There were no laws against identifying as queer, though! There were laws against homosexual acts: buggery, "indecent assault", etc.
The Foucauldian position, as I understand it (secondhand, because I haven't read his stuff directly) is that prior to the late 19th century, there were homosexual *acts* but not homosexual *identity*, and that the creation of the term/concept "homosexual" by the medical world ca. 1870 more or less created homosexuality as we understand it: a way of being, rather than a thing that one does. "Strangers" debunks this by citing a lot of pre-1870 descriptions of the "type of person" (even if the word "homosexual" isn't used).
It also debunks the "moral panic" thing, too... the number of arrests and convictions for homosexuality (per 100k of population) were very low, *far* lower than in the 20th century, despite a few very highly publicised cases (Vere St, Cleveland St, Oscar Wilde, etc), and the sentences for homosexual offenses became increasingly lenient throughout that time while the standards of evidence became stricter. Even the Labouchere Amendment, which explicitly outlawed homosexual acts between men "in private or public" (the first to mention private acts explicitly) didn't cause any kind of spike in arrests or convictions... the only really clear spike you see in the graph is in 1955.
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Date: 2010-04-27 04:44 pm (UTC)The Foucauldian position, as I understand it (secondhand, because I haven't read his stuff directly) is that prior to the late 19th century, there were homosexual *acts* but not homosexual *identity*, and that the creation of the term/concept "homosexual" by the medical world ca. 1870 more or less created homosexuality as we understand it: a way of being, rather than a thing that one does. "Strangers" debunks this by citing a lot of pre-1870 descriptions of the "type of person" (even if the word "homosexual" isn't used).
It also debunks the "moral panic" thing, too... the number of arrests and convictions for homosexuality (per 100k of population) were very low, *far* lower than in the 20th century, despite a few very highly publicised cases (Vere St, Cleveland St, Oscar Wilde, etc), and the sentences for homosexual offenses became increasingly lenient throughout that time while the standards of evidence became stricter. Even the Labouchere Amendment, which explicitly outlawed homosexual acts between men "in private or public" (the first to mention private acts explicitly) didn't cause any kind of spike in arrests or convictions... the only really clear spike you see in the graph is in 1955.