Homophobic Violence, Cultural Essentialism and Shifting Sexual Identities
| Author | Stephen Tomsen |
| Date | 01 September 2006 |
| Published date | 01 September 2006 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663906066616 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
HOMOPHOBIC VIOLENCE,
CULTURAL ESSENTIALISM AND
SHIFTING SEXUAL IDENTITIES
STEPHEN TOMSEN
University of Newcastle, Australia
ABSTRACT
Contemporary researchers have gathered widespread evidence of same-sex practice
and desire with no implications for identity, across a range of historical and social
settings. Paradoxically, models of understanding hate crime and homophobic violence
that incline towards sexual essentialism have emerged in the same period. Categoriz-
ing perpetrators and victims as distinct groups of dangerous heterosexuals and vulner-
able ‘sexual minorities’ is a politically seductive position in the media, public
bureaucracies and criminal justice systems of contemporary liberal states. Fatal
attacks are regarded as extreme expressions of homophobia that encapsulate this
group division. But the author’s study of anti-homosexual killings in New South
Wales, and related criminal trials, signals the frequent significance of same-sex activity
that is not accompanied by homosexual/gay identity among perpetrators and victims,
and the relation to perpetrators’ reasoned concerns about masculinity. Expert
discourse and legal findings have typically viewed non-gay same-sex activity (by
either victims or perpetrators) as the marker of an unresolved struggle for homosexual
identity. But more recently, this is interpreted as signalling a lesser mental pathology
or problematic male risk taking for pleasure. These shifts have had unexpected
negative outcomes for victims without a gay social identity, and some perpetrators in
‘homosexual advance’ cases now derive a benefit from the newer cultural under-
standing of gay and straight categories.
KEY WORDS
hate crime; homophobia; queer; sexual identity; violence
SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES Copyright © 2006 SAGE Publications
London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi, www.sagepublications.com
0964 6639, Vol. 15(3), 389–407
DOI: 10.1177/0964663906066616
390
SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES 15(3)
SEXUAL ESSENTIALISM AND HOMOPHOBIA
THE ESSENTIALIST view of sexuality argues that sexual urges reflect
pregiven or instinctive biological drives which are always present –
though often constrained – in all societies (Weeks, 1986). These drives
are typically seen as being of primary importance for men and women who
are naturally inclined towards exclusive opposite-sex relations. As homo-
sexual behaviour subverts the assumed link between gender identity and sexual
desire, homosexuality is frequently conceived as a biological or psychologi-
cal malfunction that afflicts a minority of people. This understanding of
human sexuality has been challenged by a perspective referred to as
‘constructionism’ (Greenberg, 1988; Connell and Dowsett, 1992; Stein, 1992;
De Cecco and Elia, 1993). This insists that sexual desire is not patterned by
drives with basic consistencies across different cultures. Support for
constructionism has grown from accounts of diverse sexual practices and the
extent of mutual sexual activity among men who do not identify as homo-
sexual in a range of cultural settings (Kinsey et al., 1948; McKintosh, 1968;
Gagnon and Simon, 1973; Plummer, 1975; Gagnon, 1977; Herdt, 1981;
Greenberg, 1988; Dowsett, 1996a). It has been further reinforced by the
critical work of historians and scholars studying the rise of new sexual iden-
tities in the industrialized West in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
(Lauritsen and Thorstad, 1974; Katz, 1976, 1996; D’Emilio, 1983; Weeks,
1985; Mort, 1987). In this period, homosexual desire became a key motif of
sexual dissidence (Dollimore, 1991) and the sodomite was recast as a distinct
and threatening sexual species that required intensive regulation and treat-
ment (Foucault, 1978: 43).
These insights are the backdrop for more recent accounts of sexuality
offered by queer perspectives. The latter stress the artificiality of the homo/
hetero dyad that took hold in the late 19th-century West. At that time, sexu-
ality became a master category for defining the self and this historical shift has
been marked by a nearly universal preoccupation of each person with the
gender of sexual partners. Discursive deconstruction and a constant playful-
ness with sexual identities are now often suggested as the most effective means
of overcoming the tight sexual ordering of modernity (Seidman, 1993; Jagose,
1996; Spargo, 1999). Nevertheless, essentialist views have not abated in posi-
tivistic scientific inquiry, official and popular commentaries on sexuality
(Dowsett, 1996b). This position has positive attractions for gay and lesbian
activists especially in the areas of inequality (see Epstein, 1992) related to
sexual identity and the violence issue may be the most cogent example of this.
Since the 1980s, there have been claims of a marked increase in violence
and harassment directed against lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and trans-
sexual/transgendered people on the basis of group sexual identity (Van den
Boogaard, 1987; Comstock, 1991; Herek and Berrill, 1992; Mott, 1996; Mason
and Palmer, 1996; Jenness and Broad, 1997; Mason and Tomsen, 1997). These
attacks have been described as ‘homophobic’, ‘heterosexist’ and as ‘hetero-
normative’ to signal the individual, structural and discursive reproduction of
TOMSEN: HOMOPHOBIC VIOLENCE
391
sexual prejudice (Weinberg, 1972; Herek, 1984; Adam, 1998). Although
‘homophobia’ was originally meant to label an actual mental illness resulting
in an exceptional hatred or fear of homosexuals, in recent decades its wider
use describes a general form of bias or dislike of homosexuals. The first use
of homophobia reflected an effort to lift homosexuality out of its deviant
position in medicine and professional psychology, and insisted that mental
health problems among homosexual men and lesbians were a consequence of
the social stigma and hostility directed at homosexuality (Weinberg, 1972).
Weinberg recorded that he had uncovered a new phobia marked by ‘the dread
of being in close quarters with homosexuals’ that experts had overlooked by
virtue of their own anti-homosexual prejudice (p. 4). The ambiguity of the
term’s legacy largely follows on from his suggestion that a key clinical
symptom of homophobia was a marked ‘fear of being homosexual oneself’
(p. 11). This set off the development of a model of anti-homosexual preju-
dice that recast the widespread and varied dislike of homosexuals as narrowly
comprising a pathological condition that afflicts a disturbed minority of
people who cannot accept their own essentially homosexual urges (Kantor,
1998).
Critiques of this overall understanding of anti-homosexual sentiment and
behaviour soon followed. Herek (1984) observed that research does not
confirm that these sentiments are usually like a clinical phobia, and many
anti-homosexual individuals do not display physiologically typical phobic
reactions to homosexuality. Far from being a mental phobia that is unpleas-
ant and troubling for sufferers, anti-homosexual sentiment is often highly
rewarding and enhances the social esteem of those who display it. Further-
more, the term often suggests that such sentiments are to be understood as
an individual entity rather than being derived from social group relations and
the wider culture which every ‘homophobic’ person inhabits. Feminist critics
have also argued that this term downplays gender differences and the links
between anti-lesbian attacks and the sexism incurred by all women in patri-
archal societies, and it potentially excludes bias against lesbians.1 In the 1970s
and 1980s some activists came to prefer the term ‘heterosexism’ because it
offered a structural dimension and suggested parallels with other forms of
disadvantage linked to prejudice. For example, Herek (1992) distinguished
between cultural heterosexism (social customs, religion and law) and psycho-
logical heterosexism (attitudes and behaviour of individuals). He has more
recently favoured an analysis of harassment and violence as instances of
‘sexual prejudice’ (Herek, 2000).
Nevertheless, a growing number of scholars and researchers have given
ground to the persistent popular use of ‘homophobia’, and it may yet be
redeemed by calls for its retention and development among constructionist
and queer analyses of sexuality. These positions link the understanding of
prejudice and violence to notions of ‘gender panic’ by emphasizing the
significance of homophobia to modern western notions of heterosexuality
and the commonplace irrationality that shapes much discourse, thought and
action around gender and sexuality. In this way homophobia is not meant as
392
SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES 15(3)
an extreme mental condition, but it does reflect aspects of the tense proxim-
ity of homosexuality and heterosexuality in everyday ideas and social
practice (Dollimore, 1991). Ordinarily this is not noticed, but it becomes
obvious during such moral panics as the widespread public anxiety set off by
debated reforms that would allow the admission of homosexuals into the
United States military (Butler, 1993; Adam, 1998). Most importantly, the
wider use of this term may yet be justified by evidence regarding the visceral
and frequently irrational nature of much contemporary sexual prejudice,
especially that which fears an undermining of the sanctity of male and female
bodies in same-sex relations (Tomsen and Mason, 2001).
HOMOPHOBIC HATE CRIMES
Similar conceptual difficulties attach to ‘hate crime’ as an allied term that has
become a common means of referring to crimes of violence, abuse and harass-
ment motivated by bias against racial, ethnic, sexual or religious...
CULTURAL ESSENTIALISM AND
SHIFTING SEXUAL IDENTITIES
STEPHEN TOMSEN
University of Newcastle, Australia
ABSTRACT
Contemporary researchers have gathered widespread evidence of same-sex practice
and desire with no implications for identity, across a range of historical and social
settings. Paradoxically, models of understanding hate crime and homophobic violence
that incline towards sexual essentialism have emerged in the same period. Categoriz-
ing perpetrators and victims as distinct groups of dangerous heterosexuals and vulner-
able ‘sexual minorities’ is a politically seductive position in the media, public
bureaucracies and criminal justice systems of contemporary liberal states. Fatal
attacks are regarded as extreme expressions of homophobia that encapsulate this
group division. But the author’s study of anti-homosexual killings in New South
Wales, and related criminal trials, signals the frequent significance of same-sex activity
that is not accompanied by homosexual/gay identity among perpetrators and victims,
and the relation to perpetrators’ reasoned concerns about masculinity. Expert
discourse and legal findings have typically viewed non-gay same-sex activity (by
either victims or perpetrators) as the marker of an unresolved struggle for homosexual
identity. But more recently, this is interpreted as signalling a lesser mental pathology
or problematic male risk taking for pleasure. These shifts have had unexpected
negative outcomes for victims without a gay social identity, and some perpetrators in
‘homosexual advance’ cases now derive a benefit from the newer cultural under-
standing of gay and straight categories.
KEY WORDS
hate crime; homophobia; queer; sexual identity; violence
SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES Copyright © 2006 SAGE Publications
London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi, www.sagepublications.com
0964 6639, Vol. 15(3), 389–407
DOI: 10.1177/0964663906066616
390
SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES 15(3)
SEXUAL ESSENTIALISM AND HOMOPHOBIA
THE ESSENTIALIST view of sexuality argues that sexual urges reflect
pregiven or instinctive biological drives which are always present –
though often constrained – in all societies (Weeks, 1986). These drives
are typically seen as being of primary importance for men and women who
are naturally inclined towards exclusive opposite-sex relations. As homo-
sexual behaviour subverts the assumed link between gender identity and sexual
desire, homosexuality is frequently conceived as a biological or psychologi-
cal malfunction that afflicts a minority of people. This understanding of
human sexuality has been challenged by a perspective referred to as
‘constructionism’ (Greenberg, 1988; Connell and Dowsett, 1992; Stein, 1992;
De Cecco and Elia, 1993). This insists that sexual desire is not patterned by
drives with basic consistencies across different cultures. Support for
constructionism has grown from accounts of diverse sexual practices and the
extent of mutual sexual activity among men who do not identify as homo-
sexual in a range of cultural settings (Kinsey et al., 1948; McKintosh, 1968;
Gagnon and Simon, 1973; Plummer, 1975; Gagnon, 1977; Herdt, 1981;
Greenberg, 1988; Dowsett, 1996a). It has been further reinforced by the
critical work of historians and scholars studying the rise of new sexual iden-
tities in the industrialized West in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
(Lauritsen and Thorstad, 1974; Katz, 1976, 1996; D’Emilio, 1983; Weeks,
1985; Mort, 1987). In this period, homosexual desire became a key motif of
sexual dissidence (Dollimore, 1991) and the sodomite was recast as a distinct
and threatening sexual species that required intensive regulation and treat-
ment (Foucault, 1978: 43).
These insights are the backdrop for more recent accounts of sexuality
offered by queer perspectives. The latter stress the artificiality of the homo/
hetero dyad that took hold in the late 19th-century West. At that time, sexu-
ality became a master category for defining the self and this historical shift has
been marked by a nearly universal preoccupation of each person with the
gender of sexual partners. Discursive deconstruction and a constant playful-
ness with sexual identities are now often suggested as the most effective means
of overcoming the tight sexual ordering of modernity (Seidman, 1993; Jagose,
1996; Spargo, 1999). Nevertheless, essentialist views have not abated in posi-
tivistic scientific inquiry, official and popular commentaries on sexuality
(Dowsett, 1996b). This position has positive attractions for gay and lesbian
activists especially in the areas of inequality (see Epstein, 1992) related to
sexual identity and the violence issue may be the most cogent example of this.
Since the 1980s, there have been claims of a marked increase in violence
and harassment directed against lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and trans-
sexual/transgendered people on the basis of group sexual identity (Van den
Boogaard, 1987; Comstock, 1991; Herek and Berrill, 1992; Mott, 1996; Mason
and Palmer, 1996; Jenness and Broad, 1997; Mason and Tomsen, 1997). These
attacks have been described as ‘homophobic’, ‘heterosexist’ and as ‘hetero-
normative’ to signal the individual, structural and discursive reproduction of
TOMSEN: HOMOPHOBIC VIOLENCE
391
sexual prejudice (Weinberg, 1972; Herek, 1984; Adam, 1998). Although
‘homophobia’ was originally meant to label an actual mental illness resulting
in an exceptional hatred or fear of homosexuals, in recent decades its wider
use describes a general form of bias or dislike of homosexuals. The first use
of homophobia reflected an effort to lift homosexuality out of its deviant
position in medicine and professional psychology, and insisted that mental
health problems among homosexual men and lesbians were a consequence of
the social stigma and hostility directed at homosexuality (Weinberg, 1972).
Weinberg recorded that he had uncovered a new phobia marked by ‘the dread
of being in close quarters with homosexuals’ that experts had overlooked by
virtue of their own anti-homosexual prejudice (p. 4). The ambiguity of the
term’s legacy largely follows on from his suggestion that a key clinical
symptom of homophobia was a marked ‘fear of being homosexual oneself’
(p. 11). This set off the development of a model of anti-homosexual preju-
dice that recast the widespread and varied dislike of homosexuals as narrowly
comprising a pathological condition that afflicts a disturbed minority of
people who cannot accept their own essentially homosexual urges (Kantor,
1998).
Critiques of this overall understanding of anti-homosexual sentiment and
behaviour soon followed. Herek (1984) observed that research does not
confirm that these sentiments are usually like a clinical phobia, and many
anti-homosexual individuals do not display physiologically typical phobic
reactions to homosexuality. Far from being a mental phobia that is unpleas-
ant and troubling for sufferers, anti-homosexual sentiment is often highly
rewarding and enhances the social esteem of those who display it. Further-
more, the term often suggests that such sentiments are to be understood as
an individual entity rather than being derived from social group relations and
the wider culture which every ‘homophobic’ person inhabits. Feminist critics
have also argued that this term downplays gender differences and the links
between anti-lesbian attacks and the sexism incurred by all women in patri-
archal societies, and it potentially excludes bias against lesbians.1 In the 1970s
and 1980s some activists came to prefer the term ‘heterosexism’ because it
offered a structural dimension and suggested parallels with other forms of
disadvantage linked to prejudice. For example, Herek (1992) distinguished
between cultural heterosexism (social customs, religion and law) and psycho-
logical heterosexism (attitudes and behaviour of individuals). He has more
recently favoured an analysis of harassment and violence as instances of
‘sexual prejudice’ (Herek, 2000).
Nevertheless, a growing number of scholars and researchers have given
ground to the persistent popular use of ‘homophobia’, and it may yet be
redeemed by calls for its retention and development among constructionist
and queer analyses of sexuality. These positions link the understanding of
prejudice and violence to notions of ‘gender panic’ by emphasizing the
significance of homophobia to modern western notions of heterosexuality
and the commonplace irrationality that shapes much discourse, thought and
action around gender and sexuality. In this way homophobia is not meant as
392
SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES 15(3)
an extreme mental condition, but it does reflect aspects of the tense proxim-
ity of homosexuality and heterosexuality in everyday ideas and social
practice (Dollimore, 1991). Ordinarily this is not noticed, but it becomes
obvious during such moral panics as the widespread public anxiety set off by
debated reforms that would allow the admission of homosexuals into the
United States military (Butler, 1993; Adam, 1998). Most importantly, the
wider use of this term may yet be justified by evidence regarding the visceral
and frequently irrational nature of much contemporary sexual prejudice,
especially that which fears an undermining of the sanctity of male and female
bodies in same-sex relations (Tomsen and Mason, 2001).
HOMOPHOBIC HATE CRIMES
Similar conceptual difficulties attach to ‘hate crime’ as an allied term that has
become a common means of referring to crimes of violence, abuse and harass-
ment motivated by bias against racial, ethnic, sexual or religious...
To continue reading
Request your trial