinction between homosexual conduct, which is universal,
and homosexual identity, which is specific and temporal.
Homosexuals do not necessarily define themselves as such,
even if they find people of their own sex attractive or have
sexual relations with them. By the same token, society will not
necessarily distinguish an individual in terms of his sexual
practices.” (Tamagne, Florence, A History of Homosexuality in
Europe Berlin, London, Paris, 1919-1939, Volume I, p. 6)
“Historical and anthropological research has shown that
homosexual persons (i.e. people who occupy a social position
or role as homosexuals) do not exist in many societies, whereas
homosexual behavior occurs virtually in every society.
Therefore, we must distinguish between homosexual behavior
and homosexual identity. One term refers to one’s sexual
activity per se (whether casual or regular); the other word
defines homosexuality as a social role, with its emotional and
sexual components.” (Escoffier, American Homo: Community and
Perversity, p. 37)
“Anthropology has shown that people who erotically desire
the same gender sufficiently to organize their social lives around
this desire come in all genders, colors, political and religious
creeds, and nationalities. There is no special kind of person who
is homosexual; and much as we might expect, there is no single
word or construct, including the western idea of homosexuality,
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that represents them all. To make matters even more
complicated, the local term in each culture or community that
classifies the homoerotic act or role is not always positive;
indeed, in the western tradition it is usually negative.” (Herdt,
Same Sex, Different Cultures: Gays and Lesbians Across Cultures. p. 3)
“We should employ cross-cultural and historical evidence
not only to chart changing attitudes but to challenge the very
concept of a single trans-historical notion of homosexuality. In
different cultures (and at different historical moments or
conjunctures within the same culture) very different meanings
are given to same-sex activity both by society at large and by the
individual participants. The physical acts might be similar, but
the social construction of meanings around them are
profoundly different. The social integration of forms of
pedagogic homosexual relations in ancient Greece have no
continuity with contemporary notions of homosexual identity.
To put it another way, the various possibilities of what
Hocquenghem calls homosexual desire, or what more neutrally
might be termed homosexual behaviors, which seem from
historical evidence to be a permanent and ineradicable aspect of
human sexual possibilities, are variously constructed in different
cultures as an aspect of wider gender and sexual regulation. If
this is the case, it is pointless discussing questions such as, what
are the origins of homosexual oppression, or what is the nature
of the homosexual taboo, as if there was a single, causative
factor. The crucial question must be: what are the conditions
for the emergence of this particular form of regulation of sexual
behavior in this particular society?” (Weeks, Against Nature, p.
13-14)
“However, as an individual property of a minority, the
concept of homosexuality is neither timeless nor universal,
although historians fail to agree on when and how a
homosexual social category and identity came into being.
Subcultures in the form of illicit networks, clubs, and meeting
places of sodomites have been documented from the fifteen-
century on in Italian towns and from the seventeenth on in
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urban centers of northwestern Europe. Although the legal and
religious definition of sodomy referred to only certain sexual
acts, especially anal intercourse, of which anyone in theory, was
regarded as being capable, within urban subcultures in Britain,
France, and the Netherlands, a more specific sodomitical role
evolved as early as the first half of the eighteenth century. After
1700, the behavior of some sodomites began to perceived more
and more as part of being different, of effeminate proclivities,
of a sinful orientation, or of a particular hedonistic lifestyle.”
(Oosterhuis, Stepchildren of Nature: Kraft-Ebing, Psychiatry, and the
Making of Sexual Identity, p. 241)
“To combat this homophobia, over past 125 years
homosexualists have invented a countermadness known as the
homosexual or gay identity. Taking its cue from psychiatry, a
fictional condition has been transmuted into a person.
Although this person is detoxicated, purged of mental
pathology (there still is the smelly residue of prenatal physical
pathology), the basic premise is the same: the homosexual is a
special species of humankind. As in the psychiatric
nomenclature, the labels change with the arrival of new
exemplars, beginning with Urning and homosexual to today s
lesbian, bull, dyke, gay, queer, fag, fairy, queen, schwule, flikker,
mariacon, and recently in Berlin, warme.” (De Cecco, Confusing
the Actor With the Act: Muddled Notions About Homosexuality, p.
410).
“It may be argued that homosexuals didn’t exist until about
150 years ago. Homosexuality certainly did, as our historical
survey showed, but individuals who fell in love with members
of their own sex weren’t thought to be a particular kind of
person. Some societies, such as classical Greece, didn’t feel the
need to label the phenomenon and had no words for
homosexuality. Same-sex eroticism was something a few
individuals seemed to prefer more than their fellows, but it
wasn’t thought to be a characteristic worth inventing a name
for. Often, the gender of one’s sexual partners was less
important than attributes like their age and social status. This
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being the case, homosexuality was in a sense submerged within
these cultures attracting no special notice.” (Mondimore, Mark,
A Natural History of Homosexuality, p. 247)
“The ancient Greek and Latin languages have no word that
can be translated homosexual, largely because these societies
did not have the same sexual categories that we do. Our
concepts and categories of sexual expression are based on the
genders of the two partners involved: heterosexuality when the
partners are of the opposite sex, and homosexuality when the
partners are of the same sex. In other times and among other
peoples, this way of thinking about people simply doesn’t seem
to apply-anthropologists, historians, sociologists have described
many cultures in which same-sex eroticism occupies a very
different place than it does in our own. ... Just as the Greeks
and Romans had no words for our sexual categories, the Native
American societies described by explorers, missionaries, and
anthropologists from the seventeenth onward had sexual
categories for which we have no words. Consequently, in the
sections that follow- an exploration of attitudes and customs of
ancient peoples toward same-sex eroticism- the modern
concepts of homosexuality or sexual orientation will be
conspicuous by their absence. Within these cultures, sexual
contact between persons of the same sex is not necessarily seen
as characteristic of a particular group or subset of persons,
there is no category for homosexuals. On the contrary, in some
cultures, same-sex eroticism was an expected part of the sexual
experience of every member of society, which would seem to
argue against the existence of homosexuality as a personal
attribute at all.” (Mondimore, A Natural History of Homosexuality,
p. 3-4)
“For several hundreds of years, the institutions of the
majority considered homosexuality something a person did and
called it sodomy, buggery, or a crime against nature. During the
nineteenth century, a conceptual shift occurred, and a few
individuals began to talk about homosexuality as something a
person was. A new vocabulary was invented for these persons.
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Urning, invert-homosexual.” (Mondimore, A Natural History of
Homosexuality, p. 248)
“A second assumption is that homosexuality is a unitary
construct that is culturally transcendent. However, a wealth of
cross-cultural evidence points to the existence of numerous
patterns of homosexuality varying in origins, subjective states,
and manifest behaviors. In fact, the pattern of essentially
exclusive male homosexuality familiar to us has been
exceedingly rare or unknown in cultures that required or
expected all males to engage in homosexual activity.” (Byrne
and Parsons, Human Sexual Orientation: The Biological Theories
Reappraised, p. 228)
“Although same-sex attractions and sexual behavior have
undoubtedly occurred throughout history, lesbian, gay, and
bisexual identities are relatively new (D’Emilio, 1983). The
contemporary notion of identity is itself historically created
(Baummeister, 1986). The concept of a specifically homosexual
identity seems to have emerged at the end of the nineteen-
century. Indeed, only in relatively recent years have large
numbers of individuals identified themselves openly as gay or
lesbian or bisexual. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual public identities,
then, are a phenomenon of our current historical era (D’Emilio,
1983; Faderman, 1991).” (Patterson, Sexual Orientation and
Human Development: An Overview, p. 3)
“While homosexual behavior can be found in all societies,
though with very different cultural meanings, the emergence of
‘the homosexual’ as a cultural construct can be traced to the late
seventeenth and early eighteenth century in urban centers of
north-west Europe (Trumnach 1989a, 1989b) and also linked
with the rise of capitalism (D’Emilio 1983) medical and
psychiatric discourses provided the concept and labels of
homosexuality and inversion from the 1860s, ...” (Ballard,
Sexuality and the State in Time of Epidemic, p. 108 in Rethinking Sex:
Social Theory and Sexuality Research by Connell and Dowsett)
“Historians underscore an important distinction between
homosexual behavior and homosexual identity. The former is
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said to be universal, whereas the latter is viewed historically
unique. Indeed, some historians hold that a homosexual identity
is a product of the social developments of late nineteen-century
Europe and the United States. Any event, it seems fair to say
that a unique construction of identity crystallized around same-
sex desire between 1880 and 1920 in America.
The modern western concept of the homosexual is,
according to some historians, primarily a creation of late
nineteenth-century medical-science discourses. In the context
of elaborating systems of classification and descriptions of
different sexualities, as part of a quest to uncover the truth
about human nature, the homosexual is said to have stepped
forward as a distinct human type with his/her own mental and
physical nature.” (Seidman, Embattled Eros: Sexual Politics and
Ethnics in Contemporary America, p. 146)
“Since at least the eighteenth century, and increasingly
codified from the nineteenth century (Trumbach 1998, 1999;
Sedgwick 1985, 1990), the execrated category of the
homosexual has served to define the parameters of what is to
be normal that is heterosexual. The fact the boundaries between
the two have always been permeable, as countless histories have
revealed, and for the long ambiguous category of the bisexual
underlined (Garber 1995), made little difference to popular
beliefs and prejudices or the legal realities. The divide between
homosexuality and heterosexuality seemed rooted in nature,
sanctioned by religion and science, and upheld by many penal
codes.” (Weeks, Jeffery, Brian Heaphy and Catherine Donovan,
Same Sex Intimacies Families of Choice and Other Life Experiments,
Routledge, London and New York, 2001, p. 14)
“Homosexual identity emerged reactively to the new claims
of late nineteenth century science, and the state, in relation to
the classification and management of human sexuality as a
whole.” (Watney, Emergent Sexual Identities and HIV/AIDS in
Aggleton, Davies and Hart, AIDS: Facing the Second Decade, p.
14)

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“In modern western history the category of the homosexual
originates primarily from late-nineteenth-century notions,
derived from medicine, that defined same-sex desire as the
product of disease, degeneracy, and moral inversion. These
notions created an imagine of a woman trapped in a man’s
body or of a male body with female brain a third sex apart from
the rest of humanity.” (Herdt, Same Sex, Different Cultures: Gays
and Lesbians Across Cultures. p. 18)
“In the late nineteen-century avatar homosexuality was a
psychological and medical phenomenon with pathological
mental and physical underpinnings. From the turn of the
century, Freudian psychology and American psychoanalysis
portrayed it as a mental state caused by early childhood trauma,
one that led to the individual’s failure to achieve adult genital
heterosexuality. With the advent of gay, lesbian and bisexual
studies, particularly in the last two decades, homosexuality has
been investigated as a historical, political, social, and cultural
phenomenon. More recently, as seen in the articles in this
collection, it has been revisited as biological state.” (De Cecco,
and Parker, editors, Sex, Cells, and Same-Sex Desire: The Biology of
Sexual Preference, p. 19)
“We tend to think now that the word homosexual’ has an
unvarying meaning, beyond time and history. In fact it is itself a
product of history, a cultural artifact designed to express a
particular concept.” (Weeks, Coming Out, p. 3)
“The focus of historical inquiry therefore has to be on
developing social attitudes, their origins, and their rational, for
without these discussions homosexuality becomes virtually
incomprehensible. And as a starting-point we have to
distinguish between homosexual behavior, which is universal,
and a homosexual identity, which is historically specific - and a
completely recent phenomenon in Britain.” (Weeks, Coming Out,
p. 3)
“Homosexuality has everywhere existed, but it is only in
some cultures that it has become structured into a sub-culture.
Homosexuality in the pre-modern period was frequent, but
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only in certain closed communities was it ever institutionalized -
perhaps in some monasteries and nunneries, as many of the
medieval penitentials suggest; in some of the knightly orders
(including the Knights Templars), as the great medieval
scandals hint; and in the courts of certain monarchs (such as
James I of England, William III). Other homosexual contacts,
though recurrent, are likely to have been casual, fleeting, and
undefined.” (Weeks, Coming Out, p. 35)
“The sexological discovery’ of the homosexual in the late
nineteen-century is therefore obviously a crucial moment. It
gave a name, an aetiology, and potentially the embryos of an
identity. It marked off a special homosexual type of person,
with distinctive physiognomy, tastes and potentialities. Did,
therefore, the sexologists create the homosexual? This certainly
seems to be the position of some historians. Michel Foucault
and Lillian Faderman appear at times to argue, in an unusual
alliance, that it was the categorisation of the sexologists that
made the homosexual’ and the lesbian’ possible. Building on
Ulrichs belief that homosexuals were a third sex, a woman’s
soul in a man’s body, Westphal was able to invent the contrary
sexual feeling’ Ellis the invert’ defined by a congenital anomaly,
and Hirschfeld the intermediate sex’; the sexologists definitions,
embodied in medical interventions, created’ the homosexual.
Until sexology gave them a label, there was only the half-life of
an amorphous sense of self. The homosexual identity as we
know it is therefore a production of social categorisation,
whose fundamental aim and effect was regulation and control.
To name was to imprison.” (Weeks, Jeffery, Sexuality and Its
Discontents Meanings, Myths and Modern Sexualities. p. 92-93)
“In sum, homosexuality is not one but many things, many
psychosocial forms which can be viewed as symbolic
mediations between psychocultural and historical conditions
and human potentials for sexual response across the life course.
Societies vary greatly in their attitudes toward same-sex
response. Homosexual acts are probably universal in humans
but institutionalized forms of homosexual activity are not; and
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these depend, to a great extent, upon the specific historical
problems and outlooks of a culture.” (Herdt, Cross-cultural issues
in the development of bisexuality and homosexuality, p. 55)
“As a means of categorizing and regulating particular types
of sexual behavior and people, both homo- and heterosexuality
are relative late comers to everyday discourse.” (Adams, The
Trouble with Normal: Postwar Youth and the Making of
Heterosexuality, p. 7)
“Homosexual and heterosexual behavior may be universal;
homosexual and heterosexual identity and consciousness are
modern realities. These identities are not inherent in the
individual. In order to be gay, for example, more then
individual inclinations (however we might conceive of those or
homosexual activity is required; entire ranges of social attitudes
and the construction of particular cultures, subcultures and
social relations are first necessary. To commit; a homosexual act
is one thing, to be a homosexual is something entirely
different.” (Robert Padgug, Sexual Matters: Rethinking Sexuality in
History in Hidden From History Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past,
p. 60)
“Several years ago my colleagues and I reported the
overwhelming definitional and sampling confusion that
pervaded research on homosexuality (Shively et al, 1984). That
confusion only deepens the farther research on homosexuality
moves away from homosexual acts and continues to engage in
the futile task of searching for the causes of a defective
condition or a status or a personal identity or an enduring,
ineffable emotional inclination revealed in fantasy, none of
which is accessible to observation. Once we understand that the
biomedical and psychological research is looking for the cause
of acts, which are largely circumstantial, then its futility is clear.
If we return to the focus on homosexual acts, as in the original
Kinsey reports, then we can arrive at some agreements as to
what it is that we are attempting to describe or explain - an
ancient axiom of historical and scientific research.” (De Cecco,

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Confusing the Actor With the Act: Muddled Notions About
Homosexuality, p. 412)
“Only in the twentieth century, through mass media and
political rhetoric, has the explicit terminology of
homosexuality/heterosexuality been widely applied to people
and acts and events, typically to contain and control all sexual
behavior. Only as wide-scale sexual liberation movements
gained steam in the 1960s did people who desire the same
gender begin to call themselves lesbian or gay. Since that time
these identity systems have been exported to other cultures,
which has created controversies in developing countries that
previously lacked these concepts, having neither the history nor
the political traditions that bought them about. No wonder it
seems strange but also familiar to hear of ‘gays and lesbians’
from societies that previously denied having homosexuality at
all.” (Herdt, Same Sex, Different Cultures: Gays and Lesbians Across
Cultures, p. 7)
“Language has been an important weapon in the gay
movement’s very swift advance. In the old days, there was
sodomy an act. In the late 19th century, the word homosexuality
was coined: a condition. A generation ago, the accepted term
became gay: an identity. Each formulation raises the stakes:
One can object to and even criminalize an act; one is obligated
to be sympathetic toward a condition; but once it’s a fully
fledged 24/7 identity, like being Hispanic or Inuit, anything less
than wholehearted acceptance gets you marked down as a
bigot.” (Steyn, There’s No Stopping Them Now, p. 35)
“Steyn explains that historically, moral concern for sexual
activity between two persons of the same sex was identified as
sodomy, an act. And an act is what it is. You can either think it
is a good idea or you can think it is bad. Either way, it’s very
objective. It’s what someone does. Then, Steyn explains, in the
late nineteen-century the act was described as condition of
certain persons, and it was termed homosexuality - a condition
a person is in. Next, a few decades ago homosexuality got
upgraded again, now referring to a person’s very identity, so
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that we now identify people as being or not being gay. Now it
describes who a person is.” (Stanton and Maier, Marriage on
Trial; the Case Against Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting, p. 15)
“The greatest single victory of the gay movement over the
past decade has been to shift the debate from behavior to
identity, thus forcing opponents into a position where they can
be seen attacking the civil rights of homosexual citizens rather
attacking specific and (and as they see it) antisocial behavior.”
(Altman, The Homosexualization of America: The Americanization of
the Homosexual, p. 9)
“There is another historical myth that enjoys nearly
universal acceptance in the gay movement, the myth of the
eternal homosexual. The argument runs something like this:
Gay men and lesbians always were and always will be. We are
everywhere; not just now, but throughout history, in all
societies and all periods. This myth served a positive political
function in the first years of gay liberation. In the early 1970s,
when we battled an ideology that either denied our existence or
defined us as psychopathic individuals or freaks of nature, it
was empowering to assert that we are everywhere. But in recent
years it has confined us as surely as the most homophobic
medical theories, and locked our movement in place. Here I
wish to challenge this myth. I want to argue that gay men and
lesbians have not always existed. Instead they are a product of
history, and have come into existence in a specific historical era.
Their emergence is associated with the relations of capitalism; it
has been the historical development of capitalism-more
specifically, its free-labor system-that has allowed a large
numbers of men and women in the late twentieth century to
call themselves gay, to see themselves as part of a community
of similar men and women, to organize politically on the basis
of that identity.” (D’Emilio, Making Trouble Essays on Gay
History, Politics, and the University, p. 5)
“I have argued that lesbian and gay identity and
communities are historically created, as a result of a process of
capitalist development that has spanned many generations. A
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corollary of this argument is that we are not a fixed social
minority composed for all time of a certain percentage of the
population. There are more of us than one hundred years ago,
more of us than forty years ago. And there may very well be
more gay men and lesbians in the future. Claims made by gays
and nongays that sexual orientation is fixed at an early age, that
large numbers of visible gay men and lesbians in society, the
media, and the schools will have no influence on the sexual
identities of the young are wrong. Capitalism has created the
material conditions for homosexual desire to express itself as a
central component of some individuals’ lives; now, our political
movements are changing consciousness, creating the ideological
conditions that make it easier for people to make that choice.”
(D’Emilio, Making Trouble Essays on Gay History, Politics, and the
University, p. 12)
“It isn’t at all obvious why a gay rights movement should
ever have arisen in the United States in the first place. And it’s
profoundly puzzling why that movement should have become
far and away the most powerful such political formation in the
world. Same gender sexual acts have been commonplace
throughout history and across cultures. Today, to speak with
surety about a matter for which there is absolutely no statistical
evidence, more adolescent male butts are being penetrated in
the Arab world, Latin American, North Africa and Southeast
Asia then in the west. But the notion of a gay identity; rarely
accompanies such sexual acts, nor do political movements arise
to make demands in the name of that identity. It’s still almost
entirely in the Western world that the genders of one’s partner
is considered a prime marker of personality, and among
Western nations it is the United States – a country otherwise
considered a bastion of conservatism – that the strongest
political movement has arisen centered around that identity.
We’ve only begun to analyze why, and to date can say little
more then that certain significant pre-requisites developed in
this country, and to some degree everywhere in the western
world, that weren’t present, or hadn’t achieved the necessary
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critical mass, elsewhere. Among such factors were the
weakening of the traditional religious link between sexuality and
procreation (one which had made non-procreative same gender
desire an automatic candidate for denunciation as unnatural).
Secondly, the rapid urbanization and industrialization of the
United States, and the West in general, in nineteen-century
weakened the material (and moral) authority of the nuclear
family, and allowed mavericks to escape into welcome
anonymity of city life, where they could choose a previously
unacceptable lifestyle of singleness and nonconformity without
constantly worrying about parental or village busybodies
pouncing on them.” (Duberman, Left Out, p. 414-415)
“Thus ‘gay’ has become a sexual orientation (a particular
kind of homosexuality), a social identity and a political
movement. It should be clear that gay’ is a new form of
homosexual practice, which in its fullest sense is unique in
human history. The psychosocial condition of being gay today
must therefore be understood in their own place and historical
time. Being gay or lesbian is a kind of commentary’ on the
dualistic tendency of Western society to dichotomize body and
mind, masculinity and femininity, homosexual and heterosexual,
as noted below. The modern gay movement both reflects and
mediates these dualisms, indicating that social and erotic
transformation is a part of human potential, as Freud
suggested.” (Herdt, Cross-cultural issues in the development of
bisexuality and homosexuality, p. 54)
“It allows us, in short, to imagine there’s a connection
between action and identity, to imagine an equal sign between
the verb kill’ and the noun killer.
Sexual identity is a new addition to the identity portfolio,
and we can see in recent history, and to a large extent even
within living memory, the process of its accretion. That’s just
plain interesting, I think, like being able to watch a pearl form
in front of our eyes. Why not take a look, since we are able to.
It can’t help but give us a better, perhaps more profound view
of ourselves.
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But I’d say it’s most important because sexual identity, like
that equal sign between verb and noun, is in the end a house
built on sand, the living in which makes us more, through
omission rather than commission more anxious, less happy
people than we might otherwise be.” (Archer, The End of Gay
and the Death of Heterosexuality, p. 27)
“We are learning that sexual identities are social constructs
which come and go in different shapes and sizes. Beneath them
are behaviors which defy easy categorization.” (Kinsey,
Pomeroy, Martin and Gebhard, Sexual Behavior in the Human
Female, p. f)
“What these examples illustrate is that homosexual and
heterosexual are socially constructed categories. There are no
objective definitions of these words; there is no Golden
Dictionary in the Sky that contains the real definitions. These
are word categories we made up.” (Muehlenhard, Categories and
Sexualities, p. 102-103)
“Through an examination of certain historical structures of
sexual dimorphism, I have come to conclude that identity
categories homosexual/heterosexual in the nineteenth century
and gay/straight in the twentieth century should be understood
not as universal but as suggestions of common themes around
the world (Herdt ed. 1994).” (Herdt, Same Sex, Different Cultures:
Gays and Lesbians Across Cultures, p. xvi)
“The basic distinction between behavior and identity has to
be constantly stressed: people are not simply homosexual’;
rather, many people engage in homosexual acts- and many, not
always the same ones, experience homosexual fantasies- which
for a minority becomes a basis for a concept of homosexual
(lesbian/gay) identity. As Pateman put it: The self is not
completely subsumed in its sexuality, but identity is inseparable
from the social construction of the self’ (Pateman 1988, see ch.
7). The distinction between homosexual behavior and identity,
first identified in sociological literature by McIntosh at the end
of the 1960s (McIntosh 1968), is the basis for the modern idea
of the gay community’ (or lesbian/gay community) in which
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ethnic model of identity became the basis for social, cultural,
and political organization around sexual preference (Epstein
1987).” (Altman, AIDS and the Discourses of Sexuality, p. 36 in
Rethinking Sex: Social Theory and Sexuality Research by Connell and
Dowsett)
“Another aspect of the development of sexual orientation
and identity which would seem to require investigation is the
reduction of the percentage of men and women engaging in
homosexual behavior with age. A significant percentage of the
medical students and male twins investigated by McConaghy
and colleagues (1987, 1994) reported that they were not
currently aware of homosexual feelings they experienced in
adolescence indicating homosexual feelings diminished or
disappear with age in a proportion of the population.”
(McConaghy, Unresolved Issues in Scientific Sexology, p. 300)
“Lesbian and gay historians have asked questions about the
origins of gay liberation and lesbian feminism, and have come
up with some surprising answers. Rather than finding a silent,
oppressed, gay minority in all times and all places, historians
have discovered that gay identity is a recent, Western, historical
construction. Jeffrey Weeks, Jonathan Katz and Lillian
Faderman, for example, have traced the emergence of lesbian
and gay identity in the late nineteenth century. Similarly John
D’Emilio, Allan Berube and the Buffalo Oral History Project
have described how this identity laid the basis for organized
political activity in the years following World War II. The work
of lesbian and gay historians has also demonstrated that human
sexuality is not a natural, timeless given, but is historically
shaped and politically regulated.” (Duggan and Hunter, Sex
Wars: Sexual Dissent and Political Culture, p. 151-152)
“For not until he sees homosexuals as a social category,
rather than a medical or psychiatric one, the sociologists can
begin to ask the right questions about the specific content of
the homosexual role and about the organization and functions
of homosexual groups. All that has been done here is to
indicate that the role does not exist in many societies, that it
- 20 -
only emerged in England towards the end of the seventeenth
century, and that, although the existence of the role in modern
America appears to have some effect on the distribution of
homosexual behavior, such behavior is far from being
monopolized by persons who play the homosexual role.”
(McIntosh, The Homosexual Role, p. 192)
“With rare exceptions, homosexuality is neither inherited
nor the result of some glandular disturbance or the scrambling
of genes or chromosomes. Homosexuals are made and not
born that way’. From my twenty-five years’ experience as a
clinical psychologist, I firmly believe that homosexuality is a
learned response to early painful experiences and that it can be
unlearned. For those homosexuals who are unhappy with their
life and find effective therapy, it is curable.” (Kronmeyer,
Overcoming Homosexuality, p. 7)
“Homosexuality is commonly and widely understood to
describe sexual attraction for those of one’s own sex. There
does not seem to be anything problematic or uncertain in such
a definition. Nevertheless, the theoretical enterprise of deciding
exactly what constitutes homosexuality – or, more
pragmatically, who is homosexual – is far from self-evident.
While there is a certain population of men and women who
may be described more or less unproblematically homosexual, a
number of ambiguous circumstances can cast doubt on the
precise delimitations of homosexuality as a descriptive
category.” (Jagose, Queer Theory, p. 7)
“Although theories concerning the formation of modern
homosexuality differ, there is significant agreement that
homosexuality, as it is understood today, is not a transhistorical
phenomenon. With the exception of Faderman, all theorists
discussed so far make crucial the distinction between
homosexual behaviour, which is ubiquitous, and homosexual
identity, which evolves under specific historical conditions.”
(Jagose, Queer Theory, p. 15)
“Phrases such as ‘homosexuality in the modern sense’ or
‘homosexuality as it is understood today’ effectively draw
- 21 -
attention to the paradigm shift from sexual acts to sexual
identities, and to the problems inherent in assuming continuity
between current and historic remote same-sex acts.
Unfortunately, however, such phrases imply that modern
homosexuality, unlike its predecessors, is coherent, certain, and
known. Much is invested culturally in representing
homosexuality as definitionally unproblematic, and maintaining
heterosexuality and homosexuality as radically and
demonstrably distinct from one another. Yet modern
knowledges about the categories of sexual identification are far
from coherent.” (Jagose, Queer Theory, p. 18)
Bibliography
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and the Making of Heterosexuality. University of Toronto Press.
Toronto, 1997.
Altman, Dennis. The Homosexualization of America, The
Americanization of the Homosexual. St. Martin’s Press. New York,
1982.
Archer, Bert. The End of Gay (and the Death of Heterosexuality).
Thunder’s Mouth Press. New York, 2002.
Byne, William, M.D., Ph.D., and Bruce Parsons, M.D.,
Ph.D. Human Sexual Orientation: The Biological Theories Reappraised.
Archives of General Psychiatry. March 1993. Vol. 50, p. 228-239.
Connell, R. W. and G. W. Dowsett. Rethinking Sex: Social
Theory and Sexuality Research. Melbourne University Press.
Melbourne, 1992.
De Cecco, John P. Confusing the Actor With the Act: Muddled
Notions About Homosexuality. Archives of Sexual Behavior. 1990.
Vol. 19, No. 4, p. 409-412.
De Cecco, John P., Ph.D., and David Allen Parker, M.A.,
editors. Sex, Cells, and Same-Sex Desire: The Biology of Sexual
Preference. Harrington Park Press, New York, 1995.
D’Emilio, John D. Making Trouble: Essays on Gay History,
Politics, and the University. Routledge. New York & London, 1992.
Duberman, Martin. Left Out. South End Press. Cambridge,
MA, 2002.
- 22 -
Duggan, Lisa and Nan D. Hunter. Sex Wars: Sexual Dissent
and Political Culture. Routledge. New York & London, 1995.
Herdt, Gilbert. Same Sex, Different Cultures: Gays and Lesbians
Across Cultures. WestviewPress. 1997.
Jagose, Annamarie. Queer Theory. Melbourne University
Press, 1996.
Kinsey, Alfred C., Warren B. Pomeroy, Clyde E. Martin and
Paul H. Gebhard. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. Indiana
University Press. Bloomington & Indianapolis, 1998.
McConaghy, Nathaniel, D.Sc., M.D. Unresolved Issues in
Scientific Sexology. Archives of Sexual Behavior. 1999, Vol. 28, No. 4,
p. 285-318.
McIntosh, Mary. The Homosexual Role. Social Problems. 1968,
16, p. 182-192
Mondimore, Francis Mark. A Natural History of
Homosexuality. The John Hopkins University Press. Baltimore
and London, 1996.
Muehlenhard, Charlene L. Categories and Sexuality. Journal of
Sex Research. May 2000, Vol. 37, No. 2, p. 101-107.
Oosterhuis, Harry. Stepchildren of Nature: Kraft-Ebing,
Psychiatry, and the Making of Sexual Identity. University of Chicago
Press. Chicago, 2000.
Patterson, Charolette J. Sexual Orientation and Human
Development: An Overview. Developmental Psychology. 1995, Vol.
31, No. 1, p. 3-11.
Padgug, Robert, Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus and
George Chauncey, Jr. Meridan. Sexual Matters: Rethinking
Sexuality in History in Hidden From History Reclaiming the Gay and
Lesbian Past. New York, 1990.
Seidman, Steven. Embattled Eros: Sexual Politics and Ethnics in
Contemporary America. Routledge. New York, 1992.
Steyn, Mark. There’s No Stopping Them Now. Chicago Sun-
Times. July 13, 2003, p. 35.
Stanton, Glen, T. and Bill Maier. Marriage on Trial: The Case
Against Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting. Intervarsity Press.
Downers Grove, 2004.
- 23 -
Tamagne, Florence. A History of Homosexuality in Europe:
Berlin, London, Paris 1919-1939. Volume I. Algora Publishing.
New York, 2004.
Watney, Simon. Emergent Sexual Identities and HIV/AIDS; p.
13-27 in AIDS Facing The Second Decade. Peter Aggelton, Peter
Davies and Graham Hart, editors. The Falmer Press. London,
New York and Philadelphia, 1993.
Weeks, Jeffrey. Coming Out: Homosexual Politics in Britain, from
the Nineteenth Century to the Present. Quartet Books. London,
Melbourne & New York, 1977.

- 24 -
Chapter 2
The 1860s to the 1940s

The actual term, homosexuality, comes from the late 19th


century, when it was first used. The word itself is a unitary
construct that is derived from the Greek term homos or same.
Sexual is related to the Medieval Latin word sexualis. Thus,
making reference to physical sexual acts with members of the
same sex or gender, i.e. male with male, or female with female.
It is quite interesting that different sources trace the origins of
this word to a medical background or a criminal code use. Karl
Heinrich Ulrichs first wrote about the concept of
homosexuality in 1864, and Karoly Maria Kertbeny coined the
actual word in 1869. The word homosexual was coined and
used in what may be seen as a struggle for homosexual rights in
Germany to eliminate state proscriptions against homosexual
practices. The word was first used by homosexuals themselves,
and then by the medical community to describe what they were
seeing in individuals. Homosexuality originated not as a medical
term, but rather as a neutral, legal, scientific term for the
emancipation of homosexuals. Those who coined and first used
the term homosexual were lawyers and writers. They saw
homosexuality as inborn, natural and congenital. The medical
community began using a medical model of homosexuality,
which emphasized perversion, sickness and deficiency. In was
during this same time period that a new field of study began,
sexology to study sexuality and specifically homosexuality.
Beginning in the 1860s homosexuals advocating for legal rights,
and sexologists espoused the idea to see homosexuality not as a
sin or a crime, but to recast it primarily in medical terms.
“Ulrich’s goal was to free people like himself from the legal,
religious, and social condemnation of homosexual acts as
unnatural. For this, he invented a new terminology that would
refer to the nature of the individual, and not to the acts
performed.” (Kennedy, Karl Heinrichs Ulrichs, First Theorist of
- 25 -
Homosexuality, p. 30 in Science and Homosexualities, editor Vernon
A. Rosario)
“The study of homosexuality began in Germany, where it
was intertwined with the struggle to eliminate state
proscriptions against homosexual practices.” (Dean, Sexuality
and Modern Western Culture, p. 22)
“Sexology’s legacy for homosexual rights was a mixed bag.
On the one hand, it offered promise in terms of naturalizing
homosexuality as a biologically based or developmentally
determined variation of human sexuality. It therefore followed
that homosexuals should be accorded equal rights. Indeed,
medical specialists generally supported homosexual rights
activists in campaigning for repeal of penal laws against
homosexuality. On the other hand, biologizing and
pathologizing homosexuality established a distinct medical
classification, akin to categorization of physical and mental
diseases. And medical nosologies were created to identify
disease entities that, once differentiated, would lead to
appropriate treatment. ... Moreover, biological and
psychological reductionism masked the cultural, social, and
historical contexts of homosexuality. ... The sexological
discovery of homosexuality was both a response to and a
source of constructing gay and lesbian identities. Self-defined
homosexual men and woman existed before the sexologist
labeled them. In fact, physicians appropriated the label
homosexuality put forth by Kertbeny in 1869. The sexologists
learned about homosexuality from what they observed in their
patients and read about in police reports, judicial proceedings,
and newspaper accounts. The medical classification, in turn,
produced effects on the people who were objects of inquiry.
The very act of classification reinforced the grassroots sense of
group identity among those who were part of the growing gay
and lesbian communities of the late nineteen and early
twentieth centuries. Not only did the work of the sexologists
reify existing identities and cultural patterns, but it also served
as sources for redefinition and resistance. Sexual subjects used
- 26 -
the scientific discourse for their own purposes.” (Minton,
Departing From Deviance, p. 13)
“The terms homosexual and homosexuality did not exist
until the second half of the 1860s when they first appeared in
Central Europe. They were invented by a German-Hungarian
publicist and translator who opposed German sodomy laws, K.
M. Benkert.
Writing under the noble name of his family, Karoly Maria
Kertbeny, he first used the term homosexual in private
correspondence in 1868 and in two anonymous German
pamphlets in 1869 (Herzer, 1985). He invented this term to
distinguish those who participated in same-gender sexual
behavior from those who engaged in male-female sexual
behavior. He associated ‘homosexuality’ with sickness and
deviance, but not with sin or criminal behavior (Bullough, 1994;
Donovan, 1992). Kertbeny also invented the term
heterosexuality in 1869 (Herzer, 1985). The contrasting pair of
words, heterosexual and homosexual, were not popularized,
however, until the 18805. Krafft-Ebing (1892) adopted and
popularized the term homosexual. Toward the end of the
nineteenth century, both terms moved from German to other
European languages (Dynes, 1990c). They were introduced into
the English language in 1897 (Bardis, 1980). In the early years
of the twentieth century, the popularity of the term homosexual
escalated through its use by Havelock Ellis (1942) and Magnus
Hirschfeld (1948).” (Hunter, Shannon, Knox and Martin,
Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youths and Adults, p. 7)
Karl Heinrich Ulrichs
One gay author, Gilbert Herdt in his book, Same Sex,
Different Cultures, credits the concept of homosexuality to a
German medical doctor, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-1895) in
1869, where it was discussed within a series of books he wrote.
His account disagrees with most other authors who generally
agree on the following account. Ulrichs was an early theorist
and activist for legal and social rights of homosexual persons.
He was the first person to write about the concept of
- 27 -
homosexuality and has been called the grandfather of gay
liberation. He was a German lawyer, writer and a homosexual
himself. Ulrichs’ writing under his own name and the
pseudonym, Numa Numantius, generated a series of five
pamphlets about homosexuality, Researches Into the Riddle of Love
Between Men, beginning in 1865. He eventually expanded them
into twelve pamphlets by 1879. These were first written to
argue against state proscriptions towards homosexual practices
in the emerging country of Germany. Ulrichs wrote interpreting
homosexuality in a naturalistic manner. It was explained to be a
benign, inborn anomaly, linked to an organic congenital
predisposition or to evolutionary factors. He first located this
trait in the brain, and in his later writings in the testicles.
Homosexuality was a condition of inborn sexual inversion,
which caused homosexuals to be neither truly male nor female,
but to have characteristics of the opposite sex. For the
homosexual man, he had a feminine soul or mentality confined
within a masculine body. Ulrichs used the nomenclature of a
third sex which he called urning, and he derived this term from
an illusion to Uranus in Plato’s Symposium. In his life Ulrichs
served in the government as a lawyer, but quit under mysterious
circumstances. He was also imprisoned for his out spoken
views on homosexuality. Ulrichs eventually left his native
country of Germany and spent the last fifteen years of his life in
Italy. Although Ulrichs was unable to gain much support for his
theory, he did contribute to the growing perception in the
nineteenth century of the homosexual as a distinctive type of
person. He died a poor broken man, virtually forgotten by his
peers in the struggle for the emancipation for homosexuals.
“The word homosexuality did not exist prior to 1869, when
it appeared in a pamphlet that took the form of an open letter
to the German minister of justice (the German word is
homosexualitat). A new penal code for the North German
Federation was being drafted, and a debate had arisen over
whether to retain the section of the Prussian criminal code
which made sexual contact between persons of the same gender
- 28 -
a crime. The pamphlet’s author, Karl Maria Kertbeny (1824-82),
was one of several writers and jurists who were beginning to
develop the concept of sexual orientation. This idea – that
some individuals’ sexual attraction for members of the same sex
was an inherent and an unchanging aspect of their personality –
was radically new. Thousands of years of record history and the
rise and fall of sophisticated and complex societies occurred
before homosexuality existed as a word or even as an idea.”
(Monimore, A Natural History of Homosexuality, p. 3)
“Until roughly 1900 the dominant explanation of male
homosexuality, proposed by the homosexual lawyer and
classicist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in the 1860’s, was that
homosexual men had a women’s soul enclosed in a male body
[anima muliebris in corpore virili inclusa] (Hekma, 178). Ulrichs
defined male homosexuality as an inborn trait located in the
brain (and in later works, in the testicles). The Berlin
psychiatrist Karl Westphal dubbed this phenomenon sexual
inversion and defined it as a psychopathological condition. This
view of male homosexuality was widely influential.” (Dean,
Sexuality and Modern Western Culture, p. 22)
“In his published writings on homosexuality, Ulrichs
posited the existence of a third sex whose nature was inborn.
The essential point in his theory of homosexuality is the
doctrine that the male homosexual has a female psyche, which
he summed up in the Latin phrases: anima muliebrir virili
corpore inclusa (a female psych confined in a male body).”
(Kennedy, Karl Heinrichs Ulrichs: First Theorist of Homosexuality,
p. 27 in Science and Homosexualities, editor Vernon A. Rosario)
Karoly Maria Kertbeny
It was Karoly Maria Kertbeny (1824-1882) who first coined
the word homosexual in a private draft of a letter to Karl
Heinrichs Ulrichs in 1868. Kertbeny was a German-Hungarian
writer, translator, and journalist. He bore the surname Karl
Maria Benkert until 1847, when he was authorized by the police
of his native city of Vienna to use the Hungarian noble name of
his family as his sole name, Karoly Maria Kertbeny. In 1869
- 29 -
Kertbeny wrote two pamphlets that were published
anonymously, demanding freedom from penal sanctions for
homosexual men in Prussia and the Prussia-dominated North
German Confederation. It was in these pamphlets that the
word homosexual was substituted for the word urning that
Ulrichs had used in 1864. Though Kertbeny closely followed
Ulrichs theory of homosexuals being a third-sex, he saw it as a
biologically based type of sexual pathology. His chief emphasis
for the emancipation of the homosexual was for the modern
constitutional state to extend to homosexuals its principle of
non-interference in the private life of its citizens. He asserted
the right of all human beings to engage in homosexual activity,
rather than for exclusive homosexuals to be free of legal
hindrances. This was on the basis of the liberal doctrine that the
state itself has no right to interfere in such a private matter as
sexual behavior. There is little known about his life, but he was
suspected to be secretly homosexual. Kertbeny died from
syphilis.
“In 1869, the Hungarian writer-journalist Karoly Maria
Kertbeny apparently used the term homosexual for the first
time in an anonymous report calling for the abolition of
criminal laws on unnatural acts, addressed to Dr. Leonhardt,
Prussian Minster of Justice. Even if it took several decades
before the term stuck, this date, for many historians, marks a
turning point in time, clearly distinguishing the sodomite (who
offended God) and the homosexual (who offended society). In
fact, the years 1869-1919 can be regarded as a major watershed
in the history of homosexuality and as the foundation upon
which the homosexual liberation of the 1920s was built.”
(Tamagne, A History of Homosexuality in Europe: Berlin, London,
Paris 1919-1939, p. 18)
“Despite nearly a century and half of study and debate,
there still is no universally accepted definition of homosexuality
among clinicians and behavioral scientists – let alone a
consensus regarding its origins. The idea that it derives from
moral degeneracy has long been discounted by scholars, many
- 30 -
of whom have argued for the primacy of either biologic or
psychosocial influences.” (Bryne and Parsons, Sexual Orientation:
The Biologic Theories Reappraised, p. 228)
Richard von Kraftt-Ebing
Richard von Kraftt-Ebing (1840-1902) is another prominent
German sexologist. He was a German Professor of Psychiatry
and in 1886 wrote Psychopathia sexualis, an encyclopedic
compendium of sexual pathologies. Kraft-Ebing subverted
Ulrichs theory of homosexuality. Though he too believed
homosexuality was inborn, he saw it as an inborn constitutional
defect that manifested itself in sex-inverted characteristics and
in overall degeneracy. Homosexuals were arrested at a more
primitive stage of evolutionary development then normal
people, i.e. heterosexuals. Krafft-Ebing thought the sexual
instinct was lodged in psychosexual centers of the cerebral
cortex and located next to the visual and olfactory centers. So,
in the homosexual these psychosexual centers were congenitally
diseased, and relayed inappropriate messages for sexual instinct.
So with Krafft-Ebing the theory for homosexuality went from
one of natural and congenital to a criminal medical model
which emphasized perversion, sickness, and deficiency.
“Kraft-Ebing defined homosexuality not as a set of sexual
acts but as the determination of feeling for the same-sex (Kraft-
Ebing 1922, 286), a determination brought about by either
genetic or situational factors.” (Brookey, Reinventing the Male
Homosexual, p. 29)
“In other words, Kraft-Ebing saw homosexuality as a
degenerative condition.” (Brookey, Reinventing the Male
Homosexual, p. 30)
“Although Kraft-Ebing was not a gay rights advocate, his
theories of homosexuality are similar to those of Hirschfeld and
Ulrichs. He imagined that homosexuality is both a biological
and psychological manifestation.” (Brookey, Reinventing the Male
Homosexual, p. 30)

- 31 -
Magnus Hirschfeld
Another early German leader for the emancipation of
homosexuals was Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935). Of the early
homosexual rights advocates, Hirschfeld’s career and legacy
presents in retrospect as many errors and failures to be shunned
as achievements to emulate. He was homosexual himself like
many of the other early advocates for homosexual rights. His
view of homosexuality was similar to that of Ulrichs.
Homosexuality was innate and biological in nature.
Homosexuals were a third sex, resulting from a hormonal
cause. It resulted in a preponderance of the female in the male
and the male in the female. Hirschfeld never put forth a
coherent scientific explanation of homosexuality and his works
were rejected. He helped to organize the Scientific
Humanitarian Committee in 1897 and establish the first
institute where research and therapy took place.
“He believed that male homosexuals were physically
different from male heterosexuals and that these differences
were the products of hormones secreted by the gonaads
(Hirschfeld, 1944). These hormones not only influenced sexual
orientation but were also responsible for gender differences
between heterosexuals and homosexuals. He imagined
homosexuality to be an intermediate gender between the
feminine and the masculine. Although male homosexuals had
the phyical bodies of men, Hirschfeld argued they had the sex
drive and emotions of the opposite sex.” (Brookey, Reinventing
the Male Homosexual, p. 28)
“The committee was established on the assumption, which
Hirschfeld took from his sexologist predecessors, that
homosexuality is biological, the homosexual a type.” (Archer,
The End of Gay (and the Death of Heterosexuality), p. 75)
“Hirschfeld’s two ultimate justifications for his organization
and his activist tactics and pursuits also bore a striking
resemblance to those used in continuing the fight he started.
The first was to establish as scientific fact that the homosexual
was born, not made, and so was beyond the scope of a legal
- 32 -
system that could punish people for what they did, not who
they were. The second was to prevent teenage suicide.” (Archer,
The End of Gay (and the Death of Heterosexuality), p. 76)
In 1933 the Nazis burned his works and research.
Hirschfeld’ legacy was tarnished by serious lapses of
professional ethics. He was accused of selling worthless
patented medicines. The most serious lapse was the allegations
that he extorted money from some famous Germans who had
in good faith furnished him with materials revealing the
intimate (and incriminating) sides of their lives. Hirschfeld also
conducted two polls of high school boys and male factory
workers. The poll of the high school boys resulted in legal
troubles for Hirschfeld.
“Though his findings were greatly overshadowed by a
lawsuit brought by six students who charged him with
obscenity (he was found guilty and made to pay a fine and
costs) he managed to conduct the first large-scale gay survey,
the scientific technique upon which the gay movement was to
continually re-establish its credentials with increasing frequency
and specialization over the next century.” (Archer, The End of
Gay (and the Death of Heterosexuality, p. 76)
Havelock Ellis
Outside of Germany, Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) was an
early homosexual rights advocate from England. Ellis was
medically trained, and the author of a six volume Studies in the
Psychology of Sex published from 1897 to 1910. He was the
first to study homosexuals outside of prisons, asylums, and
clinics. Ellis viewed homosexuality neither as a disease or a
crime. Homosexuals suffered from arrested development, and
inborn sexual inversion. Homosexuality was the result of a
congenital organic variation; individuals had both male and
female sexual instincts. The invert lacked the ability to see and
feel normal emotional desires toward the opposite sex. Ellis
popularized the idea of homosexuality as an inversion, an
inborn non-pathological gender anomaly.

- 33 -
“The sexological discovery’ of the homosexual in the late
nineteen-century is therefore obviously a crucial moment. It
gave a name, an aetiology, and potentially the embryos of an
identity. It marked off a special homosexual type of person,
with distinctive physiognomy, tastes and potentialities. Did,
therefore, the sexologists create the homosexual? This certainly
seems to be the position of some historians. Michel Foucault
and Lillian Faderman appear at times to argue, in an unusual
alliance, that it was the categorisation of the sexologists that
made the ‘homosexual’ and the ‘lesbian’ possible. Building on
Ulrichs belief that homosexuals were a third sex, a woman’s
soul in a man’s body, Westphal was able to invent the ‘contrary
sexual feeling’, Ellis the ‘invert’ defined by a congenital
anomaly, and Hirschfeld the ‘intermediate sex’; the sexologists
definitions, embodied in medical interventions, created’ the
homosexual. Until sexology gave them a label, there was only
the half-life of an amporphous sense of self. The homosexuality
identity as we know it is therefore a production of social
categorisation, whose fundamental aim and effect was
regulation and control. To name was imprison.” (Weeks,
Sexuality and Its Discontents Meanings, Myths and Modern Sexualities,
p. 92-93)
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was one of the first to
challenge the entire construction of a sexual instinct as Ulrichs
and others had commonly conceived it. Freud considered
homosexuality to be a perversion of the sex drive away from
the normal object of desire (i.e. the opposite sex) toward a
substitute object, including someone of the same sex. Freud
disagreed with Ellis and the other sexologists view of
homosexuality by seriously questioning the idea of gender
inversion as well as congenital homosexuality. Instead Freud
viewed it as a sexual object choice, and generally regarded
homosexuality as a psychogentically outcome of early
childhood experiences. Homosexuality was an arrested
psychosexual development and was purely the result of fixation
- 34 -
in an infantile stage of sexual development provoked by the
action or inaction of the parents. He saw environmental
influences rooted in family dynamics such as a seductive
mother and a weak father. This resulted in the compulsive quest
of the male that was caused by their restless flight from the
female. Homosexuality no longer incorporated the broad
meaning of sex-role deviation; instead it referred specifically to
aberrant sexual behavior. Homosexuality was acquired and
pathological. Because it was not until between the two world
wars that Freud’s work would have its greatest impact, gender
inversion remained the dominant theory of homosexuality for
many years to come.
“Only Freud, with whom Ellis disagreed with, seriously
questioned the paradigm of gender inversion (as well as
congenital homosexuality) by distinguishing between sexual
object and aim. Freud, in contrast to the medical men - Moll,
Bloch, and others - who influenced his work, challenged the
entire construction of a sexual instinct as it had been commonly
conceived since Kraft-Ebing. In arguing that relation between
object and aim was the outcome of the struggle he would later
term the Opedius complex, Freud assumed that reproductive
heterosexuality was not a natural instinct: instead, it was the
product of a successful psychic struggle in which one identified
with (and introjected) the same-sex parent.” (Dean, Sexuality and
Modern Western Culture, p. 25)
“Freud’s theories of sexuality take several forms, but certain
elements remain fairly constant. He argued that the child is
born into a state bisexuality, an innate sexual instinct that he
referred to as polymorphous perversity.” (Brookey, Reinventing
the Male Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power of the Gay Gene, p. 30)
“Freud theorizes male homosexuality in several ways, but he
often imagines the child adopting a feminine identity.”
(Brookey, Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power
of the Gay Gene, p. 31)
“Although Freud offers alternative theories, they all play off
the male child’s disrupted relationship with the mother. In
- 35 -
many cases, these theories suggest that the male homosexual
adopts a feminine sexual identity, and in this process he enters
into a state of arrested sexual development.” (Brookey,
Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power of the Gay
Gene, p. 31)
Even still today there are those who hold to a
psychoanalytical model or view of homosexuality. In doing so
they continue to see homosexuality as pathological.
“Among the numerous claims supporting the pathology
thesis of male homosexuality there seems to be an essential core
of four basic propositions. Analysts assert that homosexual
men suffer a form of developmental arrest caused by (1) early
narcissistic fixations; (2) disturbed family relationships; (3) an
underlying disturbance of male gender identity and finally, (4)
pathological defenses against a biologically primary
heterosexuality.” (Friedman, The Psychoanalytic Model of Male
Homosexuality: A Historical and Theoretical Critique, p. 511)
Friedman further goes on to write, that a psychoanalytic
model is only a theory, among the other theories of
homosexuality. Yet it is one that continued to be held by some.
“In this paper I have hoped to demonstrate that the analytic
model of male homosexuality is a scientific paradigm with
cultural origins and a historical place in the world of sex
research that is not absolute.” (Friedman, The Psychoanalytic
Model of Male Homosexuality: A Historical and Theoretical Critique, p.
515)
“Through their contradictory logic, the early theories of
male homosexuality struggled to ascertain the relationship
between sex and gender. Sexologists and homosexual rights
advocates both insisted and denied that homosexuals were
different: if they were morally, emotionally, and (at least in
appearance) physically like heterosexuals, how could doctors
account for their congenital difference? And if they were not
congenitally different, than how were they different (in the case
of Brand and Friedlander, the most manly men)?” (Dean,
Sexuality and Modern Western Culture, p. 25)
- 36 -
Sexology after Freud had very little new to say about
homosexuality until Kinsey published his study in 1948,
although homosexuals continued to be a part of the emerging
modern culture. In Europe and the United States the two world
wars, especially World War II was important. What they did
was to bring individuals, from primarily an agriculture culture,
together to fight a war. Many of these individuals who thought
they were unique, now were introduced to others who were just
like themselves. After fighting the wars many men remained in
the large American and European cities.
“Between the 1850s and the 1930s a complex sexual
community had developed in many American as well as
European cities, which crossed class, racial, gender and age
boundaries, and which offered a focus for identity
development. Since the Second World War the expansion of
these subcultures has been spectacular, with one of these
unlikely heroes of this growth being the gay bar.” (Weeks,
Sexuality and Its Discontents, p. 192)
Bibliography
Archer, Bert. The End of Gay (and the Death of Heterosexuality).
Thunder’s Mouth Press. New York, 2002.
Brookey, Robert Alan. Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The
Rhetoric and Power of the Gay Gene. Indiana University Press.
Bloomington & Indianapolis, 2002.
Byne, William M.D., Ph.D., and Bruce Parsons, M.D.,
Ph.D. Human Sexual Orientation: The Biological Theories Reappraised.
Archives of General Psychiatry. March 1993. Vol. 50, p. 228-239.
Dean, Carolyn J. Sexuality and Modern Western Culture.
Twayne Publishers. New York, 1996.
Friedman, Robert M. The Psychoanalytic Model of Male
Homosexuality: A Historical and Theoretical Critique. The
Psychoanalytic Review. Winter 1986, Vol. 73, No. 4, p. 483-519.
Hunter, Ski, Coleen Shannon, Jo Knox and James I. Martin.
Lesbian, Gay, and BisexualYouths and Adults: Knowledge for Humans
Services Practice. Sage Publications. Thousand Oaks, CA, 1998.

- 37 -
Kennedy, Hubert. Karl Henrich Ulrichs: First Theorist of
Homosexuality, p. 26-45 in Science and Homosexualities, edited by
Vernon A Rosario. Science and Homosexualities. Routledge. New
York and London, 1997.
Minton, Henry L. Departing From Deviance. The University of
Chicago Press. Chicago and London, 2002.
Mondimore, Francis Mark. A Natural History of
Homosexuality. The John Hopkins University Press. Baltimore
and London, 1996.
Rosario, Vernon A., editor. Science and Homosexualities.
Routledge. New York and London, 1997.
Tamagne, Florence. A History of Homosexuality in Europe:
Berlin, London, Paris 1919-1939. Algora Publishing. New York,
2004.
Weeks, Jeffery. Sexuality and Its Discontents Meanings: Myths
and Modern Sexualities. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London,
1988.

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Chapter 3
Alfred Kinsey

The book Statistical Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual


Behavior in the Human Male is the report published in its entirety
by an American Statistical Association committee. Three of the
authors were appointed as a committee of the Association’s
Commission on Statistical Standards. The committee had the
cooperation of Kinsey, which included visits to the Institute of
Sex Research, Inc. at the University of Indiana. Also, the
authors went through the interviewing process that Kinsey used
in gathering the data for his book.
“By the way of summary, the general statement that much
of the writing in the book falls below the level of good
scientific writing seems justified.” (Cochran, Mosteller, Tukey
and Jenkins, Statistical Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual
Behavior in the Human Male, p. 150)
“The critics are justified in their objections that many of the
most interesting and provocative statements in the book are not
based on data presented therein, and it is not made clear to the
reader on what evidence the statements are based. Further, the
conclusions drawn from the data presented in the book are
often stated by KPM in a much too bold and confident a
manner. Taken cumulatively, these objections amount to saying
that much of the writing in the book falls below the level of
good scientific writing. In the case of homosexuality, we are
chiefly concerned about possible bias in the sample, although
cover-up may also be a factor.” (Cochran, Mosteller, Tukey and
Jenkins, Statistical Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior in
the Human Male, p. 152)
The book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male by Alfred
Kinsey, published in 1948, is also historically significant in the
development of the concept of the modern homosexual.
Kinsey’s study was once considered the “defining study of
homosexuality”, but which has now been shown to be
- 39 -
otherwise. Kinsey in his study saw not a homosexual person,
but homosexual acts. He wrote about the physical sexual acts a
male did, and it was based on the orgasms he achieved. The
often-quoted myth, 10 % of the population is homosexual
originated from Kinsey’s study. Kinsey earned a Ph.D. from
Harvard University. He became a biology professor at Indiana
University where he wrote biology textbooks and a book about
gall wasps. He was an entomologist by training, and a foremost
authority on gall wasps. It was at Indiana University that
Kinsey’s interest in sex research arose after he was asked to
participate in a sex education class. This course was to prepare
students for fulfilling marriages. Kinsey’s liberal attitudes and
open support for contraception resulted in his being quickly
replaced by the university administration in teaching the sex
education class. Yet Kinsey’s interest in sex research grew and
he began the research that eventually led to the formation of
the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University. It was
through this institute that he published in 1948 the book Sexual
Behavior in the Human Male.
Time has not served Kinsey and his sex studies well. The
criticism he initially received over the publication of his studies
has continued to grow over the years. Even in his day the
studies were questioned about their scientific value and the
scientific standards he imposed in undertaking the studies. It
was believed at the time Kinsey was a scrupulous and
disinterested scientist during sex research. But over time and
through a closer look at Kinsey, of his studies and of the
Institute for Sex Research has shown other-wise. Besides
looking critically at his research and how it was conducted,
there are questions’ about Kinsey’s own sexually and sexual life.
Questions are raised about Kinsey being a homosexual himself,
and he has at least been labeled a bisexual. Two areas of
Kinsey’s study receiving closer attention is how he chose those
who were to be a part of the study and the age of some of those
included in the data.

- 40 -
Kinsey, in his book Sexual Behavior of the Human Male, was
supposedly based on a representative sample of males in the
U.S. at the time. A contemporary of Kinsey’s, renowned
psychologist, Abraham Maslow, pointed out the concern of
sampling when using individuals on a clearly volunteer basis.
They are not a representative sample of the general population.
Kinsey rejected Maslow’s concern. But his sampling techniques
based on today’s sampling standards have raised serious
scientific concerns. The findings of his study were terribly
flawed by the methodology that was used to collect the
supposedly representative sample of the U.S. population. His
study had more college graduates, than was the normative for
that period, in general most people were not college graduates
at that time. He included more Protestants than Catholics; the
latter were being less likely to engage in "unusual sexual
practices. Approximately 25% of the 5,300 participants in the
study were prison inmates. Moreover, Kinsey especially sought
out those prisoners who were sex offenders. Of this large
percentage of the individuals studied, 44% of these inmates had
their homosexual experiences while in prison. Kinsey, himself,
admitted to including several hundred male prostitutes. Finally,
he sought out “militant gays” and members of gay affirming
organizations.
“The starting point for discussions of systematic sampling
error in sexuality surveys is the studies by Kinsey and colleagues
from the 1940s and 1950s (see Brecher and Brecher, 1986;
Cochran, Mosteller, and Tukey, 1954; Laumann et al., 1994). In
Kinsey, Pomeroy, and Martin’s (1948) landmark survey of 5,300
males, there was no systematic random sampling. Rather, 163
separate groups were approached, including college students
and staff, seven groups of institutionalized males, (juvenile
delinquents, adult prisoners [including many male prostitutes],
and one group of mental patients), and assorted others
including high school students, speech therapy patients,
conscientious objectors (for army service), hitch hikers, and
people from three rooming houses. A serious limitation of the
- 41 -
sample was the over reliance on college students. Kinsey
estimated that about half of his personal histories were from
people recruited following the attendance of tens of thousands
of people at several hundred college and public lectures given
by him and his colleagues (Cochran et. Al., 1954).” (Wiederman
and Whitley editors, Handbook for Conducting Sex Research on
Human Sexually, p. 86-87)
“Once published, it elicited a number of critical reviews
from statisticians and 1950 the National Research Council
committee that had been funding Kinsey’s research requested
the American Statistical Association to evaluate Kinsey’s
methodology. After a long period of assessment, involving
many meetings with Kinsey and his team, a detailed report by
the review group of three – Cochran, Mosteller and Tukey –
was published.” (Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin and Gebhard, Sexual
Behavior in the Human Female, p. b)
“The more serious criticism centered on what were
perceived as the three chief weaknesses of the research. They
were the lack of an adequate sample, too broad projection from
the date to a larger population, and the use of a mechanistic
orgasm-counting approach to the sexual experience.”
(Christenson, Kinsey: A Biography, p. 143)
The book Statistical Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual
Behavior in the Human Male is the report published in its entirety
by an American Statistical Association committee. Three of the
authors were appointed as a committee of the Association’s
Commission on Statistical Standards. The committee had the
cooperation of Kinsey, which included visits to the Institute of
Sex Research, Inc. at the University of Indiana. Also, the
authors went through the interviewing process that Kinsey used
in gathering the data for his book.
Sampling
“There is now general agreement in the scientific
community that Kinsey’s method of obtaining a sample of
Americans did not meet todays’ standard of survey sampling.”

- 42 -
(Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin and Gebhard, Sexual Behavior in the
Human Female, p. b)
“The critics are correct in their statements about sample
size. The implication that conclusions should have been drawn
more hesitatingly is also sound.” (Cochran, Mosteller, Tukey
and Jenkins, Statistical Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual
Behavior in the Human Male, p. 149)
“Many of KPM’s findings are subject to question because of
a possible bias in the constitution of the sample.” (Cochran,
Mosteller, Tukey and Jenkins, Statistical Problems of the Kinsey
Report on Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, p. 2)
“KPM had to choose the population to which this study
should apply. This decision does not seem to have been made
clearly. From the basis for the U.S. Corrections (p. 105) we
should infer it to be all U.S. white males.” (Cochran, Mosteller,
Tukey and Jenkins, Statistical Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual
Behavior in the Human Male, p. 10)
“The criticism is well-taken that KPM gave inadequate
information about what was done. We cannot tell how big the
samples were, what groups went into what cells, or just how the
sampling was done, in fact we cannot even make a good stab at
guessing the sampled population to which KPM’s sample might
reasonably apply.” (Cochran, Mosteller, Tukey and Jenkins,
Statistical Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior in the
Human Male, p. 65)
“In the case of homosexuality, we are chiefly concerned
about possible bias in the sample, although cover-up may also
be a factor.” (Cochran, Mosteller, Tukey and Jenkins, Statistical
Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior in the Human Male,
p. 150)
“The defects of this work are widely known: for example,
respondents were disproportionately drawn the Midwest and
from college campuses, and the research did not use probability
sampling.” (Turner, Miller and Moses, editors, AIDS, Sexual
Behavior, and Intravenous Drug Use, p. 9)

- 43 -
“Both Jones and Gathorne-Hardy agree his sample was
distorted with Indiana furnishing the greatest number of
subjects, but he also had a disproportionate number of
homosexuals.” (Bullough, The Kinsey Biographies, p. 20-21)
“It has long been recognized that one of the greatest faults
of the Kinsey research was the way in which the cases were
selected: the sample is not representative of the entire U.S.
population or any definable group in the population. This fault
limits the comparability and appropriateness of the Kinsey data
as a basic for calculating the prevalence of any form of sexual
conduct.” (Turner, Miller and Moses, editors, AIDS, Sexual
Behavior, and Intravenous Drug Use, p. 82)
Infant and young male child sexual behavior (Chapter
5, Early Sexual Growth and Activity)
Three of Kinsey’s books were reprinted at the same time, in
1998, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the publication of
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Of interest, additional
information was added and is found in only one of the three-
reprinted books. This new information addresses Chapter 5
from the 1948 edition of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male.
Chapter 5 from the book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male,
deals with the sexual response of infants and young children.
Interestingly this new information was included in an
introduction by John Bancraft, the current director of the
Kinsey Institute for Sex Research Sexual Behavior, in the
reprinted book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. This new
information was not included in the reprinted book, Sexual
Behavior in the Human Male, Chapter 5 is from this book and it is
this chapter that is controversial. Yet John Bancraft addresses
this controversy in only one of the three- reprinted books, and
not in the reprinted book in which the controversy arises from,
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male.
Some of the data on the sexual response of children came
from one individual who has now been identified, Kenneth
Braun. His interview by Kinsey included the notes he recorded

- 44 -
of his personal sexual experiences with family members,
animals, male and female children as young as infants.
“I decided to check on the sources of this information and
found that, without any doubt, all of the information reported
in Tables 31-34 came from the carefully documented records of
one man. From 1917 until the time that Kinsey interviewed him
in the mid-1940s, this man kept notes on a vast array of sexual
experiences, involving not only children but adults of both
sexes. Kinsey was clearly impressed with by the systematic way
he kept his records, and regarded them as of considerable
scientific interest. Clearly, his description in the book of the
source of this data was misleading, in that he implied that it had
come from several men rather than one, although it is likely that
information elsewhere in this chapter, on the descriptions of
different types of organisms, was obtained in part from some of
these other nine men. I do not know why Kinsey was unclear
on this point; it was obviously not to conceal the origin of the
information from criminal sexual involvement with children,
because that was already quite clear. Maybe it was to conceal
the single source which otherwise might have attracted
attention to this one man with possible demands for his
identification (demands which now have occurred even though
he is long dead). It would be typical of Kinsey to be more
concerned about protecting the anonymity of his research
subjects (and convincing the reader of the scientific value of the
information) than protecting himself from the allegations that
eventually followed. (Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin and Gebhard,
Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, p. k)
“Both Jones and Garthorne-Hardy point out the data was
mostly dependent upon the notes taken by a pedophile
although Kinsey tried to cover this up by attributing it to
varying sources.” (Bullough,The Kinsey Biographies, p. 22)
Criticism by those advocating for homosexuality
Time and time again it is most interesting to read what
homosexuals and those advocating for homosexuality write in
their numerous publications. The criticisms leveled against each
- 45 -
other are far from what is presented in the more popular media.
This may be seen now in the criticism of Kinsey, from a book
by Bert Archer, The End of Gay (and the death of
heterosexuality). Archer is a self-identified homosexual.
Kinsey’s sexuality
“Both Jones and Garthorne-Hardy believe that Kinsey was
driven by his own sexual needs.” (Bullough, The Kinsey
Biographies, p. 21)
“No one knew at the time, of course, Alfred Kinsey’s
impetus for embarking on his monumental and epoch-shifting
study of human sexuality came from a desire to justify his own
sexual thoughts and practices.” (Archer, The End of Gay (and the
Death of Heterosexuality), p. 116)
“As a result of his own irregular sexual interests and
practices, including being married to one woman, having a
long-term simultaneous affair with a man (upon whose death he
took up with another), and a rather enthusiastic interest in the
sadomasochistic sides of sex, he was not that fond of the sexual
theorists of his day, not to mention popular opinion, all of
which look disparagingly for one reason or another on the
things he enjoyed.” (Archer, The End of Gay (and the Death of
Heterosexuality), p. 116)
In his book Archer writes twice and with a footnote, that
Kinsey used his data gathering trips to have sex with other men.
“Things were effected somewhat by the fact Kinsey used
these trips to have sex with men.” (Archer, The End of Gay (and
the Death of Heterosexuality), p. 117)
Archer uses a footnote, number 66, to support this
statement.
“Whether he had sex with any of the men he also
interviewed is not entirely clear, but we do know, as of 1997,
have testimony, albeit anonymous, from a contemporary friend
of Kinsey that he did have sex with men on these trips.”
(Archer, The End of Gay (and the Death of Heterosexuality), p. 242)
Archer on page 124 states this again, “Not only did he use
his data-gathering trips to get sex ...
- 46 -
It is true that Kinsey himself experimented with sex and,
among other things, engaged in considerable homosexual
activity not only with his assistants, but with others.” (Bullough,
The Kinsey Biographies, p. 19)
Kinsey’s interpretations and opinions
“But the fact that the complier of all this data (he eventually
interviewed about twelve thousand white men) was out to make
a point, was out, in fact, to bring the world’s view of human
sexuality more in line with his own (which of course was based
in intuition, formed as it was before he began his study), is of
enormous significance.” (Archer, The End of Gay (and the Death of
Heterosexuality), p. 117)
“The second, not unrelated point is that Kinsey was not
merely presenting data in his first Report – he was making a
point, a point he himself was clear about long before he handed
out his first questionnaire. This colors things.” (Archer, The End
of Gay (and the Death of Heterosexuality), p. 124)
“The most visible trademark of the Kinsey style was an
ostentatious avowal of both disinterestedness and
incompetence wherever matters of ethics were at issue. This is
first of all a report on what people do, he wrote of the Male
Volume, which raises no question of what they should do. In
reality, Kinsey held strong opinions about what people should
and should not do, and his efforts to disguise those opinions
were only too transparent.” (Robinson, The Modernization of Sex:
Havelock Ellis, Alfred Kinsey, William Masters and Virginia Johnson,
p. 49-50)
“At the same time, heterosexual intercourse suffered a
relative eclipse simply because of the prominence Kinsey
assigned to masturbation and homosexuality, both of which
were objects of his partiality.” (Robinson, The Modernization of
Sex: Havelock Ellis, Alfred Kinsey, William Masters and Virginia
Johnson, p. 64)
“But though scientists may avoid explicit moral judgments,
research is implicitly striated with values and biases. In fact,

- 47 -
Kinsey’s values permeate his work.” (Irvine, Disorders of Desire:
Sex and Gender in Modern American Sexology, p. 37)
“Although Kinsey was often critical of those who made
assertions about sexual behavior without revealing the evidence
on which their assertions were based, Kinsey indulged in a fair
amount of this editorializing in the Male volume.” (Kinsey,
Pomeroy, Martin and Gebhard, Sexual Behavior in the Human
Female, p. n)
“Although Kinsey claimed to have been completely neutral
and detached in gathering and tabulating his data and to have
avoid[ed] social or moral interpretations of the facts, the Report
is peppered with commentary and interpretation that reveal
Kinsey’s strong biases.” (Lewes, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Male
Homosexuality, p. 125)
“Kinsey, however, did not limited himself to simply
reporting his data, but readily offered interpretations and
inferences. The Report includes a long section describing
checks that performed on the sample and interviewing
technique, and concluded that the figures on the frequency of
homosexual activity must be understatements.” (Lewes, The
Psychoanalytic Theory of Male Homosexuality, p. 128)
Scientific value and scientific standards of Kinsey’s
work
“However flawed, whether by sample, procedures, or
analysis, Kinsey’s insistence upon behavioral variation opened
the way for far-reaching and critical cultural transformation in
Americans’ understanding of sexual orientation. Kinsey
challenged, that is, the biological essentialist and morally flawed
deficit views of human nature in man and woman as social and
psychological prototypes in Western thought.” (Herdt, Sambia
Sexual Culture Essays from the Field, p. 226)
“He was clearly a stubborn man with strongly held
opinions. He needed to be in control, making it less likely that
he would accept the advice of others, and this resulted in his
taking some wrong directions.” (Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin and
Gebhard, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, pg. p)
- 48 -
“Nevertheless, given the potential for selection bias that his
method did involve, the review group were critical of his lack of
caution in interpreting his findings, and his incorrect use of
statistical procedures (e.g., the weighting procedure to produce
US corrections).” (Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin and Gebhard,
Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, p. b)
“KPM’s interpretations were based in part on tabulated and
statistically analyzed data, and in part on data and experience
which were not presented because of their nature or because of
the of space limitations. Some interpretations appear not to
have been based on either of theses. ... However, KPM should
have indicated which of their statements were undocumented
or undocumentable and should have been more cautious in
boldly drawing highly precise conclusions from their limited
sample.” (Cochran, Mosteller, Tukey and Jenkins, Statistical
Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior in the Human Male,
p. 2)
“By the way of summary, the general statement that much
of the writing in the book falls below the level of good
scientific writing seems justified.” (Cochran, Mosteller, Tukey
and Jenkins, Statistical Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual
Behavior in the Human Male, p. 150)
“The critics are justified in their objections that many of the
most interesting and provocative statements in the book are not
based on data presented therein, and it is not made clear to the
reader on what evidence the statements are based. Further, the
conclusions drawn from the data presented in the book are
often stated by KPM in a much too bold and confident a
manner. Taken cumulatively, these objections amount to saying
that much of the writing in the book falls below the level of
good scientific writing. In the case of homosexuality, we are
chiefly concerned about possible bias in the sample, although
cover-up may also be a factor.” (Cochran, Mosteller, Tukey and
Jenkins, Statistical Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior in
the Human Male, p. 152)

- 49 -
“In reality he limited his research to Americans and
Canadians, and he also excluded black histories from his
tabulations. Thus by his own admission his generalizations
extended only to the white population of North America,
despite his inclusiveness of his titles.” (Robinson, The
Modernization of Sex: Havelock Ellis, Alfred Kinsey, William Masters
and Virginia Johnson, p. 53)
“Kinsey has been criticized on various grounds, not the
least of which concerns the implied universality of his American
study. Responses by anthropologists at the time ranged from
the very critical (Gorer 1955) to the more positive Kluckhohn
(1955). Geoffrey Gorer, a British anthropologist, felt that
Kinsey exaggerated sex as behavior as a mere ‘device for
physical relaxation. ... Not only is sex, in Dr. Kinsey’s
presentation, as meaningless as a sneeze, it is also equally
unproductive; after the equivalent of blowing the nose, that is
the end of the matter.’ (1955:51-52) This point, while perhaps
over inflated, raises a cultural critique agreed upon by many in
gender research, including John Gagnon (1990) and John De
Cecco (1990): that Kinsey studied disembodied acts, discrete
behaviors, rather than meaning- filled patterns of action. As De
Cecco sees it, Kinsey had four conceptions of sex: that it was a
physical activity, that it developed in a mechanistic way, that
robust sexual performance was to be admired, and that its chief
outcome was not reproduction but erotic pleasure. These
attributes all are related to the question of sex as meaning-filled
symbolic expression of normative development and sexual
socialization in culture. By emphasizing acts instead of symbolic
action, Kinsey managed to create a field of sexual study amid a
moral climate that had hindered it (Kuckhohn 1955), yet he did
so at the cost of divorcing sex from the lives and meanings of
whole persons (see also Stoller 1985a).” (Herdt, Sambia Sexual
Culture Essays from the Field, p. 227)
Homosexual: 10% Myth
“I think it worth noting two major points about the quoted
section from the men’s report. The first is that, as I’ve
- 50 -
indicated, what Kinsey said and what we have come to believe
Kinsey said are two different things, He did not say that 10
percent of the male population was homosexual. In fact, he said
there was no such thing as a homosexual. He was quite explicit
on the subject.” (Archer, The End of Gay (and the Death of
Heterosexuality), p. 123)
“From all of this, it becomes obvious that any question as
to the number of persons in the world who are homosexual and
the number who are heterosexual is unanswerable.” (Kinsey,
Pomeroy and Martin, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, p. 650)
Kinsey and homosexuals
“It would encourage clear thinking on these matters if
persons were not characterized as heterosexual or homosexual,
but as individuals who have had certain amounts of
heterosexual experience and certain amounts of homosexual
experience. Instead of using these terms as substantives which
stand for persons, or even as adjectives to describe persons,
they may better be used to describe the nature of the overt
sexual relations, or of the stimuli to which an individual
erotically responds.” (Kinsey, Pomeroy and Martin, Sexual
Behavior in the Human Male, p. 617)
“Males do not represent two discrete populations,
heterosexual and homosexual.” (Kinsey, Pomeroy and Martin,
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, p. 639)
“From all of this, it should be evident that one is not
warranted in recognizing merely two types of individuals,
heterosexual and homosexual, and that the characterization of
the homosexual as a third sex fails to describe any actuality.”
(Kinsey, Pomeroy and Martin, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male,
p. 647)
Bibilography
Archer, Bert. The End of Gay (and the Death of Heterosexuality).
Thunder’s Mouth Press. New York, 2002.
Bullough, Vern L. The Kinsey Biographies. Sexuality and Culture.
Winter 2006. Volume 10, Number 1, p. 15-22.

- 51 -
Christenson, Cornelia V. Kinsey: A Biography. Indiana
University Press. Bloomington and London, 1971.
Cochran, William G., Frederick Mosteller, John H. Tukey
and W. O. Jenkins. Statistical Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual
Behavior in the Human Male. The American Statistical Association.
Washington D.C., 1954.
Herdt, Gilbert. Sambia Sexual Culture: Essays from the Field.
The University of Chicago Press. Chicago and London, 1999.
Irvine, Janice M. Disorders of Desire: Sex and Gender in Modern
American Sexology. Temple University Press. Philadelphia, 1990.
Kinsey, Alfred C., Warren B. Pomeroy and Clyde E. Martin.
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. W. B. Saunders Company.
Philadelphia and London, 1968.
Kinsey, Alfred C., Warren B. Pomeroy, Clyde E. Martin and
Paul H. Gebhard. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. Indiana
University Press. Bloomington & Indianapolis, 1998.
Lewes, Ph.D., Kenneth. The Psychoanalytic Theory of Male
Homosexuality. Simon and Schuster. New York, 1988.
Robinson, Paul. The Modernization of Sex: Havelock Ellis,
Alfred Kinsey, William Masters and Virginia Johnson. Cornell
University Press. Ithaca, New York, 1989.
Turner, Charles F., Heather G. Miller and Lincoln E.
Moses, Editors. AIDS, Sexual Behavior and Intravenous Drug Use.
National Academy Press. Washington, D.C., 1989.
Wiederma, and Whitley, editors. Handbook for Conducting Sex
Research on Human Sexually. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
Publishers. Mahwah, New Jersey and London, 2002.

- 52 -
Chapter 4
World War II to the 1960s

The homosexual as a distinct person, which was first


advocated in Germany during the 1860s by homosexuals
themselves seeking legal rights, was next adopted by sexologists
and then by psychiatrists. But it was the American military
during World War II with the psychiatric profession that was to
play a leading role in defining the homosexual as a character
type, who was sick that persisted until the early 1970s.
“Examining the evolution of gay and lesbian identity shows
that two pivotal periods in history were essential to the
establishment of the gay rights movement in the 1950s.
Sexologists in the nineteen-century argued that sexual
orientation is a core trait that defines the essence of human
beings. Under their influence, those who were attracted to
people of the same gender began to think of themselves as
homosexuals. Following this change in personal identity,
homosexuals had the opportunity to form communities during
World War II, when the crisis afforded them chances to meet
others like themselves and develop networks. For the first time
in history, gay men and lesbians could share their stories and
find like-minded friends and partners.” (Burns, editor, Gay
Rights, p. 21)
“In 1940, in conjunction with the peacetime draft, the
military adopted psychiatric screening. One of the chief
proponents of screening, Henry Stark Sullivan, was himself
homosexual and believed that homosexuality in itself should
not bar a potential recruit from military service.” (Edsall, Toward
Stonewall: Homosexuality and Society in the Modern Western World, p.
262)
“The status of homosexuals changed around the time of
World War II. Prior to this point, identifications with
homosexuality were primarily individual experiences. The
identification of homosexuals as a group was given impetus by
- 53 -
the actions of the military and the federal government who
attempted to identify homosexuals and remove them from
military positions. Early in the war effort, discovered
homosexuals were given dishonorable discharges by the
thousands. Later, those who had served in the war were given a
newly created category of discharge – a general discharge which
was neither honorable or dishonorable (Licata, 1980). The
labeling and singling out of these individuals by the government
helped to create minority status of homosexuals as group and
to promote discrimination against them.” (Heyl, Homosexuality:
A Social Phenomenon, p. 341 in Human Sexuality: The Societal and
Interpersonal Context, edited by Kathleen McKinney and Susan
Sprecher)
“Over the course of the 1940 build-up, all the backing and
forthing between the military and the burgeoning psychiatric
community, and then, once when war was declared, all that
psychiatric screening, in whatever its final form created in the
mind of huge portions of the general population a picture of
the a character type known as the homosexual.” (Archer, The
End of Gay (and the Death of Heterosexuality, p. 106)
“What the military did in its rough and ready way was to
mush all these things together into one character type the
homosexual. The homosexual was now, for all the world to see
an effeminate man (and after the war, a masculine woman) who
had sex with members of the same sex, and was either passively
or actively pathological.” (Archer, The End of Gay (and the Death
of Heterosexuality, p. 105)
“While the discussion of such things as the relationship to
gender to sexuality was limited to scientific, literary, intellectual,
and interested circles as it was, mostly from the nineteen-
century through the Second World War the link was not firmly
or especially popularly made. Many pieces of what would
eventually be the popular conception of the early-modern
homosexual (which let’s say dates from the Second World War
to about 1969) were floating independently between sexologists
and psychiatrists. There was the effeminate man or pansy, there
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was the pervert and/or psychopath who could be expected to
commit violent crimes of a sexual nature on any sort of person
at all, and there was the man or woman, not much spoken of in
polite company, who had a tendency to have sex with others of
the same sex. When this was spoken of, it was in purely non-
sexual terms, like the partners on ranches that Front Runner
author Patricia Nell Warren remembers her father mentioning
in Montana when she was a child in the late thirties and forties,
or those urban bachelors and the ubiquitous maiden aunts and
their companions.” (Archer, The End of Gay (and the Death of
Heterosexuality, p. 105)
“Despite this modicum of sympathy initially extended to
sexual perverts, the military categorically declared homosexual
behavior and proclivities as incompatible with military service.
Historian Allan Berube (1990) has documented the ill effects of
this military ban on those who managed to stay in the service
and those given dishonorable discharges simply for being
homosexual. The psychiatric profession that dedicated itself to
screening out homosexuals also promised to treat the problem
of homosexuality as it was perceived to affect the individuals
discharged and the society that would receive them.” (Rosario,
Homosexuality and Science: A Guide to the Debates, p. 89)
This military ban on homosexuals was a result but not the
intent of two psychiatrists. President Roosevelt received a
memo from Harry Stack Sullivan and Winfred Overholser
suggesting a screening process for identifying potential soldiers
who may later suffer from mental health issues. Their intent
was to help prevent a situation that occurred after World War I,
in which men by the thousands required treatment for mental
health issues, including hospitalization that resulted in a
tremendous financial cost and burden. President Roosevelt
accepted this idea and had these two psychiatrists draw up
guidelines, which became known as Medical Circular Number
One. But within one year, both the army and navy had revised
the guidelines, adding homosexuality to the list of deviations
Sullivan and Overholser had said should disqualify those from
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military service. This revision resulted in the military for the rest
of the war and decades thereafter, referring to men and women
who engaged or were prone to homosexual activity as sexual
psychopaths. This military ban on homosexuals was the
unintended result of the actions by psychiatrist Harry Stack
Sullivan, who was a homosexual himself. One interesting part
of Sullivan’s life was his relationship with, James Inscoe, who
was 20 twenty years younger than Sullivan. When they meet in
1927 Sullivan was 35 and James was 15 years old.
“As I said earlier, Sullivan’s standing in psychiatric history is
not quite what it was. This is, in part, due to rumors that he was
as one colleague said upon hearing of his death, a homosexual,
an alcoholic, and a paranoid schizophrenic.” (Allen, Sullivan’s
Closet: A Reappraisal of Harry Stack Sullivan’s Life and His Pioneering
Role in American Psychiatry, p. 5)
“Sometime in 1927, he met a young man named James
Inscoe. Jimmie who later took Sullivan’s surname, was about 15
or 16 years old at the time. Although Helen Perry wrote that
nobody would tell her how Harry met Jimmie, she confessed to
me when we met one quiet fall afternoon in her Cambridge,
Massachusetts, apartment, that Jimmie had been a male hustler
in Washington D.C. Shortly thereafter, Jimmie who was to
become Sullivan’s secretary, housekeeper, office manager, and
longtime companion, moved into Sullivan’s suburban Maryland
home. Harry and Jimmie made a home together in Maryland
and in New York City, for twenty-years, until Harry’s death in
1949. Jimmie’s place in Sullivan’s life was complex and
ambiguous; to Sullivan’s colleagues, he was Harry Stack’s foster
son, although they had no official or legal relationship; among
Sullivan’s friends. Jimmie was known simply as the man who
came to stay (Perry, 1983).” (Allen, Sullivan’s Closet: A Reappraisal
of Harry Stack Sullivan’s Life and His Pioneering Role in American
Psychiatry, p. 9)
“Not all soldiers who experienced homoerotic feelings
toward other soldiers or who even engaged in sex with other
men were gay. Often heterosexual men engaged in situational
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homosexuality, having sex with other men only to attain a level
of physical intimacy deprived by the war experience. It was not
uncommon for men to dance together at canteens, to share
beds at hotels when on leave, or to share train berths while in
transit. The critical point is not the Second World War led to an
increase in the number of homosexuals; such a statement can
be neither confirmed nor denied. Rather, the war created a
sexual situation where individuals with homosexual feelings or
tendencies could more readily explore them without the
absolute fear of exposure.” (Engel, The Unfinished Revolution:
Social Movement Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement, p. 23)
“The decisions of particular men and women to act on their
erotic/emotional preference for the same sex, along with the
new consciousness that this preference made them different,
led to the formation of an urban subculture of gay men and
lesbians. Yet at least through the 1930s this subculture
remained rudimentary, unstable, and difficult to find. How,
then, did the complex, well-developed gay community emerge
that existed by the time the gay liberation movement explored?
The answer is to be found during World War II, a time when
the cumulative changes of several decades coalesced into a
qualitatively new shape.
The war severely disrupted traditional patterns of gender
relations and sexuality, and temporarily created a new erotic
situation conducive to homosexual expression. It plucked
millions of young men and women, whose sexual identities
were just forming, out their homes, out of towns and small of
cities, out of the heterosexual environment of the family,
dropped them into sex-segregated situations as – GIs, as WACs
and WAVEs, in same-sex rooming houses for women workers
who relocated to seek employment. The war freed millions of
men and women from the settings where heterosexuality was
normally imposed. For men and women already gay, it provided
an opportunity to meet people like themselves. Others could
become gay because of the temporary freedom to explore

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sexuality that the war provided.” (D’Emilio, Capitalism and Gay
Identity, p. 471-472)
“Men and women who were aware of same-sex attraction,
but had not acted upon it, could explore it in a relatively safe
environment. Individuals already aware of their homosexuality
could meet others, embark on relationships, and build further
ties to help foster the development of a gay community. The
point is not that the war experience fostered homoerotic
feelings and a rise in homosexuality. Rather, the disruption in
the social environment caused by the war provided the
opportunity for homosexuals to meet, to realize others like
themselves existed, and to abandon the isolation that
characterized the homosexual lifestyle of the pre-war period.”
(Engel, The Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement Theory and the
Gay and Lesbian Movement, p. 23-24)
“The war functioned as an opportunity to promote
homosexual visibility in a variety of ways. First, by asking
recruits if they have had felt any erotic attraction for members
of the same sex, the military ruptured the silence that shrouded
a tabooed behavior, introducing some to the concept for the
first time. Furthermore, the act of considering a homosexual
unfit for service illustrates both a sharp shift in the language of
military policy as well as a change in the common perception of
the homosexual. Previously the sexual act was the problem;
individuals discovered in sexual relations with a member of the
same sex were punished accordingly through the military’s
criminal justice system. Yet, the drafting procedure initiated by
the Second World War viewed the person as mentally ill. In an
interesting parallel to Foucault’s argument, the sexual act was
not banned, rather the homosexual himself was banned.
Second, the war functioned to bring previously isolated
homosexuals together. Given that the recruits could merely lie
about their sexual inclinations and that the draft preferred
young and single men, it was likely that the armed forces would
contain a disproportionately high percentage of gay men. Third,
soldiers often resorted to antics which exaggerated common
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homosexual stereotypes to alleviate sexual tension.” (Engel, The
Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement Theory and the Gay and
Lesbian Movement, p. 22)
“The Second World War coupled with the Kinsey studies of
the late 1940s created the opportunity for men and women
unsure of their sexual orientation or already aware of their
homosexuality or bisexuality to meet others like themselves and
realize their commonality.” (Engel, The Unfinished Revolution:
Social Movement Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement, p. 29)
“Nevertheless, the juxtaposition of the opportunity
provided by the Second World War for gay men and lesbians to
explore their identity and the subsequent repressive
environment of the 1950s fostered a dissonant atmosphere
from which the first politically active gay and lesbian
organizations emerged.” (Engel, The Unfinished Revolution: Social
Movement Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement, p. 29)
It was as a result of this military response to homosexuality
and after the war a similar response to homosexuality adopted
by the federal government that led to homosexuals beginning to
organize themselves. Harry Hay and other male homosexuals
founded one such group, the Mattachine Society in 1951 in Los
Angeles. The Daughters of Bilitis founded in 1955 was a similar
organization of female homosexuals. The term homophile was
chosen by the homosexuals who founded these groups to be
used in describing these groups so as to de-emphasis the
difference between homosexuals and other members of society,
that is the difference of sexuality, i.e. who one had sex with.
“In November of the previous year, 1950, five men had met
at the home of Harry Hay in Los Angeles, and out of that
meeting grew the first substantial and lasting homophile
organization in American history, the Mattachine Society.”
(Edsall, Toward Stonewall: Homosexuality and Society in the Modern
Western World, p. 269)
Homophile Movement
“The emphasis on self-education, minority-group
distinctiveness, and community organizing evident in the
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statement of missions and purposes prepared by the founders
of the Mattachine Society stood in marked contrast to the ideas
aired by Donald Webster Cory in The Homosexual in America.
Cory argued that prejudice was responsible for negative
stereotyping and discrimination, and he maintained that the
public had to be taught that homosexuals were in important
respects like heterosexuals and were therefore worthy of equal
opportunity and a place in the mainstream. These ideas bespoke
the world view of liberals and civil rights leaders who believed
that America was an admirable melting pot and that
progressives should be concerned with acculturating and
integrating members of excluded minority groups. But Hay and
his followers held the Marxist view that capitalism required the
oppression of minorities. They believed that homosexuals had
to organize so that they could explore their sexuality, become
aware of how it equipped them to contribute to a more humane
society, and prepare to join with other organized minorities in
the struggle to replace capitalism with socialism.” (Moratto, The
Politics of Homosexuality, p. 9-10)
“They had, in fact, what is here called the basic homophile
outlook-the belief that prejudice, stereotyping, and
discrimination were the source of the homosexual’s problems
and that education, policy reform, and help for individual
homosexuals would bring about the recognition of basic
similarity, equality of treatment, and integration that were
tantamount to social progress. (Moratto, The Politics of
Homosexuality, p. 11)
“During the 1950s, the term homophile was used as a
euphemism for homosexual by those who wanted to combat
the stereotype that homosexuals were obsessed with sex. The
suffix phile was suppose to suggest that homosexuality was
more an emotional than a sexual attraction and that
homosexuals, like respectable heterosexuals, were interested in
love more than sex. Early in the 1960s, Mattachine leaders in
the east suggested that the word homophile be used to refer to
their movement to secure rights and status for homosexuals.
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The term is used here both to identify the ideas about gay
political activity that predominated before the gay liberation
movement and to characterize the groups, leaders, and activities
that were guided by these ideas.” (Moratto, The Politics of
Homosexuality, p. 11-12)
“Homosexuals begin to speak for themselves in the
language of civil rights and social inclusion in the post-World
War II period. Initially, the war spawned urban networks of
among homosexuals; the antihomosexual politics of the 1950s
and 1960s in the midst of general liberalization of society and
the materialization of homosexual life in urban areas provided a
favorable context for movements of homosexual
empowerment. By the early 1970s a self-identified, self-
accepting homosexual population had swelled, and a collective
homosexual life developed in the exclusively gay bars, social
clubs, friendship networks, and political organizations that
cropped up across the urban landscapes of America. Skirmishes
between a new militant, self-respecting homosexual and the
guardians of heterosexual privilege broke out in bars, the
courts, and in the worlds of science, literature, and art. In
particular, these emerging gay subculture gave birth to a cultural
apparatus that challenged religious and scientific-medical
definitions of homosexuality as an illness or sin. Discourses
issued forth the gay culture that projected new, affirmative
identities: homosexuality was reconfigured as a natural human
expression, as a basis for a new minority, as an alternative
lifestyle, and as a political rebellion against patriarchy and
heterosexism. Symbolic of this change was the substitution by
the homosexual community of the term gay for homosexual.
Whereas the latter term carried resonances of deviance, disease,
and destruction, and gave the legal, medical and scientific
institutions control over individuals’ lives, gay signified dignity
and personal integrity; it framed homosexuality as a social
identity. Self-identification as gay symbolized a community that
was intent on taking control of its own lives.” (Seidman,
Embattled Eros, p. 147-148)
- 61 -
“A historical sketch of American gay and lesbian movement
reveals that the movement’s guiding ideology exhibits a bipolar
pattern exacerbated by gender-based rifts. Movement
philosophy tends to swing between periods of moderation or
assilimationism on one side and militancy and liberationism on
the other. These seemingly oppositional ideologies have divided
the movement throughout the post-war era. The homophile
movement, initiated in 1951 with the formation of the first
modern gay rights organization, the Mattachine Society,
illustrates the effect of these conflicting ideologies on
mobilization. The history of the Mattachine Society specifically,
and of the homophile movement in general, follows a pattern
of brief militancy followed by long period of assimilation and
moderate leaders leading to a crescendo of renewed radicalism
climaxed by the Stonewall riots.” (Engel, The Unfinished
Revolution: Social Movement Theory and the Gay and Lesbian
Movement, p. 30)
“Founded by Harry Hay in April 1951 in Los Angeles, and
modeled after the communist party, the Mattachine Society
became the first organization of what would become the
homophile movement. The secret hierarchical and cell-like
organization adapted from the communist party was
necessitated, according to the founders, by the oppressive
environment fostered by McCarthyism. Yet, Mattachine drew
on the communism for more than just a structural guide;
Marxist ideology functioned as a means to mobilize a mass
homosexual constituency for political action. Utilizing a Marxist
understanding of class politics, that is, a class as merely a
socioeconomically determined entity until it gains
consciousness enabling recognition of its inherent political
power, Hay and the other founding members theorized that
homosexuals constituted a similarly oppressed minority group.
Homosexuals, like members of the proletariat, were trapped in
a state of false consciousness purported and defended by the
heterosexual majority which maintained homosexuality to be a
morally reprehensible individual aberration. Hence, the early
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Mattachine attempted to promote a measure of cognitive
liberation and homosexual collective identity. During a time
when both religion and law condemned homosexuality, and
medicine viewed it as an individual psychological abnormality,
the Mattachine Society was advocating the development of a
group consciousness similar to that of other ethnic minority
groups in the United States.” (Engel, The Unfinished Revolution:
Social Movement Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement, p. 30)
“Since not only Hay but two others of the original five had
been Communist Party members, the society inevitably
reflected party doctrine in its ideology and to some extent in its
structure. They defined homosexuals as a distinct cultural
minority schooled in the values of the dominant heterosexual
culture but not, of course, able to fit into that cultural except at
great personal and social cost. They therefore saw the first task
f the new society as raising consciousness, not, as in the
Communist Party, of class, and through increased self-
awareness as a group to install pride and solidarity and
ultimately to inspire political and social action.” (Edsall, Toward
Stonewall: Homosexuality and Society in the Modern Western World, p.
273)
“By asserting that homosexuals constituted a minority
comparable to other ethnic groups, Mattachine defined itself
rather being defined by the dominant culture: homosexuality
was distinct from and morally equivalent to heterosexuality.
Self-definition is a recurring theme in the attempts to create a
validating and positive collective identity, and the sexual
minorities community continued the trend with the adoption of
gay in the 1970s and less widespread adoption of queer in the
1990s. Furthermore, the comparison to ethnic minorities
provided a model for action; homosexuals should follow the
lead of other groups and politically organize for equal civil
rights.” (Engel, The Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement Theory
and the Gay and Lesbian Movement, p. 31)
“In order to help develop the homosexual consciousness,
the Mattachine Society coordinated public discussion groups.
- 63 -
By late 1951, approximately twelve discussion groups existed
throughout southern California; Mattachine billed these events
as positive alternatives to the anonymous sexual encounters
fostered by the bar and bathhouse subculture.” (Engel, The
Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement Theory and the Gay and
Lesbian Movement, p. 31-32)
“In order to mitigate some of the growing dissension, the
original five members called for a convention in April 1953 to
convert the Mattachine Society into an above-ground
organization. However, rather than ameliorating tension, the
conference merely exacerbated the rift between moderate and
militant perspective. Chuck Rowland and Harry hay were
confronted by the demands of Kenneth Braun, Marilyn Reiger,
and Hal Call. The former individuals stressed the need to build
an ethical homosexual culture and to end prejudice that
privileges heterosexuality as morally superior. Burns, Reiger,
and Call took the opposite stance. They emphasized
assimilation and suggested that homosexual behavior was a
minor characteristic that should not foster a rift with the
heterosexual majority.” (Engel, The Unfinished Revolution: Social
Movement Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement, p. 32)
“Even so, for the sake of unity and to free the society from
the imputation of Communist ties, the founders as a body
decided to bow out of the leadership. Gradually they drifted
away as the moderates took over. Activism, the questioning of
majoritarian values, and the raising of gay consciousness gave
away to a policy of accommodation in which homosexuals were
urged to adopt a pattern of behavior that is acceptable to
society in general and compatible with recognized institutions ...
of home, church and state” and to pursue a program of
working with experts in the medical and scientific community
to educate and change public perceptions and gain
creditability.” (Edsall, Toward Stonewall: Homosexuality and Society
in the Modern Western World, p. 281)
“Abandoning its communist-based ideology, the post-
convention Mattachine Society no longer sought to promote a
- 64 -
homosexual culture or mass movement. Instead, it established
an assimilationist tendency emphasizing homosexuality as
primarily an individual problem, and it turned to psychology to
provide theories on homosexuality. The new leadership
proposed, and members endorsed, an elimination of any
mention of homosexual culture from the statement of purpose.
Indeed, the statement no longer even identified the Mattachine
Society as a homosexual organization; the word homosexual
was eliminated from the passage altogether.” (Engel, The
Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement Theory and the Gay and
Lesbian Movement, p. 33)
It was this homosexual that was popularly known and
accepted until the late 1960s when once again homosexuals
themselves begin speaking for themselves and defining
themselves. It is was this new generation of homosexual
activists, who differed from the previous generation of
homosexual activist who comprised the homophile movements
of the 1950s and early 1960s. Stonewall is often cited as the
beginning of this transition. Whereas members of the
homophile groups worked together with the psychiatrists, this
new generation of homosexual activist’s tactics were to protest
and fight against psychiatrists. While homosexuals seemed to
gain control of their lives and their destinies which was the
commercialization of homosexuality and the adoption of gay
and lesbian as defining terms/identities. The result was AIDS.
Bibliography
Allen, Michael S., Ph.D. Sullivan’s Closet: A Reappraisal of
Harry Stack Sullivan’s Life and His Pioneering Role in American
Psychiatry. Journal of Homosexuality. 1995, Vol. 29 (1), p. 1-18.
Archer, Bert. The End of Gay (and the Death of Heterosexuality).
Thunder’s Mouth Press. New York, 2002.
Burns, Kate., editor. Gay Rights. Greenhaven
Press/Thompson Gale. Farmington Hills, MI, 2006.
D’Emilio, John. Capitalism and Gay Identity, p. 467-476 in The
Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader by Henry Abelove, Aine Barale
and David Halperin. Routledge. New York and London, 1993.
- 65 -
Edsall, Nicholas. Toward Stonewall: Homosexuality and Society in
the Modern Western World. University of Virginia Press.
Charlottersville & London, 2003.
Engel, Stephen M. The Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement
Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement. Cambridge University
Press. Cambridge, UK, 2001.
McKinney, Kathleen and Susan Sprecher, editors. Human
Sexuality: The Societal and Interpersonal Context. Ablex Publishing
Corporation. Norwood, New Jersey, 1989.
Moratto, Toby. The Politics of Homosexuality. Houghton
Mifflin. Boston, 1981.
Rosario, Vernon A. Homosexuality and Science: A Guide to the
Debates. ABC-CLIO. Santa Barbara, CA, Denver, CO &
Oxford, England, 2002.
Seidman, Steven. Embattled Eros: Sexual Politics and Ethnics in
Contemporary America. Routledge. New York, 1992.

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Chapter 5
Stonewall to the 1980s

Stonewall
“In short, the political and cultural environment had
undergone a liberalizing shift which had created the
opportunity for the emergence of a mass homosexual
movement.” (Engel, The Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement
Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement, p. 38)
“Ironically, when the uprising finally occurred, many people
failed to recognize its significance. Looking back, however,
there is no denying that what began as a skirmish at a
Greenwhich Village bar became the harbinger of a new
movement of human rights. Detailed accounts of Stonewall
have taken on the quality of myth, as more people remember
being thee that could have possibly have fit in the tiny grimy
bar. It is generally accepted that a diverse group of bar patrons,
led by drag queens who were Stonewall regulars, spontaneously
began to fight back during a police raid. The resistance turned
into a riot, which lasted for several days.” (Kranz and Cusick,
Gay Rights: Revised Edition, p. 35)
“The years leading up to Stonewall saw a breach in the
assimilationist attitudes of the docile homophiles of the
previous generation in favour of more revolutionary ones of
people who craved more purely sexual freedom.” (Archer, The
End Gay, p. 91)
“But in the 1960s and 1970s, the gay movement broke
decisively with the assimilationist rhetoric of the 1950s by
publicly affirming, celebrating, and even cultivating homosexual
difference.” (Chauncey, Why Marriage? The History Shaping
Today’s Debate Over Gay Equality, p. 29)
An event that took place on June 12, 1969, in New York
City at a gay bar called, the Stonewall Inn, had great social and
cultural historical significance in the development of the
concept of the “modern homosexual” who soon adopted what
- 67 -
is known as a “gay” identity. This was an act of resistance, a riot
by drag queens mourning the death of Judy Garland. It was a
group of effeminate men, wearing women’s clothes resisting
police authority, during a raid on the gay bar. What started out
as a typical raid by the police, a shake down for bribery from a
gay bar turned out much differently. This event is often linked
with the beginning of the “gay liberation movement.” It should
be noted that it was a fringe group of homosexuals, and not
representative individuals of the homosexual community at
large who displayed this physical resistance.
“Stonewall was an act of resistance to police authority by
multiracial drag queens mourning the death of Judy Garland,
long divinized by gays. Therefore Stonewall had a cultural
meaning beyond the political: it was a pagan insurrection by the
reborn transvestite priests of Cybele.” (Paglia, Vamps and
Tramps, p. 67‑68)
“In the 1970s gay liberation was the name of a major
theoretical challenge to assimilation as well as minoritization.
Early activists and writers argued that gay liberation could
transform all sexual and gender relations; they argued against
marriage and monogamy and against existing family structures
(Altman 1981); Jay and Young (1972).” (Phelan, Sexual Strangers:
Gays, Lesbians, and Dilemmas of Citizenship, p. 108‑109)
“Gay liberation had somehow evolved to the right to have a
good time‑the right to enjoy bars, discos, drugs, and frequent
impersonal sex.” (Clendinen and Nagourney, Out for Good: The
Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America, p. 445)
American Psychiatric Association
Another historically significant event in the development of
the concept of the “modern homosexual” occurred in the early
1970s. This was the decision in 1973 by the APA, American
Psychiatric Association, to remove homosexuality from the lists
of sexual disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.
Homosexual advocates acknowledge the hijacking of science
for political gain.
- 68 -
“Of course, to mount this counterattack, gays and lesbians
must challenge authority of scientists, and that is exactly what
gay rights activists did when they campaigned to have
homosexuality removed from the APA’s list of mental
disorders. In fact, those activists argued that homosexuality is
not a disease but a lifestyle choice. Although that argument was
successful in the early 1970s, the political climate has changed
in such a way that gay rights advocates no long want
homosexuality to be considered a choice.Instead, they want
homosexuals to be thought of as an immutable characteristic,
and the gay gene discourse helps them in this effort.” (Brookey,
Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power of the Gay
Gene, p. 43)
“In 1973, by a vote of 5,854 to 3,810, the diagnostic
category of homosexuality was eliminated from the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) of the
American Psychiatric Association (Bayer 1981).” (O’Donohue
and Casselles, Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional , and Value
Issues, p. 66 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health The
Well‑Intentioned Path to Harm, editors Rogers H.Wright and
Nicolas A. Cummings)
“The decision of the American Psychiatric Association to
delete homosexuality from its published list of sexual disorders
in 1973 was scarcely a cool, scientific decision. It was a
response to a political campaign fueled by the belief that its
original inclusion as a disorder was a reflection of an oppressive
politico‑medical definition of homosexuality as a problem.”
(Weeks, Jeffery, Sexuality and Its Discontents Meanings, Myths and
Modern Sexualities, p. 213)
“Perhaps the greatest policy success of the early 1970s was
the American Psychiatric Association’s 1973‑74 decision to
remove homosexuality from its “official Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual list of mental disorders.” This decision did
not come about because a group of doctors suddenly changed
their views; it followed an aggressive and sustained campaign by
- 69 -
lesbian and gay activists.” (Rimmerman, From Identity to Politics:
The Lesbian and Gay Movements in the United States, p. 85‑86)
“Writing about the 1973 decision and the dispute that
surrounded it, Bayer (1981) contended that these changes were
produced by political rather than scientific factors. Bayer argued
that the revision represented the APA’s surrender to political
and social pressures, not new data or scientific theories
regarding on human sexuality.” (O’Donohue and Casselles,
Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional , and Value Issues, p. 66 in
Destructive Trends in Mental Health The Well‑Intentioned Path to
Harm, editors Rogers H.Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings)
“The APA’s very process of a medical judgment arrived at
by parliamentary method set off more arguments than it settled.
Many members felt that the trustees, in acting contrary to
diagnostic knowledge, had responded to intense propagandistic
pressures from militant homophile organizations. “Politically
we said homosexuality is not a disorder,” one psychiatrist
admitted, “but privately most of us felt it is.” (Kronemeyer,
Overcoming Homosexuality, p. 5)
The removing of homosexuality as a sexual disorder was as
a result of a three year long social/political campaign by gay
activists, pro‑gay psychiatrists and gay psychiatrists, not as a
result of valid scientific studies. Rather the activities were public
disturbances, rallies, protests, and social/political pressure from
within by gay psychiatrists and by others outside of the APA
upon the APA. The action of removing homosexuality was
taken with such unconventional speed that normal channels for
consideration of the issues were circumvented. This action
taken in the APA had dramatic consequences on psychosexual
life according to Charles Socarides in a article published in The
Journal of Psychohistory, “Sexual Politics and Scientific Logic:
The Issue of Homosexuality.” Socarides writes the removal of
homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual was a
false step with the following results.

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“This amounted to a full approval of homosexuality and an
encouragement to aberrancy by those who should have known
better, both in the scientific sense and in the sense of the social
consequences of such removal.” (Socarides, Charles W., Sexual
Politics and Scientific Logic: The Issue of Homosexuality, p. 320‑321)
In this article he described a movement within the
American Psychiatric Association that through social/political
activism resulted in a two‑phase radicalization of a main pillar
of psychosocial life. The first phase was the erosion of
heterosexuality as the single acceptable sexual pattern in our
culture. This was followed by the second phase the raising of
homosexuality to the level of an alternative lifestyle. As a result
homosexuality became an acceptable psychosocial institution
alongside heterosexuality as a prevailing norm of sexual
behavior.
“In essence, this movement within the American Psychiatric
Association has accomplished what every other society, with
rare exceptions, would have trembled to tamper with, a revision
of the basic code and concept of life and biology: that men and
women normally mate with the opposite sex and not with each
other.” (Socarides, Charles W., Sexual Politics and Scientific Logic:
The Issue of Homosexuality, p. 321)
The hijacking of science in the APA by those advocating
homosexuality has now taken a very interesting twist. Thirty
years later after this decision by the APA, Robert L. Spitzer,
M.D. who was instrumental in the removal of homosexuality in
1973 from the lists of sexual disorders in the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual is once again facing the anger of others. The
first time was by those who opposed the normalization of
homosexuality. Now after publishing the results of a study
showing that some people may change their sexual orientation
from homosexual to heterosexual, it is those advocating for
homosexuality. Dr. Spitzer’s study and peer commentaries have
just been published in the October 2003 issue of the Archives of
Sexual Behavior.

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“An additional personal parallel‑the anger that has been
directed towards me for doing this study reminds of a similar
reaction to me during my involvement in the removal of the
diagnosis of homosexuality from DSM‑II in 1973.” (Spitzer,
Reply: Study Results Should Not be Dismissed and Justify Further
Research on the Efficacy of Sexual Reorientation Therapy, p. 472)
Circuit Parties
Circuit parties are unique to the homosexual community,
but are similar to other parties called “raves” and can be traced
back to the popularity of disco music in the 1970s. The
popularity of these “circuit parties” has grown tremendously
over the past 10 years. There is no uniform definition of a
“circuit party”, because these parties continue to evolve.
“However, a circuit party tends to be a multi‑event weekend
that occurs each year at around the same time and in the same
town or city and centers on one or more large, late‑night dance
events that often have a theme (for example, a color such as
red, black or white).” (Mansergh, Colfax, Marks, Rader,
Guzman and Buchbinder, The Circuit Party Men’s Health Survey:
Findings And Implications for Gay and Bisexual Men. p. 953)
“Circuit Parties are weekend‑long, erotically‑charged,
drug‑fueled gay dance events held in resort towns across the
country. There’s at least one party every month somewhere in
the U.S.‑New York’s ‘Black Part’, South beach’s ‘White Party’,
Montreal’s ‘Black and Blue Party’, and son – and people travel
far and wide to take part.” (Ghaziani, The Circuit Part’s Faustian
Bargin, p. 21)
Because these “circuit parties” are unique to the
homosexual community, it is from the media of this community
itself that most of the information about these parties comes
from. Although there has been a study published in the
American Journal of Public Health, which is quoted from
above. I have also found an article form usatoday.com, Worries
crash ‘circuit parties’, 06/20/2002. The information that is coming
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from all sources is strikingly similar. That is the high prevalence
of drug use and sexual activity, including unprotected anal sex.
“The circuit‑with its jet set ‘A‑List’ of well‑heeled and
muscular gay men‑ had actually been in existence in the
pre‑AIDS time, albeit it was small and very exclusive. It
consisted in the late 1970s into the early 1980s mostly of a
about thousand men who flew back and forth between New
York and Los Angeles, going from the famous parties at the
Flamingo and the Saint in New York to the ones at the Probe
in L.A. But in the 1990s the circuit grew to consist of parties all
around the country, indeed around the world‑from Miami to
Montreal, Vancouver to Sydney‑with tens of thousands of men
who regularly attend events. In the early 1990s there were only
a handful of events; by 1996, according to Alan Brown in Out
and About, a gay travel newsletter, there were over 50 parties a
year, roughly one per week. Typically these are weekend‑long
events, more a series of all‑night (and daytime) parties
stretching over a few days, often taking place in resort hotels,
each punctuated by almost universal drug use among
attendees.” ( Signorile, Life Outside, p. 64‑65)
“Every party has a similar format, with loud music and
dancing at its core, spiced with live entertainment from popular
singers and scantily‑clad male dancers. Circuit parties began in
the mid‑1980’s as part of an effort to raise gay men’s awareness
of AIDS as well as to raise funds to combat the disease and
help its victims. To this day, many circuit parties HIV/AIDS
charity events, benefiting a variety of nonprofit organizations.”
(Ghaziani, The Circuit Part’s Faustian Bargin, p. 21)
According to health officials, Palm Springs, CA has
developed one of the highest per capita rates of syphilis in the
nation, driven mostly by gay and bisexual men. Palm Springs is
where the White Party is held annually in April. The 2003 party
raised concerned among public health officials and some gay
leaders that the event would feed the spread of syphilis.
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Some charities – along with public health officials and many
gay rights leaders – are increasingly uncomfortable with what
has become the dark side of circuit parties: widespread drug use
and random, unprotected sex that some charities say is just the
type of behavior they discourage. (Worries crash ‘circuit parties’,
www.usatoday.com)
“This seems harmless enough, but there is also a flipside.
While the evidence to date is inconclusive, circuit parties may
ironically be a potential site for HIV infection. The irony is that
circuit parties began as vehicles for HIV awareness and
fundraising.” (Ghaziani, The Circuit Party’s Faustian Bargin, p. 22)
“It is well known, both anecdotally and through research
that drug use is wide spread at circuit parties. Studies indicate
that club drugs are consumed by by about 95 percent of party
attendees (Mansergh, 2001). Indeed drug use is incorporated
into the setting as an intergal part of circuit culture.” (Ghaziani,
The Circuit Party’s Faustian Bargin, p. 22)
“Research revels an abundance of sexual activity during
party weekends.” (Ghaziani, The Circuit Part’s Faustian Bargin, p.
22)
But one national gay organzation in September of 2004
appears not to be concerned with this dark side of circuit
parties. The NGLTF (National Gay and Lesbian Task Force)
has purchased the rights and assets to the Winter Party held in
Maimi, FL. A Washington Blade online article (Friday,
September 09, 2004) quotes the executive director of the
NGLTF, who sees no problem with being a sponsor of a
‘circuit party’. He goes on to call it a dance event.
Foreman said he sees no problem with the Task Force
becoming associated with a circuit party.
“We’re very proud to have acquired the Winter Party,”
Foreman said. “Having a dance event where people come
together and have a good time is a good thing.” (Task Force to
take over Winter Party, Washington Blade online, Friday,
September 03, 2004)

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Gay Male Clones
Throughout history the male homosexual was often based
on non‑gender conformity, that is the effeminate male.
Although this still continues today, a rejection of this
stereotyping is seen in the “gay male clone”. There are two
books written by homosexuals themselves that defines this “gay
male clone”. Michelango Signorileis is the author of the book,
Life Outside. Signorileis writes about gay men, masculinity, the
“gay male clone”, and “circuit parties”. Martin Levine was a
sociologist, and university professor. The book, Gay Macho, is
an edited version of Levine’s doctoral dissertation. He died
from complications of AIDS at the age of 42. The gay male
clone was not a representative homosexual, but only one of
many groups among the “modern homosexual” gays, lesbians,
queers, and homosexual.
“Clones symbolize modern homosexuality. When the dust
of gay liberation had settled, the doors to the closet were
opened, and out popped the clone. Taking a cue from
movement ideology, clones modeled themselves upon
traditional masculinity and the self‑fulfillment ethic.
(Yankelovitch 1981) Aping blue‑collar workers, they butched it
up and acted like macho men. Accepting me‑generation values,
they searched for self‑fulfillment in anonymous sex,
recreational drugs, and hard partying. Much to activists’ chagrin,
liberation turned the Boys in the Band into doped‑up, sexed‑out,
Marlboro men. The clone in many ways was, the manliest of
men. He had a gym‑defined body; after hours of rigorous body
building, his physique rippled with bulging muscles, looking
more like competitive body builders than hairdressers or
florists. He wore blue‑collar garb‑flannel shirts over muscle
T‑shirts, Levi 501s over work boots, bomber jackets over
hooded sweatshirts. He kept his hair short and had a thick
moustache or closely cropped beard. There was nothing New
Age or hippie about this reformed gay liberationist. And the
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clone lived the fast life. He “partied hard,” taking recreational
drugs, dancing in discos till dawn, having hot sex with strangers.
Throughout the seventies and early eighties,clones set the tone
in the homosexual community (Altman 1982, 103; Holleran
1982). Glorified in the gay media, promoted in gay advertising,
clones defined gay chic, and the clone life style became
culturally dominant. Until AIDS. As the new disease ravaged
the gay male community in the early 1980s scientist discovered
that the clone life style was “toxic”: specific sexual behaviors,
even promiscuity, might be one of the ways that the HIV virus
spread in the gay male population. Drugs, late nights, and poor
nutrition weakened the immunity system. (Fettner and Check
1984)” (Levine, Gay Macho, p. 7‑8)
“The clone role reflected the gay world’s image of this kind
of gay man, a doped‑up, sexed‑out, Marlboro man. Although
the gay world derisively named this social type the clone, largely
because of is uniform look and life‑style, clones were the
leading social within gay ghettos until the advent of AIDS. At
this time, gay media, arts, and pornography, promoted clones as
the first post‑Stonewall form of homosexual life. Clones came
to symbolize the liberated gay man.” ( Levine, The Life and Death
of Gay Clones, p. 70‑71 in Gay Culture in America: Essays from the
Field, editor Gilbert Herdt)
“Four features distinguished clones: (1) strongly masculine
dress and deportment; (2) uninhibited recreational sex with
multiple partners, often in sex clubs and baths; (3) the use of
alcohol and other recreational drugs; and (4) frequent
attendance at discotheques and other gay meeting places. Clone
culture with its pattern of sexual availability, erotic apparel,
multiple partners, and reciprocity in sexual technique became an
important organizing feature of gay male life during the 1970s.
It also became a seedbed for high rates of sexually transmitted
diseases as well as frequent transmission of the hepatitis B
virus. Many treated sexually transmitted diseases as a price that
had to be paid for a life style of erotic liberation.” (Jonsen and
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Stryker, editors, The Social Impact of AIDS in the United States, p.
261‑262)
“A key factor in the formulation and promulgation of the
cult of masculinity that also dismayed the gay liberationist was
that the dominant gender style was now supermasculine. It was
as if the 1960s and the counter culture androgyny never
occurred. Gay male culture was still reeling from the crisis of
masculinity that had affected homosexuals for decades. Gay
men, attracted to the masculine ideas they’d cultivated in the
furtive days prior to Stonewall, seemed now institutionalize and
exaggerate a heterosexual‑inspired, macho look. The 1970s
clone was born, and his look exploded on the streets of rapidly
growing gay ghettos in dozens of American cities.” (Signorile,
Life Outside, p. 51‑52)
“A whole industry was sprouting from and glorifying this
male culture, with clothing stores like All American Boy on
Castro Street, a gym called Body Works, and dozens of sex
clubs and baths, with names like Animals. The sex clubs catered
to every to every imaginable sexual taste: the leather set; men
who enjoyed being tied up; men who wished to be urinated on.
The bathhouses had once been seen as an expression of gay
liberation, at least among those who equated gay liberation with
sexual abandon. Now, they were celebrating and enforcing the
values that Evans saw parading down the Castro every day: The
Premium was put on physical appearance and conformity.”
(Clendinen and Nagourney, Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a
Gay Rights Movement in America, p. 445)
For the “gay male clone” what resulted was not “gay
liberation” or freedom from alienation by society, but was
bondage into the enforced cult of modern homosexuality.
“For a great many gay men in the urban centers‑the
majority of which, some studies since the 1970s have shown,
have hundreds of partners throughout their lives‑living the
fantasy has of course all been under the guises of liberation.
Perhaps there is no such thing as true liberation. When we
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break from one rigid system, we often create another. Its true
that most gay men in urban America are not having a life of
enforced heterosexuality, as gay liberationist might call it, with a
driveway, a picket fence, and children to nurture. Many are,
however, instead living a life of enforced cult homosexuality,
with parties, drugs, and gyms ruling their lives.” (Signorile, Life
Outside, p. 26‑ 27)
In New York City, San Francisco, and other large cities
many gay and lesbians had formed large “gay communities”. So
it was now possible to live, work, and socialize in what became
“gay ghettos”. The following quote is making reference to the
opening of, The Saint, a large disco for gay males in New York
City.
“It was mailed only to Mailmans’ friends and their friends, a
self‑selected group that formed the base of The Saint’s
membership of three thousand. Anyone who wanted to join
had to be referred by a member to the membership office for
screening. The clientele reflected the screening process: nearly
all white, professional in their twenties and thirties, most
good‑looking and muscled, with the mustaches and short hair
that were the style of the time.” (Clendinen and Nagourney, Out
for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America, p.
442‑443)
“The streets of San Francisco offered, in theory at least, a
cross‑section of America’s male homosexual community, but,
Evans thought, one would never know it to walk down Castro
Street. All these men looked identical, with their short haircuts,
clipped mustaches and muscular bodies, turned out in
standard‑issue uniforms of tight faded blue jeans and polo
shirts. The image was one part military, one part cowboy, one
part 1950s suburbia and conformity, and they swaggered down
the street, many aloof and unfriendly, as if their affected
distance enhanced their masculinity.” (Clendinen and
Nagourney, Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights
Movement in America, p. 444)
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Bibliography
Archer, Bert. The End of Gay (and the Death of Heterosexuality).
Thunder’s Mouth Press. New York, 2002.
Bayer, Ronald. Homosexuality and the American Psychiatry: The
Politics of Diagnosis. Basic Books. New York, 1981.
Brookey, Robert Alan. Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The
Rhetoric and Power of the Gay Gene. Indiana University Press.
Bloomington & Indianapolis, 2002.
Chauncey, George. Why Marriage? The History Shaping Today’s
Debate Over Gay Equality. Basic Books/Perseus Books Group.
New York, 2004.
Clendinen, Dudley and Adam Nagourne. Out for Good: The
Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America. Simon and
Schuster. New York, 1990.
Engel, Stephen M. The Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement
Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement. Cambridge University
Press. Cambridge, UK, 2001.
Ghaziani, Amin. The Circuit Party’s Faustin Bargain. The Gay
& Lesbian Review/Worldwide. July‑August, 2005, Volume XII,
Number 4, p. 21‑24.
Jonsen, Albert R. and Jeff Stryker. The Social Impact of AIDS
in the United States. National Academy Press. Washington D.C.,
1993.
Konemeyer, Robert. Overcoming Homosexuality. Macmillan.
New York, 1980.
Kranz, Rachel and Tim Cusick. Gay Right: Revised Edition.
Facts on File, Inc. New York, 2005.
Levine, Martin P. Gay Macho. New York University Press.
New York and London, 1998.
Levine, Martin P. The Life and Death of Gay Clones, p. 68‑86 in
Gay Culture in America: Essays from the Field, editor Gilbert Herdt.
Mansergh, Gordon, Ph.D., Grant N. Colfax, M.D., Gary
Marks, Ph.D., Melissa Rader, M.PH., Robert Guzman, B.A.,
and Susan Buchbinder, M.D. The Circuit Party Men’s Health

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Survey: Findings And Implications for Gay and Bisexual Men. American
Journal of Public Health. June 2001, Vol. 91, No. 6, p. 953‑958.
Paigila, Camille. Vamps & Tramps. Vintage Books. New
York, 1994.
Phelan, Shane. Sexual Strangers: Gays, Lesbians, and Dilemmas
of Citizenship. Temple University Press. Philadelphia, 2001.
Rimmerman, Craig A. From Identity to Politics: The Lesbian and
Gay Movements in the United States. Temple University Press.
Philadelphia, 2002.
Signorile, Michelangelo. Life Outside. HarperCollins
Publishers. New York, 1997.
Socarides, Charles W. Sexual Politics and Scientific Logic: The
Issue of Homosexuality. The Journal of Psychohistory. Winter 1992, 19
(3), p. 307‑329.
Spitzer, Robert L, M.D. Reply: Study Results Should Not be
Dismissed and Justify Further Research on the Efficacy of Sexual
Reorientation Therapy. Archives of Sexual Behavior. October 2003,
Vol. 32, No. 5, p. 469‑472.
Weeks, Jeffery. Sexuality and Its Discontents Meanings, Myths
and Modern Sexualities. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London,
1988.
Wright, Rogers H. and Nicolas A. Cummings. Destructive
Trends in Mental Health: The Well‑Intentioned Path to Harm.
Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. New York and Hove, 2005.

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Chapter 6
Assimilation or Liberation

Assimilation or liberation is one of two discussions that take


place mainly among homosexuals themselves. The other
discussion is that of essentialism versus social constructionism
in the etiology of homosexuality. A better and more accurate
way of framing this second discussion is who one is, a
“homosexual” or what one does, “homosexuality”.
The homosexual as a distinct person, which was first
advocated in Germany in the 1860s by homosexuals themselves
seeking legal rights, was next adopted by sexologists and then
by psychiatrists. But it was the American military during World
War II with the psychiatric profession that was to play a leading
role in defining the homosexual in the United States as a
character type, who was sick that persisted until the early 1970s.
The Stonewall Riots in June of 1969 sparked a change, resulting
in homosexuals beginning to speak for themselves. No longer
would they allow others in society to define what it meant to be
a homosexual. By many Stonewall was said to be the beginning
of Gay Liberation. Before Stonewall the homosexuals’ emphasis
was on assimilation in their relationship to the society at large.
After Stonewall homosexuals’emphasis was sexual liberation in
relationship to the society. But AIDS that begin among male
homosexuals in the late 1970s, resulted in the death of many
those homosexuals advocating for sexual liberation.
“While the discussion of such things as the relationship of
gender to sexuality was limited to scientific, literary, intellectual,
and interested circles – as it was, mostly from the nineteen-
century through the Second World War – the link was not
firmly or especially established popularly made. Many pieces of
what would eventually be the popular conception of the early-
modern homosexual (which let’s say dates from the Second
World War to about 1969) were floating independently between
sexologists and psychiatrists. There was the effeminate man or
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pansy, there was the pervert and/or psychopath who could be
expected to commit violent crimes of a sexual nature on any
sort of person at all, and there was the man or woman, not
much spoken of in polite company, who had a tendency to
have sex with others of the same sex. When this was spoken of,
it was in purely non-sexual terms, like the partners on ranches
that Front Runner author Patricia Nell Warren remembers her
father mentioning in Montana when she was a child in the late
thirties and forties, or those urban bachelors and the ubiquitous
maiden aunts and their companions.
What the military did in its rough and ready way was to
mush all these things together into one character type - the
homosexual. The homosexual was now, for all the world to see
an effeminate man (and after the war, a masculine woman) who
had sex with members of the same sex, and was either passively
or actively pathological.” (Archer, The End of Gay (and the Death
of Heterosexuality), p. 105)
“The status of homosexuals changed around the time of
World War II. Prior to this point, identifications with
homosexuality were primarily individual experiences. The
identification of homosexuals as a group was given impetus by
the actions of the military and the federal government who
attempted to identify homosexuals and remove them from
military positions. Early in the war effort, discovered
homosexuals were given dishonorable discharges by the
thousands. Later, those who had served in the war were given a
newly created category of discharge – a general discharge which
was neither honorable or dishonorable (Licata, 1980). The
labeling and singling out of these individuals by the government
helped to create minority status of homosexuals as group and
to promote discrimination against them.” (Heyl, Homosexuality:
A Social Phenomenon, p. 341 in Human Sexuality: the Societal and
Interpersonal Context, edited by Kathleen McKinney and Susan
Sprecher)
“Despite this modicum of sympathy initially extended to
sexual perverts, the military categorically declared homosexual
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behavior and proclivities as incompatible with military service.
Historian Allan Berube (1990) has documented the ill effects of
this military ban on those who managed to stay in the service
and those given dishonorable discharges simply for being
homosexual. The psychiatric profession that dedicated itself to
screening out homosexuals also promised to treat the problem
of homosexuality; as it was perceived to affect the individuals
discharged and the society that would receive them.” (Rosario,
Homosexuality and Science: A Guide to the Debates, p. 89)
This military ban on homosexuals was a result but not the
intent of two psychiatrists. President Roosevelt received a
memo from Harry Stack Sullivan and Winfred Overholser
suggesting a screening process for identifying potential soldiers
who may later suffer from mental health issues. Their intent
was to help prevent a situation that occurred after World War I,
in which men by the thousands required treatment for mental
health issues, including hospitalization that resulted in a
tremendous financial cost and burden. President Roosevelt
accepted this idea and had these two psychiatrists draw up
guidelines, which became known as Medical Circular Number One.
But within one year, both the army and navy had revised the
guidelines, adding homosexuality to the list of deviations
Sullivan and Overholser had said should disqualify those from
military service. This revision resulted in the military for the rest
of the war and decades thereafter, referring to men and women
who engaged or were prone to homosexual activity as sexual
psychopaths. This military ban on homosexuals was the
unintended result of the actions by psychiatrist Harry Stack
Sullivan, who was a homosexual himself.
It was as a result of this military response to homosexuality
and after the war a similar response to homosexuality adopted
by the federal government that led to homosexuals beginning to
organize themselves. Harry Hay and other male homosexuals
founded one such group, the Mattachine Society in 1951 in Los
Angeles. The Daughters of Bilitis founded in 1955 was a similar
organization of female homosexuals. The term “homophile”
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was chosen by the homosexuals who founded these groups to
be used in describing these groups so as to de-emphasis the
difference between homosexuals and other members of society,
that is the difference of sexuality, i.e. who one had sex with.
Homophile Movement
“In its early manifestations, the homophile movement
embraced liberationist principles through the Mattachine
Society, founded in Los Angeles in 1951.” (Rimmerman, From
Identity to Politics: The Lesbian and Gay Movements in the United
States, p. 20)
“Homosexuals themselves were divided over what their
emerging sense of group consciousness meant.” (Escoffier,
American Homo: Community and Perversity, p. 41)
“From their early group discussions, these Mattachine
members concluded that homosexuals were an oppressed
cultural minority.” (Escoffier, American Homo: Community and
Perversity, p. 41)
“The cultural minority thesis argued that homosexuals had
developed differently because they had been excluded from
dominant heterosexual culture. The secondary socialization of
homosexuals into distinct subculture helped them to develop
appropriate new values, relationships, and cultural forms
because homosexual life did not fit the patterns of heterosexual
love, marriage, children, etc. upon which the dominant culture
rests. The proponents of the cultural minority thesis recognized
that homosexuals also internalized the dominant culture’s view
of themselves as aberrant and were often force by social stigma
to lead lives of secrecy, hypocrisy, and emotional stress. These
proponents therefore emphasized the need for a critique of this
internalized self-oppression and the development of an ethical
homosexual culture.” (Escoffier, American Homo: Community and
Perversity, p. 42)
A difference in ideology that continues even today quickly
emerged in the Mattachine Society, assimilation verses
liberation, in how homosexuals interacted with society. The
assimilation’ strategy encouraged the homosexual to act normal
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and fit in with other members of society. This continued the
historical concept of passing, where a homosexual would be
thought of as a heterosexual in their outward appearance and
behaviors. Whereas a liberation strategy is to encourage the
homosexual to come out acknowledging his homosexuality for
all others to see. A movement in the late 1960s and 1970s, Gay
Liberation adopted this strategy.
Homosexuality in the 1950s: Assimilation
“The split that ultimately occurred between the
organization’s founders and its newer members reflected
serious disagreements over assimilation and liberation, conflicts
that have plagued the movements over the years. The
Mattachine founders envisioned a separate homosexual culture
while other members worried that such a strategy would only
increase the hostile social climate. Instead, they called for
integration into mainstream society (D’Emilio, 1983, 81).”
(Rimmerman, From Identity to Politics: The Lesbian and Gay
Movements in the United States, p. 21)
“The alternative assimilationist position sought to achieve
societal acceptance of homosexuals by emphasizing the
similarities between homosexuals and heterosexuals.
Proponents felt that the secondary socialization of homosexuals
resulted from a life given over to hiding, isolation, and
internalized self-hatred. For this reason, homosexuals should
adopt a pattern of behavior that is acceptable to society in
general and compatible with [the] recognized institutions ... of
home, church, and state, rather than creating an ethical
homosexual culture, which would only accentuate the perceived
differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals and
provoke continued hostility. The cultural minority analysis was
hotly debated in the early years of the Mattachine Society, but
after many battles, marked by also by anticommunism, the
assimilationists thesis prevailed and served as the ideological
basis for homosexual rights movement during the 1950s and
1960s.” (Escoffier, American Homo: Community and Perversity, p.
42)
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“With the adoption of a civil rights strategy as early as the
creation of the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis
in the 1950s, lesbian and gay movements embraced a minority
rights" approach to political and social change. They framed
specific issues by emphasizing the importance of equality for all
human beings as they identified themselves as a distinct
minority group. They presented lesbians and gays as ordinary
people, eschewing an identity based on behavior.”
(Rimmerman, From Identity to Politics: The Lesbian and Gay
Movements in the United States, p. 49)
Homosexuality in the 1960s: Liberation
“The years leading up to Stonewall saw a breach in the
assimilationist attitudes of the docile homophiles of the
previous generation in favour of more revolutionary ones of
people who craved more purely sexual freedom.” (Archer, The
End Gay, p. 91)
“Yet the rights-based strategy associated with the civil
rights, women’s and homophile movements came under
increased scrutiny and criticism in light of Stonewall. The
modern gay liberation movement was soon born, built on some
of the same ideas that undergirded the original Mattachine
Society almost twenty years earlier. For those who embraced
gay liberation, a rights-based strategy was far too limited. In
their view, the goal should be to remake society, not merely
reform it. (Loughery 1998, 323).” (Rimmerman, From Identity to
Politics: The Lesbian and Gay Movements in the United States, p. 23-
24)
Gay Liberation
“For many homosexuals, gay liberation – and what it means
to be gay – was inextricably linked to sexual freedom. The right
to have sex anytime, anywhere, and with anybody they choose
was, for them, inalienable.” (Andriote, Victory Deferred: How
AIDS Changed Gay Life in America, p. 73)
“In the 1960s and 1970s, the gay and lesbian movement had
pursued many goals – the right to be open about sexual
orientation and the right to be equal in the eyes of religious
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bodies and the law. But one of its earliest and most basic
objectives, especially for gay men, was sexual freedom: the right
to have sexual lives that were untrammeled by the conventions
and limits of social norms.” (Allen, The Wages of Sin: Sex and
Disease, Past and Present, p. 125)
“It is well to remember that AIDS was presaged by prior
epidemics of herpes simplex, Chlamydia, gonorrhea, and
syphilis. The Stonewall riots in New York City, the 1969
crucible from which the movement for gay liberation was cast,
created another social revolution that is no exception to the
medical rule. Coming out of the closet has altered not only our
social perception of homosexuality but its medical face as well.
The sociological manifestations of homosexuality have
changed radically in the recent past. As Jonathan Weber noted,
the incidence of syphilis a few decades ago was almost exactly
equal between men and women but is now found mainly in
homosexual men. Since homosexuality is almost surely as old as
humanity and is present in almost every society, the unusually
high incidence of syphilis among homosexual men today
cannot be ascribed to homosexuality per se but to significant
changes in homosexual behavior in the recent pasts. New
expressions of homosexuality concomitant with the gay
liberation movement have created an unusual and new disease
profile for gay men.
The medical literature is quite explicit about some of these
new manifestations of gay male life.” (Root-Bernstein,
Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost of Premature Consensus, p. 282)
“HIV truly strikes where we live. Its mean of transmission -
sex - is the very thing that to many of us define us as gay men,
drives our politics and our erotics, gives us our modern identity,
provides the mortar of much of our philosophy and
community, animates much of our lives.” (Rotello, Sexual
Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men, p. 5)
Male homosexuals
“Indeed, there is no record of any culture that accepted
both homosexuality and unlimited homosexual promiscuity. Far
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frome being the universal default mode of male homosexuality,
the lifestyle of American gay men in the seventies and eighties
appears unique in history. (Rotello, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the
Destiny of Gay Men, p. 225)
“The extensive casual networks of gays engaging in sex
apparently for the sole purpose of sensuous pleasure, and in so
many different ways, went far beyond anything that had
occurred before in the United States or elsewhere or that
anyone could have imagined just a few years previously.
Without question, the sexual style of gay communities in the
1970s and early 1980s was a specific historic phenomenon
(Bateson and Goldsby, 1988:44).” (Rushing, The AIDS Epidemic
Social Dimensions of an Infectious Disease, p. 27)
“When AIDS hit the homosexual communities of the US,
several studies were conducted by the vigilant CDC to
determine what it was in the homosexual lifestyle which
predisposed to this immunosuppressive condition. There were
really only two things which distinguished the homosexual
lifestyle: the promiscuous sex and the extensive use of
recreational drugs.” (Adams, AIDS: The HIV Myth, p. 127)
“In sum, gay sex institutions and the sexual activity in them
became the functional social equivalent of family, friends, and
community: They promoted social bonds that gave gays a sense
of belonging and social support.” (Rushing, The AIDS Epidemic
Social Dimensions of an Infectious Disease, p. 30)
“Other men who had participated enthusiastically in the life
of the ghetto had grown tired of its anonymity and inverted
values. They questioned why membership in the gay
community had come to require that one be alienated from his
family, take multiple drugs and have multiple sex partners,
dance all night at the right clubs, and spend summer weekends
at the right part of Fire Island. Rather than providing genuine
liberation, gay life in the ghettos had created another sort of
oppression with its pressure to conform to social expectations
of what a gay man was supposed to be, believe, wear, and do.”

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(Andriote, Victory Deferred: How AIDS Changed Gay Life in
America, p. 24)
“Gay historian Dennis Altman notes that in the liberated
seventies, when promiscuity was seen as a virtue in some
segments of the gay community, being responsible about one’s
health was equated with having frequent checks for syphilis and
gonorrhea, and such doubtful practices as taking a couple of
tetracycline capsules before going to the baths. To gay men for
whom sex was the center and circumference of their lives, their
only real health concern was that illness would prevent them
from having sex – which, to their way of thinking, meant they
would no longer be proudly gay.” (Andriote, Victory Deferred:
How AIDS Changed Gay Life in America, p. 37)
“The complex research agenda that characterized the period
from the early 1970s to the beginning of the AIDS epidemic
reflected major changes within the gay and lesbian communities
themselves. The decision by a large number of people to openly
label themselves gay men and lesbians changed the experience
of same-gender sexuality. From a relatively narrow homosexual
community based primarily on sexual desire and affectional
commitment between lovers and circles of friends, there
emerged a community characterized by the building of
residential areas, commercial enterprises, health and social
services, political clubs, and intellectual movements.” (Turner,
Miller and Moses, editors, AIDS Sexual Behavior and Intravenous
Drug Use, p. 127)
“These observations of new syndromes associated with a
very active male homosexual life-style suggests that both the
type of sexual activity and the extent of promiscuity associated
with it changed markedly during the 1970s.” (Root-Bernstein,
Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost of Premature Consensus, p. 285-
286)
A change in who homosexuals actually have sex with,
became more significant during the 1960s and resulted in new
sexual behaviors among male homosexuals. Prior to the 1960s
homosexual men had sex with heterosexual men who were
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called “trade”. The latter was the passive partner in a sex act.
But as the stigma against homosexuality increased heterosexual
men became frightened that they too might be labeled
homosexual and thus were no longer willing to be passive
participates in sexual activity with homosexual men. This
resulted in more homosexual men having sex with other
homosexual men and the specific sexual behaviors themselves
also changed. This change in male homosexual behavior also
resulted in the changes in some of the specific diseases that
effected male homosexuals and dramatic rates in the instances
of sexually transmitted diseases among male homosexuals.
Behaviors among male homosexuals
“In the 1070s an extraordinary proliferation of clubs, bars,
discotheques, bathhouses, sex shops, travel agencies, and gay
magazines allowed the community to ‘come out’ and adopt a
whole new repertorie of erotic behavior, out of of all measure
to any similar past activities.” (Grmek, History of AIDS, p. 168-
169)
“Furthermore, in previous periods in history when
homosexuality had been widely accepted socially, as, for
example, in classical Greece, there had been no sexual practices
remotely resembling those associated with the gay subcultures
of the 1970s and 1980s.” (Rushing, The AIDS Epidemic Social
Dimensions of an Infectious Disease, p. 27)
“We don’t know, in real quantitative terms, what really
changed in homosexual behavior in the 1970s, but it is possible
to identify three major areas of change: the expansion of
homosexual bathhouses and sex clubs, which facilitate
numerous sexual contacts in one night (by 1984 one bathhouse
chain included baths in forty-two American cities, including
Memphis and London, Ontario), the emergence of sexually
transmitted parasites as a major homosexual health problem,
especially in New York and California, and a boom in
‘recreational drugs’ – that is, the use of chemical stimulants
such as MDA, angel dust, various nitrates, etc. – in conjunction
with what came to be known as fast-lane sex. These three
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elements would all be linked to various theories about AIDS
during the 1980s.” (Altman, AIDS in the Mind of America, p. 14)
“Evidence convincingly argues that before the middle of the
century gay sexual behavior was vastly different from what it
was to become later, that from mid-century onward there were
fundamental changes not only in gay male self-perceptions and
beliefs, but also in sexual habits, kinds and numbers of partners,
even ways of making love. These revolutions reached a fever
pitch just as at the moment HIV exploded like a series of time
bombs across the archipelago of gay America. When gay
experience is viewed collectively, it appears that the
simultaneous introduction of new behaviors and a dramatic rise
in the scale of old ones produced one of the greatest shifts in
sexual ecology ever recorded. There is convincing evidence that
this shift had a decisive impact on the transmission of virtually
every sexually transmitted disease, of which HIV was merely
one, albeit the most deadly.” (Rotello, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and
the Destiny of Gay Men, p. 39)
“As the gay version of the sexual revolution took hold
among certain groups of gay men in America’s largest cities, it
precipitated a change in sexual behaviors. Perhaps the most
significant change was the fact that some core groups of gay
men began practicing anal intercourse with dozens or even
hundreds of partners a year. Also significant was a growing
emphasis on versatile anal sex, in which partners alternately
played both receptive and insertive roles, and on new behaviors
such as analingus, or rimming that facilitated the spread of
otherwise difficult-to-transmit microbes. Important, too, was a
shift in patterns of partnership, from diffuse systems in which a
lot of gay sex was with non-gay identified partners who
themselves had few contacts, to fairly closed systems in which
most sexual activity was within a circle of other gay men. Also
important was a general decline in group immunity caused by
repeated infections of various STDs, repeated inoculations of
antibiotics and other drugs to combat them, as well as
recreational substantive abuse, stress, and other behaviors that
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comprised immunity.” (Rotello, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the
Destiny of Gay Men, p. 57-58)
“The primary factor that led to increase HIV transmission
was anal sex combined with multiple partners, particularly in
concentrated core groups. By the seventies there is little doubt
that for those in the most sexually active core groups,
multipartner anal sex had become the main event. Michael
Callen, both an avid practitioner and a careful observer of life in
the gay fast lane, believed that this was a historically
unprecendented aspect of the gay sexual revolution.” (Rotello,
Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men, p. 75)
“In the middle of the century, and particularly in the sixties
and seventies, gay men began doing something that appears
rare in sexual history: They began to abandon strict role
separation in sex and alternately play both the insertive and
receptive roles, a practice sometimes called versatility.” (Rotello,
Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men, p. 76)
“It was an historic accident that HIV disease first
manifested itself in the gay populations of the east and west
coasts of the United States, wrote British sociologist Jeffrey
Weeks in AIDS and Contemporary History in 1993. His
opinion has been almost universal among gay and AIDS
activists even to this day. Yet there is little accidental about the
sexual ecology described above. Multiple concurrent partners,
versatile anal sex, core group behavior centered in commercial
sex establishments, widespread recreational drug abuse,
repeated waves of STDs and constant intake of antibiotics,
sexual tourism and travel – these factors were not accidents.
Multipartner anal sex was encouraged, celebrated, considered a
central component of liberation. Core group behavior in baths
and sex clubs was deemed by many the quintessence of
freedom. Versatility was declared a political imperative.
Analingus was pronounced the champagne of gay sex, a
palpable gesture of revolution. STDs were to be worn like
badges of honor, antibiotics to be taken with pride.

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Far from being accidents, these things characterized the
very foundation of what it supposedly meant to experience gay
liberation. Taken together they formed a sexual ecology of
almost incalculably catastrophic dimensions, a classic feedback
loop in which virtually every factor served to amplify every
other. From the virus’s point of view the ecology of liberation
was a royal road to adaptive triumph. From many gay men’s
point of view, it proved a trapdoor to hell on earth.” (Rotello,
Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men, p. 89)
“Anal sex had come to be seen as an essential - possibly the
essential - expression of homosexual intimacy by the 1980s.”
(Rotello, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men, p. 101)
“Another relative novelty was the increasing flexibility of
sex roles. Homosexuality in more traditional cultures had
typically followed rigid patterns: certain men were the insertive
partners in oral and anal intercourse, others the receptive ones.
In the 1970s and 1980s, however, American gay men often took
both insertive and receptive roles. Rather than serve as cul-de-
sac for the virus, as heterosexual women often did, gay and
bisexual men more often acted as an extremely effective
conduit for HIV.” (Allen, The Wages of Sin: Sex and Disease, Past
and Present, p. 125-126)
“These data demonstrate definitively that the gay liberation
movement resulted in a great increase in promiscuity among gay
men, along with significant changes in sexual practices that
made rectal trauma, immunological contact with semen, use of
recreational drugs, and the transmission of many viral, amoebal,
fungal, and bacterial infections far more common than in the
decades prior to 1970. The same data strongly suggest that
recent changes in sexual and drug activity played a major role in
vastly enlarging the homo- and bisexual male population at risk
for developing immunosuppression. Since promiscuity,
engaging in receptive anal intercourse, and fisting are the three
highest-risk factors associated with AIDS among gay men and
since each of these risk factors is correlated with known cases
of immunosuppression, they represent significant factors in our
- 93 -
understanding of why AIDS emerged as a major medical
problem only in 1970.” (Root-Bernstein, Rethinking AIDS: The
Tragic Cost of Premature Consensus, p. 290-291)
“Whatever the cause of AIDS, single or multi-factorial, it is
certain that the promiscuous homosexuals of the late seventies
and early eighties were fertile ground for an epidemic.” (Adams,
AIDS: The HIV Myth, p. 131)
Diseases among male homosexuals
“In medical terms the almost immediate result was an
increase in the classic sexually transmitted diseases, notably
syphilis and gonorrhea; of certain viral disease, such as hepatitis,
herpes, and cytomegalovirus; and internal parasites such as
amebiasis. Skin disorders of an otherwise relatively rare nature,
and chronic diarrhea, became the daily lot of homosexuals. The
rise in these disorders preceded the AIDS outbreak, and already
indicated the point at which the epidemiological situation was
ready to explode.” (Grmek, History of AIDS, p. 169)
“The appearance of a multitude of epidemic diseases almost
immediately after gay men had carved out zones of sexual
freedom has opened up the grim, almost unthinkable possibility
that for gay men, sexual freedom leads inexorably to disease. As
time goes on and the epidemic continues to rage among gay
men while largely sparing the rest of the population, that
nightmare grows only more plausible. It was one thing to
believe we were accidental victims who would soon be joined in
our sorrow by everyone else. It is quite another to discover that
we will not be joined, that we stand almost alone, consumed
with disease.” (Rotello, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of
Gay Men, p. 18)
“And so, without most gay men knowing it,a revolution in
disease transmission began almost as soon as the steady disco
beat filled the air. The rise of gay core groups in which men
combined anal sex with very large numbers of partners
profoundly altered the microbial landscape and created entirely
new opportunities for a host of diseases that until then had

- 94 -
been held in check.” (Rotello, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the
Destiny of Gay Men, p. 57)
“The combination of multiple sex partners and anal sex in
relatively intense core groups had already created an unstable
sexual ecology for some gay men even before Stonewall. An
article in the American Journal of Tropical Medical Hygiene
published in 1968 noted that certain pockets of Manhattan’s
growing gay community had begun to display the medical
profiles of a Third World slum or a tropical island, with far
higher than average rates of traditional STDs and
gastrointestinal parasites. After Stonewall this process sharply
accelerated, creating a radical new medical situation in the gay
world.” (Rotello, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men,
p. 66-67)
“The incidence of venereal diseases has long been
recognized to be a sensitive indicator of levels of promiscuity.
Rates of venereal diseases began a noticeable climb during the
mid-1950s, as advances in birth control became widely
available, and they skyrocketed during the 1970s. Whereas the
increase was found among both men and women during the
1950s and 1960s, the vast increase in new cases of venereal
diseases during the 1970s was found almost entirely in
homosexual and bisexual men and has been directly attributed
by the medical community to the consequences of gay
liberation. The title of an article in the Journal of the American
Medical Association in 1977 by Dr. S. Vaisrub said it all:
Homosexuality- a risk factor in infectious diseases.
Analysis of the increases in specific venereal diseases
provides a detailed look at the growth of homosexual
promiscuity.” (Root-Bernstein, Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost
of Premature Consensus, p. 287-288)
“Some gay men became unwitting guinea pigs for the
elucidation of how various diseases were transmitted. Diseases
such as amebiasis, shigellosis, and giardiasis were not known to
be transmitted sexually prior to 1970. Their sexual transmission
was first documented in gay men, and they are now known to
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be associated with anal intercourse and anal-oral contact. Once
again, these diseases therefore provide measures of increases in
these types of gay sex.
All these disease were rare in the United States and England
prior to the 1970s, with outbreaks almost always associated with
fecal contamination and poor public hygiene. This picture
changed dramatically in the aftermath of gay liberation.” (Root-
Bernstein, Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost of Premature Consensus,
p. 289)
“Some physicians saw what was happening even as it
happened. Dr. H. Most and Dr. B. H. Kean, for example, noted
that the Manhattan homosexual community had begun to
display the unusual disease profile typical of a tropical isle or
Third World country beginning about 1968.” (Root-Bernstein,
Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost of Premature Consensus, p. 290)
“Urban gay American men were affected with diseases that
were previously considered problems only in the poor,
undeveloped areas of the world. After repeated bouts of these
diseases, treatment with increasingly powerful antibiotics, and
use of the recreational drugs that were for many were just
another normal part of ghetto life, the immune systems of
many gay men were suppressed to dangerously low levels.”
(Andriote, Victory Deferred: How AIDS Changed Gay Life in
America, p. 39)
“During the 1960s and 1970s, US doctors reported sexually
transmitted diseases as the rate of 5-7 million cases per year.
Thus the CDC knew the dramatic increase of chlamydia and
the high rates of infertility that it causes. It knew of the increase
of syphilis and of STDs that previously were rare. It was
especially concerned about the spread of hepatitis B, which
clustered in gay populations. It enrolled a cohort of 7000 gay
men to study their lifestyle and viral load in connection with the
search for a vaccine. From this study it knew that syphilis,
gonorrhea, and hepatitis B were endemic in the gay populations
of the cities. Parasitic infections of the colon, known as gay
bowl’, were also endemic. It was found that the annual hepatitis
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infection rate among gays was an astonishing 12%, as against a
1% lifetime rate for the general population. The stage was set
for rapid transmission of unusual pathogens.
Thus on the eve of AIDS, the CDC was fully-aware of the
increase of sexually transmitted disease and the possible
bacterial and viral bomb’ that the sexual revolution had
planted.” (Caton, The AIDS Mirage, p. 25-26)
“HIV aside, there are powerful additional reasons why we
need to face the facts of why AIDS happened to gay men.
Almost every researcher studying the epidemic is convinced of
one overarching fact: that if gay men ever re-create the sexual
conditions of the seventies, the same kind of thing will happen
again with other microbes. There are already drug-resistant or
incurable diseases circulating in the gay population - things like
hepatitis C, antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea, various strains of
herpes - and they all stand poised to sweep through the gay
population the moment we provide them an opportunity to
spread.” (Rotello, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay
Men, p. 7)
“If we now go back and ask why AIDS emerged as a
problem for gay men only in the past decade or so, despite the
acknowledged antiquity of homosexuality itself, the answer
becomes clear: AIDS became a problem for homosexual men
only when rampant promiscuity, frequent anal forms of
intercourse, new and sometimes physically traumatic forms of
sex, and the frequent concomitants of drug use and multiple
concurrent infections paved the way. As Mirko Grmek has
concluded, American homosexuals created the conditions
which, by exceeding a critical threshold, made the epidemic
possible. This conclusion stands regardless of whether one
wishes to interpret the social revolution of gay liberation as the
means by which HIV has spread, the vehicle for transmitting
HIV with all of its necessary cofactors, or the direct cause of
the immunosuppressive habits that have medically debilitated
so many gay men.” (Root-Bernstein, Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic
Cost of Premature Consensus, p. 291-292)
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Who gets AIDS?
“From Stonewall to the first AIDS alert was only twelve
short years. In the Eighties and early Nineties, displaced anxiety
over the horrors of AIDS turned gay activists into rampaging
nihilists and monomaniacs, who dishonestly blamed the disease
on the government and trampled on the rights of the gay
majority, and whose errors of judgement materially aided the
rise and consolidation of the far right. AIDS did not appear out
of nowhere. It was a direct result of the sexual revolution,
which my generation unleashed with the best intentions, but
whose worse effects were to be suffered primarily by gay men.
In the West, despite much propaganda to the contrary, AIDS is
a gay disease and will remain one for the foreseeable future.”
(Paglia, Vamps and Tramps, p. 68)
“From its very beginnings the most striking features of the
AIDS epidemic in the USA and in Western countries was its
dominance in the male homosexual population. It was therefore
logical to search for clues for the cause of the disease among
practices or characteristics of this lifestyle.” (Schoub, AIDS and
HIV in Perspective, p. 4)
“AIDS in America has two primary sources at present:
unprotected anal intercourse, which is associated with gay male
behavior and which probably accounts for the bulk of the
existing cases nationwide; and intravenous drug injection with
virus-contaminated needles, which is currently the major source
of new cases and is likely to be the source of most cases within
a few years.” (Perow and Guillen, The AIDS Disaster: The Failure
of Organizations in New York and the Nation, p. 55)
“The disease first became evident among male homosexuals
and intravenous drug users, and in the United States it remains
disportionately concentrated in these two populations.”
(Rushing, The AIDS Epidemic: Social Dimensions of an Infectious
Disease, p. 1)
“AIDS, however, has remained absolutely fixed in its
original risk groups. Today, a full decade after it first appeared,
the syndrome is diagnosed in homosexuals, intravenous drug
- 98 -
users, and hemophiliacs some 95 percent of the time, just as ten
years ago. Nine out every ten AIDS patients are male, also just
as before. Even the very existence of a latent period strongly
suggests that years of health abuse are required for such fatal
conditions. Among most AIDS patients in the United States
and Europe, one extremely common health risk has been
identified: the long-term use of hard drugs (the evidence for
this new AIDS hypothesis will be presented in chapter 8 and
11). AIDS is not contagious nor is it even a single epidemic.”
(Duesburg, Inventing the AIDS Virus, p. 217)
“Any, or all, of these possibilities would explain why AIDS
has remained almost completely within the originally defined
high-risk groups rather than spreading, as other venerable
diseases had done, to low-risk groups as well.” (Root-Bernstein,
Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost of Premature Consensus, p. 114)
“It is, of course, always dangerous to generalize about any
group of people, and people with AIDS are no exception. And
yet certain generalizations about who is most likely to contract
AIDS have proved to be useful from a medical perspective. We
recognize that the vast majority of people with AIDS are gay
men/or intravenous drug abusers. These generalizations
provide clues about what may cause AIDS, what may dispose
people to contract the syndrome, and how the disease may
spread.” (Root-Bernstein, Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost of
Premature Consensus, p. 224)
“Some people are far more susceptible to AIDS than
others, and the reasons are from mysterious: immunological
exposure to semen, blood, or other alloantigens; multiple,
concurrent infections; prolonged medical or illicit drug use;
malnutrition; and so forth. None of these risk factors is new,
however. Why, then, has AIDS become epidemic only recently?
The recent spread of AIDS can be understood only in terms of
one of the most basic principles of epidemiology: disease that
are transmitted by exposure to blood or by sexual means are
social diseases. It is impossible to understand such diseases
from a purely medical, biological, or laboratory perspective.”
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(Root-Bernstein, Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost of Premature
Consensus, p. 281)
Homosexuality in the 1980s: A Return to Assimilation
“The belief in a predetermined sexual orientation is most
visible in the emerging conservatism in the gay rights
movement. Although the concept of conservatism seems
antithetical to the cause of gay rights, it has been expressed
recently as an effort to assimilate gays and lesbians into the
mainstream heterosexual culture. The assimilationist is not so
much a challenge to conservatives as an effort as an effort at
accommodation. Whereas as conservatives have portrayed
homosexuality as a threat to traditional values, assimilationists
attempt to show that homosexuals can embrace the same values
they are supposed to threaten.” (Brookey, Reinventing the Male
Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power of the Gay Gene, p. 137)
“The push for assimilation, however, is not new. The
original homophile organizations of the 1950s, such as the
Mattachine Society, Daughters of Bilitis, and One, Inc., adopted
a policy of assimilation.” (Brookey, Reinventing the Male
Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power of the Gay Gene, p. 137)
“The contemporary assimilationist movement resembles
Mattachine’s policies in two important ways.” (Brookey,
Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power of the Gay
Gene, p. 138)
“First, it is designed to deny any attempts to challenge the
heterosexual norms of society.” (Brookey, Reinventing the Male
Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power of the Gay Gene, p. 138)
“The current assimilationist movement, like the older
Mattachine Society, has deferred to the authority of science.”
(Brookey, Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power
of the Gay Gene, p. 139)
Assimilation or Liberation
Whether by assimilation or liberation the merits of
homosexuality are very weak and detrimintral for both the
individuals invovled in homosexuality and for society at large.
Both statgeies are aimed at the legitmatization and
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normalization of homosexuality, homosexual behavior. But it is
much more than about a specific behavior, homosexuality, it is
about how society defines those essential factors which give a
society meaning and provides for a healthy society gender, the
family, and community. These last quotes are by those self-
identify as homosexuals themeselves.
“Gay and lesbian identity politics is, only in part, about the
social status of self-identified homosexuals; it is also about the
meaning of sexuality, gender, the family, and even community
in our society.” (Escoffier, American Homo: Community and
Perversity, p. 225)
“The lesbian and gay communities, however, have
considerable ambivalence toward the campaign for citizenship,
because the outlaw status of homosexuals is historically very
significant.” (Escoffier, American Homo: Community and Perversity,
p. 225)
“I have argued that lesbian and gay identity and
communities are historically created, the result of a process of
capitalist development that has spanned many generations. A
corollary of this argument is that we are not a fixed social
minority composed for all time of a certain percentage of the
population. There are more of us than one hundred years ago,
more of us than forty years ago. And there may very well be
more gay men and lesbians in the future. Claims made by gays
and nongays that sexual orientation is fixed at an early age, that
large numbers of visible gay men and lesbians in society, the
media, and schools will have no influence on the sexual
identities of the young, are wrong. Capitalism has created the
material conditions for homosexual desire to express itself as a
central component of some individuals’ lives; now, our political
movements are changing consciousness, creating the ideological
conditions that make it easier for people to make that choice.”
(D’Emilio, Capitalism and Gay Identity, p. 473-474 in The Lesbian
and Gay Studies Reader by Henry Abelove, Michele Aine Barale
and David M. Halperin)

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“In short, the gay lifestyle – if such a chaos can, after all,
legitimately be called a lifestyle – just doesn’t work: it doesn’t
serve the two functions for which all social framework evolve:
to constrain people’s natural impulses to behave badly and to
meet their natural needs. While it’s impossible to provide an
exhaustive analytic list of all the root causes and aggravants of
this failure, we can asservative at least some of the major
causes. Many have been dissected, above as elements of the
Ten Misbehaviors; it only remains to discuss the failure of the
gay community to provide a viable alternative to the
heterosexual family.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How
America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p.
363)
Bibilography
Abelove, Henry, Michele Aine Barale and David M.
Halprin. The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Routledge. New
York and London, 1993.
Adams, Jad. AIDS: The HIV Myth. MacMillian London,
Inc., London, 1989.
Aggelton, Peter, Peter Davies and Graham Hart, editors.
AIDS: Facing The Second Decade. The Falmer Press. London,
New York and Philadelphia, 1993.
Allen, Peter Lewis. The Wages of Sin: Sex and Disease, Past and
Present. The University of Chicago Press. Chicago and London,
2000.
Altman, Dennis. AIDS in the Mind of America. Anchor
Books. Garden City, New York, 1987.
Andriote, John-Manuel. Victory Deferred: How AIDS Changed
Gay Life in America. The University of Chicago Press. Chicago
and London, 1999.
Archer, Bert. The End of Gay (and the Death of Heterosexuality).
Thunder’s Mouth Press. New York, 2002.
Brookey, Robert Alan. Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The
Rhetoric and Power of the Gay Gene. Indiana University Press.
Bloomington & Indianapolis, 2002.

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Caton, Hiram. The AIDS Mirage. University of New South
Wales Press LTD. Sydney, 1994.
D’Emilio, John. Capitalism and Gay Identity, p. 467-476 in The
Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader by Henry Abelove, Michele Aine
Barale and David M. Halperin. Routledge. New York and
London, 1993.
Duesburg Dr., Peter. Inventing the AIDS Virus. Regnery
Publishing, Inc., Washington, D.C., 1996.
Ellison, George, Melissa Parker and Catherine Campbell,
editors. Learning From HIV and AIDS. Cambridge University
Press. Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2003.
Escoffier, Jeffrey. American Homo: Community and Perversity.
University of California Press. Berkeley, Los Angeles and
London, 1998.
Heyl, Barbara Sherman. Homosexuality: A Social Phenomenon,
p. 312-349 in Human Sexuality: The Societal and Interpersonal
Context. Kathleen McKinney and Susan Sprecher, editors. Ablex
Publishing Corporation. Norwood, New Jersey, 1989.
Kirk, Marshall and Hunter Madsen Ph.D. After the Ball: How
America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s.
Doubleday. New York, 1989.
Mansergh, Gordon, Ph.D., Grant N. Colfax, M.D., Gary
Marks, Ph.D., Melissa Rader, M.PH., Robert Guzman, B.A.,
and Susan Buchbinder, M.D. The Circuit Party Men’s Health
Survey: Findings And Implications for Gay and Bisexual Men. American
Journal of Public Health. June 2001, Vol. 91, No. 6, p. 953-958.
McKinney, Kathleen and Susan Sprecher, editors. Human
Sexuality: The Societal and Interpersonal Context. Ablex Publishing
Corporation. Norwood, New Jersey, 1989.
Paigila, Camille. Vamps & Tramps. Vintage Books. New
York, 1994.
Perow, Charles and Mauro F. Guillen. The AIDS Disaster:
The Failure of Organizations in New York and the Nation. Yale
University Press. New Haven and London, 1990.
Root-Berstein, Robert S. Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost of
Premature Consensus. The Free Press. New York, 1993.
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Rotello, Gabriel. Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay
Men. A Dutton Book. New York, 1997.
Rimmerman, Craig A. From Identity to Politics: The Lesbian and
Gay Movements in the United States. Temple University Press.
Philadelphia, 2002.
Rosario, Vernon A. Homosexualities and Science: A Guide to the
Debates. ABC-ClIO. Santa Barbara, CA, 2002.
Rushing, William A. The AIDS Epidemic: Social Dimensions of
an Infectious Disease. WestviewPress. Boulder, CO, 1995.
Schoub, Barry D. AIDS and HIV in Perspective. Cambridge
University Press. Cambridge UK, 1999.
Turner, Charles F., Heather G. Miller and Lincoln E.
Moses, editors. AIDS, Sexual Behavior, and Intravenous Drug Use.
National Academy Press. Washington, D.C., 1989.
Watney, Simon. Emergent Sexual Identities and HIV/AIDS, p.
13-27 in AIDS: Facing The Second Decade. Peter Aggelton, Peter
Davies and Graham Hart, editors. The Falmer Press. London,
New York and Philadelphia, 1993.

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Chapter 7
A Homosexual Agenda?

Is there or was there ever a homosexual agenda? Today


there are many local, regional, and national homosexual
organizations. In addition, homosexuals have a very prominent
written media presence. There is the Journal of Homosexuality, a
magazine, the Advocate, newspapers, the Blades in Washington,
D.C. and New York along with other popular media
publications and a large internet presence. How closely do all
these various homosexual enterprises work together as a unified
entity speaking as one voice for homosexuals? It is hard to tell,
it may not be as unified as some may think to portray. But it
does speak well for the democratic capitalist society that
America is today.
The homosexual rights movement itself speaks of following
upon and learning from the earlier civil rights and feminist’s
movements. For without them there would be no homosexual
rights movement today. But one parallel to these two previous
movements cannot be made; they were about equality, racial
and gender, for two distinct classes of individuals. There is no
homosexual as a distinct class of individuals. Homosexuals are a
group of individuals who self-identity by the behaviors they
commit. It is these behaviors, particularly sexual behaviors that
are committed and that are detrimental to the individuals who
commit them and to the society as a whole. Yet the homosexual
rights movement is well on its way to changing our society in
greater ways then perhaps the combination of these two
previous movements together. Homosexuals have been very
successful in shifting the discourse from behavior to rights. The
homosexual rights movement is an attempt to bring about
change in our culture and society that is unprecedented in all of
history, particularly in redefining gender and marriage. But
when it all said and done, as the homosexuals say and write in
their books it is about societal approval for homosexual
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behavior. It is all about same-sex physical sex acts. The
following quotes are by two homosexual historians.
“It isn’t at all obvious why a gay rights movement should
ever have arisen in the United States in the first place. And it’s
profoundly puzzling why that movement should have become
far and away the most powerful such political formation in the
world. Same gender sexual acts have been commonplace
throughout history and across cultures. Today, to speak with
surety about a matter for which there is absolutely no statistical
evidence, more adolescent male butts are being penetrated in
the Arab world, Latin American, North Africa and Southeast
Asia then in the west.
But the notion of a gay identity rarely accompanies such
sexual acts, nor do political movements arise to make demands
in the name of that identity. It’s still almost entirely in the
Western world that the genders of one’s partner is considered a
prime marker of personality, and among Western nations it is
the United States - a country otherwise considered a bastion of
conservatism - that the strongest political movement has arisen
centered around that identity.
We’ve only begun to analyze why, and to date can say little
more then that certain significant pre-requisites developed in
this country, and to some degree everywhere in the western
world, that weren’t present, or hadn’t achieved the necessary
critical mass, elsewhere. Among such factors were the
weakening of the traditional religious link between sexuality and
procreation (one which had made non-procreative same gender
desire an automatic candidate for denunciation as unnatural).
Secondly, the rapid urbanization and industrialization of the
United States, and the West in general, in the nineteen-century
weakened the material (and moral) authority of the nuclear
family, and allowed mavericks to escape into welcome
anonymity of city life, where they could choose a previously
unacceptable lifestyle of singleness and nonconformity without
constantly worrying about parental or village busybodies
pouncing on them.” (Duberman, Left Out, p. 414-415)
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“I have argued that lesbian and gay identity and
communities are historically created, the result of a process of
capitalist development that has spanned many generations. A
corollary of this argument is that we are not a fixed social
minority composed for all time of a certain percentage of the
population. There are more of us than one hundred years ago,
more of us than forty years ago. And there may very well be
more gay men and lesbians in the future. Claims made by gays
and nongays that sexual orientation is fixed at an early age, that
large numbers of visible gay men and lesbians in society, the
media, and schools will have no influence on the sexual
identities of the young, are wrong. Capitalism has created the
material conditions for homosexual desire to express itself as a
central component of some individuals’ lives; now, our political
movements are changing consciousness, creating the ideological
conditions that make it easier for people to make that choice.”
(D’Emilio, Capitalism and Gay Identity, p. 473-474 in The Lesbian
and Gay Studies Reader by Henry Abelove, Michele Aine Barale
and David M. Halperin)
The following information in this paper is taken from a
book written by two homosexuals, After the Ball: How America
Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, and a law
review article, Selling Homosexuality to America written by a senior
sales marketing management professional.
“The campaign we outline in this book, though complex,
depends centrally upon a program of unabashed propaganda,
firmly grounded in long-established principles of psychology
and advertising.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America
Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p. xxvi)
“But from here on, this book is devoted to the one scheme
that would, if correctly administered, radically hasten and
broaden the spread of tolerance for gays in straight society.
We have in mind a strategy as calculated and powerful as
that which gays are accused of pursuing by their enemies-or, if
you prefer, a plan as manipulative as that which our enemies
themselves employ. It’s time to learn from Madison Avenue, to
- 107 -
rollout the big guns. Gays must launch a large-scale campaign-
we’ve called it the Waging Peace campaign-to reach straights
through the mainstream media. We’re talking about
propaganda.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will
Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p. 161)
“This article explores how gay rights activists use rhetoric,
psychology, social psychology, and the media - all the elements
of modern marketing - to position homosexuality in order to
frame what is discussed in the public arena and how it is
discussed. In essence, when it comes to homosexuality, activists
want to shape what everyone knows and what everyone takes
for granted even if everyone does not really know and even if it
should not be taken for granted.” (Rondeau, Selling
Homosexuality to America, p. 443-444)
The book After the Ball was published in 1989 and the law
review article was published in 2002. One may perhaps wonder
after reading both of them and noting how the homosexual
rights movement today has affected our society that there is
perhaps some validity to the idea of a thoughtful and organized
homosexual agenda.
“When, in a 1985 Christopher Street article, we presented a
blueprint for a national propaganda effort, doubters derided the
proposal as irrelevant or impotent, the methods as demeaning
and fraudulent, and our intent as reactionary. In February 1988,
however, a ‘war conference’ of 175 leading gay activists,
representing organizations from across the land, convened in
Warrenton, Virginia, to establish a four-point agenda for the
gay movement. The conference gave first priority to ‘a nation-
wide media campaign to promote a positive image of gays and
lesbians’, and its final statement concluded:
‘We must consider the media in every project we undertake.
We must, in addition, take every advantage we can to include
public service announcements and paid advertisements, and to
cultivate reporters and editors of newspapers, radio, and
television. To help facilitate this we need national media
workshops to train our leaders. ... Our media efforts are
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fundamental to the full acceptance of us in American life.’”
(Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its
Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p. 162-163)
The strategy adopted at this war conference was to
undertake in a carefully calculated public relations campaign to
shift the public’s focus from homosexual behavior to the idea
of gay rights.
“When you’re very different, and people hate you for it, this
is what you do: first get your foot in the door, by being as
similar as possible; then, and only, then – when your one
difference little is finally accepted – you can start dragging in
your other peculiarities one by one.” (Kirk and Madsen, After
the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s
in the 90s, p. 146)
“So when we say talk about homosexuality, we mean talk
about gay rights issues and nothing more: be single minded.”
(Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its
Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p. 180)
“This potent weapon was recognized in the formulation of
the gay rights campaign when it was strategized that the gay
campaign should not demand explicit support for homosexual
practices, but should instead take antidiscrimination as its
theme.” (Rondeau, Selling Homosexuality to America, p. 468)
Up until that time, 1988, homosexuals attempted to gain
public acceptance based on their behavior. Typical was the idea
of Gay Pride and the celebration of being different based on
sexual behavior. But this was successful only to the point of a
limited tolerance of homosexuality by society. Often those who
opposed homosexuality easily reversed the small gains made by
homosexual activists in many instances. An example of this was
in Florida with Anita Bryant’s Save Our Children campaign,
where voters repealed a Dade County’s human rights ordinance
in 1977. So, at the time the idea of gay rights was radical shift
from how many homosexuals were attempting to gain public
acceptance. Unfortunately, time has shown that this was a wise
course of action. After this war conference was held two
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different strategies on how to totally repackage homosexual
behavior as gay rights was unveiled to the homosexual
community in 1989.
1. “Pederasts, gender-benders, sado-masochists, and other
minorities in the homosexual community with more extreme
peculiarities would keep a low profile until homosexuality is in
the tent. Also, common homosexual practices such as anal-oral
sex, anal sex, fisting, and anonymous sex – that is to say what
homosexuals actually do and with how many they do it - must
never be a topic.” (Rondeau, Selling Homosexuality to America, p.
459)
2. “America takes pride in being a country where tolerance
for others and individual freedom is held in high regard. It is
both part of our laws and our culture. Today’s homosexual
marketer has properly recognized this environment and has
aggressively followed these strategies in promoting the idea
homosexuality by directing the consumer away from the
specifics of (especially male) homosexual behavior while also
advertising that the choice to pursue such behavior is normal,
innate, unchangeable, and prevalent. It is even healthy and
desirable so it deserves protection as a right.” (Rondeau, Selling
Homosexuality to America, p. 460)
This new campaign was only made possible by an event that
took place more than 15 years earlier. This event took place in
1973 and was the redefining of homosexuality from abnormal
to normal. It was the decision of the APA, American
Psychiatric Association, to remove homosexuality from the lists
of sexual disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. The
removing of homosexuality as a sexual disorder was as a result
of a three year long social/political campaign by homosexual
activists, pro-homosexual psychiatrists and homosexual
psychiatrists, not as a result of valid scientific studies. Rather
the activities were public disturbances, rallies, protests, and
social/political pressure from within by homosexual
psychiatrists and by others outside of the APA upon the APA.
The action of removing homosexuality was taken with such
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unconventional speed that normal channels for consideration
of the issues were circumvented. Jeffrey Weeks is a homosexual
historian from England and his comments are readily
acknowledged by other homosexuals and advocates for
homosexuality.
“The decision of the American Psychiatric Association to
delete homosexuality from its published list of sexual disorders
in 1973 was scarcely a cool, scientific decision. It was a
response to a political campaign fueled by the belief that its
original inclusion as a disorder was a reflection of an oppressive
politico-medical definition of homosexuality as a problem.”
(Weeks, Sexuality and Its Discontents Meanings, Myths and Modern
Sexualities, p. 213)
This new campaign for gay rights has been successful as
long it has been able to keep the focus off of homosexual
behavior. It should be noted that in the beginning of this new
campaign an understanding of this was needed, so definite
actions were to be taken and were taken to make sure the focus
was on gay rights and not homosexual behavior. But this was to
be done at the expense of some in the homosexual community
in the short term to gain benefits for the majority of
homosexuals in the long term.
“After the Ball has now detailed a comprehensive public
relations campaign that should go a long way toward sanitizing
our very unsanitary image. But we can’t hide forever beneath a
coat of whitewash; we have to step out from behind the façade
eventually, and unless we’ve made some real changes by the
time we do, people will see that we’re still the same old queers.
Straights hate gays not just for what their myths and lies say we
are, but also for what we really are; all the squeaky-clean media
propaganda in the world won’t sustain a positive image in the
long run unless we start scrubbing to make ourselves a little
sqeakier and cleaner in reality. And as it happens, our noses
(and other parts) are far from clean. In one major aspect,
America’s homohaters have, like the proverbial blind pig,
rooted up the truffle of truth: the gay lifestyle – not our
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sexuality, but our lifestyle – is in the pits. This chapter will tell
you what’s wrong with a lot of gays, why it’s wrong, and how
you can dance the new steps ... after the ball.” (Kirk and
Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and
Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p. 275-276)
“In short, the gay lifestyle – if such a chaos can, after all,
legitimately be called a lifestyle – it just doesn’t work: it doesn’t
serve the two functions for which all social framework evolve:
to constrain people’s natural impulses to behave badly and to
meet their natural needs. While it’s impulse to provide an
exhaustive analytic list of all the root causes and aggravants of
this failure, we can asservative at least some of the major
causes. Many have been dissected, above, as elements of the
Ten Misbehaviors; it only remains to discuss the failure of the
gay community to provide a viable alternative to the
heterosexual family.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How
America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p.
363)
“The main thing is to talk about gayness until the issue
becomes thoroughly tiresome. And we say talk about
homosexuality, we mean just that. In the early stages of the
campaign, the public should not be shocked and repelled by
premature exposure to homosexual behavior itself. Instead, the
imagery of sex per se should be downplayed, and the issue of
gay rights reduced, as far as possible, to an abstract social
question. As it happens, the AIDS epidemic – ever a curse and
boon for the gay movement – provides ample opportunity to
emphasize the civil rights/discrimination side of things, but
unfortunately it also permits our enemies to draw attention to
gay sex habits that provoke public revulsion.” (Kirk and
Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and
Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p. 178)
The negative effects of the homosexual lifestyle have been
written about in many books and articles written by
homosexuals themselves. They are addressed and written to
homosexuals but when those who oppose homosexuality
- 112 -
attempt to raise this issue they are strongly attacked. What’s
even more alarming is that many more in the public at large side
with the homosexuals choosing to ignore them or insists that a
discussion should not even take place. Yet it is these negative
consequences of homosexual behavior that affects everyone.
Of particular is AIDS, a sexually transmitted disease that in
America was and still is primarily confined to homosexual
behavior. There is a concern of a possible second AIDS
epidemic among homosexuals in America. What should be very
alarming is that homosexuals to gain unprecedented support for
gay rights used AIDS, which affected primarily homosexuals. It
allowed them to foster to a greater advantage, the idea that they
are victims. The idea of homosexuals as victims was to be a
critical component in the carefully calculated public relations
campaign to make the gay rights movement successful.
Homosexuals as victims
“In any campaign to win over the public, gays must be
portrayed as victims in need of protection so that straights will
be inclined by reflex to adopt the role of protector.” (Kirk and
Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and
Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p. 183)
“The purpose of victim imagery is to make straights feel
very uncomfortable; that is, to jam with shame the self-
righteous pride that would ordinarily accompany and reward
their antigay belligerence, and to lay groundwork for the
process of conversion by helping straights identify with gays
and sympathize with their underdog status.” (Kirk and Madsen,
After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the
Gay’s in the 90s, p. 183)
“Now, two different messages about the Gay Victim are
worth communicating. First, the public should be persuaded
that gays are victims of circumstance, that they no more chose
their sexual orientation than they did, say, their height, skin
color, talents, or limitations. (We argue that, for all practical
purposes, gays should be considered to have been born gay -
even though sexual orientation, for most humans, seems to be
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the product of a complex interaction between innate
predispositions and environmental factors during childhood
and early adolescence.)” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How
America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p.
184)
“Second, gays should be portrayed as victims of prejudice.
Straights don’t fully realize the suffering they bring upon gays,
and must be shown: graphic pictures of brutalized gays,
dramatizations of job and housing insecurity, loss of child
custody, public humiliation, etc.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the
Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in
the 90s, p. 184)
Protectors a just cause
To go along with the idea of homosexuals as victims there
was idea to give potential protectors a just cause.
“The Waging Peace media campaign will reach straights on
an emotional level, casting gays as society’s victims and inviting
straights to be their protectors.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the
Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in
the 90s, p. 187)
“Thus, our campaign should not demand explicit support
for homosexual practices, but should instead take
antidiscrimination as its theme. Fundamental freedoms,
constitutional rights, due process and equal protection of laws,
basic fairness and decency toward all of humanity – these
should be the concerns brought to mind by our campaign.
It’s especially important for the gay movement to hitch its
cause to pre-existing standards of law and justice, because its
straight supporters must have at hand a cogent reply to the
moralistic arguments of its enemies.” (Kirk and Madsen, After
the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s
in the 90s, p. 187)
Make Homosexuals look good
Not only were homosexuals to be portrayed as victims but
homosexuals also had to be made to look good.

- 114 -
“In order to make a Gay Victim sympathetic to straights,
you have to portray him as Everyman. But an additional theme
of the campaign will be more aggressive and upbeat. To
confound bigoted stereotypes and hasten the conversion of
straights, strongly favorable images of gays must be set before
the public. The campaign should paint gay men and lesbians as
superior – veritable pillars of society.” (Kirk and Madsen, After
the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s
in the 90s, p. 187-188)
“Famous historical figures are especially useful to us for two
reasons: first, they are invariably dead as a doornail, hence in no
position to deny the truth and sue for libel. Second, and more
serious, the virtues and accomplishments that make these
historic gay figures admirable cannot be gainsaid or dismissed
by the public, since high school history textbooks have already
set them in incontrovertible cement. By casting its violet
spotlight on such revered heroes, in no time a skillful media
campaign could have the gay community looking like the
veritable fairy godmother to Western civilization.” (Kirk and
Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and
Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p. 188)
Make victimizers look bad
Finally there was there a plan on how to deal with the
victimizers. That is to make them look bad.
“Our primary objective regarding diehard homohaters of
this sort is to cow and silence them as far as possible, not to
convert or even desensitize them.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the
Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in
the 90s, p. 176)
“The real target here is not victimizers themselves but the
homohatred that impels them.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the
Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in
the 90s, p. 189)
“The objective is to make homohating beliefs and actions
look so nasty that average Americans will want to dissociate
themselves from them. This, of course, is a variant on the
- 115 -
process of jamming.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How
America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p.
189)
“With the help of the media, they portray those who refuse
to buy, and especially any who dare to publicly oppose
(competitively react to), the gay rights idea as bigots,
homophobes, heterosexists, ignorant, hateful, intolerant, and so
on. They position the accused in the same category as racists,
sexists, elitists, and other pejorative classes.” (Rondeau, Selling
Homosexuality to America, p. 464)
The plan for making the victimizers look bad also included
a way of dealing with the issue of homosexuality and morality.
“Second, gays can undermine the moral authority of
homohating churches over less fervent adherents by portraying
such institutions as antiquated backwaters, badly out of step
with the times and with the latest findings of psychology.
Against the atavistic tug of Old Time Religion one must set the
mightier pull of Science and Public Opinion (the shield and
sword of that accursed secular humanism).” (Kirk and Madsen,
After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the
Gay’s in the 90s, p. 179)
We have looked at how the ideas to shift the focus from
homosexual behavior to gay rights and to portray homosexuals
as victims was to be instrumented, what follows is a look at the
foundations for the calculated public relations campaign itself.
The core of this campaign was to be through mainstream media
by the use of propaganda.
“We have in mind a strategy as calculated and powerful as
that which gays are accused of pursuing by their enemies - or, if
you prefer, a plan as manipulative as that which our enemies
themselves employ. It’s time to learn from Madison Avenue, to
rollout the big guns. Gays must launch a large – scale campaign
– we’ve called it the Waging Peace campaign-to reach straights
through the mainstream media. We’re talking about
propaganda.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will
Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p. 161)
- 116 -
“How could a movement ever penetrate a market that
consists of the hearts and minds of an entire society? The key
was to consider first and foremost the media in everything the
homosexual movement did – to control information and
images. Only by controlling the information could they saturate
important centers of influence and thus avoid or the
information could they saturate important centers of influence
and thus avoid or beat other ideas in the market.” (Rondeau,
Selling Homosexuality to America, p. 466)
“The term ‘propaganda’ applies to any deliberate attempt to
persuade the masses via public communications media. Such
communication is everywhere, of course, being a mainstay of
modern societies. Its function is not to perpetrate, but to
propagate; that is, to spread new ideas and feelings (or reinforce
old ones) which may themselves be either evil or good
depending on their purpose and effect. The purpose and effect
of progay propaganda is to promote a climate of increased
tolerance for homosexuals. And that, we say, is good.
Three characteristics distinguish propaganda from other
modes of communication and contribute to its sinister
reputation. First, propaganda relies more upon emotional
manipulation than upon logic, since its goal is, in fact, to bring
about a change in the public’s feelings. Bertrand Russell once
asked, ‘Why is propaganda so much more successful when it
stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feelings?’
The answer is that the public is more eager to hate than to love,
especially where outgroups are concerned; and that, knowing
this, propagandists have seldom attempted to elicit friendly
feelings or dampen hatred. This time, however, we gays will
attempt precisely that. And we’ll be more successful than before
because we can base our efforts on techniques (desensitization,
jamming, and conversion) derived directly from a solid
understanding of the psychology of homhatred.
The second sinister characteristic of propaganda is its
frequent use of outright lies, a tactic we neither need nor
condone. In the long run, big fat lies work only for the
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propagandists of totalitarian states, who can make them stick by
exercising almost complete control over public information.
But in pluralistic societies, such as ours, chronic liars on
controversial subjects are invariably found out and discredited
in the press by their opponents. (There is, alas, an exception:
certain lies become hallowed public myths, persisting for as
long as the public chooses to believe them. Need we mention
the Big Lie?)
Third, even when it sticks to the facts, propaganda can be
unabashedly subjective and one-sided. There is nothing
necessarily wrong with this. Propaganda tells its own side of the
story as movingly (and credibly) as possible,sinceitcan count on
its enemies to tell the other side with a vengeance. In the battle
for hearts and minds, effective propaganda knows enough to
put its best foot forward. This is what our own media campaign
must do.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will
Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p. 162-163)
* Densesitize, Jam, and Conversion
“Generally speaking, the most effective propaganda for our
cause must succeed in doing three things at once.
Employ images that desensitize, jam, and/or convert bigots
on an emotional level. This is by far, the most important task.
Challenge homohating beliefs and actions on a (not too)
intellectual level. Remember, the rational message serves to
camouflage our underlying emotional appeal, even as it pares
away the surrounding latticework of beliefs that rationalize
bigotry.
Gain access to the kinds of public media that would
automatically confer legitimacy upon these messages and,
therefore, upon their gay sponsors. To be accepted by the most
prestigious media, such as network TV, our messages
themselves will have to be – at least initially – both subtle in
purpose and crafty in construction.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the
Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in
the 90s, p. 172-173)

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“The groups used by homosexual activists to distribute the
homosexual idea and gay rights issues were those that touched
the most Americans and had the highest source of creditability.
Just like the tremendous leverage they achieved by co-opting
the mental health professions who would then become
disseminators of the homosexual agenda through actions and
programs, it was planned that the media, the government,
educators, and liberal, less fervent churches would be forced on
board. Each of these channels carries its own authority and
credibility.” (Rondeau, Selling Homosexuality to America, p. 467)
Underlying the core of the campaign, the use of propaganda
dissimilated through the use of mainstream media was to be
firmly grounded in three long-established principles of
psychology and advertising. They are desensitization, jamming,
and conversion.
“The campaign we outline in this book, though complex,
depends centrally upon a program of unabashed propaganda,
firmly grounded in long-established principles of psychology
and advertising.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America
Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p. xxvi)
1. Desensitation
“We can extract the following principle for our campaign:
to desensitize straights to gays and gayness, inundate them in a
continuous flood of gay-related advertising, presented in the
least offensive fashion possible. If straights can’t shut off the
shower, they may at least eventually get used to being wet.”
(Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its
Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p. 149)
“Desensitization aims at lowering the intensity of antigay
emotional reactions to a level approximating sheer indifference;
...” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its
Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p. 153)
“The third principle is our recipe for desensitizing
Ambivalent Skeptics; that is, for helping straights view
homosexuality with neutrality rather than keen hostility. At least
at the outset, we seek desensitization and nothing more. You
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can forget about trying right up front to persuade folks that
homosexuality is a good thing. But if you can get them to think
it is just another thing – meriting no more than a shrug of the
shoulders – then your battle for legal and social rights is
virtually won.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How America
Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p. 177)
2. Jamming
“Jamming makes use of the rules of Associative
Conditioning (the psychological process whereby, when two
things are repeatedly juxtaposed, one’s feelings about one thing
are transformed to the other) and Direct Emotional Modeling
(the inborn tendency of human beings to feel what they
perceive others to be feeling).” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball:
How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in the
90s, p. 150)
“Jamming attempts to blockade or counteracts the
rewarding pride in prejudice’ (peace, Jane Austen!) by attaching
to homohatred a preexisting, and punishing, sense of shame in
being a bigot, a horse’s ass, and a beater and murder.” (Kirk
and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and
Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p. 153)
3. Conversion
“We mean conversion of the average American’s emotions,
mind, and will, through a planned psychological attack in the
form of propaganda fed to the nation via the media.” (Kirk and
Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and
Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p. 153)
“In Conversion, we mimic the natural process of stereotype
learning, with the following effect: we take the bigot’s good
feelings about all-right guys, and attach them to the label ’gay,’
either weakening or, eventually, replacing his bad feelings
toward the label and the prior stereotype.
Understanding Direct Emotional Modeling, you’ll readily
foresee its application to Conversion: whereas in Jamming the
target is shown a bigot being rejected by his crowd for his
prejudice against gays, in Conversion the target is shown his
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crowd actually associating with gays in good fellowship.” (Kirk
and Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and
Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p. 155)
Coming Out
Kirk and Madsen in their book, After the Ball: How America
Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, took the
concept of coming out and applying the three long-established
principles of psychology and advertising desensitization,
jamming, and conversion to it explaining how it would greatly
advance the gay rights movement. Coming out is the concept
whereby one publicly accepts and/or adopts the identity of
being a homosexual.
“First coming out helps desensitize straights. As more and
more gays emerge into everyday life, gays as a group will begin
to seem more familiar and unexceptional to straights, hence less
alarming and objectionable.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball:
How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in the
90s, p. 167)
“Second, coming out allows more jamming of the reward
system for homohatred. Jamming, you’ll recall, means
interrupting the smooth workings of bigotry by inducing
inconsistent feelings in the bigot.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the
Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in
the 90s, p. 167)
“Third, coming out is a critical catalyst for the all-important
conversion’ process, as well. Conversion is more than merely
desensitizing straights or jamming their homohatred: it entails
making them actually like and accept homosexuals as a group,
enabling straights to identify with them.” (Kirk and Madsen,
After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the
Gay’s in the 90s, p. 168)
“Finally, in addition to making desensitization, jamming,
and conversion possible, coming out is the key to sociopolitical
empowerment, the ability of the gay community to control its
own destiny. The more gay individuals who stand up to be
counted, the more voting and spending power the gay
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community will be recognized to have. As an inevitable result,
politics and business will woo us, the press will publicize our
concerns and report our news, and our community will enjoy
enhanced prestige.” (Kirk and Madsen, After the Ball: How
America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p.
168)
What is the goal of the gay rights movement? Whether there
is a homosexual agenda that is an organized attempt by
homosexuals to advance homosexual rights Kirk and Madsen in
their book, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and
Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, certainly attempt to imply that one
is needed and it would be good for both homosexuals and
society at large.
“Specifically, we want straights to believe that we no more
choose gayness than they do straightness; that it’s a valid and
healthy condition; and that, when treated with respect and
friendship, we’re happy and psychologically well-adjusted as
they are. We want them to realize that we look, feel, and act just
as they do; we’re hard-working, conscientious Americans with
love lives exactly like their own. We want to be seen as the
brothers and sisters, daughters and sons, friends and co-
workers, and - yes - fathers and mothers of straight Americans:
a valued part of American society, a part whose culture, heroes,
and news are worthy of attention and respect.” (Kirk and
Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and
Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p. 379-380)
The following comments are from Rondeau’s article Selling
Homosexuality to America and one who opposes homosexuality
writes this article. His article was published in 2002; thirteen
years after Kirk and Madsen published their book After the
Ball. His comments show just how successful homosexuals
have been with the carefully calculated public relations
campaign to shift the public’s focus and the discussion of
homosexuality from homosexual behavior to the idea of gay
rights.

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“Homosexual activists now routinely name themselves as
often and as publicly as they wish to be defined.” (Rondeau,
Selling Homosexuality to America, p. 462-463)
“Concepts introduced through the media, education,
government, and courts by the homosexual movement theme
have shaped our discourse; homophobia, heterosexism,
tolerance and hate speech are now mainstream vernacular.”
(Rondeau, Selling Homosexuality to America, p. 483)
“The current debate, then, is framed differently by both
sides. Is homosexual behavior normal or abnormal? Are the
maladies commonly associated with the homosexual condition
(depression, AIDS, suicide, cancer) caused by the behavior itself
or society’s reaction to it? Are homosexuals just the same as
heterosexuals? Should science or society determine the
acceptability of gayness?
If history repeats itself, the point of view that holds sway in
America’s courts will first hold sway in the minds and hearts of
individual citizens, judges, and lawmakers. And the heart and
mind of society is the target market that the gay rights campaign
means to capture in order to win in courts.” (Rondeau, Selling
Homosexuality to America, p. 452)
“This explains why the gay rights movement often focuses
on negative labeling (bigot, ignorant, intolerant) in the
marketplace of competing ideas; a social environment is created
that is unfriendly to anti-homosexual speech. Like Chinese
water torture rather than brute force, only socially enforced
public compliance at a minimum level, through continued
application, can ultimately change the privately held attitude or
belief.
Thus, to psychologically propel societal attitude change
regarding homosexuality, America is deluged with pro-
homosexual messages, education campaigns, positive images,
and sympathetic news in the media creating an antecedent
condition that can be called societal dissonance.” (Rondeau,
Selling Homosexuality to America, p. 456)

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“Today, homophobes and heterosexists are proclaimed to
be the problem. Hate crimes and gay rights legislation are
proposed as the solution.
Yet, the purpose of law is to discriminate against certain
behaviors. It even discriminates against those with real
pathological behaviors, i.e., alcoholics who drive drunk. Laws
discriminate against parents who believe it is normal to exploit
their children, companies who justify making false promises or
dangerous products, citizens who believe that they should not
have to pay higher taxes, incompetent doctors, drug dealers,
and ticket scalpers.
The debate is not about the persecution of a political
minority but is about the state’s right and its duty to regulate
against behaviors that are unhealthy and destructive to society
at large. ‘If at the level of civil politics there are homosexual
people who do not want to be known solely through what sex
they have or where and with how many they have it, it is
nonetheless absurd to claim that sex is merely ancillary to the
gay ... agenda.
Gay rights is not about the attainment of truth nor social
justice but the achievement of power. The battle centers on the
control of public discourse through marketing and persuasion,
to shape what society thinks about and how they think about it.
Homosexual activists envision that a decision is ultimately made
without society ever realizing that it has been purposely
conditioned to arrive at a conclusion that it thinks is its own.
Perhaps with the application of common sense, the balance
can be regained between right and rights and thereby not only
will the few be protected from the whims of the masses but the
masses can be saved from the excesses of the few.’” (Rondeau,
Selling Homosexuality to America, p. 484-485)
Bibliography
Abelove, Henry, Michele Aine Barale and David M.
Halprin. The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Routledge. New
York and London, 1993.

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D’Emilio, John. Capitalism and Gay Identity, p. 467-476 in The
Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader by Henry Abelove, Michele Aine
Barale and David M. Halperin. Routledge. New York and
London, 1993.
Duberman, Martin. Left Out. South End Press. Cambridge,
MA, 2002.
Kirk, Marshall and Hunter Madsen, Ph.D. After the Ball: How
America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s.
Doubleday. New York, 1989.
Rondeau, Paul E. Selling Homosexuality to America. Regent
University Law Review. Spring 2002, Vol. 14, No. 2, p. 443-
485)
Weeks, Jeffery. Sexuality and Its Discontents Meanings, Myths
and Modern Sexualities. Routledge and Kegan Paul. London,
1988.

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Chapter 8
Gay Teen Suicide Myth

There are an overwhelming range of emotions and feelings


when discussing suicide. It is even more disturbing when
suicide becomes a part of a political agenda. The idea that gay
teens are at a higher risk for suicide may be seen in this context.
The following is written to help explain with clarity and a
purpose to meet the needs of all of the youth who struggle with
suicide.
“Suicide is usually a story of misperceptions and
misunderstandings, of feelings of despair and lack of control; it
cannot be attributed simply to having a difficult life. And it has
no place on anyone’s political agenda, no matter how worthy.”
(Schaffer, Political Science, p. 116)
“High-quality care depends on sound scientific research to
determine the causes of suicide and to determine effectiveness
and safety interventions. Research on the relationship between
sexual orientation and suicide, however, is limited both in
quantity and quality.” (Muehrer, Suicide and Sexual Orientation: A
Critical Summary of Recent Research and Directions for Future Research,
p. 72)
Defining terms
One of the largest concerns in studies of suicide is the
defining of terms associated with suicide. This is also a problem
in homosexual studies. People are homosexual, gay, and queer.
Each term has different meanings when used by individuals in
various contexts. At one time those advocating for
homosexuality used sexual preference and now it is sexual
orientation to describe erotic attraction between individuals.
Whether the attraction is between members of the same sex or
to the opposite sex.
Studies and discussion of suicide are hampered by the lack
of a standard nomenclature, i.e. definition of terms. There is a
no question understanding the meaning of suicide. Nor is there
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confusion with suicide ideation, thinking about suicide. But
there is a problem with determining the seriousness of these
thoughts, because they are self-reported. In between these two
terms are the ideas of suicidal threats, behavior, acts, and
attempts. Again, questions arise concerning the seriousness of
these actions, for example a suicide attempt resulting in no
injuries and an attempt resulting in injuries. Both are suicide
attempts, but in the reporting of them may be of concern.
Attempts often are self-reported and without injuries requiring
intervention by others may lead to questions of the validity of
the attempt. Many people, who only desire attention, may use
suicide as a way of receiving attention. Suicide, from ideation to
completion is difficult for those seeing it as a possible solution
to a problem, and equally difficult for the ones seeking to help.
Historical Perspective
“Though his findings were greatly overshadowed by a
lawsuit brought six students who charged him with obscenity
(he was found guilty and made to pay a fine and costs), he
managed to conduct the first large-scale gay survey, the
scientific technique upon which the gay movement was to
continually re-establish its credentials with increasing frequency
and specialization over the next century. Hirschfeld’s two
ultimate justifications for his organization and his activist tactics
and pursuits also bore a striking resemblance to those used in
continuing the fight he started. The first was to establish as
scientific fact that the homosexual was born, not made, and so
was beyond the scope of a legal system that could punish
people for what they did, not who they were. The second was
to prevent teenage suicide.” (Archer, The End of Gay (and the
Death of Heterosexuality, p. 76)
The idea of a homosexual’ being a distinct type of a person
was first advocated in the 1860s in Germany. It was by those
advocating for legal rights for homosexuals. One early German
leader for the emancipation of homosexuals was Magnus
Hirschfeld (1868-1935). Of the early homosexual rights
advocates, Hirschfeld’s career and legacy presents in retrospect
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as many errors and failures to be shunned as achievements to
emulate. He was homosexual himself like many of the other
early advocates for homosexual’ rights. His view of
homosexuality was similar to that of Ulrichs. Homosexuality
was innate and biological in nature. Homosexuals were a third
sex, resulting from a hormonal cause. It resulted in a
preponderance of the female in the male and the male in the
female. Hirschfeld never put forth a coherent scientific
explanation of homosexuality’ and his works were rejected.
In 1933 the Nazis burned his works and research. Hirschfeld’
legacy was tarnished by serious lapses of professional ethics. He
was accused of selling worthless patented medicines. The most
serious lapse was the allegations that he extorted money from
some famous Germans who had in good faith furnished him
with materials revealing the intimate (and incriminating) sides of
their lives. Hirschfeld also conducted two polls of high school
boys and male factory workers. The poll of the high school
boys resulted in legal troubles for Hirschfeld.
One researcher over time changed his mind about
homosexual youth and suicide.
Savin-Williams from Cornell University in two articles
published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology,
the first in 1994 and the second in 2002. They come to opposite
conclusions as to the relationship between sexual orientation
and suicide. In his second article, he no longer concludes that
homosexual youth are at an increased risk for suicide. Note the
titles of the two articles also. Below are quotes, including titles
from the two articles.
1994: “The empirical documentation is of one accord: The
rate of suicide among gay male, bisexual, and lesbian youths is
considerably higher than it is for heterosexual youths.” (Savin-
Williams, Verbal And Physical Abuse as Stressors in the Lives of
Lesbian, Gay Male and Bisexual Youth: Associations With School
Problems, Running Away, Substance Abuse, Prostitution, and Suicide, p.
266)

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2002: “Consistent with previous findings, results from the
studies indicate that sexual – minority youths report higher
suicide attempts than do heterosexual youths. However,
because many of these reports were false and because life -
threatening true attempts did not vary by sexual orientation, the
assertion that sexual – minority youths as a class of individuals
are at increased risk for suicide is not warranted.” (Savin-
Williams, Suicide Attempts Among Sexual – Minority Youths:
Population and Measurement Issues, p. 989)
Source of the Gay Teen Suicide Myth
1989 Department of Health and Human Services
(HHS) Report of the Secretary’s Task Force on Youth
Suicide and Paul Gibson
The gay teen suicide myth controversy began with this
government task force formed to gather papers on youth
suicide. There were 50 background papers addressing a very
broad range of issues related to youth suicide and suicidal
behavior. Two of them by Gibson and Harry addressed the
issue of sexual orientation. The authors of these two papers
were not employed by the federal government and neither of
these papers presented any original research on completed
suicides and sexual orientation. Gibson’s paper was not based
on an actual study but rather on a review of non-probability
(non-random) studies and agency reports of lesbian and gay
adolescents and adults conducted between 1972 and 1986. In
formulating his conclusions Gibson took from Kinsey’s study
that 10% of the American population is homosexual, which
itself is a myth, acknowledged even by homosexual advocates.
The views in the papers were of the authors. There have been
questions raised as whether the papers submitted by Gibson
and Harry were accepted by the task force and included in the
final recommendations of the task force. Also, it has been
noted that these two papers were not submitted for the
rigorous peer review that is required for publication in a
scientific journal.

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Gibson’s most often cited claims are:
(1) 30% of the youth suicides are homosexual.
(2) Homosexual youths are 2 to 3 times more likely to
attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers.
(3) Suicide is the leading cause of death of among
homosexual youth.
(4) Gay suicide is caused by the internalization of
homophobia’ and violence directed towards homosexual youth.
“In my psychiatric practice I have found that the
government statistics so frequently cited were not prepared by
the government and are not statistics. They are estimates based
on a projection in a paper prepared for the task force report.
The paper was never subjected to rigorous peer review that is
required for publication in a scientific journal, and contained no
new research findings. The estimate that as many as thirty
percent of youth suicides are gay was based on the results of
several studies that reported high rates of suicidal feelings and
behavior by gays and on Kinsey’s conclusion that gays make up
ten percent of the population.” (Schaffer, Political Science, p. 116)
There are homosexual advocates who also acknowledge the
shortcomings presented by Gibson in his paper.
“Although this information has been reported in many
articles and texts about lesbian and gay youth, it is not based on
an actual study but rather on a review of non-probability (non-
random) studies and agency reports of lesbian and gay
adolescents and adults conducted between 1972 and 1986. The
review was done by Paul Gibson, a clinical social worker, as one
of 50 papers or studies commissioned by the Secretary’s Task
Force on Youth Suicide, which was established in 1985 in
response to growing rates of youth suicide and concluded its
work in 1987.” (Ryan and Futterman, Lesbian and Gay Youth, p.
61)
“Unfortunately, Gibson’s conclusions were based on very
limited empirical data, and rely heavily on reports from
organizations that may draw individuals with mental health
problems.” (D’Augelli and Hershberger, Lesbian, Gay, and
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Bisexual Youth in Community Settings: Personal Challenges and Mental
Health Problems, p. 424)
Governor Weld of Massachusetts by executive order in
1992 established the Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth.
He did so using this information in Gibson’s paper. The
Massachusetts Safe Schools Project, Gay and Straight Alliances
in schools are also a result of this faulty information on
homosexual youth suicides.
Studies report that homosexuality per se is not directly
related to suicide.
“In this sample, bisexuality or homosexuality per se was not
associated with self-destructive acts. Most of the subjects did
not attempt or plan suicide.” (Remafedi, Gary, M.D., MP.H.,
James A. Farrow, M.D. and Robert W. Deisher, M.D., Risk
Factors for Attempted Suicide in Gay and Bisexual Youth, p. 495)
“Of the ten studies, 6 explored risks for suicide by
comparing attempters and nonattempters. They found that
suicide attempts were neither universal nor attributable to
homosexuality per se, but were significantly associated with
gender nonconformity, early awareness of homosexuality,
stress, violence, lack of support, homelessness, substance abuse,
or other psychiatric symptoms.” (Remafedi, Gary, M.D.,
M.PH., Sexual Orientation and Youth Suicide, p. 1291)
“It is important to note that suicide risk among homosexual
students was not attributed to homosexuality per se, on the
basis of the absence of such association in the females.”
(Remafedi, The Relationship Between Suicide Risk and Sexual
Orientation: Results of a Population-Based Study, p. 59)
“However, it seems clear that only a small portion of
suicides were openly gay. We found no evidence that the risk
factors for suicide among gays were any different from those
among straight teens.” (Shaffer, Fisher, Hicks, Parides and
Gould, Sexual Orientation in Adolescents Who Commit Suicide, p. 70)
“The findings in this study suggest that there may be few if
any differences between young gay and straight males who

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commit suicide.” (Rich, Fowler, Young and Blenkush, San Diego
Suicide Study: Comparison of Gay to Straight Males, p. 452)
“In the present study, the researchers examined factors
related to depression, hopelessness, and suicidality in gay,
lesbian, and bisexual adolescents, compared with
demographically similar heterosexual adolescents. Sexual
minority adolescents reported greater depression, hopelessness,
and past and present suicidality than did heterosexual
adolescents. However, when controlling for other psychosocial
predictors of present distress, significant differences between
the 2 samples disappeared.” (Safren and Heimberg, Depression,
Hopelessness, Suicidality and Related Factors in Sexual Minority and
Heterosexual Adolescents, p. 859)
“In the few studies examining risk factors for suicide where
sexual orientation was assessed, the risk for gay or lesbian
persons did not appear any greater than among heterosexuals,
once mental and substance abuse disorders were taken into
account.” (National Institute of Mental Health web site,
www.nimh.nih.gov/index.shtml)
Limitations in the research literature
“This critical summary has identified several limitations in
the research literature on suicide and sexual orientation: a lack
of consensus on definitions of fundamental terms such as
‘suicide attempt’ and ‘sexual orientation’, uncertain reliability
and validity of measures for these terms, nonrepresentative
samples, and a lack of appropriate control groups, among other
limitations. These limitations prevent accurate conclusions
about: (1) completed or attempted suicide rates among
gay/lesbian youth in the general population or in clinical
populations, (2) comparsions of completed or attempted suicide
rates between gay/lesbian youth and nongay youth in the
general poulation, (3) the potential role that sexual orientation
and related factors may play in suicidal behavior independently
of well-established risk factors such as mental and substance
abuse disorders.” (Muehrer, Suicide and Sexual Orientation: A

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Critical Summary of Recent Research and Directions for Future Research,
p. 79)
What the studies do report about homosexual youth
and suicide
Those homosexual youth, who do attempt suicide:
(1) Express more gender nonconformity i.e. feminine
gender role concepts.
(2) Became aware of their same-sex attractions at an early
age.
(3) Labeled themselves as homosexual and had their first
sexual experiences at younger ages than their peers.
(4) Homosexual and heterosexual youth who attempt
suicide are comparable in the following ways:
(a) Both have family problems.
(b) Both report drug and alcohol abuse.
(c) Both have conflicts with the law and have been
arrested.
(d) Both suffer from depression or other mental illness
issues.
(e) Both experience either physical or sexual abuse.
(f) Both have family members or friends who attempted or
committed suicide.
“Prior studies of bisexual/homosexual male adolescents
have found that increased rates of suicides attempts were not
universal, but were associated with particular risk factors, such
as self-identification as a homosexual at younger ages, substance
abuse, female gender role, family dysfunction, interpersonal
conflict regarding sexual orientation, and nondisclosure of
sexual orientation to others.” (Remafedi, The Relationship between
Suicide Risk and Sexual Orientation, p. 59)
Remafedi, from the University of Minnesota, who is a
homosexual advocate, in a 1991 study with others found this
relationship between homosexual self-labeling and suicide.
“For each year’s delay in bisexual or homosexual self-
labeling, the odds of a suicide attempt diminished by 80
percent. These findings support a previously observed, inverse
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relationship between psychosocial problems and the age of
acquiring a homosexual identity.” (Remafedi, Farrow, Deisher,
Risk Factors for Attempted Suicide in Gay and Bisexual Youth, p. 495)
This relationship should remain foremost in out attempts to
provide school based sex education and meeting the needs of
young people struggling with both gender identity confusion
and same-sex attractions.
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Chapter 9
Homophobia Myth

The information being present here is to bring clarity and


understanding to a word that has been coined by those
advocating for homosexuality. Along with many other things
associated with homosexuality, homophobia immediately places
us in a quandary. One such quandary is holding to a position
that there is a homosexual who is a distinct person. This is a
concept, a homosexual as a distinct person that those
advocating for homosexuality themselves cannot agree upon. It
is seen in the framework of the philosophical discussion of
social constructionism and essentialism. The prevailing view
held today by many of those advocating for homosexuality is a
social constructionist viewpoint. There is no homosexual as a
distinct person, only individuals who self-identify by those
behaviors or acts they commit, same-sex sexual acts. In the
United States and other western societies this identity has taken
on a very strong political connotation. A group of people self-
identifying by their behavior or the acts they commit seeking
legal sanctioning of their behavior in a political rights context.
To be homosexual or gay today can best be seen as a political
identity. How can there be homophobia if the homosexual, as a
distinct person does not exist? The creating of homophobia is
another example of myth making the continual portrayal of a
victim status by a group of individuals who self-identify by their
behavior or the acts they commit. The political homosexual is
not a representative group of homosexuals and they fail by any
measure to qualify for victim status.
“Difficulties with defining homophobia are not confined to
whether or not it is a true phobia. The term involves implicit
reference to homosexuality, which also has inherent definitional
problems. There has been considerable debate in recent years
over whether homosexuals are universal across different
cultures or whether the homosexual is an identity that can only
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be legitimately discussed in relation to Westernized cultures.”
(Plummer, One of the Boys: Masculinity, Homophobia, and Modern
Manhood, p. 6)
“Consistent with the political and social climate of the
United States during the second half of the 1960s, the issue of
homosexuality became politicized. There was a movement by
an increasing number of gay activists to promote the civil and
political rights of homosexuals inasmuch as homosexuality was
beginning to denote minority status with regard to political and
civil rights rather than a category of deviance. Psychiatry, which
had previously defined homosexuality as a disease and
diagnosed homosexuals as mentally ill, was considered a
formidable but politically and strategically important obstacle in
the struggles of homosexuals for social and political status. In
the late 1960s homosexuals in the United States forged a potent
movement to depathologize homosexuality.” (O’Donohue and
Caselles, Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues, p.
67 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path
to Harm, edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A.
Cummings)
In the following quote, the nosological revision being
referred to is the decision in 1973 to remove homosexuality
from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association
“Shortly after the nosological revision, there was a
significant shift in the focus of the research related to
homosexuality. Rather than focus on the etiology and cure of
homosexuality, theorists and researchers in psychology began to
suggest that negative attitudes toward homosexuals, rather than
homosexuality itself, cause many of the difficulties that
homosexuals face (Smith, 1971). Many of these researchers
rejected what they referred to as the victim analysis, and
redirected their empirical pursuits toward the possible
victimizers, more specifically, toward the attitudes of
nonhomosexuals toward homosexuals and homosexuality
(MacDonald, Huggins, Young, and Swanson, 1972).
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Homosexuality was now regarded as a normal, healthy, lifestyle
choice. Thus, new questions arose: what are the etiology and
associated features of individuals who have negative attitudes
and reactions toward homosexuals and homosexuality? What is
the cure for this attitude?” (O’Donohue and Caselles,
Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues, p. 68 in
Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to
Harm, edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings)
“The declassification of homosexuality as a disease by the
American Psychiatric Association in 1973 generally fueled the
gay movement not only in the United States but also in other
countries. Until 1970 all basic issues of same-gender attractions,
roles, and relationships were classified as a disease under the
general diagnosis of homosexuality. It was about this time that
the explicit concept of homophobia the conscious and
unconscious fear and hatred of homosexuality and
lesbians/gays was coined in social study. The concepts marks, a
turning point not only in scientific attitudes about homosexual
mental health but also in the increasing self-esteem of many
gays and lesbians, as noted in mental health studies during and
since that time. Generally, the stigma and prejudice inherent in
antihomosexual activities, such as queer-bashing, were implicitly
accepted by society and sanctioned through the disease label. In
many ways, they still are (Herek 1993).” (Herdt, Same Sex,
Different Cultures: Gays and Lesbians Across Cultures, p. 56)
Homophobia is a medical condition coined by those
advocating for homosexuality to be used to describe the
attitudes and actions of those whose oppose homosexuality.
Homophobia as originally defined was the dread or fear of
being in close contact with homosexuals. There is some
confusion as to where this word homophobia actually
originates. Two views can be found in articles and books that
discuss homophobia. The word, which may have been coined
in the 1960s, was used by K. T. Smith in 1971 in an article
entitled Homophobia: A Tentative Personality Profile. (Fone,
Homophobia: A History, p. 5) Others write that George Weinberg
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in his 1972 book Society and the Healthy Homosexual, introduced
homophobia into literature about homosexuality.
What is clear, that this word homophobia is a poor choice
of a word to use for describing the attitudes and actions by
those who oppose homosexuality. The attitudes and actions are
not a phobia in the clinical sense. This word fails to clearly
describe what the attitudes and actions towards homosexuality
are. But for gaining acceptance of homosexuality and for
political considerations the word has strong advantages. Much
of the information that follows comes from those advocating
for homosexuality.
Defining Homophobia
“Homophobia is a problematic term, particularly when
taken literally.” (Plummer, One of the Boys: Masculinity,
Homophobia, and Modern Manhood, p. 4)
“Literally, the irrational fear of homosexuals; used more
widely to denote hatred for gay men and lesbians and the view
that they are somehow inferior to heterosexuals.” (Kranz and
Cusick, Gay Rights, p. 155)
“It appears that during the past two decades, the term
homophobia has been generalized to denote any negative
attitude, belief, or action toward homosexuals (Haaga, 1991;
Fyfe, 1983).” (O’Donohue and Caselles, Homophobia: Conceptual,
Definitional, and Value Issues, p. 68 in Destructive Trends in Mental
Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm, edited by Rogers H.
Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings)
“Homophobia was a convenient term designed to interpret
cultural restrictions on homosexual behavior, but become a
catchall political concept used to refer to any nonpositive
attitude gays. However, the descriptions of the concept and the
research used to support the theories show neither irrational
fear nor a specific reaction toward homosexuals.” (Nungessor,
Homosexual Acts, Actors, and Identities, p. 162)
“Other variants of the more general definition of
homophobia included Colin’s (1991) description of
homophobia as any antihomosexual bias and discriminatory
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behavior.” (O’Donohue and Caselles, Homophobia: Conceptual,
Definitional, and Value Issues, p. 69 in Destructive Trends in Mental
Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm, edited by Rogers H.
Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings)
“There were still other definitional attempts. Morin and
Garfinkle (1978) characterized the homophobic as an individual
who does not value a homosexual lifestyle equally with a
heterosexual lifestyle.” (O’Donohue and Caselles, Homophobia:
Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues, p. 69 in Destructive Trends
in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm, edited by
Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings)
“Bell (1991) considered homophobia to be the equivalent of
homonegativity, which refers to any negative feelings or
thoughts about homosexuals and homosexuality.” (O’Donohue
and Caselles, Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,
p. 69 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned
Path to Harm, edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A.
Cummings)
“Reiter (1991) defined homophobia as antihomosexual
prejudice, a complex phenomenon whose roots have been
traced to a cultural context.” (O’Donohue and Caselles,
Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues, p. 69 in
Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to
Harm, edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings)
“The term homophobia is now popularly construed to
mean fear and dislike of homosexuality and those who practice
it.” (Fone, Homophobia: A History, p. 5)
“Homophobia has become popular as a descriptor of a wide
range of negative emotions, attitudes, and behaviors toward
homosexual people.” (Haaga, Homophobia?, p. 171)
“As the word homophobia gained currency, it began to be
widely used by professionals and non-professionals to indicate
any negative attitude, belief, or action directed against
homosexual persons, with the result that the term has lost
much of its original precision.” (Hudson and Ricketts, A
Strategy for the Measurement of Homophobia, p. 357)
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“Homophobia is mainly a category accusation because it is
primarily directed at acts and what acts represent in fantasy, and
only secondarily at the people who commit those acts, even
though this century has given those people a distinct name.
This is the one ideological prejudice that aims at doing, not
being.” (Young-Bruehl, The Anatomy of Prejudices, p. 143)
Homophobia is not a phobia
A phobia in its clinical sense is an irrational fear of
something; an individual who has a phobia tries to avoid that
which triggers this fear. If they cannot avoid the object of their
phobia, it is endured with great anxiety and distress.
“A phobia is a mainly irrational fear of something. It is not
an illness. It is not a mental disorder.” (www.pe2000.com)
“A phobia is a persistent, excessive, unrealistic fear of an
object, person, animal, activity or situation. The phobic
individual either tries to avoid the thing that triggers the fear, or
endures it with great anxiety and distress.” (www.intelihealth.com)
So, using the definitions and descriptions of homophobia
above, which are used by those advocating for homosexuality
we have the misuse of a word.
Comparing a phobia to a prejudice
“In sum, homophobia seems, at least descriptively, more
like a prejudice than like a phobia.” (Haaga, Homophobia?, p.
172)
Below in a chart is what Haaga uses to support the idea that
homophobia is a prejudice and not a phobia as defined in a
medical clinical sense. The person who suffers from a phobia is
anxious about it, sees his fears as excessive, avoids something,
and he is the one that must change. But the one who is
prejudiced is angry towards another, justifies his anger, use
aggressive behavior in discriminating against someone, and it is
the person who is prejudiced and who discriminates must
change.
Phobia Prejudice (homophobia)
Problematic emotion anxiety anger
Judgement of ones’ emotions excessive or unreasonable
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seeing one’s anger as justified
Problematic emotion avoidance aggression
Political agenda regarding target no target
discrimination against targets
Locus of motivation for change “themselves” are
motivated to change
targets the people holding such attitudes
Measuring Homophobia
Five studies by researchers attempting to measure
homophobia are reviewed here. The first was by Kenneth T.
Smith in 1971, using a nine-item Homphobia Scale (H-Scale)
and was reported in the journal Psychological Reports.
1. Smith, 1971
“One of the earliest attempts to measure homophobia
consisted of an effort to discover psychosocial correlates of
individuals reporting negative attitudes toward homosexuals
(Smith, 1971. Smith developed a twenty-four-item self-
reporting questionnaire, which consisted of a nine-item
Homophobia Scale (H-Scale) and fifteen items assessing
attitudes related to a diverse set of topics, such as patriotism,
materialism, sexuality, religion, and traditional sex roles.”
(O’Donohue and Caselles, Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional,
and Value Issues, p. 70 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The
Well-Intentioned Path to Harm, edited by Rogers H. Wright and
Nicolas A. Cummings)
Smith’s study to measure homophobia was conducted at the
State University College at Fredonia. The participants in his
study were 130 students in psychology classes. He used a
twenty-four self-reporting questionnaire, and only nine
questions were directly related to the measurement of
homophobia.
“The questionnaire was administered to a group of
undergraduate psychology students. Of the ninety-three
returned questionnaires, those with the twenty-one highest and
twenty-one lowest scores on the H-Scale comprised the
homophobic and nonhomophobic groups.” (O’Donohue and
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Caselles, Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues, p.
70-71 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned
Path to Harm, edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A.
Cummings)
Smith’s study contained parts that should be of concern and
the researcher acknowledged them in his reporting of the study.
Not only was the H-Scale based on a small number questions,
but his questionnaire did not truly represent a scale. Smith’s
arbitrary choosing of the lowest and highest twenty-one scores
in determining his H-Scale is perhaps the most questionable
part of his study in attempting to measure homophobia.
“Smith conceded that the questionnaire did not truly
represent a scale because it used a forced-choice response
format rather than a continuum.” (O’Donohue and Caselles,
Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues, p. 70 in
Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to
Harm, edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings)
“The psychometric properties of the H-Scale and the
remaining items were not reported in this study. It appears that
no reliability measures of the H-Scale or the measures of the
personality variables were obtained. Moreover, it is unclear
whether using the twenty-one lowest scores constituted an
adequate method of determining cutoff scores for
categorization. It is possible that this group might have had a
truncated range and not scored in a sufficiently extreme manner
to warrant classification as either homophobic or
nonhomophobic.” (O’Donohue and Caselles, Homophobia:
Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues, p. 71 in Destructive Trends
in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm, edited by
Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings)
“Thus, Smith’s H-Scale (1971) is a psychometrically
questionable measure of homophobia. If psychometric
properties were evaluated, they were not reported by the
author. There were no established norms or acceptable validity
for the H-Scale, rather arbitrary cutoffs were designated based
on the twenty-one lowest scores in the sample.” (O’Donohue
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and Caselles, Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,
p. 71 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned
Path to Harm, edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A.
Cummings)
2. Lumby, 1976
In 1976, Lumby reported in the Journal of Homosexuality his
study to measure homophobia. He conducted the study on the
campus of the Southerna Illinois University at Carbondale. The
research participants were 120 middle-class Causasian male
subjects who came from metroplitan, urban, and rural areas
within the state of Illinois. There were 60 homosexual subjects
and 60 heterosexual subjects. Lumby in his study converted
Smith’s H-Scale by using a Likert index, with ratings from 1
(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
“Lumby (1976) converted Smiths’s H-Scale to a Likert
index, with ratings from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly
agree;), and conducted a study that purportedly assessed the
validity of the measure.” (O’Donohue and Caselles, Homophobia:
Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues, p. 71 in Destructive Trends
in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm, edited by
Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings)
Lumby just like Smith, acknowledges basic flaws in his
study. They begin with an assumption Lumby made in
conducting his study. Lumby using his Likert index fails to
significantly improve the measurement of homophobia.
“Lumby assumed that if the H-Scale actually measured
homophobia in nonhomosexuals, there would be significant
differences between the responses of homosexuals and those of
heterosexuals. The glaring flaw in the logic of this assumption is
that although any valid measure of homophobia would be
expected to discriminate between homosexuals and
heterosexuals, it does not follow that a measure that
discriminates between these two groups necessarily is a valid
measure of homophobia. In fact, all that could be concluded
from such a measure is that certain response patterns correlate
positively or negatively with heterosexuality.” (O’Donohue and
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Caselles, Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues, p.
71 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path
to Harm, edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A.
Cummings)
“Lumby, however, reported that the scale cannot be
considered a valid measure of homophobia because it failed to
meet the minimal Guttman Scalogram requirements. This
finding was attributed, in part, to the ambiguity and
awkwardness of the wording of many items.” (O’Donohue and
Caselles, Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues, p.
70 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path
to Harm, edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A.
Cummings)
“Although Lumby remedied the difficulties resulting from
Smith’s (1971) forced-choice format, his Likert index does not
represent a significant improvement in the measurement of
homophobia.” (O’Donohue and Caselles, Homophobia:
Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues, p. 72 in Destructive Trends
in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm, edited by
Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings)
3. Milham, San Miguel and Kellogg, 1976
A second study attempting to measure homophobia was
also reported in the same 1976 issue of the Journal of
Homosexuality, which contained Lumby’s study. This was a
study conducted at the University of Houston by Milham, San
Miguel, and Kellogg. The study participants were a pool of 795
subjects in introductory psychology classes. Like the other two
studies to measure homophobia these researchers used a
quetionaire format. They had 38 belief statements where
responses were made in a true-false format. There were 38
belief statements for each male homosexuals and female
homosexuals for a combined total of 76 items.
“The 76 items were administered to a pool of 795 subjects
drawn from a population of undergraduate psychology
students.” (O’Donohue and Caselles, Homophobia: Conceptual,
Definitional, and Value Issues, p. 76 in Destructive Trends in Mental
- 147 -
Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm, edited by Rogers H.
Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings)
“Thirty-eight belief statements were generated that which
reflected a wide spectrum of opinions concerning
homosexuals.” (Milham, San Miguel and Kellogg, A Factor –
Analytic Conceptualization of Attitudes Toward Male and Female
Homosexuals, p. 4)
“These researchers developed a questionnaire consisting of
thirty-eight items designed to survey a broad range of attitudes
and beliefs toward homosexuality.” (O’Donohue and Caselles,
Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues, p. 75 in
Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to
Harm, edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings)
“Responses were in a true-false format. All items were
duplicated to refer separately to male and female homosexuals.”
(O’Donohue and Caselles, Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional,
and Value Issues, p. 76 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The
Well-Intentioned Path to Harm, edited by Rogers H. Wright and
Nicolas A. Cummings)
Of the 3 studies conducted up until 1976, of instruments to
measure homophobia Milham, San Miguel, and Kellogg’s may
be considered the most methodologically sound.
“Prior to the development of the IHP, Milham, San Miguel,
and Kellogg (1976) conducted what appears to be the most
methodologically sound investigation of attitudes toward
homosexuality.” (O’Donohue and Caselles, Homophobia:
Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues, p. 75 in Destructive Trends
in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm, edited by
Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings)
4. Hudson and Ricketts, 1980
Hudson and Ricketts’instruement for measuring
homophobia is the one that is most widely used. Their study
was conducted at the University of Hawaii at Manoa among
students in the departments of social work, sociology, and
psychology. 300 usable responses were obtained among
participants on a voluntary, non-random basis. Hudson and
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Ricketts instrument to measure homophobia is a scale, the
Index of Homophobia (IHP), consisting of 35 items with a
Likert response scale.
“During the fall of 1977 a brief questionnaire and three
scales were administered to students in the departments of
social work, sociology, and psychology at the University of
Hawaii at Manoa on a voluntary, non-random basis. A total of
300 usable responses were obtained, and, while an exact record
was not kept, the response rate was well over 80%.” (Hudson
and Ricketts, A Strategy for the Measurement of Homophobia, p. 362)
“The most widely used measure of homophobia was
constructed by Hudson and Ricketts (1980). These researchers
attempted to combine items that assessed attitudinal
dimensions of homophobia, as well as affective components of
the homophobic response.” (O’Donohue and Caselles,
Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues, p. 72 in
Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to
Harm, edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings)
“The scale, titled the Index of Homophobia (IHP), consists
of twenty-five items with a Likert response scale.” (O’Donohue
and Caselles, Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,
p. 75 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned
Path to Harm, edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A.
Cummings)
The IHP scale besides being the most widely used
instrument for measuring homophobia, is also the most
empirically and psychometrically sophisticated. But questions
still remain over whether this scale actually measures
homophobia or a reaction to homosexuality.
“Overall the developers of the IHP used a somewhat more
empirical and psychometrically sophisticated approach than
previous researchers who produced instruments to measure
homophobia. The internal consistency of the scale was
evaluated, and some validation issues were addressed by the
researchers. However, significantly more research is needed
before conclusions can be made about the reliability and the
- 149 -
validity of inferences from this scale. Questions remain about
whether this scale actually measures homophobia or a reaction
to homosexuality.” (O’Donohue and Caselles, Homophobia:
Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues, p. 75 in Destructive Trends
in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm, edited by
Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings)
5. Logan 1996
The Journal of Homosexuality printed in a 1996 issue another
study measuring homophobia. As with all the other studies and
scales attempting to measure homophobia beginning in with
Smith in 1972, Logan’s study shows that the use of the term
homophobia to describe ant-homosexual behavior is inaccurate
and inappropriate.
Logan’s study was conducted at the University of Virginia.
The study sample comprised 207 females and 177 males from
the Mental Health Adjustment and the Personality and Personal
Adjustment courses. The author developed a 28-item Gay and
Lesbian Response Scale (GLRS). Responses to the statements
from Gay and Lesbian Response Scale (GLRS) were indicated
using a 5-point Likert scale, a number 1 response was strongly
agree and a number 5 response was strongly disagree.
“The GLRS included statements indicative of a phobic
response to gays and lesbians, and statements indicative of
prejudicial responses to gays and lesbians as measured by
affectual statements, stereotypical beliefs, and opinions
regarding active discrimination against gays and lesbians.”
(Logan, Homophobia? No, Homopredjudice, p. 40)
“In conclusion, the findings of this study indicate that the
broad application of the term homophobia to describe anti-
homosexual response is inaccurate and inappropriate and
should only be used to describe those few individuals who
demonstrate a true phobic response to gays and lesbians.
Further, this study strongly suggests that most anti-homosexual
responses fall into the category of prejudice and the use of the
term homoprejudice to describe such responses is
recommended.” (Logan, Homophobia? No, Homopredjudice, p. 50)
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Limitations of homophobia
Advocates for homosexuality acknowledge the limitation of
the word homophobia itself. Most problematic is that many of
the inferences researchers made based on these instruments to
measure homophobia are invalid due to the numerous
psychometric problems with each of these homophobia scales.
The word homophobia is still used because other means of
expressing the concept of homophobia with more accurate
words to describe what it really is, a prejudice, have failed to
catch on.
“Perhaps the most serious psychometric flaw involving the
validation of all scales of homophobia is the absence of a pre-
existing, behaviorally referenced criterion group. The validation
of the homophobia instruments examined involved a criterion
group designated by scores on measures of some construct that
was believed to be related to homophobia, such as sexual
conservatism, religiosity, or maladjustment. This defect might
have been remedied by using a criterion group such as
individuals who have engaged in hate crimes against
homosexuals.
Thus, given the numerous psychometric problems with
each of these scales, many of the inferences researchers make
based upon instruments to measure the homophobia construct
are invalid.” (O’Donohue and Caselles, Homophobia: Conceptual,
Definitional, and Value Issues, p. 77 in Destructive Trends in Mental
Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm, edited by Rogers H.
Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings)
“Existing psychometric measures of homophobia have been
inadequate and therefore it is not clear currently whether this
construct can be accurately measured. The development of the
construct of homophobia appears to be in its infancy. It is of
paramount importance to establish a consensus on a clear
univocal definition of this term. A family of related terms could
range from the very general (e.g., homonegativity), referring to
any negative attitude or behavior, to the more specific. In
addition, it could carve out subsets of this domain such as
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homophobia (e.g., an irrational fear and avoidance) or
homoaggressiveness (e.g., individuals who commit illegal acts
that hurt homosexuals.).” (O’Donohue and Caselles,
Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues, p. 82 in
Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to
Harm, edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings)
“From now on, therefore, when we really do mean fear of
homosexuals,’ homophobia’ it will be; when we are talking
about hatred of homosexuals, we’ll speak (without the hypen)
of homohatred,’ homohating,’ and homohaters.” (Kirk and
Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and
Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s, p. XXIII)
“Homophobia is a mobile polymorphous prejudice that
incorporates a range of meanings, many which are nonsexual.
This makes it difficult to assign a satisfactory name to
homophobia.” (Plummer, One of the Boys: Masculinity,
Homophobia, and Modern Manhood, p. 305)
“Clearly, previous attempts to conceptualize the congnitive
dimension of reactivity toward homosexuality by means of one
all-inclusive, bipolarly valenced continuum are inadequate. It
would appear that heterosexuals make greater distinictions and
discriminations in conceptualizating homosexuality than has
been assumed previously.” (Milham, San Miguel and Kellogg, A
Factor – Analytic Conceptualization of Attitudes Toward Male and
Female Homosexuals, p. 9)
“The results of the present study lend support to
multidimensional conceptualization of responses to
homosexuality.” (Milham, San Miguel and Kellogg, A Factor –
Analytic Conceptualization of Attitudes Toward Male and Female
Homosexuals, p. 10)
Critics of homophobia have also observed that homophobia
is problematic for at least two reasons.
“First, empirical research does not indicate that
heterosexuals’ antigay attitudes can reasonably be considered a
phobia in the clinical sense. Indeed, the limited data available
suggest that many heterosexuals who express hostility toward
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gay men and lesbians do not manifest the physiological
reactions to homosexuality that are associated with other
phobias (see Shields and Harriman, 1984). Second, using
homophobia implies that antigay prejudice is an individual,
clinical entity rather than a social phenomenon rooted in
cultural ideologies and intergroup relations. Moreover, a phobia
is usually experienced as dysfunctional and unpleasant. Antigay
prejudice, however, is often highly functional for the
heterosexuals who manifest it.”
(http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/prej_defn.html)
An enemy becomes a friend
Perhaps one may find interesting that those advocating for
homosexuality use the concept of homophobia. Within this
concept of homophobia, it is an illness that is observed and
there is need for psychological help for the one who suffers
from homophobia. In a political context, there is also the idea
of discrimination. Up until 1973 the view was commonly held
that it was a homosexual who was ill and in need of
psychological help. In 1973 those advocating for homosexuality
through a three year long social/political campaign by gay
activists, pro-gay psychiatrists and gay psychiatrists, not as a
result of valid scientific studies was able to change the view of
homosexuality as an illness. This event was the removal of
homosexuality from the APA’s (American Psychiatric
Association) lists of sexual disorders in the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual.
“In 1973, by a vote of 5,854 to 3,810, the diagnostic
category of homosexuality was eliminated from the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) of the
American Psychiatric Association (Bayer 1981).” (O’Donohue
and Caselles, Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues,
p. 66 in Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned
Path to Harm, edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A.
Cummings)
“Writing about the 1973 decision and the dispute that
surrounded it, Bayer (1981) contended that these changes were
- 153 -
produced by political rather than scientific factors. Bayer argued
that the revision represented the APA’s surrender to political
and social pressures, not new data or scientific theories
regarding on human sexuality.” (O’Donohue and Caselles,
Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues, p. 66 in
Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to
Harm, edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings)
Those advocating for homosexuality have taken that who
once was an enemy and used them as an ally. There was an
exchange in roles, the idea that homosexuality was an illness,
needing a mental health cure, and creating a condition of
homophobia an illness suffered by those opposing
homosexuality and who are in need of a mental health cure.
Who is a homosexual? What is homophobia? Those
advocating for homosexuality cannot agree on answers to these
questions among themselves. But recently a new concept has
arisen that of gay fatigue. There was a recent article in a Dallas
newspaper about gay fatigue. The author was writing about the
constant bombardment for the propagandizing of a behavior,
attempting to portray it in the best light possible. While
ignoring for the most part the negative consequences, the
growing rates of sexually transmitted diseases among
homosexuals and men who have sex with men. The loudest cry
of warning about the growing possibility of a second AIDS
epidemic is coming from some homosexuals themselves. Who
is heeding this cry?
Warnings by homosexuals themselves of a possible
second AIDS epidemic.
Is the badge of the sexual outlaw killing us? www.advocate.com
Never Again, www.advocate.com
A midlife HIV crisis, www.advocate.com
Bibliography
Fone, Byrne. Homophobia: A History. Metropolitan Books.
New York, 2000.

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Friedman, Richard C., M.D., and Jennifer I. Downey, M.D.
Homosexuality. The New England Journal of Medicine. Oct. 6, 1994,
Vol. 331, No. 4, p. 923-930.
Haaga, David A. F. Homphobia? Journal of Social Behavior and
Personality. 1991, Vol. 6, No. 1, p. 171-174.
Kantor, Martin. Homophobia Description, Development, and
Dynamics of Gay Bashing. Praeger. Westport, Connecticut and
London, p. 198.
Kranz, Rachel and Tom Cusick. Gay Rights. Facts on File,
Inc. New York, 2000.
Kirk, Marshall and Hunter Madsen, Ph.D. After the Ball: How
America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of the Gay’s in the 90s.
Doubleday. New York, 1989.
Herdt, Gilbert. Same Sex, Different Cultures: Gays and Lesbians
Across Cultures. WestviewPress. 1997.
Hudson, Walter, Ph.D. and Wendell A. Ricketts. A Strategy
for the Measurement of Homophobia. Journal of Homosexuality.
Summer 1988, Vol. 5 (4), p. 357-372.
Lumby, Malcom E., Ph.D. Homophobia: The Quest for a Valid
Scale. Journal of Homosexuality. Fall, 1976, Vol. 2(1), p. 39-47.
Logan, Colleen R., Ph.D. Homophobia? No, Homoprejudice.
Journal of Homosexuality. 1996. Vol. 31(3), p. 31-53.
Miguel, Christopher L., M.S. and Jim Milham, Ph.D. The
Role of Cognitive and Situational Variables in Aggression Toward
Homosexuals. Journal of Homosexuality. Fall 1976, Vol. 2 (1), p. 11-
27.
Milham, Jim, Ph.D., Christopher L. San Miguel, M.S. and
Richard Kellogg. A Factor – Analytic Conceptualization of Attitudes
Toward Male and Female Homosexuals. Journal of Homosexuality. Fall
1976, Vol. 2 (1), p. 3-10.
Nungessor, Lon G. Homosexual Acts, Actors, and Identities.
Praeger. New York, 1983.
O’Donohue, William T. and Christine E. Caselles.
Homophobia: Conceptual, Definitional, and Value Issues, p. 65-83 in
Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to

- 155 -
Harm, edited by Rogers H. Wright and Nicolas A. Cummings.
Routledge. New York and Hove, 2005.
Patterson, Charolette J. Sexual Orientation and Human
Development: An Overview. Developmental Psychology. 1995, Vol. 31,
No.1, p. 3-11.
Plummer, David, Ph.D. One of the Boys: Masculinity,
Homophobia, and Modern Manhood. Harrington Park Press. New
York, London and Oxford, 1999.
San Miguel, Christopher L., M.S. and Jim Milham, Ph.D.
The Role of Cognitive and Situational Variables in Aggression. Journal of
homosexuality. Fall 1976, Vol.2 (1), p. 11-27.
Smith, Kenneth T. Homophobia: A Tentative Personality Profile.
Psychological Reports. 1971, 29, p. 1091-1094.
Wright, Rogers H. and Nicolas A. Cummings. Destructive
Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm.
Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. New York and Hove, 2005.
Young-Bruehl, Elisabeth. The Anatomy of Prejudices. Harvard
University Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1996.
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/prej_defn.html

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Chapter 10
What About the Children?
A Review of Homosexual Parenting Studies

Advocates for legalizing same-sex relationships by civil


unions, gay marriages or domestic partners, often say these
relationships have no bearing on the well-being of children.
They claim that numerous studies support such an outcome.
But in the five articles reviewed below, other researchers say
this is not the case; rather that the studies are biased and
contain fatal flaws and limitations. Stacy and Biblarz are
sociologists who favor homosexual parenting, and even they
admit, the sexual orientation of these parents matter somewhat more for
their children than the researchers claimed. Children raised by
homosexual parents differ in their family relationships, gender
identity, and gender behavior from children raised by
heterosexual parents. There are also differences in sexual
behavior and practices by children raised by homosexual
parents. They follow the role modeling of their parents in
homosexuality.
1. A Review of Data Based Studies Addressing the Affects of
Homosexual Parenting on Children’s Sexual and Social Functioning.
Philip A. Belcastro, Theresa Gramlich, Thomas Nicholson and
Richard Wilson. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage. 1993, Vol.
20(1/2), p. 105-122.
All of the authors are associated with universities, Belcastro
at the University of New York (Department of Health and
Physical Education), Gramlich with the University of Arkansas
for Medical Sciences, and the other three with the Western
Kentucky University (Department of Public Health).
Fourteen studies were reviewed. Studies were selected based
upon the following criteria:
1. data based;
2. post-1975 publication;

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3. independent variable – homosexual parent;
4. dependent variable – some aspect of the reared child’s
sexual and/or sexual functioning.
“Each study was evaluated according to accepted standards
of scientific inquiry. The most impressive finding was that all of
the studies lacked internal validity, and not a single study
represented any sub-population of homosexual parents. Three
studies met minimal or higher standards of internal validity,
while the remaining eleven presented moderate to fatal threats
to internal validity. The conclusion that there are no significant
differences in children reared by lesbian mothers versus
heterosexual mothers is not supported by the published
research data base.” (Belcastro et al., A Review of Data Based
Studies Addressing the Affects of Homosexual Parenting on Children’s
Sexual and Social Functioning, p. 105-106.)
2. The Potential Impact of Homosexual Parenting on Children.
Lynn D. Wardle. University of Illinois Law Review. University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Law. Champaign, IL.
1997, Vol. 1997, No. 3, p. 833-920.
Wardle is a law professor at the J. Reuben Clark Law
School, Brigham Young University. His article was published in
a law journal addressing legal issues. His concern is the misuse
of social science studies comparing the effects of homosexual
parenting to heterosexual parenting. In his article, Wardle cites
the study by Belcastro et al. discussed above.
“Thus, collectively, the social sciences studies purporting to
show that children raised by parents who engage in homosexual
behavior are not subject to any significantly enhanced risks are
flawed methodologically and analytically, and fall short of the
standards of reliability needed to sustain such conclusions.”
(Wardle, The Potential Impact of Homosexual Parenting on Children, p.
852)
3. (How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter? Judith
Stacy and Timothy J. Biblarz, American Sociological Review. April
2001, Vol. 66, No. 2, p. 159-183.

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The authors are sociology professors at the University of
Southern California. In their article, they acknowledge their bias
in support of homosexual parenting.
Twenty-one psychological studies published between 1981
and 1998 were reviewed. They were selected by the following
criteria. The studies:
1. included a sample of gay or lesbian parents and children
and a comparison group of heterosexual parents and children;
2. assessed differences between groups in terms of
statistical significances;
3. included findings directly relevant to children’s
development.
The studies reviewed compared relatively advantaged
lesbian parents (18 studies) and gay male parents (3 studies)
with roughly matched samples of heterosexual parents.
“Echoing the conclusion of meta-analysts Allen and Burell
(1996), the authors of all 21 studies almost uniformly claimed to
find no differences in measures of parenting or child outcomes.
In contrast, our careful scrutiny of the findings they report
suggests that on some dimensions - particularly those related to
gender and sexuality - the sexual orientations of these parents
matter somewhat more for their children than the researchers
claimed.” (Stacy and Biblarz, (How) Does the Sexual Orientation of
Parents Matter?, p. 167)
4. No Basis: What the Studies Don’t Tell Us About Same-Sex
Parenting. Robert Lerner, Ph.D. and Althea K. Nagai, Ph.D.
www.protectmarriage.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/nobasis.pdf
Lerner and Nagai are professionals in the field of
quantitative analysis. In their article, they evaluated 49 empirical
studies on same-sex (or homosexual) parenting. Each study was
evaluated based on how they carried out six key research tasks:
1. formulating a hypothesis and research design;
2. controlling for unrelated effects;
3. measuring concepts (bias, reliability, and validity);
4. sampling;
5. statistical testing;
- 159 -
6. addressing the problem of false negatives (statistical
power).
“Lerner and Nagai found at least one fatal research flaw in
all forty-nine studies. As a result, they conclude that no
generalizations can reliably be made based on any of these
studies. For these reasons the studies are no basis for good
science or good public policy.” (Lerner and Nagai, No Basis:
What the Studies Don’t Tell Us About Same-Sex Parenting, p. 3)
5. Studies of Homosexual Parenting: A Critical Review. George
Rekers and Mark Kilgus. Regent University Law Review. 2001-
2002, Vol. 14, No. 2, p. 343-382.
Rekers, Ph.D. is a professor at the University of South
Carolina School of Medicine. He is the author of over 100
journal articles, invited book chapters, and nine books. Rekers
has given invited expert testimony to numerous federal
government agencies and presented invited papers to academic
meetings in 24 countries. Agencies such as the National Science
Foundation and the National Institute of Mental Health have
supported his work through fellowships, contracts, and grants.
Kilgus, M.D., Ph.D. is a board-certified child and adolescent
psychiatrist. He was also affiliated with the University of South
Carolina School of Medicine at the time of co-authoring the
article.
“The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the
methodology and possible limitations of existing research
studies on the effects of homosexual parenting studies upon
child development in order to assist lawyers, legislators, and
judges to identify politically-motivated assertions regarding so-
called research findings that are not, in fact, substantiated by
adequate scientific research.” (Reckers and Makigus, Studies of
Homosexual Parenting: A Critical Review, p. 346)
Reviewed were 35 of the best currently available
homosexual parenting studies published in refereed (peer
reviewed) academic journals.
“This article discovered that with very few exceptions, the
existing studies on homosexual parenting are methodologically
- 160 -
flawed and they should be considered no more than exploratory
pilot work which suggest directions for rigorous research
studies.” (Reckers and Makigus, Studies of Homosexual Parenting:
A Critical Review, p. 345)
“At best, the scientist must still consider this body of
published articles to be suggestive of possible leads to be
systemically researched in future rigorous controlled research
studies. At worst, these methodologically flawed studies are
misleading, biased, politically motivated forms of propaganda,
which irresponsibly assert conclusions which are not
scientifically warranted.” (Reckers and Makigus, Studies of
Homosexual Parenting: A Critical Review, p. 375)
Limitations and flaws of the homosexual parenting
studies reviewed
“We have identified conceptual, methodological, and
theoretical limitations in the psychological research on the
effects of parental sexual orientation and have challenged the
predominant claim that the sexual orientation parents does not
matter at all.” (Stacy and Biblarz, (How) Does the Sexual
Orientation of Parents Matter?, p. 176)
1. Samples
Size: Marginally acceptable sample sizes. Numbers varied
from 5 in one study to a few dozen. Frequently 10 to 40
subjects were studied. Samples are too small to yield meaningful
results.
Sample of convenience: subjects are self-selected, or at least
not randomly selected. Recruited through advertisements in
homophile publications. Participants who recruited other
participants. Educated, economically stable white lesbians are
typically over-represented.
2. Control Groups
Some studies had no control groups.
Seldom compared to married heterosexual families. Often
compared to single heterosexual parents and their children.

- 161 -
Cohabitation: Most of the lesbian mothers were cohabiting
with a partner, while heterosexual mothers were single parents
not cohabiting with partners.
3. Data
Data collection: In some studies, the homosexual parents
were interviewed in person, while the heterosexual parents’ data
was collected by mail in response.
Analysis of the data: Broad over-generalizations abound,
especially in extrapolating the results to the general population.
Some studies had missing or inadequate statistical analysis of
the data. There was a general inaccurate reporting of the data
that was expressed through illegitimate generalizations or
unwarranted conclusions.
“Finally, based upon the researchers’ interpretations of the
data, and at least in one case censorship of the data, most were
biased towards proving homosexual parents were fit parents. A
disturbing revelation was that some of the published works had
to disregard their own results in order to conclude that
homosexuals were fit parents. We believe that the system of
manuscript review by peers, for minimum scientific standards
of research, was compromised in several of these studies.”
(Belcastro et al., A Review of Data Based Studies Addressing the
Affects of Homosexual Parenting on Children’s Sexual and Social
Functioning, p. 117)
3. Longitudinal studies
This is a new area of research. There is very little data
available on the adult children of homosexuals.
“Social desirability bias: Both researchers and respondents
perceive that within society, or at least the subgroup of society
with which they identify, it is deemed desirable, progressive,
and enlightened to support one particular outcome - in this
case, that homosexual parenting is just as good as heterosexual
parenting.” (Wardle, The Potential Impact of Homosexual Parenting
on Children, p. 848)
“Another mutual limitation of many of the studies was one
identified by Rees (1979), namely, lesbians’ political and legal
- 162 -
desire to present a happy, well-adjusted family to the world.”
(Belcastro et al., A Review of Data Based Studies Addressing the
Affects of Homosexual Parenting on Children’s Sexual and Social
Functioning, p. 116)
What the homosexual parenting studies do show:
“What is possible, given the collective limitations of these
three studies, is to conclude that there appears to be some
significant differences between children raised by lesbian
mothers versus heterosexual mothers in their family
relationships, gender identity, and gender behavior.” (Belcastro
et al., A Review of Data Based Studies Addressing the Affects of
Homosexual Parenting on Children’s Sexual and Social Functioning, p.
119)
The author suggests that these studies have ignored
significant potential effects of gay childrearing on children,
including increased development of homosexual orientation in
children, emotional and cognitive disadvantages caused by the
absence of opposite-sex parents, and economic security.
(Wardle, The Potential Impact of Homosexual Parenting on Children, p.
833)
“Even in a utopian society, however, one difference seems
less likely to disappear: The sexual orientation of parents
appears to have a unique (although not large) effect on children
in the politically sensitive domain of sexuality. The evidence,
while scanty and underanalyzed, hints that parental sexual
orientation is positively associated with the possibility that
children will be more likely to attain similar orientation - and
theory and common sense also support such view.” (Stacy and
Biblarz, (How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?, p.
177-178)
It is the two sociologists, Stacy and Biblarz, who
acknowledge their bias in that they support homosexual
parenting. Stacy and Biblarz admit that there are flaws in the
homosexual parenting studies, “We have identified conceptual,
methodological, and theoretical limitations in the psychological
research on the effects of parental sexual orientation...” They
- 163 -
believe it is homophobia and heterosexism that prevents
homosexual parenting from being on par with heterosexual
parenting. So, for them it is not homosexuality itself that
prevents good parenting, but the society and culture, even
though our society and culture today allows unprecedented
historical acceptance of homosexuality. What is most surprising
of all, are their comments that social sciences research is not
grounds for determining the effects of homosexual parenting
on children in the political consideration of granting parental
rights for homosexual parenting. They are sociologists
themselves.
“We agree, however, that ideological pressures constrain
intellectual development in this field. In our view, it is the
pervasiveness of social prejudice and institutionalized
discrimination against lesbians and gay men that exerts a
powerful policing effect on the basic terms of psychological
research and public discourse on the significance of parental
orientation. The field suffers less from overt ideological
convictions of scholars than from the unfortunate intellectual
consequences that follows from implicit hetero-normative
presumptions governing the terms of the discourse – that
healthy child development depends upon parenting by a
married heterosexual couple.” (Stacy and Biblarz, (How) Does the
Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?, p. 160)
“On contrary, we propose that homophobia and
discrimination are the chief reasons why parental sexual
orientation matters at all.” (Stacy and Biblarz, (How) Does the
Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?, p. 177)
“Even were heterosexism to disappear, however, parental
sexual orientation would probably continue to have some
impact on the eventual sexuality of children.” (Stacy and
Biblarz, (How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?, p.
178)
“Thus, while we disagree with those who claim that there
are no differences between children of heterosexual parents and
children of lesbigay parents, we unequivocally endorse their
- 164 -
conclusion that social science research provides no grounds for
taking sexual orientation into account in the political
distribution of family rights and responsibilities.” (Stacy and
Biblarz, (How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?, p.
179)
Bibliography
Belcastro, Philip A., Theresa Gramlich, Thomas Nicholson
and Richard Wilson. A Review of Data Based Studies Addressing the
Affects of Homosexual Parenting on Children’s Sexual and Social
Functioning. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage. 1993, Vol. 20(1/2), p.
105-122.
Stacy, Judith and Timothy J. Biblarz. (How) Does the Sexual
Orientation of Parents Matter? American Sociological Review. April
2001, Vol. 66, No. 2, p. 159-183.
Wardle, Lynn D. The Potential Impact of Homosexual Parenting
on Children. University of Illinois Law Review. University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign, College of Law. Champaign, IL. 1997,
Vol. 1997, No. 3, p. 833-920.

- 165 -
Contents

 Chapter 1: Who or What / 5


 Chapter 2: The 1860s to the 1940s / 25
 Chapter 3: Alfred Kinsey / 39
 Chapter 4: World War II to the 1960s / 53
 Chapter 5: Stonewall to the 1980s / 67
 Chapter 6: Assimilation or Liberation / 81
 Chapter 7: A Homosexual Agenda? / 105
 Chapter 8: Gay Teen Suicide Myth / 126
 Chapter 9: Homophobia Myth / 138
 Chapter 10: What About the Children? A Review of
Homosexual Parenting Studies / 157

- 166 -
It is easy to determine homosexuality, homosexual
behavior. But who is a homosexual? This is a question
that cannot be answered. And there is a simple reason,
there is no homosexual as a distinct person, only
behaviors and physical sexual acts that a person
commits. There are people who during their lifetime
often change their sexual behavior, and this makes it
impossible to state that a particular set of behaviors
defines a person as a homosexual. Also, there is no one
set of sexual desires or self-identification that uniquely
defines who a homosexual is. Throughout history sex
acts have contained directional qualities and they are
divided into active and passive roles. Even in cultures
and societies today the individual who takes the active
role in sexual acts between two members of the same
sex is not seen as a homosexual. Also in history, many
cultures and societies did not have the modern concept
of gender, masculine and feminine, but they did have
the concept of sex, male and female.

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