The Dictionary of Homophobia (145 page)

Borrillo, Daniel,
L’Homophobie
. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, “Que sais-je?” 2000.

Daniel, F. E. “Should Insane Criminals and Sexual Perverts Be Permitted to Procreate?”
Medico-Legal Journal
(1893).

Ford, Norman. “Access to Infertility Clinics for Single Women and Lesbians?”
Chrisholm Health Ethics Bulletin
(Spring 2000).

Foucault, Michel.
Histoire de la sexualité
. Vol. 3. Paris: Gallimard, 1976–84. [Published in the US as
The History of Sexuality
. New York: Vintage Books, 1985.]

Gilbert, Maurice. “La Bible et l’homosexualité,”
Nouvelle Revue de théologie
, no. 109 (1987).

Héritier, Françoise.
Masculin/Féminin, la pensée de la différence
. Paris: Ed. Odile Jacob, 1996.

Hocquenghem, Guy.
Le Désir homosexuel
(1972). Paris: Fayard, 2000. [Published in the US as
Homosexual Desire
. Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press, 1993.]

Iacub, Marcela.
Le Crime était presque sexuel
. Paris: EPEL, 2001.

Jordan, Mark.
The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology
. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1997.

Nadaud, Stéphane.
L’Homoparentalité, une chance pour la famille?
Paris: Fayard, 2002.

Patterson, Charlotte. “Children of Lesbian and Gay Parents: Summary of Research Findings.” In
Lesbian and Gay Parents: A Resource for Psychologists
. American Psychological Association, 1995.

Rihal, Hervé. “L’Intérêt de l’enfant et la jurisprudence du Conseil d’Etat concernant les agréments en matière d’adoption,”
RD sanit. Soc
33, no. 3 (1997).

Théry, Irène. “Différence des sexes et différence des générations,”
Esprit
(December 1996).

Winter, Jean-Pierre. “Gare aux enfants symboliquement modifiés,”
Le Monde des débats
(March 2000).

—Adoption; Against Nature; Biology; Degeneracy; Marriage; Medicine; Parenting; Proselytism; Rhetoric; Theology.

STONEWALL

When eight officers from the New York Police Department’s Public Morals Section raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, on June 28, 1969, they thought they were performing a “routine”
police
operation. However, this raid, performed under the pretense of hunting for illegally sold alcohol, would constitute the symbolic beginning of the era of gay and lesbian “liberation.”

Since the end of the nineteenth century, the practice of raiding social places of business constituted one of the most common modes of control over homosexuals by police forces, both in
North America
and Europe. This activity was made easier because of the general secrecy surrounding homosexual gatherings, which were restricted to specific locations and often related to prostitution or the illegal sale of alcohol. After World War II, the appearance of bars entirely devoted to the gay lifestyle did not change these police practices, which intensified in the United States during the era of
McCarthyism
and continued throughout the 1960s (and more sporadically during the 1970s). Most of the time, police would launch a raid under the pretext of checking for business or health violations; frequently, however, they checked patrons’ identities, arresting those who had no identification, were transvestites, or were caught having sex on the premises. Admittedly, the legal consequences were not that severe, but the goal of these crackdowns was to compile a “homosexual” file, including the identification of those who worked for the government or a related agency. The regularity of these “crackdowns” put constant pressure on individuals who frequented gay establishments, a form of harassment aimed at breaking any semblance of community. As an example, in the weeks prior to Stonewall, five other gay bars in the Village were raided.

In 1969, the Stonewall Inn was a rather atypical bar on the New York scene. Owned by the mob, it was an establishment of dubious hygiene where middle-class gays mingled alongside drag queens and male prostitutes. It had become one of the most popular bars in the Village; it offered shows by go-go dancers and was reputed to be the only bar in New York where men could dance together. The Stonewall Inn was perceived by its clientele as a kind of haven, which perhaps explains why its owner fiercely protected it from police intrusions—at least until June 1969.

For the police, the actual raid of June 28 began as an oft-repeated scenario, which was supposed to be by the book: account for the absence of an alcohol license, ascertain the customers’ identities, and gather up the offenders, who would include employees, drag queens, and those without identification. The officers detained them in the bar as they waited for the police van that would drive them to the station. It was the norm for those who were let go by the police to disappear quietly into the night. However, on this particular occasion, the customers remained outside the bar, and as every new person was “let go,” he or she was welcomed by whistling, applause, and campy comments. When the police van arrived, officers led those who were being arrested to it, but as they were doing so the attitude of this curiously joyful throng outside, who had been joined by other gays and lesbians in the neighborhood, suddenly turned violent: the riot had begun. The crowd was finally sick of the endless police harassment. Under a rain of bricks and bottles, police officers were forced to take refuge in the bar, waiting for reinforcements who would eventually disperse the crowd. The night ended with thirteen arrests, while four police officers and an unknown number of protesters were injured. The next day, the protagonists from the previous night once again met face to face for a second night of rioting. This time it was less violent, however, the crowd was no less determined, and skirmishes between rioters and the police continued until four in the morning. There was yet another riot five days after the initial raid; on this occasion, over 1,000 people gathered at the bar, and caused extensive property damage during their protests. Throughout the week, as the protesters gained momentum, graffiti and political slogans appeared. Gay Power was born.

It has been suggested that the Stonewall riots were exacerbated by the fact that Judy Garland, the American actress and gay icon, had died five days earlier on June 22, and had been buried the day before the first confrontation. Her premature death at the age of forty-seven had had a profound impact on the gay community, and in fact many gay bars in the Village were draped in black as a sign of respect. But whatever the cause, in the annals of gay history, Stonewall marked a significant break with the past. Barely two weeks after the riots, the head of the New York branch of the homophile
association
, Mattachine Society, was giving a speech; when he reminded the audience of his movement’s “integrationist” options, he was booed. Far from being concerned with the respectability of homophile associations, which were becoming obsolete, many gays joined the Black Panthers, the hippies, the opponents of the Vietnam War, and the radical feminists in the fight against state oppression and the “American” way of thinking. Within a few years, similar movements were born in Europe, Australia, and even South America. Everyone would recall that the first moment of true gay liberation started with a revolt by customers in a Mafia-owned bar who had simply had enough.
—Pierre-Olivier de Busscher

Altman, Dennis.
Homosexual Oppression and Liberation
. New York: Avon Books, 1973.

Chauncey, George. “Après Stonewall, le déplacement de la frontière entre le ‘soi’ public et le ‘soi’ privé,”
Revue européenne d’histoire sociale
, no. 3 (2002).

Duberman, Martin.
Stonewall
. New York: Dutton, 1993.

—Associations; Communitarianism; Closet, the; Hoover, J. Edgar; McCarthy, Joseph; North America; Police.

SUICIDE

Psychological & Social Factors
How can an eminently individual act like suicide be linked to the morals of a society and standards concerning sexual behavior? Does not the decision to end one’s life relate to the freedom of each person to choose his or her path, which may include the possibility to refuse it? In his youth, Werther, the central character of Goethe’s
Die Leiden des jungen Werther
(
The Sorrows of Young Werther
), noted: “The question is not whether one is weak or strong, but if one can bear the weight of suffering, be it spiritual or physical.” Moreover, self-destruction can stem from psychopathological factors; that is, mental illnesses rather than social illnesses, ranging from deep depression to delusions of persecution.

Yet since the publication of French sociologist Emile Durkheim’s
Suicide
in 1897, the study of this phenomenon has revealed variations in suicide rates according to certain social characteristics and, notably, the degree of integration of individuals in their milieu. Still today, over a century after this trail-blazing work, the relationship between suicide and issues such as gender, age, marital status, and social standing is considered essential in any study of the phenomenon. Thus, suicide is an indicator of one’s social disquiet or ill being.

Various studies have underlined the dangerous effects of family and environmental factors that result in suffering, both physical (e.g., deprivation) and spiritual (e.g., shame). Thus, the
discrimination
, denigration, ostracism, and harassment suffered by those whose sexual orientation is not conventional (i.e. lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) affects their well-being, as do the internal conflicts (cognitive dissonance) that they experience between, on one hand, social expectations, the imperatives of self-fulfillment, cultural dictates, and the assignment of sexual roles and, on the other, their personal aspirations that do not correspond to social and sexual norms in society, as expressed by Michel Foucault.

Homophobia as a Factor of Suffering
Our still homophobic society allows the proliferation of negative and aggressive attitudes towards LGBT people which can drive them toward feelings of desperation, depression, and suicide.

While the situation in
France
has evolved since the early 1990s, as revealed in the studies of Marie-Ange Schiltz, social shame still weighs heavily on the homosexual condition. The call to arms declared by André
Gide
’s
Corydon
(part of which was written prior to World War I) remains topical to this day: “To fight the repression of law and moral disapproval of pederasty [in order to] not doom … homosexuals to suicide.” Thus today, the early schoolyard
insults
such as “fag,” “queer,” and “cocksucker” are considered to be the most derogatory and harmful to young homosexuals. It is telling of the amount of suffering experienced at an early age by young people who are just discovering their homo- or bisexual identity or are perceived (sometimes in error) as doing so.

Thus, young gays and lesbians can feel devastated by their failure to integrate socially with their peers, by reason of exclusion, rejection, contempt, and stigmatization within the private (
family
, friends) and public (
workplace, school, sports
) spheres, and by the distress of having to shed the heterosexual identity for which their childhood had prepared them (abandoning then the idea of fulfilling family expectations, or even having children). Michel Dorais demonstrated, based on interviews with young homosexuals in Quebec, that these painful feelings and experiences can lead to a loss of self-esteem and a loss of confidence in the future. In such cases, many factors that play an important role in the etiology of suicide and suicidal behavior are at play: e.g., depression, consumption of alcohol and drugs, family conflicts, and social isolation. Thus, it is not a single factor, but rather the combination of factors that is important: it has been suggested that the risk of suicide is multiplied sevenfold in cases when just three factors are present.

For adults, the difficulty in accepting a long-suppressed homosexuality can greatly shake one’s psyche and lead to feelings of despair. Such feelings are intensified depending on the situation, such as if one is already in a heterosexual relationship, is rejected by his employer, lives in a rural community far from gay gathering places, has just learned his positive HIV status (as per the Swiss study Cochand and Bovet), or is at an advanced age.

Dealing with Discrimination
While studying this suffering, a question is often posed: might it be that homosexuality, rather than homophobia, is the source of mental pathology? The approaches that pathologize homosexuality and gender non-conformity are still very present in the minds of both the general public and some medical professionals.

Recent studies shed light on certain phenomena, such as the buffer effect of the family in cases of homophobic assault, the influence of public-service campaigns on homosexuality and
AIDS
that can reduce the frequency of suicidal thoughts, the fact that certain “at risk” behaviors vary according to gender, and the similarity in the effects of different forms of discrimination, such as racism and homophobia (as per an American study by Fergusson and Beautrais). All of these elements tend to support the hypothesis that homosexuality
per se
does not encourage suicidal thoughts and behavior in an individual, nor mental pathologies.

By considering these observations, it is possible to suggest that the uneasiness that may be present in those with homosexual tendencies is relative to the negative social perception of homosexuality. It is true that, in France, this perception has evolved over the last two decades (with the AIDS epidemic and the adoption of
PaCS
, notably), but this “
tolerance
” remains limited. According to Michel Bozon,“When, in a given culture, cultural scenarios specifically define authorized or desirable sexual acts, all different sexual practices are perceived and defined as transgressions.” Homosexuality remains a discrediting trait for the person who has it, but this “shameful difference” is also an obstacle for the types of solidarity or defense that could be expressed, because of an effect of “
contagion
” which affects those who express that solidarity, as they are themselves accused of being homosexual because they showed support for a gay man or a lesbian.