Attitudes to Male Homosexuality Within the British Medical Association in the 1950s.

The British Government appointed a departmental committee to review anti-homosexuality laws in 1954 following a marked increase in the number of arrests for homosexuality after World War II. The committee invited the British Medical Association (BMA) and other institutions to provide scientific and medical evidence relating to homosexuality. In 1954, the BMA established the Committee on Homosexuality and Prostitution to present its view on how the law impacted upon homosexuals and society. This paper analyses the BMA's attitudes to homosexuality by examining its submission to the Departmental Committee. Whilst the BMA supported implicitly the decriminalization of certain homosexual acts, it remained strongly opposed to homosexuality from a moral perspective and insisted that it was an illness. It is concluded that the BMA's submission was driven primarily by a desire to control the "unnatural deviant" behavior of homosexuals and to protect society from that behavior rather than to protect homosexuals.

British mental healthcare responses to adult homosexuality and gender non-conforming children at the turn of the twenty-first century.

The roots of the recent controversy about how mental health professionals should respond to gender non-conforming children are traced. To make historical sense, this paper distinguishes between epistemological (discursive) and ontological (non-discursive) aspects and describes their features, since 1970. This helps to clarify some of the confusions at the centre of the still heated debate about sexuality and gender identity today. In the concluding discussion, the philosophical resource of critical realism is used to interpret the historical narrative provided. It cautions against the anachronistic tendency to amalgamate the short-lived, and now defunct, experiment of aversion therapy for homosexuality with more recent defences of exploratory psychotherapy. The latter have challenged a different form of experimentation: the bio-medicalisation of gender non-conforming children.

Madman in the Closet: "Homosexual Panic" in Nineteenth Century New England.

This analysis uses trial records from the 1860s to explore a same-sex male relationship that devolved into panic and murder. The paper's goal is to better understand how, during the middle of the nineteenth century, men who had sexual feeling for other men were forced into spaces that were qualitatively different than our current understanding of "the closet." The paper concludes that what we now call "coming out" was not an option during this era. In telling the story of how Samuel Andrews killed his best friend, Cornelius Holmes, this paper shows that the categories ordinarily presented as symmetrical binary oppositions in contemporary times-homo/heterosexual, closeted/out-did not work for Andrews and Holmes, and probably did not and could not have worked for others living under similar conditions.

On the Ground of Nature: Sexuality and Respectability in Die Freundschaft's Wandervogel Stories.

Die Freundschaft [Friendship] was a popular gay magazine during Germany's Weimar Republic. Unlike other gay magazines which preceded it, Friendship's mission was to support a mass movement for homosexual emancipation aimed at respectability and rights. This study examines how the stories about nature - particularly the Wandervogel stories - which were published in Friendship, supported the magazine's efforts at presenting homosexuality in a way that would be acceptable to the Weimar public. It argues that these stories drew from the legacy of the Wandervogel, as well as the conflicting movements of Adolf Brand and Magnus Hirschfeld, to formulate a kind of homosexuality that was connected to nature, steeped in Germany's literary tradition, and deeply commited to values such as duty and commitment to one's fellow man. This study problematizes these efforts by examining how they celebrated a specific kind of "respectable" homosexuality at the expense of other kinds of queerness.

From Libidines nefandæ to sexual perversions.

A conceptual evolution is traceable from early modern classifications of libido nefanda (execrable lust) to early nineteenth-century allusions to 'perversion of the sexual instinct', via pluralizing notions of coitus nefandus/sodomiticus in Martin Schurig's work, and of sodomia impropria in seventeenth- through late eighteenth-century legal medicine. Johann Valentin Müller's early breakdown of various unnatural penchants seemingly inspired similar lists in works by Johann Christoph Fahner and Johann Josef Bernt, and ultimately Heinrich Kaan. This allows an ante-dating of the 'specification of the perverted' (Foucault) often located in the late nineteenth century, and appreciation of pygmalionism and necrophilia as instances of 'perverted sexual instinct'. In this light, Kaan's early psychopathia sexualis was less innovative and more ambivalent than previously thought.

Do corpo do sodomita à resistência pública do prazer: um itinerário para o estudo da pegação masculina nas cidades / From the body of the sodomite to the public resistance of pleasure: an itinerary for the study of cruising gay men in cities / Del cuerpo de la sodomita a la resistencia pública del placer: un itinerário para el estudio de la práctica del cruising en las ciudades

A pegação masculina em espaços públicos da cidade é um fenômeno plural, rico em experiências instauradoras de práticas e modos de ocupar o mundo dissidentes da heteronorma. Não por acaso, foi submetido a muitos registros de infâmia. Dos antigos crimes jurídico-religiosos de sodomia forjados na Europa, que colonizaram, inclusive, os prazeres nas Américas, até sua inscrição patológico-criminal apoiada pela ciência do século XIX, a pegação tornou-se um atentado ao pudor, uma afronta à moral pública. Contudo, as figuras anônimas homoeróticas que circulam oscilantes pela urbe, instauradoras de territórios de prazer em meio ao espaço público, nos ajudam a entender, através de seus rastros, muitas vezes captados pelos aparelhos de poder, justamente suas histórias de repressão.

The cruising gay men in public spaces of the city is a plural phenomenon, rich in experiences instituting dissident practices and lifestyle of the heteronormativity. It is not by chance that this phenomenon was subjected to many registers of infamy. From the ancient juridical religious sodomy crimes established in Europe that even colonized the pleasures in the Americas to their pathological criminal inscription supported by nineteenth-century science, the cruising gay men became an indecent assault, an affront to the public moral principles. However, the anonymous homoerotic figures that circulate around the city, establishing pleasure territories in the midst of public space, help us to understand through their traces often captured by the power apparatus, precisely their stories of repression.

La práctica del cruising en los espacios públicos de la ciudad es un fenómeno plural, rico en experiencias que establecen prácticas y formas de ocupar el mundo disidentes de la heteronorma. No por casualidad, el fenómeno fue sometido a muchos registros de infamia. Desde los antiguos crimenes jurídico-religiosos de sodomía, establecidos en Europa y que incluso colonizaron los placeres en las Américas, hasta la inscripción criminal patológica apoyada por la ciencia del siglo XIX, la práctica del cruising se convirtió en un atentado contra el pudor, una afrenta a la moral pública. Sin embargo, las figuras anónimas homoeróticas que circulan alrededor de la ciudad, estableciendo territorios de placer en el espacio público, nos ayudan a comprender, a través de sus rastros, a menudo capturadas por los aparatos del poder, precisamente sus historias de represión.

Historical and Current State of Dermatologic Care for Sexual and Gender Minority Populations.

The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning/sexual and gender minority (LGBTQ/SGM) community is a growing population with unique lifestyles, sexual practices, beliefs, health issues, and concerns. Although significant advances have been achieved in recent years to establish better care for LGBTQ/SGM patients, they still face insurmountable stigmatization and health care inequality. Dermatologists play an important role in LGBTQ/SGM patients' well-being because they not only treat their skin conditions, but also help them achieve desirable physical characteristics. This article discusses historical perspectives and current state of LGBTQ/SGM dermatology and attempts to define directions for future research and improvement.

The (Slow) Depathologizing of Gender Incongruence.

Psychiatric nosology has at times mirrored cultural mores and societal values, pathologizing behaviors seen at the time to be either immoral or outside the norm. This has been particularly true when it comes to issues related to sexuality and gender. Such pathologizing has resulted in further stigmatization and discrimination in society. Gender incongruence, the experience of an individual whose internal sense of gender is at odds with the sex they were assigned at birth, has long been pathologized. This article will compare the history of the psychiatric depathologizing of homosexuality to the current process of depathologizing gender incongruence.

Advocacy Beyond Identity: A Dutch Gay/Lesbian Organization's Embrace of a Public Policy Strategy.

The gay/lesbian social movement has primarily been understood as an identity movement. This article contributes to expanding understandings of the gay/lesbian movement by following the advocacy of the Dutch Association for the Integration of Homosexuality COC (COC) as a case of a gay/lesbian movement organization's expansion of its action repertoire to include public policy goals. On the basis of archival and interview data, this article identifies several factors that enabled the COC to see the Dutch government as a potential public policy partner. Previous legal successes and facilitation by the institutionalized wing of the women's movement, coupled with a constitutional change, resulted in the COC's development of a policy strategy. By tracing the history of the COC's strategic interactions, this article demonstrates that, while an identity strategy was constant throughout the COC's advocacy, the organization could combine an identity strategy with strategies of legal change, cultural change, and public policy.

Constructed Realities: Claude Cahun's Created World in Aveux Non Avenus.

In her 1930 publication, Aveux non Avenus, Claude Cahun used the relationship between her inwardly focused poetic writing and symbolic photomontages to construct a unique reality for self-expression. This article focuses on three chapters and respective photographic images from the publication to relate Cahun's, and by association her partner Marcel Moore's, discussion on sexuality and gender expression. The utopian dreamscape created investigates issues of narcissism and otherness, female homosexuality, dandyism and going beyond gender, individual and social critique, mocking the antiquated views of art and writing, accepting and breaking taboos, while allowing for other departures from the accepted norm. Through analysis of the publication and supporting evidence from early influences, it can be seen that Cahun created a world in Aveux non Avenus where she could exist in a space between the established feminine-masculine binary of 20th-century Europe.

Self-Imposed Exile, Marginality, and Homosexuality in the Novels of Abdellah Taïa, Rachid O., and Eyet-Chékib Djaziri.

A burgeoning canon of Maghrebian writers in self-imposed exiled in France has in the last decade begun to openly broach the subject of homosexuality in Arab-Muslim communities of the Maghreb. Novels of writers like Abdellah Taïa, Rachid O. and Eyet-Chékib Djaziri reflect a fascinating trans-Mediterranean construction of homosexual identity. Drawing on Svetlana Boym's critical work, particularly her observation that nostalgia "charts an affective geography of the native land that often mirrors the melancholic landscapes" of the exiled, this paper analyzes the construction of homosexuality against the notions of exile, nostalgia, and marginality. The novels of these Maghrebian writers highlight nostalgia as both cathartic and paralyzing for "gay" migrant protagonists who find themselves trapped in the subtle seam between a cherished Maghreb that is framed as homophobic in the sexual clash of civilizations and a more liberal yet inauspicious France. The nostalgic contemplation of the constitution of a homosexual subjectivity is read as a critical performance and mainstreaming of hitherto marginalized voices that now subvert and fight back against normalizing discourses of ethnicity, sexual and gender identity as well as nationality.

When Queerness Meets Intersectional Thinking: Revolutionizing Parallels, Histories, and Contestations.

Intuitively distinguishing the myriad of critically informed paradigms requires an in-depth analysis of genealogies, histories, and philosophical underpinnings grounding each paradigm. Despite significant parallels between queer theory and intersectionality theory, the distinction of these two paradigms acts in both complicated and complementary manners that necessitate a dialogue on the contributions emanating from both paradigms to LGBTQ studies. This article targets the following goals: (1) explicate genealogy, history, and philosophical tenets of intersectionality and queer theory; (2) dialogue about the complementary yet complex relationships between the two paradigms; and (3) illustrate the promise of the complex relationship and distinction for LGBTQ studies.

The evolution of the questionnaire in German sexual science: A methodological narrative.

The sexological research questionnaire, which became a central research tool in twentieth-century sexology, has a methodological-developmental history stretching back into mid-nineteenth century Germany. It was the product of a prolonged, disruptive encounter between sexual scientists constructing sexual case studies along with newly assertive homosexual men supplying self-penned sexual autobiographies. Homosexual autobiographies were intensely interesting to these men of science but lacked the brevity, structure, and discipline of a formal clinical case study. In the closing decades of the century, efforts to harness and regularize this self-penned material resulted in a series of methodological adaptations. By the turn of the century this process had resulted in the first use of a formal sexual research questionnaire.

Fractured narratives of psy disciplines and the LGBTQIA+ rights movement in India: A critical examination.

In 2018, a day before the Supreme Court of India commenced hearing the curative petition on Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (which criminalised carnal intercourse against the order of nature), the Indian Psychiatric Society (IPS) issued an official statement that homosexuality is not a mental pathology. In 2014, a year after the top court recriminalised homosexuality, the then IPS president had termed it as a pathology requiring treatment. By examining articles on LGBTQIA+ rights published in two flagship Indian journals in psychiatry and clinical psychology, position statements by professional bodies, and international and national developments in human rights mechanisms, we argue that psychiatry's voice for human rights protection of the marginalised has been akin to whispering sweet nothings in tune with the juridico-penal system. In turn, clinical psychology appears to huddle with biomedical psychiatry without raising its voice against coercive and traumatising practices within mainstream technocratic psychiatry. We seek to explore the troubled relationship between mainstream psy disciplines and LGBTQIA+ persons characterised by psychological evasion: failure of mainstream psy disciplines to take up sensitive, socio-political issues like same sex love in a broader human rights framework leading to individualisation- pathologisation complex which further side-lines persons living on the margins of society.

Gaydar, Marriage, and Rip-Roaring Homosexuals: Discourses About Homosexuality in Dear Abby and Ann Landers Advice Columns, 1967-1982.

Over the past 70 years, the history of acceptance of the lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) community within the United States has seen much change and fluctuation. One of the places that this dialogue has been preserved is through the syndicated advice columns of Dear Abby and Ann Landers, in which individuals in the United States were writing in for advice to deal with their anxiety over a newly emerging and highly visible new community of individuals once considered to be mentally ill and dangerous. Using discourse analysis, this article traces the evolution of public and scientific opinions about the LGBT community during the years leading up to the Stonewall riots all the way to right before the AIDs epidemic. This analysis sheds light on several moral panics that emerged regarding this newly visible population, especially in regard to disturbances within the domestic sphere and a stigmatization of bisexuality.

Songs of Sodom: Singing About the Unmentionable Vice in the Early Modern Low Countries.

Although sodomy was purportedly an "unmentionable vice" in the early modern period, popular songs from the Low Countries paint a different picture. Bringing musical sources to bear upon the subject adds an extra dimension to the now widely held view that sodomy was a multimedia phenomenon in early modern society. Sodomy was represented in art, literature, poetry, and popular song as well. These songs were pedagogical in that they aimed to encourage performers and audience to live a pious life, and they stimulated the formation of confessional identities. By drawing attention to this neglected chapter in the history of homosexuality-popular song in the early modern Low Countries-this article seeks to contribute to the research on cultural perceptions of sodomy in the period.

Homosexuality and Psychoanalysis Meet at a Mental Hospital: An Early Institutional History.

Psychoanalysis and homosexuality in the United States were both largely in flux between 1910 and 1935. This article sheds light on this unique historical moment by first exploring scholarly discussions of the era's psychoanalysis and homosexuality, both of which emphasized the transitional nature of therapy and sexuality. By putting two bodies of scholarship into conversation, I also suggest how the historiography might move beyond two oft-cited arguments-that the psychoanalysis of the era had the power to form a person's sexual identity negatively, and that sexual minorities formed their identities affirmatively by staying away from medical interventions. I argue that, instead, psychoanalysis was part of modern sexual identity-formation in surprisingly open-ended ways. The second half of the article continues to explore the interplay between therapy and sexuality by closely examining clinical practices at one of the leading mental hospitals of the era: Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital in Towson, Maryland, where an eclectic mode of psychotherapy was actively employed to treat homosexuality. In particular, the work of Harry Stack Sullivan (1892-1949), a gay psychiatrist well-known for his interpersonal theory of mental illness, shows how male patients who experienced same-sex sexual relationships nurtured productive interdependency among men in their articulation of sexual identity. By carefully delineating this process, the article shows how analytic practices could, and sometimes did, offer a crucial space for self-reflection and articulation of male sexuality.