Out of the Ordinary : Representations of LGBT Lives [1 ed.] 9781443838733, 9781443837439

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Out of the Ordinary

Out of the Ordinary: Representations of LGBT Lives

Edited by

Ian Rivers and Richard Ward

Out of the Ordinary: Representations of LGBT Lives, Edited by Ian Rivers and Richard Ward This book first published 2012 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2012 by Ian Rivers and Richard Ward and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-3743-1, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-3743-9

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Illustrations .................................................................................... vii Acknowledgements .................................................................................... ix Chapter One................................................................................................. 1 Introduction: Out of the Ordinary Ian Rivers and Richard Ward Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 11 (The Gospel According to) Jesus Queen of Heaven: A Personal History of a Controversial Play Jo Clifford Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 29 Where’s Our Public Library Service? LGBT Fact or Fiction? Jacq Goldthorp Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 43 “In This Our Lives.” Invisibility and Black British Gay Identity Antoine Rogers Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 61 To be Judged “Gay” Leslie J. Moran Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 77 From Cruising to Dogging: The Surveillance and Consumption of Public Sex Chris Ashford Chapter Seven............................................................................................ 93 Cisgenderism in Medical Settings: Challenging Structural Violence through Collaborative Partnerships Y. Gavriel Ansara

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 Chapter Eight........................................................................................... 113 Queer Collisions of Medical Sex and Contemporary Arts Practice Paul Woodland Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 131 Reflections on Representations Ian Rivers and Richard Ward Contributors............................................................................................. 141 Index........................................................................................................ 143

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Fig. 2-1: Jesus Queen of Heaven Fig 2-2: Jo Clifford Performing Fig. 4-1: Black Gay Men’s Conference, Original Conference Poster Fig. 4-2: “In This Our Lives” – The Reunion Poster Fig. 5-1: Lord Justice Etherton’s Biographical Sketch (Reproduced) Fig. 5-2: Judicial Portrait 1: Lord Justice Etherton Fig. 5-3: Judicial Portrait 2: Lord Justice Etherton Fig. 8-1: Medical Body/Social Body Fig. 8-2 (a-b): Becoming “Doctor” pt I Fig. 8-2 (c-f): Becoming “Doctor” pt I Fig. 8-3: Attempts at Holism Fig. 8-4: Attempts at Holism (Self Portrait) [Detail] Fig. 8-5: Baby Machines (Work in Progress, Abandoned in Protest) [Detail] Fig. 8-6: Maquette for Pillars of Society Fig. 8-7: Battlefields

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The editors would like to thank the following individuals and organisations for allowing us to reproduce the images in this book. We are indebted to Neil Montgomery and Besite Productions for allowing us to reproduce his image of Jo Clifford performing her stage play (The Gospel According to) Jesus Queen of Heaven for the front cover of this book, as well as Fig. 2-1 entitled Jesus, Queen of Heaven. We are also indebted to Antoine Rogers for allowing us to reproduce the posters for the Black Gay Men’s Conference “In This Our Lives” (Fig. 4-1) and the reunion (Fig. 4-2). We are grateful for permission from Photoshot to reproduce one of the official portraits of Lord Justice Etherton (Fig. 5-2) and to Lord Justice Etherton himself for permission to reproduce a second portrait (Fig. 5-3). Special mention should be made of Paul Woodland who allowed us to reproduce pieces from his PhD work in chapter eight. We are also grateful to Cambridge Scholar Publishing for agreeing to publish this unusual book, and to those reviewed the prospectus and final manuscript. Finally, we would like to thank all of our authors for their hard work and commitment to this book and its completion. Ian Rivers Brunel University Richard Ward University of Manchester January, 2012



CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION: OUT OF THE ORDINARY IAN RIVERS AND RICHARD WARD

Simply put, this book considers how the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans/transgender (hereafter LGBT) people are represented. Our aim is to interrogate the politics and practices of representation in relation to sexualities and gender identities. The book was conceived and produced against the backdrop of an evolving critique of the very act of representation, part of a broader backlash against the so-called “cultural turn” that took place across the humanities and social sciences at the end of the last century. Recent years have witnessed a growing unease with the idea of representation as a process that captures and fixes its subject, offering a freeze-frame depiction of that which is fluid, in time and space (Thrift, 2008). The critical gaze has turned from a focus upon the process and content of representation to question the utility of representation itself. How does it limit the way we understand and engage with the world and each other, what relationship does it have to lived experience and what lies beyond it? The chapters collected in this short volume make their own contribution to this emerging critique. We explore the limits and the silences, the damage and even violence of representation as it applies to the lives of LGBT people. For both critical realism and non-representational theory one focus for a critique of representation has been the body, in particular the sensuous and embodied aspects of social life that have for so long remained backstage in social analysis and theory. It is no coincidence then that bodily practices and embodied experience figure prominently here, especially towards the end of the book where the tensions between the sensuous and sexualised body and its formulaic and codified representation are identified and explored. Nonetheless, this book also concerns itself with an array representational practices and what these mean for LGBT lives. Many of the following chapters occupy a space within the terrain of representation rather than



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seeking to explore the world beyond it. In this respect the book makes a contribution to a historical thread that runs throughout LGBT and queer studies, which treats representation as one of the key battlefields for the citizenship and rights of sexual and gender minorities and the authority to define and accord status to non-normative identities. As the queer sociologist Ken Plummer (2001) once famously pointed out, until the 1970’s if any stories were to be told of homosexuality it was usually by doctors or moralists and almost always couched in the most negative terms. At one time cast as criminal, immoral and pathological, the struggle for liberation (gay and otherwise) has centred upon claiming the right to represent ourselves. Hence, from the earliest days of the liberation movement much of the published work and other outputs from LGBT groups and individuals have been about telling the stories of our lives (Plummer 1992; Porter & Weeks, 1997). As many of the chapters in this book demonstrate, that battle continues today, in many domains of everyday living it is by no means certain that LGBT people are granted the freedom to define ourselves or to govern how representations of us circulate and are deployed. A particular focus for this book is upon the everyday act of representation. The majority of chapters contained herein are based upon papers given as part of a seminar series on “LGBT Lives” that took place between 2008-2010, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. The seminars attracted a diverse mix of academics, activists, community representatives and other allies, providing a forum for debate across disciplines, sectors, professions, regions and cultures. What these seminars demonstrated was that the politics and practices of representation imbue many different domains of our everyday social experience. Whether it be the arts, public services, popular culture or large state institutions such as medicine or the judiciary, the representation of sexuality and gender identity is an integral and constitutive activity in all these contexts. On this basis, we found that we had a shared and common interest despite our varied backgrounds and differing specialisms. The question of how sexuality and gender identity is taken up and re-presented according to the different cultures, discourses, traditions and interests of the various environments in which we worked became a central and over-arching theme to the entire seminar series. Recognising this led to the production of this book in the knowledge that what was common ground for all those who attended the LGBT Lives seminars was undoubtedly be shared by many others with an interest in how the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people are represented.



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Out of the Ordinary Throughout the seminar series, we were struck by how different some peoples’ lives had been, not only from our own as out gay researchers and academics, but also from those they passed on the street daily. Academia offers privileges and a degree of safety for its members that can be found in few other walks of life. It was a salutary lesson for us to hear of the challenges that faced other LGBT people who perhaps did not have the advantages to which we had become accustomed, and the resources that we had come to expect within an academic community, for example LGBT literature. As authors and editors we have spent much of our professional lives surrounded by literature that opens the mind to alternative discourses and viewpoints that perhaps we too easily forget do not exist outside the walls of a university or college. For many LGBT people access to information remains a daily challenge which, as Jacq Goldthorp illustrates in her excellent chapter (Chapter Three), extends to the public library – a universal service that is, for many, not at all universal. The title of this book is, thus, recognition that some of the experiences and perspectives described in the following pages are not features of our daily existence, and are not features of the daily existence of many people - LGBT and heterosexual. How many of us have, for example, interrogated the heterosexism that underlies medical education? How many of us have considered the implications of a founder of a faith being transgender, of not representing the majority, of welcoming all without the biased protectionism inherent within of the proclamations of our religious leaders today? Indeed, how many of us presume that those who sit in judgement of us within the courts are not only of the establishment, maintaining the status quo, but are also people who would not understand the lived experiences of LGBT people? There is much to be learned from those who can facilitate changing the establishment from within as well as those who fight to change it from without. According to the more normative representations of social life, we are used to binaries: male and female; heterosexual and homosexual; right and wrong; good and evil. Yet, not all people live in a binary world, and we are not all born into one sex or another. For some there is a need to transition, for others there is a desire to stand outside the confines society has imposed upon us in terms of gender. Many of the academic writings that exist on issues of transgender and cisgenderism have a distinctly medical feel to them, even those writings that are autobiographical or biographical. Consultations, psychiatric evaluations, hormone therapies



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and surgeries are often part of the discourse of transgender lives, and yet there is so much more to know and understand of trans experiences. Are we truly reliant upon the presence or absence of a particular genital formation to live a rich and fulfilled life today? The Native Americans did not think so; they saw gender and, ultimately, sexual orientation as fluid and thus not necessarily bound to the gender of a human being at birth (Williams, 1992). LGBT lives, just like heterosexual lives, are defined by sexual behaviour. There is an inherent assumption in the world in which we live that heterosexuality is good and pure and that homosexuality represents something other than goodness and purity. Similarly, historically, society has looked upon those who have sex in public places with a degree of repugnance. Sex in public places, such as public lavatories or municipal parks, has often been associated with homosexuality, but that is not the case today. Indeed, public sex, as part of a heterosexual repertoire of sexual practices seems to be thriving with “dogging” becoming an increasingly visible feature of the sexual landscape for heterosexual individuals and couples.. Thus, it may be timely to think about how we all describe ourselves, and not assume that terms such as “lesbian”, “gay”, “bisexual” or “heterosexual” have any currency beyond identifying us as a category for audit and census purposes. How we are viewed by others, and indeed how we are viewed by members of our own communities, sometimes with their own belief systems and cultural mores, is at the heart of much of the discrimination that goes on both in the UK and elsewhere. For some young LGBT people being a member of a particular ethnic or cultural group brings with it its own trials and tribulations, limitations and expectations. For many Black and minority ethnic (BME) people who are LGB or T, there are few formal or sanctioned opportunities to meet others and share experiences. Being “out” to others can mean isolation from family, friends, community and religion for all LGBT people but, as Antoine Rogers demonstrates there are particular nuances attached when race and sexuality intersect. As BME LGBT people grow older there may be even fewer opportunities to interact with people from similar cultural backgrounds except in venues that exist for all members of the LGBT population, which are marked by ethnocentrism and an orientation to youth. It is perhaps surprising for many of us to learn that there has only been one Black gay men’s conference ever in the city of London, held in 1987. In the fourth chapter of this book, Antoine talks about his research following a reunion of attendees from that first and only conference. He illustrates how this coming together of Black gay men in London in 1987 was an incredibly



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positive experience but one that ultimately was not sustained. The issues brought forward were not universal, nor were they similarly prioritised by delegates. Ultimately, acknowledging that diversity exists within as well as between groups means that the struggles LGBT people face are not uniform and the intersectionality of race, culture and sexual orientation brings to the table a myriad of issues that have perhaps yet to be understood fully.

Representations of LGBT Lives A distinctive feature of this book is undoubtedly the different voices that are heard throughout; a mix of academic and advocate, activist and ally. Each author has a distinct style that underpins her or his discipline or interest. This book has four key themes: performance and representation; invisibility; the public/legal face of sexuality; and sex and the body in relief. In the first section, which focuses on performance, Jo Clifford discusses her experiences of staging her play, (The Gospel According to) Jesus, Queen of Heaven at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow in 2009. Portraying Jesus as a trans woman, Jo describes how her play was both lauded and condemned – the latter often by those who had not seen a performance. Picketed by evangelical groups, Jo describes the way in which challenges to orthodox views of Christ are seen as blasphemous or sacrilegious and how such groups failed to understand the message contained within the play – that of understanding the world of trans people. She interweaves her discussion of the play with short extracts from the text, and discusses her motivations behind her solo performances. Ultimately, Jo argues that the misunderstandings arising from her play are those that are mirrored in society’s lack of understanding about the experiences of transgender people. This play, which some described as uplifting, provides a creative insight into the world of transgender people and the challenges they encounter daily. In the following section, which focuses on invisibility, Jacq Goldthorp and Antoine Rogers focus on two very different issues, but issues that ultimately question how representative local authority services and LGBT organisations are of those of us living in the UK. In her chapter, Jacq Goldthorp focuses on the relationship between the public library service in Scotland and the provision of books for leisure reading that have a LGBT focus and/or strong LGBT characters. She provides a brief summary of the current situation in public libraries in terms of the promotion and provision of LGBT fiction; the challenges



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public libraries face when attempting to make their services more inclusive of LGBT people; and she discusses examples of good practice being developed elsewhere in the UK. Jacq also discusses some of the issues surrounding fiction marketed as gay and lesbian and asks questions such as, why do we need LGBT fiction? She explores why many authors who identify as LGBT are choosing not to have their novels characterised as such but as broad genre fiction. Additionally, she considers the psychological advantages of having access to fiction that describes LGBT lives and experiences. Jacq questions whether the apparent failure to address this need by public libraries is grounded in social exclusion and considers the potential gains to authors, publishers and book-sellers if public libraries stocked LGBT fiction. Finally, she argues that LGBT fiction is an important community resource that reflects the lives, experiences and fantasy landscape of LGBT readers. In the fourth chapter, Antoine Rogers explores the intersection of race, sexuality and national identity. The year 2007 marked several important anniversaries including the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery and the 40th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act which decriminalized homosexuality and homosexual acts. Another important, less well known anniversary was the 20th anniversary of In This Our Lives - the first and only Black Gay Men's Conference to take place in London. Unlike the other anniversaries identified in this chapter, little physical evidence remains of In This Our Lives. This reality, Antoine argues, demonstrates the need to document whatever physical evidence could be found to preserve the memories of those who attended the original conference. Those who attended the 1987 conference were invited to London South Bank University (LSBU) for an event to mark the anniversary. In the three years that followed the 2007 reunion LSBU hosted additional events including film nights and panel discussions. Collectively these activities brought together a range of perspectives to expand our knowledge of the complex intersections of race, sexuality and identity in a British context. Primarily this chapter provides an account of themes that emerged from the reunion. Additionally in follow up interviews with black gay men, Antoine explores themes from the reunion as well as additional concepts and ideas that were not discussed in 1987. He identifies those factors which significantly impacted on the men’s racial and sexual identity. He also interviewed younger black gay men who, like Antoine, were too young to have known about or been able to attend the conference in 1987. He seeks to understand how younger black gay men view and define their racial and sexual identity today and he provides readers with an opportunity



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to fill a significant gap in their knowledge of black male sexuality both historically and in a contemporary context. In the following section, Les Moran and Chris Ashford explore the public face of sex and sexuality from the perspective of those who practise the law and those who are perceived to transgress it. Les Moran describes how, during the course of undertaking empirical research on the sexual diversity of the judiciary, key stakeholders reported that sexual orientation was different from other strands of diversity; sexuality had nothing to do with judicial office. From this point of departure the chapter explores how, if at all, sexuality is represented as a virtue of judicial office. It pursues this objective by way of an analysis of judicial images. As art history scholars have noted images of institutional figures such as the judiciary are always images of the virtues and values of the institution. His chapter explores how heteronormativity influences and informs the judicial image. It explores a number of images of gay men who hold judicial office and reflects on the challenge and the possibility of “gay” being represented as a virtue of the institution of judicial authority. By way of contrast, Chris Ashford explores the visual presentation of public sex, an issue that occupied legislators for a number of years, through pornography and considers how the representation of law and sexuality as cultural phenomena are documented. He discusses the pivotal role of the text Tearoom Trade (Humphreys, 2005) in exploring the operation of public sex – in this case, within the confines of the public lavatory. Chris argues that, as a textual document, Tearoom Trade defined the activities that, today, can be found commonly depicted on the Internet. He further argues that it is the portrayal of public sex in films and television programmes - and more recently stage plays and pornography that present public sex, not as illegal, but as documented “truth” and as “erotic play”. Chris suggests that pornography in particular has sought to record and visually present the public sex environment. In the context of the “dogging” phenomenon, whereby parties (predominantly heterosexual) gather in isolated locations, typically rural rest areas for sexual play, this is particularly acute. In the absence of academic literature recording the behaviour, he suggests that it is the role of pornography to define such behaviour and provide a historical visual record. He also argues that activities such as gay men “cruising” challenges a politically, and legally dominant discourse of assimilation and equality, portraying such men as outsiders and sexually deviant. In the next two chapters of this book Gavriel Ansara and Paul Woodland explore the body in relief and challenge those representations and definitions that underpin medical education and practice. In the



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seventh chapter, Gavriel Ansara focuses on cisgenderism which is increasingly defined by activists as a form of discrimination against those whose self-designated gender differs from a prior or current gender assignment. Focusing on the practical relevance of cisgenderism social and care settings from an informal evidence-based perspective, Gavriel uses data from a quantitative content analysis of empirical data, conversations and correspondence to explore how elements of ethnocentrism, ableism, author/itarianism, body normativity and paternalism pervade, and how health (and particularly psychological) practitioners construct their service roles (e.g., “expert”, “provider”), the roles of people engaging with services (e.g., “patient”, “service user”) and the ethical principle of autonomy. Potential strategies for challenging cisgenderism in service settings are discussed which include the scrutiny of the predominant roles of “service user” and “service provider”, exploring the practical dimension of those roles that promotes mutual service engagement. This chapter concludes by presenting a new model of collaborative service engagement as an effective strategy for decreasing cisgenderism in social and care services. Ultimately, the aim of Gavriel’s chapter is to improve health professionals' comfort and proficiency when working with people whose bodies do not fit with normative assumptions about sexual bodies, including people who may be labelled as “transgender”, “intersex” and/or “disabled”. In chapter eight, Paul Woodland introduces art practice as a way of exploring the medical model of the sexed body from a queer theoretical perspective. He argues that the medical model of the sexed body is problematic yet influential despite the existence of critiques particularly in terms of notions of normality and abnormality. He argues that gender and sexuality theorists rarely distinguish between sites of production of knowledge and sites of dissemination, yet, it is here myths are perpetuated through the medical classroom where scientific “facts” and social preconceptions intermingle. Using various works of art he has created, he explores the images and meanings behind each work using a queer theory lens, explaining each piece of work’s theoretical background and suggesting ideas about the intention behind each piece. One piece is entitled Becoming Doctor and explores the power of knowledge; the creation of the medical cabal with the “Doctor” as archetype. Here Woodland argues that the eponymous lab coat represents a symbol of distance and objectivity wherein subjectivity is denied. A second piece is entitled Attempts at Holism where he explores anatomical discourses that idealise the generic athletic, white, male body. By way of contrast he argues that the female body is often reduced to biologically deterministic



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elements: old, young, and intersex and is innately pathological in description. He suggests that medical students must reconcile idealisation with the need to be non-judgemental. In his piece Baby Machines he argues that scientific physiology is based on reproductive teleology. Nonreproductive bodies are pathologised, sexual pleasure is minimised or even denied, perhaps indicating a fear of sexuality. In Maquette for Pillars of Society, Paul explores the authentication of the medical model of the sexed body based on the notion of authority: it is grounded in abstraction, containment and mediated dissemination through text. Finally, a piece called Battlefields is a reminder that subjectivity is inescapable, and it is a call for greater acknowledgement of the diversity of real bodies. To conclude, Paul considers the pros and cons of art practice as a new approach to disseminating critiques of the medical model, and he poses the question, does it work? In the final chapter of this book, we summarise the key messages from this book and consider ways in which the lived experiences of LGBT people can be understood and celebrated not only through academic research but a whole array of everyday representational practices.

The Book Ultimately, Out of the Ordinary: Representations of LGBT Lives represents a collection of novel essays that we hope provides a starting point for discussions about how we as a society view LGBTs and also how we are programmed to only see as abnormal or challenging that which is different or deviates from a socially constructed norm of life for human beings. The images the authors use to illustrate the central themes within their arguments are telling and, as we hope, provide a means of altering the lens through which we see our world and those who live and work around us.

References Humphreys, Laud. Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places. New Brunswick: AldineTransaction, 2005. Thrift, Nigel. Non-Representational Theory: Space, Politics, Affect. London: Routledge. 2008. Plummer, Kenneth. Modern Homosexualities: Fragments of Lesbian and Gay Experience. London: Routledge, 1992. —. Documents of Life 2: An Invitiation to a Critical Humanism. London: Sage, 2001.



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Weeks, Jeffrey and Kevin Porter. Between the Acts: Lives of Homosexual Men 1995-1967. London: Rivers Oram Press, 1997. Williams, Walter L. The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in the American Indian Culture. Boston: Beacon, 1992.



CHAPTER TWO (THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO) JESUS QUEEN OF HEAVEN: A PERSONAL HISTORY OF A CONTROVERSIAL PLAY JO CLIFFORD

Introduction When I produced and performed my play (The Gospel According To) Jesus Queen of Heaven in the Tron Theatre, Glasgow, in November 2009 I did not seriously anticipate any controversy (Figs. 2-1 & 2-2). In retrospect, this was remarkably naive. But it arose from my general artistic practice: to recognise the needs of the story as paramount. In other words, the story has to be told. It has to be told with clarity, skill and strength. The audience only comes into consideration because it is important the story is communicated clearly and in a way that at least permits the possibility of pleasure. As to what the audience understands, or even whether the audience really does enjoy and understand: that, ultimately, is not my responsibility or concern. My job is to tell the story. The right to judge belongs to the audience. As for this particular play, it was born from another earlier work, my God's New Frock. Both plays arose from the need to understand. Not so much understand my condition as a transsexual as understand the prejudice that surrounds it. Looking at the bible seemed to be one place to start. This was in 2002, soon after I had come out to my friends, not as transgendered, but as "bigendered", which is how I understood myself then1. By that stage I had been working as a professional playwright for just over twenty years, had written about sixty plays, and had become a little weary of the unending stream of commissions2. I wanted to stop simply

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responding to other people's ideas: I wanted to develop some of my own. In particular, I think, I wanted to make some kind of public statement of my gender non-conformity.

Fig. 2-1 Jesus Queen of Heaven

Fig. 2-2 Jo Clifford Performing

In general, transsexuals are encouraged to become invisible in our culture3. In part this is due to the extraordinary deep hostility we tend to arouse and the discrimination from which we suffer. I have often had the experience of being shouted at, abused, and threatened with violence on the street when it has been noted that I am biologically male. This is a common experience. In many countries the physical danger is far more acute and leads to torture and death4.

Visibility is a Form of Resistance. My own childhood was marred by an utter lack of positive role models. People such as me were either portrayed as ridiculous - dames in the English pantomime tradition - or evil (Ginibre, 2005). It seemed important to me to try to investigate the origin of these distressingly negative stereotypes and see if it was possible to replace or at least subvert them. I was reading a great deal about the rise of patriarchal culture and the accompanying suppression of matriarchal culture. There seemed to be a connection here with the establishment of the Jahwist religion -the worship of God the Father - and the suppression of the worship of the Mother Goddess in the ancient Middle-East. It seemed likely, then, that this process is reflected in the Old Testament and in the particularly savage prohibitions against people like me that the Old Testament

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allegedly contains (see Eisler, 1987; Sjoo & Mor, 1987). The connection might not be strong enough for academic purposes, but was certainly strong enough for artistic ones. I began to see a parallel with God's suppression of His Female Self and the hugely painful suppression of my female self that occurred in my adolescence. This gave rise to the first play God's New Frock, which I finally performed in the Tron Theatre Glasgow and the Traverse Theatre Edinburgh in 2003.The play contained lines and ideas that I feared many people would find disturbing or even blasphemous: God is like a middle aged man with a wardrobe full of frocks. A closet he keeps firmly locked because he dare not open the door (Clifford, 2008, p. 189).

Later the play briefly surveys the human damage caused by its patriarchal attitudes to sex and gender and concludes: All this shocking damage is only a tiny fraction of the shame and anger and guilt that’s been caused by the infinite pornographer going under the name of God. For this book, this so-called holy book, is pornography. Prima facie. Pornography (Clifford, 2008, p. 196).

No-one, however, seemed concerned about this at all. Indeed, the play enjoyed moderate success. The performances sold out, a short film version followed, and the script was finally published, first by the Scottish literary magazine Chapman and then finally in a volume of queer liberation theology published (posthumously) by Marcela Althaus-Reid. In the meantime a hectic series of commissions followed: a new translation and adaptation of Celestina for the Edinburgh International Festival (Clifford, 2004) and then Faust Parts One and Two (Clifford, 2006) for the Royal Lyceum Theatre. Professional success was accompanied by personal tragedy. In August 2004, my wife and life-long partner Sue Innes was diagnosed as suffering from a brain tumour, and she died in early March of the following year5. It became clear in the months following her death that I could no longer bear to continue living as a man; but then my transition from male to female was interrupted by a serious, and near fatal, heart condition in June 2006. In the midst of all this God's New Frock was forgotten about and would probably have remained on the shelf for ever without the intervention of the Playwrights' Studio Scotland who happened to send the script to a theatre company in Florence, Teatro della Limonaia6, who had the play translated into Italian (Clifford, 2007) and then performed it in 2008. I was able to see for myself the extraordinary

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success of the play, which subsequently went on a national tour. Watching the performance one night in the company's beautiful theatre in the outskirts of Florence inspired me to write a sequel. God's New Frock was about the God of the Old Testament, and so it seemed logical for its sequel to be about the God of the New. At first I was reluctant to engage directly with the figure of Jesus. My male name had been “John”; and I had always been attracted to the fact that traditionally he was the only Apostle portrayed without a beard. And that he was "the disciple whom Jesus loved"7. Perhaps he was Jesus' transsexual lover. Perhaps I might portray him, or perhaps I might portray Mary Magdalene as a transsexual prostitute. My plays have their origins deep in the subconscious mind, which means I can never really account for the fact that some idea seems to take while others do not. The play about the transsexual prostitute re-surfaced as An Apple a Day 8 - with the sacred dimension transposed to the biblical Song of Songs. The idea of John as Jesus' transsexual lover simply disappeared. I persuaded the Teatro della Limonaia to pay for me to spend a month in Florence that summer, which is when I wrote the first draft of the play; that was when it became clear that the main character needed to be Jesus. The idea of Jesus as a transsexual woman provokes strong reactions, as exemplified from these (frequently mis-spelled and not altogether grammatical) comments from the play's Facebook page: this is heresy and this is satanism these man are dead souls brainwashed this is pure satanism to led astray the children of GOD Don't believe this on your life never believe this this is an abomination and a lie this is forgery and many of men shall perish for these and likewise lies of man This is the gospel according to the self-styled Twister Worp.

A certain Rob Essensa is equally dismissive: WTF?? have you all lost your noodle? seriously, jesus a transexual? I got nothing against transexuals but this is just insulting!!!9

Clearly the transphobic find it difficult to reconcile their prejudices with the association between Jesus (the most sacred and holy and elevated

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figure our culture has produced) and a transsexual woman (possibly the most despised). In fact, of course, portraying Jesus as a transsexual is not nearly as shocking or offensive or outrageous as it may at first appear to be. Indeed, it belongs very firmly to mainstream Christian tradition. We are taught that Jesus, being the Son of God, took on human form and so engaged fully with human experience: Jesus completely lives the human experience as we do, and by doing so, frees us from the clutches of sin.10

This must logically include my experience as a transsexual woman. Furthermore, we are taught that Jesus constantly associated with the downtrodden and the excluded members of his society. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia: The moral weaknesses of man move His heart still more effectively; the woman at Jacob's well, Mathew the publican, Mary Magdalen the public sinner, Zacheus the unjust administrator, are only a few instances of sinners who received encouragement from the lips of Jesus. He is ready with forgiveness for all; the parable of the Prodigal Son illustrates His love for the sinner. In His work of teaching He is at the service of the poorest outcast of Galilee as well as of the theological celebrities of Jerusalem.11

Serious study of bible texts indicates that its condemnation of homosexuality is both problematic and exaggerated (Boswell, 1994) and there is evidence that even the apparently unequivocal condemnation of cross-dressing in Deuteronomy (22:5) can be read and understood in more nuanced and subtle ways and in particular as a commandment to respect whatever gender we truly and deeply consider ourselves to belong to12. Indeed, one need only scratch the surface of the Bible to find many references to gender non-conforming individuals. These are normally translated by the word “eunuch” and are often presented in approving contexts. In the New Testament, also, far from condemning gender nonconformity, we find Jesus approving of it in the Gospel of Matthew; and in Acts we find Philip, one of the first apostles, baptising a eunuch who had requested it without hesitation or doubt (Reay, 2009). It is worth remembering also the tradition of Imitatio Christi, or imitation of Christ, which encourages the devout to use the figure of Jesus as a model for their daily life. As the Catholic Encyclopedia puts it, “Its purpose is to instruct the soul in Christian perfection with Christ as the Divine Model”.13

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One has to assume that women are not counselled to become men in order to do so. Similarly, those of us who are transsexuals are not called upon to betray or change our gender identity. I would not claim that any of this was present in my conscious mind when I was actually writing the script. My concern was, as ever, to connect with the character I was creating, identify with her as fully and as passionately as possible, and listen to what she had to say. An approach to Steven Thomson, the director of Glasgay!, resulted in a grant of £2000, which enabled the production to go ahead. I approached the photographer and film-maker Neil Montgomery (besite-productions.com) to create a publicity image. It was difficult to conceive an appropriate image; eventually, at my suggestion, I borrowed a white skirt and top from a friend and posed in my basement garage. Stigmata and a halo were photoshopped in later and a publicity image was born in time for the launch of the Glasgay! programme. I was away in France at the time on a Robert Louis Stevenson fellowship to write a book of the heart based on my experience of cardiac surgery and so largely missed the furore that followed. This furore was partly fuelled by it coinciding with an exhibition of transgender related themes at the Glasgow Museum of Modern Art14 which included a Bible. Visitors to the exhibition who felt themselves to have been marginalised from spiritual life because of their sexuality or gender were encouraged to write in the margins of the bible. The many moving testimonies that resulted were ignored, and the few disrespectful remarks were highlighted in a vicious homophobic and transphobic press campaign. This was typified by an article in the Times: GALLERY’S INVITATION TO DEFACE THE BIBLE BRINGS OBSCENE RESPONSE A publicly funded exhibition is encouraging people to deface the Bible in the name of art — and visitors have responded with abuse and obscenity. 15

The existence of my play added to the outrage. An article in Catholic Truth is typical: Glasgow: Protest Against Blasphemous Play … NOTICE... The Holy Family Apostolate have organised a prayer-protest against a blasphemous play entitled ‘Jesus Queen of Heaven’ which depicts Jesus as a transexual woman. Venue is the Tron Theatre, Glasgow, starting Tuesday 3rd November.

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Volunteers are meeting outside the theatre to pray a Rosary of Reparation from 7-8pm. Please do your best to join this protest against this calculated insult to Our Lord. If you can’t make it, please remember us in our prayers during the day. Note: one of our readers distributed notices to encourage people to attend this protest, outside St Aloysius, Jesuit Church in Glasgow today, 2nd November – until one of the passkeepers told him that a priest had asked him to stop. Despite the fact that the notice consisted of the contents of an advertisement published in the Scottish Catholic Observer these past few weeks, still our reader had to move to the pavement. The passkeeper remained silent when asked if he’d read the notice and silent when asked for the name of the priest. So, if you can attend, please do. If you can’t, pray the rosary…"16

There is a hint there of some disagreement within the Catholic Church as to the appropriate response, and in fact several Catholics wrote to me afterwards to express their regret at the involvement of their church. The play briefly united Roman Catholics with Evangelical Baptists, who stood outside holding banners that said: JESUS KING OF KINGS NOT QUEEN OF HEAVEN JESUS WAS NO TRANSEXUAL and GOD SAYS: MY SON IS NOT A PERVERT.17

Meanwhile, the "pervert" in question had evaded protesters gathered at the front of the theatre by entering the stage door at the back, and was sitting in her dressing room with the usual cards and flowers listening with increasing incredulity to the rumours allegedly flying around the protesters gathered outside. I was going to be stripped naked by leather clad lesbians who would tear the bible to pieces and stuff it up my anus. I was going to tear down a crucifix and urinate on it. And so on. Needless to say, the truth of the matter was far less exciting. I performed in front of a giant mirror that reflected the audience, in the same way as the Bible very clearly acts as a mirror for its readers' values and prejudices. Beside me was a percussionist. The audience were restricted to thirty and placed on one side of a u-shaped table so that the playing area represented the last supper. I allowed myself some un-biblical latitude in my description of Jesus’ disciples:

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Chapter Two And that’s how it started, this disciple business, And I don’t know why they started saying there were only twelve, I mean there were sometimes less, but mostly more, Or why they said they were only men. Yes there was Matthew and Mark and Luke and John, And the taxi driver whose name was Ethel, and there were men and there were women, , and sometimes both at once, and sometime neither and they confused people, and I loved that in them most of all. The hijra and the kathoey and the fa'faune and the muxe and and the travesti and the two spirit people from North America and the shamans from Siberia and the men women priests from Africa because verily I say unto you because it is undoubtedly true that very culture in every place and time has known of us, and celebrated us mostly, except this one, which is in the minority. And I don't understand why now in those few places on this tormented earth which permit us to flaunt our dear and beautiful selves we should have to live off the streets as harlots and whores. And I honour us anyway, all of us. For to be us, to embody this shame and disgrace, Is a privilege And it is an honour.

Our presence has been largely omitted from cultural histories, and it matters to correct this. Otherwise, the script contained truths that were no doubt unpalatable to the protesters outside, but which were, nonetheless, largely based on the Gospels themselves: And remember this, all of you: I never said beware the homosexual and the trans Because our lives are unnatural Or because we are depraved in our desires. I never said that. I said beware the self-righteous and the hypocrite Beware those who imagine themselves virtuous and pass judgement Those who condemn others and think themselves good. Their lips are full of goodness but their hearts full of hatred. And that is why I said “Woe unto you scribes and hypocrites! Whited sepulchres! That on the outside look so sleek and smooth But on the inside are a mass of filth and corruption! And that is why I said beware of them

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And never never never beware the homosexual and the transsexual and the whore!18

I retold various parables to give them a transgendered slant. The Good Samaritan underwent a transformation: And then a queen came past, staggering a little, because she’d been drunk as a skunk and bust her heel on the way home, and there was the taste of cum on her lips, and her dress was torn and her make-up was smudged and her stockings were all ladders and she saw the man and she thought: “Poor sod” and she phoned an ambulance on her mobile. And then she stayed with him till the ambulance came. And which of those was his neighbour?19

The Prodigal Son became a “son who knew he was his daughter” and was driven out because she came out to her family. The story concluded: This new daughter of mine was dead and is now alive. She was lost, and is now found. I have found her and she has found herself. And so of course we must celebrate. And so they did. Because the queendom is like that. The queendom is like a grain of mustard seed, tiny tiny tiny And you can try to hide it if you like But if you do it will grow inside you big big big Until it feels like there is no room for anything beside it. For I tell you that what was hid shall come to light. For inside us we all have a light, and it’s maybe the very thing that we have been taught to be most ashamed of And when you have a light, do you hide it under a bucket? No! You bring it out into the open where everyone can see it And be glad it exists to shine in the world.20

As one initially very sceptical and certainly very straight churchman was forced to conclude, this is merely normal practice in the church. It's something he and his colleagues do all the time21. And it really is not that hard to see the Gospel as, indeed, a Gospel of Liberation. Naturally enough, none of this made any impact on the protesters gathered outside. They posted their protest on YouTube22 it was taken up by the BBC website23 and within days had begun to spark furious controversy throughout the world. The play opened on a Tuesday; by the Friday a simple Google search revealed at least a quarter of a million blog entries worldwide, each one provoking many comments. They mostly make depressing reading. Here are some samples I collected at the time:

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Chapter Two Exposing Liberal Lies, USA (Sunday, November 8, 2009) Disgusting British Play No wonder the Brits are losing their country to Islam. We reap the evil we sow.24 New British Play Features Jesus as Transsexual Woman As Cassy Fiano says, “For some people, there is no low they won't sink to in order to defame Christianity.” In the latest outrage Jesus is featured as a transsexual female.

The Times Online reported: A controversial play which portrays Jesus as a transsexual woman was defended yesterday by its writer who has herself crossed the gender barrier to live as a woman. Jesus, Queen of Heaven, has caused a storm of protest from Christian evangelical groups, who picketed the Tron Theatre in Glasgow when it opened this week. However, their attacks have caused deep offence to the play’s author, who also acts the leading role. For Jo Clifford — formerly the playwright John Clifford — wrote the piece in an attempt to create greater understanding of transgendered people like herself. The play's opening night was attended by about 300 demonstrators. Roman Catholics joined evangelical Christians for a two-hour protest during which they waved placards and sang hymns. Yesterday Ms Clifford, 59, from Edinburgh, expressed deep disappointment in the reaction, “Most of it is happening because of a complete misunderstanding of what I am and what I am trying to do … They thought awful, sacrilegious things were going to happen on stage,” she said. Her critics, she added, ought to reread the Gospel. “Jesus said: ‘judge not’.” At least the playwright won't have to worry about the theater being blown up. One day Ms. Clifford will bow at the feet of Jesus. Wonder what she will say then?25

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The last entry hinted at a further deeply unpleasant dimension to the attacks. Islamophobia was added to the poisonous brew26: Now that you've done that tiresomely sanctimonious ladyboy Jew, Jesus, how about a play starring that Arab arsebandit (tautologically speaking) Mohammed? No? I didn't think so you cowardly, twisted piece of anthropoid garbage. You are a talentless pervert, a dullard deviant and your disgusting posturing deserves a terminal case of AIDS. In a sensible Scotland your sort would be sent to Gruinard Island with the hope that any residual anthrax would affect a permanent cure.

It is unpleasant to record such material, but worth noting its presence. This was from “Wintermute” in response to my blog. Some “Christian” commentators also noted that I apparently “dared not” “attack” Islam, as if envious of certain Ayatollahs' ability to pronounce a death sentence. What they ignored, of course, was not simply that my intent was never to attack Christianity or indeed any religion; and that if I had been born into a Muslim society the chances are I would have been the victim of an honour killing long before27.The Archbishop of Glasgow, although as ignorant as all the rest, also joined in: It is difficult to imagine a more provocative and offensive abuse of Christian beliefs than this play. That it should be supported by public funds is nothing short of disgraceful. Coming hot on the heels of the scandalous exhibition earlier this year which encouraged the defacing of the bible, this latest initiative can only be read as part of an agenda to mock Christianity.

Many of the attacks focused on this so-called “misuse of public funds”28. What these commentators failed to appreciate was that the £2000 from Glasgay! had to be supplemented by a further £2000 from my own funds and that the majority of those who contributed their time and skill to the production did so on a volountary basis. As so often is the case, the real subsidy for the production came from the artists involved in its creation29. Those who actually saw the play responded very differently. One audience member felt moved to write to The Herald: Dear Sir It happens that my wife knows the actress and playwright Jo Clifford and so, with some trepidation on Saturday night she took me – a born heterosexual - to see Jesus, Queen of Heaven.

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Chapter Two We were challenged by protestors at the door. I suggested that perhaps the Bible contains the Word of God but is not necessarily entirely of that Word. And even Paul said that in Christ there is “neither male nor female” (Galatians 3). They said the play and my defence of it was “Dragging God through the sewage of sodomy.” In the theatre we were seated as participants at the Last Supper - bread and drink spread on the tables. Enter Jesus, the transsexual Queen of Heaven, who started accurately and sensitively to tell Bible stories. What unfolded was profound and mind-blowing liberation theology. For who are any of us to say that a human being born cross-gendered or otherwise “gay” is not equally in the “image of God”; not equally free to celebrate and enjoy who they are? Jo Clifford’s play closed with all of us present choosing to receive from her the sacrament of Holy Communion. Even the several other Quakers that I saw in the audience participated – and we Quakers don’t do something like that, even in a conventional church, unless we really feel inwardly moved. I am sorry if this letter will sound blasphemous to some. Yes, Jesus, Queen of Heaven is disturbing, but that is precisely what makes it is first rate theology. Perhaps it is time for some of us straights to get used to that … otherwise we’ll never let Jesus down from the Cross.30

Another audience member posted very movingly in her blog: Jesus Queen of Heaven almost persuaded me to be a Christian, then I saw the Christian protesters outside and was put right off! Tonight was the first night of “Jesus Queen of Heaven”. I went along to the dress rehearsal this afternoon expecting (for some reason) a camp musical. Instead I was confronted by a beautiful, sensitive, honest and mind opening piece of theatre. Jo Clifford, a male to female transsexual, introduced the piece explaining that she was the author and then went on to play Jesus as if she walked the earth today and was a transsexual. She told the story of Jesus’s life in a way which made it relevant to every audience member who I was able to speak to. By placing Jesus’s life in modern times, she conveyed to me some of the fundamental teachings of Christianity, such as love and respect for every individual no matter how different they are to you. It was a celebration of those who had managed to find themselves. It

(The Gospel According To) Jesus Queen of Heaven preached the idea that Jesus understands the strain we each experience as human beings, and understands why we act the way we do. It was an open arm to anyone who was willing to walk into the arm of a ‘tranny.’ It was also a reminder for me of how patriarchal the text in the Bible is. However it showed Jesus forgiving the people who have interpreted the Bible in a way which calls for suffering and a kind of conformity, which encourages people to adhere to rules and to lose who they truly are as an individual. Although during the show I had managed to enter into some kind of meditative state, where I could consider the possibility of Jesus being a transsexual today and how relevant this felt, I was brought firmly back to earth in the final act of the performance. Jo blew out each of the candles, which had been lit with such a sense of hope and expectation at the beginning of the performance, one by one in an earnest and solemn manner. In the almost total darkness I was reminded that far from being the messiah, transsexuals are at the edge of the society which I live in. They form a taboo, an embarrassment, an uncertainty, a problem, a distraction, an inconvenience to the idea of the ideal family which we are still constantly presented with: a man is a man and will always be a man and is there to meet woman who will always be woman, and they fit into each other like a hand in a glove or a penis in a vagina and these roles will be played so that children will be made and we’ll all live happily ever after. However, I left the Tron feeling uplifted. I felt like for the first time some of the teachings of Christianity had become relevant to me in a complete way. I am not, and never have been, someone who would call themselves religious. However, in this performance, I began to interpret some of the teachings of Jesus, and Christianity in a way which had never been accessible to me before. I imagined a woman who saw good in everyone, instead of a religion which focused on rules. I had witnessed a piece of theatre which was inoffensive, gentle, and celebratory of the teachings of Christ, in a way which made it relevant to me, a 21st century lesbian. And yet around 300 Christians stood outside the Tron Theatre this evening in protest against this performance. I was shocked to see people of all ages, from children who must have been less than 10, to 60, 70, 80 year old people joined together in the pouring rain, holding candles under umbrellas, singing hymns and holding placards which said, “God: ‘My Son is not a pervert.’” This phrase stuck out to me in particular. I find it highly offensive, and ignorant. I was filled with anger and frustration. Then I remembered what I had learnt from Jesus Queen of Heaven, which is to forgive these people because they are only doing what they believe is the right thing to do in this strange world we live in. So I tried really hard to forgive them. And I started to consider why these people felt the need to stand in the rain and

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Chapter Two the cold to protest against a play they haven’t seen, a play which really preaches much better Christian values than they are preaching with their offensive placards. And I blame The Daily Mail, and I blame the Pope, and I blame all the parents who had brought their children along, and I blame the parents and the teachers of every single person there, and I blame the education system, and I blame the priests, and I blame hundreds of years of history where the teachings of the Jesus have been mutilated, twisted into a strict set of rules and a building which leaves people who are actually daring to be themselves, and to stand up for who they are, feeling excluded. And I feel hopeless. I wish that all these people were able to go in and watch the show and take some of the messages from it which I had so generously been given. But sadly, I don’t believe they would ever be able to get past the idea that it was complete blasphemy to have Jesus being played by a transsexual. I realised that if I am really aiming and working towards a future of greater tolerance, and equality for LGBTI people, then it’s the Daily Mail readers and the Christian Protesters that a dialogue needs to be started with. But how? I believe everybody has the capacity within them to change their opinion on something, if they can learn to understand it.31

I quote this at length because, then as now, I cannot describe what it felt to be an audience member at my performance, or ever objectively gauge whether that experience in any way matches my intentions. But as I performed that week in the eye of the storm, the simple humanity of those words gave me comfort. It is worth remembering that this torrent of opinion was provoked by a play that was performed 6 times in a tiny theatre to its capacity of thirty people. Which meant that in total, only 180 people actually saw it. It raised a storm because it clearly challenged something at the very heart of patriarchal religion. Cultural historians will find rich pickings in the response it provoked. As a theatre artist, I would contend that the power of theatre event in itself had a part to play. Like Sarah Kane's Blasted, it provoked a response that was disproportionate to the size of its original venue. However theatre critics were notably absent. They were covering a play about a Scottish cartoon family, The Broons that was playing elsewhere in the same venue. Meanwhile, the tabloid press was having a field day. The Metro insisted on referring to me as a “bus conductor”. They had clearly gone to my website32 and extracted the information that I had worked on the Fife buses for a few months in the mid seventies. The rest of my career as an award winning and internationally performed playwright and Professor of Theatre they then ignored completely. The workers at the Glasgay! office were also harassed by a BBC

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reporter as well as the tabloid press. Glasgay! was hounded by Christian websites and 750,000 bloggers worldwide. Over the five-night run of the show, there were up to 1,000 protesters from Christian groups outside of the Tron Theatre. There were also protests outside of Culture and Sport Glasgow (Glasgow Life) and the City Chambers. The Tron Theatre and Glasgay! received a large volume of hate mail. A hate crime report was passed to the Strathclyde police as a result. And then, when the run was over, Glasgay! lost 50% of its funding from Glasgow City Council. The story continues to surface from time to time. On the 18th February 2011 the Scottish Sun published a piece headlined “Holy Mother of God”33 which attacked Creative Scotland's decision to fund my turning both plays into a work of poetic fiction. They were prompted by a parliamentary motion by Hugh Henry, a Labour MSP, who was concerned by a possible “waste of tax-payers' money”. Or, as they put it, “A sex-swap writer who sparked fury with a play portraying Jesus as a transsexual has been handed £10,000 taxpayers' cash to write a poem about more made-up Bible gender benders”. Transphobic prejudice will never be easily eradicated. The book in question will be completed, and I hope it will be published. I hope, too, to revive the play and tour it to coincide with the launch of the book. No doubt both will generate more of this depressing material. But, if at all humanly possible, it is the duty of any writer not to allow herself to be silenced. And I happen to believe that art in general, and theatre in particular, has a real part to play in humanising attitudes. Whether we actually succeed or not is out of our hands. Best, perhaps, to leave the final word to the play itself: As for me, Jo, I've lived a long time now. Almost sixty years. I've fathered two children. I adore them. I loved a woman for thirty three years. I know what it is to be a man I've done all I can to know what it is to be a woman, too. I have no time for shame. Sister death is knocking at my body's door. Sister death is waiting Just around the corner of the street Or maybe just before my eyes. And she will come. She'll know her time. And on that day I will embrace my death, Embrace her o so gladly.

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Chapter Two And fly like a swan on great white wings, Fly like a swan into the unknown darkness, Like a swan singing.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

See http://www.teatrodomundo.com/transgender/beingbigendered.html Full list (up to 2007) available at http://www.teatrodomundo.com/plays.php See, for instance http://www.deepstealth.com/ See http://www.transgenderdor.org/?page_id=4 http://www.teatrodomundo.com/sueinnes.html http://www.teatrodellalimonaia.it/Limonaia/Intercity/IntHome.html Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved (John 13:23) Unpublished script. Performed in Oran Mor and Traverse Theatres in 2009.See http://playpiepint.com/?cat=6&play=174. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=152692723378 http://www.jesuschristsavior.net/Words.html http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08382a.htm http://www.jewishmosaic.org/verses/view/3 http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07674c.htm http://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/museums/our-museums/goma/aboutGoMA/Pages/home.aspx http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6723980.ece http://www.catholictruthscotland.com/blog/tag/glasgow/ http://www.zionbaptists.org.uk/protest.php Unpublished script p. 17. The reference is to Matthew 23:27 (below) Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. ibid p 25. ibid p. 24 personal correspondence http://www.methodistpreacher.co.uk/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4qtsr5Zvjk http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8342056.stm http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2009/11/new-british-play-featuresjesus-as-transsexual-woman/ http://exposingliberallies.blogspot.com/2009/11/disgusting-britishplay.htm http://www.blogger.com/comment- published.g?blogID=3671452&page=1 See tgegypt.com/remembering-our-dead/ See, for instance http://www.christian.org.uk/news/glasgow-taxpayers-fundtranssexual-jesus-play/ This did not prevent Glasgay! losing a substantial amount of its local authority funding at the conclusion of the 2009 Festival.

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30. http://www.heraldscotland.com/ 31. http://rosanaevecade.wordpress.com/jesus-queen-of-heaven-almost-persuadedme-to-be-a-christian-then-i-saw-the-christian-protesters-outside-and-was-putright-off/ 32. http://www.teatrodomundo.com/biog.html 33. http://www.thesun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/3418472/Holy-mother-ofGod.html

References Boswell, John (1994). The Marriage of Likeness: Same-Sex Unions in Premordern Europe. New York: Villard, 1994. Clifford, Jo. "God's New Frock” Chapman 102-3 (n.d.) Clifford, John. “Celestina by Fernando de Rojas”. Translated and introduced by John Clifford. London: Nick Hern Books, 2004. —. “Faust Parts One and Two by Goethe.” Translated and introduced by John Clifford. London: Nick Hern Books, 2006. —. "La Nuova Tonaca Di Dio Di John Clifford". In Teatro Scozzese, 2007. Clifford, Jo. "God's New Frock". In Trans/Formations, edited by Lisa Isherwood and Marcella Althaus-Reid, 168-201. London: SCM Press, 2009. Eisler, Riane. The Chalice and the Blade. San Franciso: Harper Collins, 1987. Ginibre Jean-Louis. Ladies or Gentlemen. New York: Filapicchi, 2005. Reay. Lewis. “Towards a Transgender Theology: Que(e)rying the Eunuchs.” In Trans/Formations, edited by Lisa Isherwood and Marcella Althaus-Reid, 148-167. London: SCM Press, 2009. Sjoo, Monica and Barbara Mor. The Great Cosmic Mother. San Francisco: Harper, 1987.

CHAPTER THREE WHERE’S OUR PUBLIC LIBRARY SERVICE? LGBT FACT OR FICTION? JACQ GOLDTHORP

Introduction Would you go into a shop which has nothing you want to buy and give the shop-owner a portion of your salary every month? Of course not you say; yet, every member of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community through the various means of taxation which apply to U.K. citizens does exactly that by contributing to the cost of their local public library service (1) that in reality may have nothing or very little to offer them if their main source of leisure reading is lesbian and gay fiction (2) To give the reader some idea of the cost of our library service, the public library service in the U.K. in 2006-07 cost in excess of £1billion and there had been an increase in library spending from the previous year of 3.3% (Davies, 2008). An estimated sixteen percent of this £1billion comes from Council Tax (Goldthorp, 2006). Therefore if public libraries do not provide LGBT fiction in an equitable manner as with other fiction materials is this a case of social exclusion? In this chapter I argue that as a community we should question ourselves for allowing a public service to discriminate against our community and also question our expectations of a public library service which is irrelevant to us and our lives.

What is the Value of LGBT Fiction to the LGBT Reader? Fiction offers many delights, fulfils many purposes, but one of the oldest and most constant is to teach, inform, and show us to ourselves in ways we recognise and acknowledge to be true. (Allen et al., 1989, p.2).

Why do we need fiction that reflects the lives, experiences and fantasy landscape of LGBT readers is it important enough that we should pursue

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equality in its provision? First, consider the validity of the argument that readers consume more fiction than non-fiction. As a category, fiction has the highest number of issues a year estimated at around 70% of all adult reading material – the volume of book loans from public libraries, between 2006 and 2007 totalled 315 million from the 4,700 libraries that make up the UK public library service (Davies, 2008). Women are the largest consumer group of fiction. The average woman spends 6.7 hours a week reading (Reading the Situation, 1999). A survey carried out by World Book Day in 2002 (Clark & Rumbold, 2006) found that among 15 to 16 year olds, boys spent an average of 2.3 hours a week on leisure reading and girls 4.5 hours a week. Lesbians read more than gay men 91% as opposed to 63% (Norman, 2002). In a list compiled by The Guardian (Rogers, 2010) all of the 250 most borrowed books from UK public libraries in the last ten years were fiction titles. Therefore the evidence demonstrates that the provision of books of fiction is still one of the major activities of a public library service; and yet there is a tendency to underestimate the value of fiction in the life of the individual reader. MacLennan (1996) quoted the writer Catherine Sheldrick Ross’s findings that women particularly derived psychological support from reading fiction. Levithan (2004) wrote that literally hundreds of young adults had written to him from all over the world that just seeing a lesbian or gay book on the shelves of their public library had made them feel that they belonged a little more in society. The absence of LGBT fiction within public libraries impacts on LGBT visibility in everyday contexts, this leads to a lack of recognition of our community and a de-valuing of our cultural differences. Daniel (2000) develops this theme in writing, “The development of literacy at the personal level lies in the development of self-identity, in social and emotional adjustment, in happiness and enjoyment.”

Social Exclusion – Is It So? Discrimination is not a legitimate point of view silencing books silences the readers who need them most. (Levithan, 2004).

Two key phrases stand out in the executive summary of the DCMS report Libraries for All: Social Inclusion in Public Libraries (1999, p.5) “Social Inclusion should be mainstreamed as a policy priority within libraries and information services”. “Library authorities should consult and involve socially excluded groups in order to ascertain their needs and aspirations”. It can be well argued that library authorities should never

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have been doing anything else, as there is both a historical and financial imperative. In the 1964 Act (p.7) of the House of Commons, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Third Report of Session 2004-05 on Public Libraries emphases the historical imperative of library authorities having a duty to provide “a comprehensive and efficient library service for all persons desiring to make use thereof.” However I would argue that library services have failed in this duty with regard to the LGBT Community. Pateman (2004) discusses the failure of library management to tackle the often negative perceptions of library workers to certain sectors of the community; and that as a result in excess of 40% of the people living in local communities were being routinely discriminated against and hence excluded by their library service. Harris and Dudley (2003) discuss that library authorities cannot expect the customer to come to them, they have to take steps to engage with community groups, find out what their needs are, alter perceptions of what their library service has to offer, and work to remove barriers to using their services. However, far from engaging with the LGBT people to address their needs, concerns and aspirations for a library service relevant to them, library services have often taken the “one glove fits all approach” when it comes to dealing with what they perceive as a “difficult” minority group. Further the apathetic approach of many library services to the LGBT Community can be ascribed to active discrimination yet this is often cloaked by a false front of neutrality and the line LGBT people just want to be treated like everyone else. Kitzinger (1987) argues that the statement “gays are just the same as straights” is a profoundly anti-homosexual view and it represents the liberal refusal to notice and attempt to resolve the specification of homosexual existence. Public institutions have to recognise the difference between lesbians and heterosexual women in order that lesbians achieve authenticity (social self) and integrity (true to who we are). The visibility of lesbians is seriously undermined by little or no opportunity to find themselves in the pages of literature or the promotion of positive, realistic imagery of lesbians; and lesbian lifestyles. An example of how social exclusion and discrimination can be fronted as reasonable is exemplified by the comment made by many library workers (Goldthorp, 2006) that LGBT fiction is for everyone and therefore there is no need to identify it as such in the catalogue record or promote its presence, the same could be said for audio books, they too are for everyone not just the visually impaired or blind, but the suggestion that audio books should not be catalogued as such was met with angry comments from library workers, that how, then, would their main audience be able to locate them – precisely my point with regard to LGBT readers of LGBT fiction.

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Discrimination against lesbians and gay men due to their sexual orientation is often compounded by a layering of additional discrimination. For women this is already the case with regard to sex discrimination. Additionally, lesbians who are marginalised financially (women are on average paid 20% less than their male counterparts if in employment and make up over 90% of single parents; Goldthorp, 2006) are more likely to suffer multiple discrimination, therefore there is a strong argument that they, more than ever, need access to services that are free and provide a quality experience for the user. Norman (2002) in his study of Brighton and Hove Libraries found that over 50% of the respondents to his question, “Why do you use the library rather than the bookshop?” responded, “Because they found buying books too expensive.” Book prices in the UK are on average 23% dearer than both the USA and the rest of Europe (National Literacy Trust, 2004); lesbian fiction retails on average at 25% to 53% more expensive than standard UK fiction, and lesbian fiction is never subject in book shops to the “three for two” bargains (Goring, 2005). Additionally most LGBT fiction is bought on line and for this there is generally and increasingly so a requirement to have access to credit/debit cards, which is not an option for all members of the LGBT Community. A research project carried out by the Glasgow Women’s Library in 1999 into poverty among lesbians and gay men in Glasgow found that 28% of lesbians and gay men lived below the poverty level threshold (Poverty and Social Exclusion, 1999). Research conducted in 2005/06 into the availability of lesbian fiction (Goldthorp, 2006) found that many respondents commented on the negative attitude of library staff to lesbian readers and fear of reprisals if confidentiality was not maintained particularly in rural areas; much reading of lesbian fiction by respondents was done surreptitiously. One woman present at a focus group described how she had read her first lesbian novel in the library: I never actually took the book out, I wouldn’t have had the nerve, but while my mother was looking for her own books, I managed to read the book whose author I had discovered from a television programme, I hid behind some shelves pretending I was looking at something else, it’s just as well my mother visited the library ever week.

Greenblatt (2003) said the biggest obstacle facing LGBT people today is that of misinformation and prejudice. Heterosexism and genderism pervade libraries: policies, services, collections and staff. Library workers are either unaware of these biases or have never questioned their validity because these issues are seldom raised either when in employment or

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addressed by library training courses. LGBT issues are rarely championed by leaders of national or public libraries. Therefore it comes as no surprise that librarians are uninformed or indifferent to the needs of their LGBT patrons. Greenblatt found that many librarians do not seem to be even aware of the resources and services that could be used to aid them in providing services for LGBT customers. Writers on the subject of professional librarian courses tend to be critical of the content of those courses when dealing with diversity issues. McDowell (2000) found that it is not uncommon for postgraduate students to be discouraged from researching LGBT based topics because of a possible negative affect on their professional careers. Students reported that their facility minimised and denied the value of the work of LGBT students and made light of or dismissed as irrelevant the sexual orientation of writers and other historical figures. Silence on issues around LGBT people and libraries by professional course directors gave the message to heterosexual and gay students that LGBT concerns are of less importance and enhanced the belief that heterosexuality is inherently superior. The impact of library students not receiving appropriate training then puts the onus on employers to fill in the gaps. Peel (2002) stressed the need for LGBT awareness training with employees. That there was a need to expose staff to the realities of LGBT lives and overcome people’s fears and prejudices. Peel had found that LGBT issues are repeatedly marginalised and ignored in equality training. Teaching staff about LGBT issues has gathered much less institutional support than other equality issues. Training should be used to replace stereotypes with positive factual information. For managers of public library services there does seem to be a marked reluctance to address sexual orientation as an issue for library services. A workshop conducted by Goldthorp (2006) found that none present had received reader development training in LGBT literature and only one in ten had received equality training which made direct reference to LGBT issues. All attendees stated that they knew very little about the history of LGBT people and the issues that are important to them; and that, “poor leadership from the top had allowed inequality of provision to proliferate”. Others comments noted were: If management don’t bring up an area or provide any training in it, the impression you gain as an employee is they’re not interested – you as an employee are then reluctant to raise it, in case you then have problems”. “They (LGBT people) don’t come forward like other groups, for example, disabled people - so we don’t know what they need.” “If we are sent a survey about say, disabled people or race issues, we fill it in as we know it

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Chapter Three would be politically incorrect not to – but if it is about LGBT people no one is interested as they are not a priority for the service, and management don’t encourage any response.

The pervasiveness of discrimination towards LGBT readers can be summed up by this incident reported to Vincent (2005) which tells of a library service that were given by their local council £1000 to buy LGBT fiction but found that library staff were reluctant to promote the fiction, stating that the titles and themes were offensive to mainstream customers and that after all, “London was not far away why couldn’t they go there”.

Can’t Access It, Can’t Read It. In Coia et al. (2002, p.8) one respondent commented “Why do I have to justify my lifestyle when my straight friends don’t?” The same line could be said for borrowers of LGBT fiction - why do they have to justify a good library service when other users don’t have to. Given this statement what should be in place that would determine a good library service for the consumer of gay and lesbian fiction in addition to friendly, non-discriminatory staff. Let us consider the areas of availability and access. The Reading Agency on their website detail that libraries are an ideal framework for the development of social inclusion, literacy, community cohesion projects, life-long learning to name a few. Scotland’s library service has an excellent network to enable them to achieve this purpose with 32 public library services ranging in size from a single library service in Orkney to Glasgow City Council with in excess of 34 service delivery points. Library services in Scotland in addition provide mobile libraries, and central libraries are designated learning centres for ICT (Glasgow Library Service has a mobile ICT learning centre). Over 3 million people living in Scotland have a library ticket. So what structures are missing that would make for an inclusive service. The first area to consider is supply, on average most libraries have fiction stock that contains central lesbian/gay characters or themes, of only 0.03% in other words 150 volumes out of half a million volumes of fiction (Goldthorp, 2006). Surfing Amazon (the on-line bookseller) in May 2011 using the key word search terms “lesbian fiction” displayed in excess of 10,000 titles. Ashby (1987) wrote that there was a need for greater assistance to LGBT users to find their way around libraries; and there was an urgent need to talk to LGBT people and the organisations that support them to discuss how this might be achieved. Over twenty years since Ashby wrote his paper are we really any further forward? Gough and Greenblatt (1992)

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discuss the concept of systemic bibliographic invisibility; that censorship occurs when libraries deliberately remain uninformed about the full range of literature available for LGBT patrons. Pervading heterosexism in library services means that many have not even considered that the way they advocate, collect, and promote LGBT fiction materials can be inherently prejudicial. Ritchie (2001) indicated that it is important that libraries provide printed and web based bibliographies with nonprejudicial subject heading terminology. This provides for ease of searching and locating materials; and also for confidentiality and anonymity, which may be of particular importance to some LGBT patrons. Bryant (1995) found in his study of academic and public libraries that less than 8% of the libraries he studied provided LGBT booklists or bibliographies. A recent review of Glasgow City Library Services on-line catalogue indicated that over five years on from original research done by Goldthorp in 2006, it is still impossible to effectively use on-line keyword searching to gain a list of LGBT fiction titles; and that in less than 30% of public library on-line catalogues in Scotland is it possible to use key word phrases such as “lesbian fiction” and/or “gay fiction” to be enabled to locate and browse through lesbian and/or gay fiction titles. Ritchie (2001) found in his survey that when library managers were asked if their staff knew where to access LGBT books that 42.9% responded – “don’t know”. Difficulties in building collections of LGBT materials were commented on by Hilton, Boon and Howard (2004) who found that LGBT titles were frequently catalogued in a manner which obscured the sexual orientation of the characters in the book. Norman (2002) studying library provision in Brighton and Hove found that 91.7% of respondents indicated that they found it easier to locate materials if they were placed in a separate location. In Vincent (1999, p.74) Glasgow City Libraries and Archives (1998), in response to the suggestion that they set up separate collections for LGBT users, stated that their policy of not separating out fiction was based on fears of homophobic vandalism; that LGBT users might perceive it as discriminatory and this would deter them using the collection and possibly other non-LGBT users. They added that it was unlikely that any of their libraries had sufficient stock to set up a separate collection. Harvey (2005) found that contrary to the view persistently adhered to by public library services that LGBT people do not want separate LGBT sections, that their LGBT Advisory Group regularly reported that more rather than less LGBT people found it invaluable to have a separate LGBT section in the main library with reservations being available through the on-line catalogue for more rural libraries. In the Loud & Proud Initiative(3)

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(Train & Elkin, 2005 [2002/2003]) the local gay and lesbian group found the separation of LGBT titles into a special collection a friendly and inclusive gesture. Bronski (2002) talks of the difficulties in getting main stream publishers to give coverage to LGBT books. Publishers when queried on this responded they had great difficulty in placing LGBT titles with public libraries, as the cover illustrations were “too explicitly gay”; yet no doubt the same respondents would have been appalled if it was suggested that women’s romantic fiction could not be promoted on library shelves and displays due to being “too explicitly feminine”.

Limited Exposure and a Lack of Quality in LGBT Writing? How can we develop a vibrant and diverse collection of LGBT fiction if such fiction does not have exposure in public arenas such as public libraries or in bookshops? Not only does a lack of visibility deprive authors of LGBT fiction of a wider audience, but if librarians don’t purchase LGBT fiction they are actively depriving those authors of additional royalties and access to Public Lending Right payments in the UK. The book trade in the UK was worth in excess of £3.4billion in 2003 and rising, of this £89 million was accounted for by public library purchase. Every time a book is borrowed, if the author is registered and is resident in the UK or an eligible country, normally the EU, they are entitled to a Public Lending Right payment4. Hence lack of exposure deprives authors of LGBT fiction of the possibility of making a reasonable living from their labours. A further causality of lack of exposure is that of the quality, diversity and range of LGBT fiction on offer to the reader. In the present climate most novels with a recognisable gay and lesbian theme are published by niche publishers, many of whom often start their venture into publishing LGBT fiction as a hobby and/or political or ideological statement; and are based in the USA - this creates several problems. For example, overheads are more expensive – which accounts in part for the higher prices; it restricts what is published as the preferences of the owners can take preference over other concerns. So for example for lesbians that has lead to a glut of light romantic/erotic fiction with little substance. The outcome is that it is very difficult for new authors of LGBT fiction to find a publisher that will consider their work other than niche publishers and this can then limit the author to fit with what those publishers are prepared to print, thus limiting the diversity and range of LGBT fiction that is published.

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In research by Goldthorp in 2006 many of the respondents commented on the quality of the LGBT fiction that was available and also felt strongly that the UK book/library industry should have awards for lesbian, gay and transgender fiction of merit similar to those awarded through the Lambda Prize in the USA (American Library Association) to encourage new authors and to raise standards. There are successful authors in the UK who identify as gay and lesbian but who do not want to have that tag associated with their writing for the very reasons I have discussed above: firstly, because it would make it more difficult for them to publish their work; secondly, their income would be reduced; and, thirdly, they want to be published understandably by mainstream, well-known publishers, who are more likely to be fairer with royalty payments, promote their work to the library industry and generally are seeking to publish a range of genre material from the literary to the dark psychological thriller to “chicklit”.

Improvements Following the Equality Agenda It would be unfair to suggest that no improvements have been made in the availability, promotion and accessibility of LGBT fiction in libraries. The Scottish Executive in 2006 (Arthur, 2006) provided funding of 500 thousand pounds for a two year period to promote among other aims equality and social inclusion in Scottish Library Services There have been several successful initiatives promoting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender writing including Loud and Proud which has been mentioned previously in this chapter developed by four libraries in Yorkshire. The Big Gay Read in 2005, a national campaign co-ordinated by Queer up North5, Commonword6, Time to Read7 and Manchester, Salford and Blackpool Library Services to discover the nation’s favourite gay and lesbian novels. Several libraries in England including Trafford and Blackpool libraries have developed a “Pink List” which details lists of LGBT fiction available within their libraries and is web-based. The Sandyford Initiative between Glasgow City libraries and health service providers (Greenwood & Tullock, 2004) where the public library OPAC system is twined with the Sandyford Clinic (which provides specialized health services for LGBT people and has long been a meeting place for LGBT support groups), has established reciprocal borrowing rights and over a 1000 items a month are issued to Sandyford Clinic users through the public library OPAC, however this service is predominately concerned with health and wellbeing literature. The Glasgow Women’s Library is being supported by Glasgow City Council to maintain and develop their

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library, educational and archive services including the Lesbian Archive and to be located within the prestigious Michelle Library in the centre of Glasgow. Dumfries and Galloway Council developed a diversity mini Community Portal in 2005 which provides local LGBT people with information. This was in response to anecdotal evidence that young LGBT people moved out of the area and therefore there was an economic as well as social imperative to keep those young people in the locality. Perhaps one of the greatest success stories for libraries and LGBT people is the work done by Brighton and Hove Library Service to be inclusive of LGBT people and was the focus of Norman’s research in 2002; not only have they developed their catalogue and web-based services to better meet the needs of LGBT people but they have actively been involved with their LGBT Community and take a mobile library each year to Pride in Brighton to promote LGBT literature and their library services. In the last two years many libraries in England have attempted to set up lesbian and/or gay reading groups and those have met with varying success. Edinburgh City Libraries have greatly improved their online catalogue with regard to publicising the LGBT fiction titles available through their library service and now have over 250 titles of LGBT fiction that can be located using the key word phrases “lesbian fiction” “gay fiction” and to a lesser extent titles that could be considered both LGBT fiction titles. Library services in Scotland, where four years ago you could not have brought up hardly one lesbian or gay fiction novel using keyword phrasing, have now greatly improved their on-line catalogues in this respect although there is still a very long way to go. All the improvements and successes I have mentioned in this section are positive steps to engaging with LGBT people and in the provision of LGBT fiction but across the board improvements and strategic developments are patchy and often the long term impact and viability of those projects are diminished when key library staff who promoted those projects move on or leave the service. Funding is inconsistent and even in the face of successes is often not sustained to carry those improvements forward.

Concluding Thoughts Are the LGBT community in part responsible for the perception that it is not necessary for libraries to stock collections of LGBT fiction? It can be argued that library authorities may have a point because when a group do not make their presence known and do not demand equal services, in the

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struggle for resources, they are easier to overlook, so we need to make our presence felt and actively campaign for better collections and accessibility of LGBT literature in our local library libraries. Public library services have a legal and moral obligation to provide an equitable service with regard to the provision of “recreational fiction” for the LGBT Community. Raising awareness among library workers as to what LGBT fiction is and what is out there means that library workers in turn can encourage their suppliers to add LGBT fiction to their recommended lists. Equally the development of good cataloguing practices has a positive role to play in aiding the process of accessing LGBT fiction. Providers of professional library courses should include in their academic modules material on LGBT fiction; and discuss issues of equality and diversity and the impact of those on “social inclusion”. Library authorities should provide LGBT focussed diversity training for their staff and reader development officers should be encouraged to take on the role of informing staff with regard to LGBT terminology to enable the development of accessible catalogues; to raise awareness of LGBT fiction, and where and how to access new titles. Large library services should consider forming LGBT Advisory Groups to aid in the creation of effective policies and procedures which could act as a framework for future service development. Where possible lesbian and gay fiction needs to be catalogued in a manner that allows it to be accessed; and web-based software should be developed to enable key word and key phrase searching in particular the ability of the browser to “read” the key phrases - “lesbian fiction” “gay fiction”. Where this is not possible or too costly to apply library services should consider developing a “Pink List” (which can be devised in financial partnership with other organisations, for example, health boards to cut down on costs). Having library based LGBT reading groups is an effective low cost method of encouraging LGBT people to get involved with their public libraries, having the additional benefit of enabling library staff to formulate a positive view of LGBT people. In addition all large central libraries should consider having a separate section for LGBT writing. Given that public libraries are often at the mercy of financial stringencies it may be beneficial to consider adapting the ideas of the work of Chad and Miller (2005), by having a store of LGBT fiction based in a central location or library service that can be drawn upon by all other library services either nationally or on a UK wide basis to refresh their library collections of LGBT fiction. A centralised reservations system could be set up on-line allowing LGBT library users to sign up for the service thereby allowing them to reserve materials from the central store.

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Finally library authorities should strive to have good collections of LGBT fiction of “literary merit” and should consider supporting the creation of an UK award for LGBT writing to encourage the development of a diverse range of LGBT fiction to encompass all genre and styles of writing; and to encourage new authors of LGBT fiction.

Notes 1. The public library service which provided the case study for this work is the Scottish Public Library Service provided through 32 Scottish Local Authorities. 2. For the purposes of this chapter LGBT fiction is defined in two terms. The first is fiction that is written by LGBTs about LGBTs, for LGBTs. The second is fiction that has at its centre characters(s), themes(s), and storylines that can be identified as LGBT. 3. The Loud & Proud initiative was organised by Branching Out (a reader development project managed by Open the Book) in partnership with Books for Students (supplier of books to schools, colleges and educational establishments) in 2002; and was piloted in four libraries in Yorkshire. 4. The rate changes annually and in 2011 was 6.25p per loan. The maximum payment any author can receive is £6,600. The PLR is worked out on a ratio bases so to be eligible your book must be lent out at least 16 times by a public library as at 2011. Further details are available from http://www.plr.uk.com 5. Queer up North was established in 1992, is supported by the National Arts Council (England) which is made up of 9 regional Arts Councils and promotes and commissions work across multi-disciplinary performance and visual arts. 6. Commonword is a writing development organisation based in Manchester in North West England and aims to develop creative writing especially focussing on groups that do not normally have access to writing and publishing resources. 7. Time to Read is a partnership of Libraries based in the North West of England and works to encourage new readers into libraries; currently all 23 public library authorities in the North West support Time to Read.

References Allen, Jane et al. Out On the Shelves: Lesbian Books into Libraries. Newcastle-under-Lyme: AAL, 1989. Arthur, R. Improving Outcomes. Information Scotland 4 (2006): 13. Ashby, Richard. Library Services to Lesbian and gay people. Assistant Librarian 80 (1987):153-155. Bronski, Michael. “The Paradox of Gay Publishing.” Publishers Weekly 249 (2002): 27-31.

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Bryant, E. “Pride and Prejudice.” Library Journal 120 (1995): 37-39. Chad, Ken and Paul Miller. Do Libraries Matter? The Rise of Library 2.0. Accessed January 17, 2005. http://www.talis.com/resources (Accessed on 17 January 2005). Clark, Christina and Kate Rumbold. Reading for Pleasure. London: National Literacy Trust, 2006. Coia, Nicky et al. Something to Tell You. Glasgow: Greater Glasgow Health Board, 2002. Daniel, Pat. “Women, Literacy and Power: An Introduction. Equal Opportunities International 19 (2000). Davies, Steve. Taking Stock: The Future of our Public Library Service. Cardiff: Cardiff University, 2008. DCMS. Libraries for All: Social Inclusion in Public Libraries. Policy Guidance for Local Authorities in England. London: HMSO, 1999. Goldthorp, Jacq. The Social Inclusion of Lesbians as Borrowers from Scottish Public Libraries, Explored Through the Visibility of Lesbian Fiction. M.Sc. diss., Robert Gordon University, 2006. Goring, Rosemary. “3 for 2: Bookselling Now.” Scottish Review of Books 1(2005): 18-19. Gough, Cal and Ellen Greenblatt. “Services to Gay and Lesbian Patrons: Examining the Myths.” Library Journal 117 (1992): 60-63. Greenblatt, Ellen. “Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Library Users: Overcoming the Myths.” Colorado Libraries 29 (2003): 21-25. Greenwood, N. and P. Tulloch. Working for a Healthy City. Update. 2(2004): 14-15. Harris, Kevin and Martin Dudley. “Public Libraries and Community Cohesion: Developing Indicator.” Accessed March 17, 2005. http://neighbourhoods.typepad.com/libraries . Harvey, Joanne. “Engaging with LGBT Communities: The Brighton & Hove Experience.” Presented at Pride or Prejudice? How Well are Libraries Serving Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Trans Communities? CILIP Diversity Group Conference, Manchester, February 8, 2005. Hilton Boon, Michelle and Vivian Howard. “Recent Lesbian/gay/bisexual/ transgender fiction for Teens: are Canadian Public Libraries providing adequate collections.” Collection Building 23(2004): 133-138. House of Commons, Culture, Media and Sport Committee. “Public Libraries: Third Report of Session 2004-05.” Accessed February 24, 2005. http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200405/ cmcumeds/81/81i.pdf. Kitzinger, Celia. The Social Construction of Lesbianism. London: Sage, 1987.

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Levithan, David. Supporting Gay Teen Literature. School Libraries Journal 50(2004): 44-45. MacLennan, Alan. “Fiction Selection - An Al at Work?” New Library World 97(1996): 24-32. McDowell, Sara. “Library Instruction for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered College Students.” In Teaching the New Library to Today’s Users, edited by Trudi E. Jacobson and Helene C. Williams, 71-86. NewYork: Neal-Schuman. 2000. National Literacy Trust. “2004 Statistics”. Accessed March 17, 2005. http://www.readon.org.uk/Database/stats/keystats3.html. Norman, Mark. (2002) Out on Loan - A Survey of the Use and Information Needs of Users of the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Collection of Brighton and Hove Libraries. B.A. diss., University of Brighton, 2002. Pateman, John. “Developing a Needs-Based Service. Update 3(2004): 3437. Peel, Elizabeth. “Lesbian and Gay Awareness Training: Challenging Homophobia, Liberalism and Managing Stereotypes.” In Lesbian & Gay Psychology: New Perspectives, edited by Adrian Coyle and Celia Kitzinger,255-274. Oxford: BPS Blackwell. John Sue and Adele Patrick. Poverty and Social Exclusion of Lesbians and Gay men in Glasgow. Glasgow: GWL, 1999, Reading Agency. “Home page”. Accessed November 29, 2011. http://www.readingagency.org.uk. Book Marketing Ltd and The Reading Partnership. Reading the Situation: Book Reading, Buying and Borrowing Habits in Britain: A Proposal for Research. London: Book Marketing Ltd, 1999. Ritchie, Catherine J. “Collection Development of Gay/Lesbian/BisexualRelated Adult Non-Fiction in Medium-Sized Illnois Public Libraries (Survey Results). Illinois Libraries 83(2001): 39-70. Rogers, Simon. “Top 250 Most Borrowed Books from UK Libraries.” The Guardian, February 12, 2010. Train, Briony and Judith Elkin. “Branching out: Overview of evaluative findings.” Accessed March 22, 2005. http://www.branching-out.net. Vincent, John. Lesbians, Bisexuals, Gay Men and Transgender People. http://www.branching-out.net, 1999. —. “LGBT People and Libraries: How Well Do we Do?” Presented at Pride or Prejudice? How Well are Libraries Serving Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Trans Communities? CILIP Diversity Group Conference, Manchester, February 8, 2005.

CHAPTER FOUR “IN THIS OUR LIVES”: INVISIBILITY AND BLACK BRITISH GAY IDENTITY ANTOINE ROGERS

There is not one definitive history or decisive moment which can be used to install or articulate the complexity and fluidity of the UK Black queer experience. Indeed many of our stories will never be told, heard, collected or stored for posterity. (Ajamu, Co-Founder of rukus! Federation: Black Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) Archive, London Metropolitan Archives).

Introduction In Britain, the year 2007 marked several important anniversaries including the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery and the 40th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act the latter decriminalized homosexuality and homosexual acts. Another important anniversary albeit less well known was the 20th anniversary of the first and only Black Gay Men’s Conference which took place in London (Figs. 4-1 & 4-2). Little remains of this conference and thus the starting point for this research was to locate and preserve relevant physical evidence as well as the memories of those who attended the conference. Reflections on the 1987 Black Gay Men’s Conference (1987 BGMC) also provides an opportunity to begin to measure developments in British Black gay men's sexual identity (BBGM). “In This Our Lives – The Reunion” (2007 ITOL) took place in October 2007 (nearly 20 years to the day of the original conference). The conference brought together some of the original delegates and aimed to explore memories, identity and the complex intersection of race and sexuality in a British context.

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Fig.4-1 Original Conference Poster

Fig. 4-2 Reunion Poster

In an effort to fill a wide gap in our knowledge about Black British sexual identity (BBSI), this research was developed in collaboration with a voluntary sector organization, “the rukus! Federation”, to explore how race and sexuality intersect in Britain. This research also considers the impact of historical invisibility and contemporary representations of Black gay men on modern constructions of Black male sexual identity1. In 2006 “the rukus! Federation” approached London South Bank University to help coordinate ITOL. This coordination included a collaborative strategy to identify and contact men who attended the 1987 BGMC and to recruit participants for the 2007 ITOL reunion. Coordination also included the identification and development of relevant themes to be used by a facilitator for a panel discussion. There is lack of academic knowledge about the complexities of the Black British lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (BBLGBT) experience and particularly the experiences of BBGM beyond those relating to sexual health, deception of female sexual partners and internalized homophobia. This research is aware that much of what is known about Black sexuality and particularly Black gay sexual identity comes from the USA. Still much of the British based research concerning this group often focuses on the realities of HIV/AIDS and other health related issues.

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Dominant academic discourse identifies and describes Black gay men as having “liminal identities” (Anderson et al., 2009) or living their lives on the “down low” a derogatory term used to separate (and usually duplicitously) homosexual and heterosexual lives (see for example Boykin, 2005; Hill Collins, 2004; King, 2004; Denizet-Lewis, 2003; Mukherjea and Vidal-Ortiz, 2006). In sharp contrast to this research, oral narratives from 2007 ITOL and additional interview data shows Black gay men living in the Britain to have a clear identity informed and influenced by heritage; strong connections to Black communities; and a measure of connection to Black gay history (derived primarily from the USA). This research demonstrates that by using an intersectional approach to take account of the participant’s experiences we can recognize that some features of BBGM sexual identity formation are unique as are their experiences of racism and exclusion. These factors further inform the way in which BBGM negotiate the intersection of their sexual and racial identity. This paper argues that BBGM identities can be described as liminal whereby BBGM negotiate levels of “outness” with family friends and the broader society much like white gay men in Britain whose identities can also be described as liminal. However unlike white gay men, dominate research related to BBGM and the way in which they negotiate their sexual identities infers specific pathologies for this liminality referring to Black gay men as MSMs2 or being on the “down low”. This contributes to an analysis and perception that all Black gay men have unresolved sexual identities.

Challenging Structural Explanations with a Humanistic Approach A significant amount of research exploring the lives of Black gay men identify a range of structural inequalities to explain the limitations and challenges faced in constructing a stable “out” homosexual identity. Much of this research does not engage the interplay of biography and history in seeking to understand how Black gay men define and engage with their identity. Rather in recent times much academic discourse has specifically focused on Black men who have sex with other men or what is termed MSMs. Here writers identify a range of factors that fuel greater heterosexism in Black communities often emphasizing religion to explain the prevalence of Black gay men who engage in both open heterosexual relationships and covert homosexual relationships (Hill Collins, 2004; King, 2004; Denizet-Lewis, 2003). Specifically within a UK context, writers indicate that Black men may experience cognitive dissonance in

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their inability to resolve conflict with their sexuality and the heternormative Black environment (Anderson et al., 2009). Although the focus of much of this research is men who do not identify as gay, with limited discourse that identifies the ways in which BBGM negotiate the intersection of their sexual and racial identity, the danger is that a MSM discourse and other discussions that focus on sex and sexual health issues work to characterize the experiences of all BBGM. This chapter follows the theoretical lead broadly described as biographical sociology and critical humanism. Sociologist Ken Plummer wrote, “I long for social science to take more seriously its humanistic foundations and foster styles of thinking that encourage the creative, interpretive story telling of lives with all the ethical, political and selfreflexive engagements that this will bring” (2001a, p.1). Here Plummer and indeed others emphasize the exploration of the interplay of biography, history and structure for a deeper understanding of human experiences (see for example Stanley & Morgan, 1993; Robert, 2002; Roberts & Kyllonen, 2006). This paper aims to connect data derived from individual narratives and interviews with BBGM to larger historical events and recognizes that participants and organizers view the 1987 BGMC and the 20th anniversary as larger historical events. In presenting this data, this paper seeks to expand discourse related to BBGM beyond structural explanations to interpret the meaning BBGM derive from this historical event; the impact on the formation and negotiation of their identity; and the level and nature of engagement within the wider British LGBT social and political context.

Filling a Gap in the literature with Intersectionality There is a measure of knowledge related to the complexities of BBGM sexual identity. An analysis can be drawn from two main bodies of work; one coming from the USA; and the second derived from British experiences. Knowledge generated by American-based LGBT writers provides useful insights into the complexities of Black sexuality and sexual identity (see for example Lorde; 1984; Beam, 1986; Hemphil & Beam, 1991; Simms, 2001 amongst others). Beam, in the introduction of the ground-breaking anthology “In the Life” states, “There are many reasons for Black gay invisibility. Hard words come to mind: power, racism, conspiracy, oppression, and privilege – each deserving a fullfledged discussion in gay history books yet unwritten” (1986). This anthology and other writings in the form of essays, articles and poems from Black American LGBT people provided affirmation for a generation of Black gay men in Britain. However an obvious gap in this literature is a

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deeper understanding of Black British LGBT people and that of BBGM amongst this group in particular. Black American LGBT discourse as well as the large body of work produced over the last 30 (plus) years which highlights the experiences of the wider, mainly white LGBT community in Britain, it is possible to apply Plummer’s assertion “in an increasingly global world where media and social movements play prominent roles, it becomes more possible to write of several cultures as one” (1995). For example in his first major study, Coming Out (1977), Weeks extensive scholarship identifies both historical and contemporary contours of the British LGBT community. Additional scholarship from British writers provides a vast wealth of theoretical knowledge related to the history and social organization of sexuality and intimate life more broadly including recent research which has enabled us to understand more recent advances that include widespread legal recognition of gay and lesbian relationships (see for example Weedon, 2004; Plummer, 2001b; Richardson, 2000; Weeks, et al., 2001; 2003; Weeks, 2007; Cant, 2008 among others). LGBT experience and academic discourse that identifies such experience has diversified and moved from the margins of pathology and criminality to a place of interest, recognition and at times celebration. Although bodies of literature, one based in Britain and the other derived largely from the United States, may be useful in understanding “several cultures as one” total reliance on this knowledge does not enable a deeper more varied understanding of Black gay men specific to the British context. This research contends that intersectionality is the most helpful theoretical and methodological tool to explore the experiences of BBGM and to conduct research that garners a deeper understanding through investigations that enable us to identify and measure how race and sexuality and other axes of identity interact on multiple and often simultaneous levels or what McCall describes as “the relationships among multiple dimensions and modalities of social relationships and subject formations” (2005)3. In recent years in Britain academic discourse has recognized the importance of describing the intersection of different social identities for Black and other ethnic minority LGBT people (McKeown, 2010). This research builds on this and demonstrates the use of an intersectional approach to take account of the participant’s experiences. This approach helps us to recognize that BBGM are likely to negotiate the intersection of their sexual and racial identity differently from that of white gay men and the factors that inform this negation may also differ for BBGM including their experiences of racism and exclusion both within .

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the wider LGBT community and wider society. However this paper argues that these differences do not constitute unresolved identities for BBGM.

Methods Statement The findings were derived from oral narratives generated by BBGM4 who attended the 1987 BGMC and who later discussed their participation and related experiences during a reunion of conference attendees during the 2007 ITOL5. Data for this paper was also derived from a second event which took place in March 2009 at the British Film Institute (2009 BFI). This event included a screening of the film ITOL and a panel discussion6. The 2007 ITOL event included a moderator who facilitated a discussion between seven BBGM who organized and/or attended the 1987 BGMC. The 2009 BFI event also included a panel of men who participated in 2007 ITOL event. Significantly this panel also included younger BBGM who did not attend the 1987 BGMC. In the 2009 BFI event the audience was encouraged to asked questions. However during 2007 ITOL event themes, considered and identified before the event, were used to facilitate a panel discussion. Themes explored during the 2007 ITOL event and the 2009 BFI event informed an interview instrument which was used to conduct follow up interviews with five men who attended the 1987 BGMC. The aim was to measure how far the original conference went in shaping the racial and sexual identity of men who attended. Ten additional BBGM were interviewed. These men attended either the 2007 ITOL event and/or the 2009 BFI event but had not attended the 1987 BGMC. These men ranged in ages from 18 to late 40s and were all born in Britain mostly from African Caribbean backgrounds. This research utilizes a standpoint theoretical perspective to account for the experiences of participants to recognize individual participant’s unique world perspective. This involves the recognition that societal knowledge is located within an individual’s specific location; geographical, social and economic and in the case of some of the participants, age. Knowledge becomes distinctly unique and subjective and varies depending upon the social conditions under which it was produced (Mann & Kelley, 1997, p. 392). Thus the combination of narrative data derived from the 2007 ITOL event and the 2009 BFI event; follow-up interviews with five men who attended the original 1987 BGMC; and interviews with a small sample of BBGM (10); are collectively indicative of the experiences and standpoint of Black gay men in Britain since 1987.

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Findings At the start of the 2007 event, Jeffrey Weeks offered some context and stated: We’ve got to remember with all the extraordinary gains that have taken place the perpetuation of racism and homophobia and so on which cross the achievements. It is important to remember those achievements because the last five years have seen the most extraordinary changes in relation to the legal framework of homosexuality affecting us all: for equalizing the age of consent; to the civil marriage and civil partnership act; to equal adoption …... [these have been] radical changes on the ground. But on the ground at the grass roots changes were taking place and I think what we are commemorating today is one significant aspect of those changes with Black gay men finding their voice and their voices beginning to be heard….When I look back to the early years of gay liberation, I remember the absence of diversity issues. It was the idea that there was only one form of lesbian or gay life and it was largely derived from white history. Today we can see that lesbian and gay life is a diverse life and that diversity is our strength. We can build on that strength. (Jeffrey Weeks, October, 2007 ITOL).

Initially panellists were asked to speak about their knowledge of the conference. Among those involved in the organization of the conference, it was believed that placing advertisements for the event was an achievement and a pioneering act. “Putting adverts in the Black press was a first. We were determined to get publicised” (Alex, 2007 ITOL). Panellists also spoke about identifying the advertisement in the Black press which led to a discussion related to the ways in which BBGM at that time were visible to one another in the Black press. Ajamu explained his experience: I actually came across the advert in the Caribbean times. I use to write adverts for pen-pals and basically you would write “broadminded guy seeks friends” which means gay guy seeks friends. I met lots of people [at the conference] and that was October and by Jan 18th I finished with Bev gave up college and moved to wonderful Peckham. (Ajamu, October, 2007: ITOL)

Panellists asserted that their participation in the 1987 BGMC either as organizers or as participants helped to develop and shape their sexual racial and political identity. One of the original organizers of the Gay Liberation Front in Britain, Ted, expressed how the conference was more empowering than his engagement with other political activities including his involvement with Black civil rights campaigns in the USA (his country

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of origin) and involvement with the broader Gay Liberation Movement in Britain: And homophobia – the Black Civil Rights movement led by Martin Luther King … many of those people actually rejected the black queens who turned up to try and help. Also having been involved in the Gay Liberation movement when it started … I had experienced some of the racism within the gay community. Coming along to the [1987] conference was a real eye opener for me. It was a real step forward and it was very assuring that not only could we lead the way as far as general civil rights were concerned but we could actually take an initiative ourselves as Black gay men …that was a real step forward. (Ted, October, 2007 ITOL) There were lots of things going on at that time campaigns all sorts of things. It was a chance to bring people together and realize that we are a lot stronger as a group. (Alex, October, 2007 ITOL) What was interesting was the people that were going to go to the conference and the things that they were involved with, the issues that were really important to them and those I passionately shared. But I felt that one could bring together issues; identity politics; social policy; lifestyle; and preference and personal interest and really in a way have something to talk about in relation to being a Black gay man. (Martin, October, 2007 ITOL)

The HIV/AIDS epidemic which defined a ten year period beginning in the mid-1980s threatened gains for lesbians, gay men, and bisexual people as both politicians and the media often blamed the LGBT community and gay men in particular for its appearance. Black men were then, as they are now, disproportionally affected by HIV and particularly vulnerable to the bigotry being fuelled at that time. Moreover many of the political and social movements which worked to create the LGBT voluntary and community sector were dominated by white middle class people although primarily men. Panellist and interview respondents contended that by 1987 and largely in the absence of central government support7, many Black activist, health care professionals and average people mobilized to gather resources to attempt to meet the needs of Black gay men who were sick. Thus among the political and social concerns brought to the conference, concerns related to the HIV crisis in Black communities were identified as particularly important. Back then we were discovering what was going on, people were dying ….. there are people like myself and others who were hearing of Black gay men who were not recipients of health services; going in and trying to

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support them. There’s so many faces I can remember of people that were dying and that we needed to support. I felt very concerned that Black Gay men especially were not being party to the then campaigns. I felt that we needed to have a voice within those campaigns and have our own response. (Vernal, Interview, 2008)

Being “out” and engagement with the wider LGBT community before and after the conference also featured in the panel discussion and during follow up interviews with conference attendees/organizers. Here respondents identified examples of being excluded from organizations and political and social activities in the wider LGBT community. When access was gained, respondents felt many organization avoided issues most pressing to them including acts of racism experienced by BLGBT people. Respondents felt let down because much of their engagement with LGBT organizations did not work to enable them to address issues most relevant to their lives: The conference was in a way a linchpin but it [being out] was happening outside of that space….people were creating polemical and dialectical and interesting debates about their own identity outside of that space whether your were eating, drinking or you know ripping the latest meeting [LGBT organizations and associated meetings] to shreds because it had nothing to do with who you were. (Martin, 2009 BFI)

In follow up interviews with conference attendees and with younger Black gay men8, respondents discussed coming out/being out in more depth. Older respondents described coming out in classical academic terms in identifying a point of self acceptance and a point of public declaration to family and friends. However amongst younger Black gay men, the idea of coming out was articulated differently. Steven, age 20 stated; Coming out or being gay is different for me and a lot of Black gay men I know. They (white gay men) come out and tell everyone; friends, parents, the postman. When I talk with them (white gay men) and they realize my parents and a lot of people in my life don’t know, they assume I’m in some kinda denial or closeted, or ‘on the down low’ or whatever…..I’m happy with myself, who I am but I wasn’t gonna throw this in my family’s face …. I don’t agree with my family’s views obviously but I know how much their faith and values helps them to survive the shit they go through. God – their God - seems to get them through so who am I to blatantly contradict their values …. What good would it serve?

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Both older and younger respondents articulated a level of excitement when they began to explore their sexuality in the context of the broader LGBT community including going to bars clubs and other social spaces; in discovering new people and new identities as part of coming/being out. However both older and younger respondents reported racism. One reoccurring example related to perceived racist experiences when entering gay spaces and being asked if they were gay. One respondent, Justin, a 22 year old student stated: It’s the way you’re asked this question; it’s so loaded. What is it that they see differently in you from any other guy entering the club? Hum I wonder? It’s definitely not the way we dress. Anyway … usually it’s best to camp it up just before you get to the door to avoid this.

Both older and younger respondents identified a range of experiences they described as racist within the wider LGBT community (although respondents described spaces dominated primarily by white gay men). In the first interview with younger BBGM, Karim, a 24 year old respondent identified and discussed “dinge queens” an expression he believed in common use amongst white gay men. He explained, “the term refers to white men who date/have sex with Black men”. He emphasized the meaning of the word dinge and the word’s relationship to dirt and dark skin. When queried, all other respondents included in the small sample of younger BBGM claimed knowledge of the word and its use among white gay men. During an interview one panellist named and described a collective experience of racism within the wider LGBT community as “coming into” which he believed lent to a conscious avoidance of “coming out” as (described in academic literature) by many BBGM. He questioned: What is it that we come into; racism, sexism; sometimes drugs and so on; to a context that really only includes bars and clubs; to men driven by desire and that desire is mainly based on pornographic images of Black gay men making us either thugs or mandingos. It’s not that Black gay men are not out…maybe people just don’t want to engage with those things.

Discussion Particularly during the 1970s lesbian and gay social and political activism achieved a greater measure of visibility, space and social rights for LGBT people. However by 1987 the British social and political context had become particularly unforgiving to the whole LGBT community. Section 28 was passed into law within months of the conference9. This

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legislation stated Local Authorities “shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality” or “promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”. This legislation ensured that a generation of LGBT people would be denied recognition and affirmation of their sexual identity by their government. It can be argued that Black gay men were particularly affected by this hostile social and political environment which included state regulations, institutional racism as well as the social and moral regulation and heteronormative context of wider society. Whilst agency in relation to coping strategies in the form of resistance is often identified as a means by which Black gay men challenge forms of racism and homophobia, structural inequalities are often emphasized as determining the outcomes of their lives and the choices they make. Although social structure can help to explain aspects of some BBGM’s lives, this group cannot be fully understood in isolation from their experiences including racist experiences. As well this group cannot be fully understood by only identifying those experiences related to their sexual health and by highlighting the complex and different sexual negotiations (including heterosexual) by some members of this group who do not specifically identify as “being out” or gay. Roberts writes, “the challenge to the separation of single lives and social structure: involves sociologists questioning and indeed rejecting conventional sharp distinctions between structure and action, and relatedly, individual and collective, as an over-dichotomised view of social life” (Roberts and Kyllonen, 2006). BBGM identified a range of factors that influenced the formation, expression and negotiation of their sexual identity with many of these factors connected to biological links; family obligations (including church attendance for several respondents); and historical references including the Black liberation struggles in the USA and the legacy of slavery and colonisation. Respondents identified and described complicated negotiations with some of these so to keep their sexual identity ambivalent in the eyes of (some) family member and friends reinforce assumptions about their heterosexuality believed to be held by some family members. Although these identities can be described as liminal, this research contends these identities are no more liminal than other groups of gay men and thus questions pathological labels and discussions which assert BGM’s sexual identities are unresolved. Anderson et al. (2009) in the first study that examines the MSMs in Britain assert that Black Gay men and Caribbean men in particular have liminal identities complicated by religious obligations and pressures which

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prevent a full acceptance and engagement with their homosexual identity. In this research and in other studies that identify Black men who identify as gay and bisexual, the overt implication is that Black gay men are unable to reconcile their sexuality and as a result lead lives filled with internalized homophobia. Another implication is that Black gay men lead lives of deception and imitation. This interpretation of liminal identity can be applied to much research related to the lives of Black gay men where they are trapped in a liminal situation, and are not able to act rationally because the structure on which “objective” rationality was based has disappeared; namely the Black heteronormative community often characterized as extremely religious. This interpretation of liminal and unresolved identity implies (at times implicitly, overtly and covertly) imitation and mimicking as a strategy of negotiation for these men. However particularly problematic is that these concepts are historically linked through folk-tales and myths of nearly all cultures to the “trickster figures” who are always marginal characters on the outside of the community and thus cannot trust or be trusted (Szakolczai, 2000). Discourse that identifies developments in gay male identity in conjunction with social change and political developments positions the modern gay male citizen as one who has fully “come out”; the two pronged process involving self acceptance as well as public discourse (Taylor 1999). Coming out in the traditional academic sense and being visible as a political statement was articulated by older respondents and conference attendees but this was not the case for younger respondents. This suggests as men age, there may be changing perceptions about “coming out”. Perhaps these differences speak to the changed political and social environment then and now. Findings further suggest that relationships to “outness” have potentially changed overtime amongst BBGM. Nevertheless amongst both groups Black men discussed a negotiation of liminal states of being visible and engaging with public spaces and activities they described as part of the gay community whilst maintaining strong connections to Black family members; including for several younger respondents attending and participating in the church choir. Far from being unresolved, findings from this research suggest a great level of complication for BBGM who negotiate their sexual identity and adjust levels of “outness” to match the multiple contexts in which they engage namely their strong connections to Black communities and to a lesser extent to the wider LGBT community. With a proliferation of research dominated by analysis of MSMs, deception, violence and sexual health, and limited research using intersectionality, Black gay men are in

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danger of being seen as tricksters in the wider LGBT community. Helpful in avoiding this danger is the recognition of a liminal state as a site from which great creativity, or what has been termed “ludic invention” which can lead to a critique of society and a way of coping with exclusion and prejudice (Turner, 1969)10. With regard to research that identifies the experiences of Black gay men there is a constant assertion that many if not most Black gay men do not truly come out due in large part to a lack of public disclosure and discourse within the Black community and this prevents/negates acceptance of their homosexuality and their identity as gay male citizens. This conceptualization devalues the intimate relationships in which Black gay men engage and negotiate with other men and their families. The intersectionality of racism and homophobia, as they work in unison becomes deeply complex for BBGM particularly as BBGM come to identify, accept and appreciate their sexuality. This is less about what is perceived to be there for white gay men; a presumption of a greater sense of coming/being out? Rather for many BBGM who grow up with experiences defined by racism; to then grow into another oppressive framework is a unique experience. Coming into their sexual identity with a framework that has been influenced by racist experiences suggest a sense of awareness amongst BBGM and within Black communities of potential harm. One BBGM interviewee in discussing his mother's response to him being gay explained how she “told him to be careful”. He explained that his mother was not implying safety regarding sex but rather her reference related to her own experiences of racism and her assumptions about what her son would experience in coming/being out to a predominately white LGBT community. Furthermore gay citizenship like any framework of citizenship is limited by “who is inside and who is outside, who is included and who is excluded, both within and across social worlds” (Plummer, 2003, p.55). If viewed in academic terms, to “come out” and particularly the ability to make a public declaration, one must also consider the impact of that public action which may prevent this taking place for some gay men particularly if that action damages family relations and bonds. Moreover “coming into” [as named and discussed by many BBGM in this study] was viewed as a negative and potentially damaging location including perceptions of racism, sexism and commercialism. For some Black gay men in this study, “coming into” had less to offer and thus they avoided “coming out” in the way that is often articulated by academics who perhaps have not relfected upon any other standpoint but their own.

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Theoretical perspectives related to sexuality and particularly the LGBT experiences are undoubtedly helpful. However similar to McKeown et al. who insist on the “the importance of theorizing social location when examining the intersection of ethnicity and sexuality” (2010), this research argues for more investigations that use intersectionality and standpoint theoretical perspectives to account for the specific, layered and complex experiences of BBGM and that of other ethnic minority LGBT people. Theoretical frameworks regardless of their relevance today, must grow, develop, expand and be built upon through qualitative research by talking to people and measuring how they see the world. Research should not be viewed as being drawn from a “fixed” set of methodological practices and ideals. It is ever changing and ever evolving, and perhaps no more so when seeking to understand the lives of those who have layered identities that incorporate the cultural as well as the sexual. This research argues for new theoretical paradigms related to the specific experiences of BBLGBT people and new paradigms to recognize and explain more thoroughly coming/being out. We need to begin to construct a new language which does not create division but which recognizes diversity. This will be challenging, and historically much of the research that has sought to engage new groups of interest has relied upon researchers from within the groups or communities of interest. Yet as other authors in the book show, this new language of diversity needs to be embraced and understood by those outside. Certainly it is true that many of the characteristics of a wider LGBT community are found amongst BBLGBT people primarily because LGBT people often occupy liminal states. Still research in many areas of social life has recognized difference in identity formation and negotiations amongst ethnic minority groups from that of other groups and the majority. Traditional discourse related to sexuality, “coming out” and engagement with the wider LGBT social and cultural context do not always account for differences in the negotiation of sexual identity (and the factors that impact on that negotiation of that identity) that clearly exist within this community. This research, even with its limited sample, demonstrates that there is much to be learned by listening and recording the experiences of those who live not only within Black LGBT communities but potentially those of other ethnic minority LGBT people.

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Notes 1. The founders of rukus! Federation initially proposed an event to reunite men who attended the 1987 Black Gay Men Conference. Established in 2000 rukus! Federation works to present the best in work by Black lesbian, gay bisexual and trans artist. In 2005 rukus! Federation! launched the rukus! Black LGBT Archive Project and with it an ongoing commitment to seek out and preserve historical artefacts and oral histories related to British Black LGBT experience. The archive is housed at the London Metropolitan Archives and aims to preserve, exhibited, and otherwise make available to the public historical, cultural, and artistic materials related to the Black lesbian, gay bisexual and trans communities in the United Kingdom. 2. MSM is a term first adopted by epidemiologists in the USA to classify men who have sex with men, despite self identification as gay, bisexual or heterosexual. The term has gained wide use among sexual health practitioners in Britain since the 2000. 3. More commonly intersectionality is used to explain different kinds of social inequality or classical conceptions of oppression within society, including racism and homophobia and to interpret and measure how these interrelate and create a system of oppression or the "intersection" of multiple forms of discrimination (Hill Collins and Anderson, 2003) Indeed much research into the lives of Black gay men identifies experiences of oppression and exclusion both within the context of perceived heterosexism within Black communities and the broader society as well as the way these operate within the specific context of homophobia. 4. The vast majority of men engaged for this research were primarily of African Caribbean decent with the exception of one participant of mixed race origin with one parent originating from Nigeria One participant was born in the USA. 5. rukus! Federation’s amassed an extensive mailing list of over 500 individual and organizations created from participants attending a wide range of rukus! Federation events and activities across the UK and Scotland since 2000. The mailing list was used to identify men who attended the conference. Of the 70 men who attended the original conference, 25 were identified through the mailing list. Ten additional men were identified through word of mouth. These men were contacted and invited to 2007 ITOL Reunion event which consisted of a panel discussion with audience questions. 6. The event was taped and later edited for a film of the same title which appeared at the 2009 London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. 7. The rise of HIV and its impact represented the first major 'victim narrative' for LGBT communities since the high point in suicides just prior to the 1950/60s legal reforms. The Greater London Council started in 1965, provided an unprecedented level of funding for equalities work in the 1980s - including LGBT work although much of this funding did not reach BME LGBT people, communities and organizations.

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8. Amongst the ten younger Black gay men (age 18-25) interviewed, ideas related to coming/being out and engagement with the wider LGBT community men were discussed. 9. Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 was amendment to the Local Government Act 1986. It was enacted on 24 May 1988 and repealed on 21 June 2000 in Scotland, and on 18 November 2003 in the rest of the UK by section 122 of the Local Government Act 2003. 10. Although writers warn that the societal critique is usually limited by the dictates of the society (Turner, 1969).

References Anderson, Moji et al. “Liminal Identities: Caribbean men who have sex with men in London, UK.”Culture, Health and Sexuality 11 (2006): 315-330 Beam, Joseph. In The Life: A Black Gay Anthology. Boston: Alyson, 1986. Boykin, Keith. Beyond the Down Low: Sex, Lies and Denial in Black America. New York: Carroll and Gaf, 2005. Cant, Bob. Footsteps and Witnesses: Lesbian and Gay Lifestories from Scotland. Edinburgh: WordPower Books, 2008. Denizet-Lewis, Benoit. “Double Lives on the Down Low’. New York Times, August 3, 2003. Hemphil, Essex and Joseph Beam. Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men. Boston: Alyson, 1991. Hill Collins, Patricia and Margaret Andersen. Race Class and Gender An Anthology (5th Edition). London: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2003. Hill Collins, Patricia. Black Sexual Politics: African Americans. Gender and the New Racism. New York: Routledge, 2004. King, J.K. On the Down Low: A Journey Into the Lives of ‘Straight’ Black Men who Sleep with Men. New York: Broadway, 2004. Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider. Freedom: Crossing Press, 1984. Mann, Susan and Lori Kelley. “Standing at the Crossroads of Modernist Thought: Collins, Smith, and the New Feminist Epistemologies.” Gender and Society, 11(1997): 391–408. McCall, Leslie. “The Complexity of Intersectionality”. Signs 30, (2005): 1771-1800 McKeown, Eamonn et al. “Disclosure, discrimination and desire: experiences of Black and South Asian gay men in Britain.” Culture, Health and Sexuality 12 (2010); 843-856. Mills, C. Wright. The Sociological Imagination. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970.

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Mukherjea, Ananya and Vidal-Ortiz, Salvador. “Study HIV Risk in Vulnerable Communities: Methodological and Reporting Shortcomings in the Young Men's Study in New York City.” The Qualitative Report 11(2006): 393-416. Plummer, Kenneth. Documents of Life 2: An Invitation to a Critical Humanism. London: Sage, 2001a. —. Intimate Citizenship: Private Decisions and Public Dialogues. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003. —. Sexualities: Critical Concepts in Sociology. London: Routledge, 2001b. —. Telling Sexual Stories: Power, Change, and Social Worlds. London: Routledge, 1995. Richardson, Diane. “Constructing Sexual Citizenship; Theorizing Sexual Right.” Critical Social Policy 20 (2000): 105-135. Roberts, Brian and Riitta Kyllonen. “Editorial Introduction: Special Issue – ‘Biographical Sociology’.” Qualitative Sociology Review 2 (2006): 3-6. Roberts, Brian. Biographical Research. Buckingham: Open University Press, 2002. Simms, Delroy. The Greatest Taboo: Homosexuality in Black Communities. Los Angeles: Alyson, 2001 Stanley, Liz and David Morgan. “Editorial, Special Issue: Biography and Autobiography in Sociology.” Sociology 27 (1993): 1-4. Szakolczai, Arpad. Reflexive Historical Sociology. London: Routledge, 2000. Taylor, Bridget. (1999) “‘Coming Out’ as a Life Transition: Homosexual Identity Formation and its Implications for Healthcare Practice.” Journal of Advanced Nursing 30 (1999): 520-525. Turner, Victor. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Chicago: Aldine, 1969. Weedon, Chris. Identity and Culture: Narratives of Difference and Belonging. Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2004. Weeks, Jeffrey, Brian Heaphy and Catherine Donovan. Same Sex Intimacies: Families of Choice and Other Life Experiments. London: Routledge, 2001. Weeks, Jeffrey, Janet Holland, and Matthew Waites. Sexualities and Society; a Reader. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003. Weeks, Jeffrey. Making Sexual History. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000. —. Sexuality (2nd Edition). New York: Routledge, 2003. —. The World We Have Won. New York: Routledge, 2007.

CHAPTER FIVE TO BE JUDGED “GAY” LESLIE J. MORAN

Introduction On many occasions during the course of undertaking empirical research (Moran, 2006) on the sexual diversity of the judiciary key stakeholders suggested that sexuality is unlike other strands of diversity. In some respects this is true. In England and Wales, until 1991, sexuality was the basis for a bar to judicial appointment. A policy had been in operation only to appoint people who were married. Its avowed purpose was to avoid a “homosexual controversy” by excluding homosexuals from judicial office (Richardson, 1992). Anthony Scrivener QC then outgoing chairman of the Bar Council, an organisation that represents barristers, interviewed at the time of this revelation explained it was an “open secret” that candidates for most judicial appointments were rigorously vetted and that this procedure included their private lives. However, the institutional legacy of this ban was not the primary indicator of sexuality’s difference identified by the stakeholders I interviewed. That can be illustrated by reference to a comment made by a senior member of the English judiciary in response to the suggestion that sexual orientation be one aspect of the demographic data collected on the composition of the judiciary. It was suggested any such proposal would, to coin a phrase, “go down like a lead balloon”. The same judge speculated that men and heterosexuals would find the question most problematic. The reason for the “lead balloon” response was the judiciary would regard the question as a reference to, “part of their private life” and the judge added, that “raises all sorts of interesting questions about the extent to which the judiciary’s private lives are public property or should be”. Time and again sexuality has been described by key informants as a personal and a private matter – strictly extra-judicial. At the same time I was discovering that judges (almost always men and overwhelmingly

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heterosexual) quite freely make information about their sexuality available to the wider world. One context in which this information appears is the pages of Who’s Who, an annual volume providing short biographical accounts of England’s social elite, including the judiciary. The inclusion of details of the wives, husbands and siblings of the judiciary has long been the norm in that context. Far from being unauthorised, or the fruits of a salacious or sleazy tabloid exposé, this is information provided by the judge whose life and status is being recorded and celebrated. However, being in a commercial publication it could be said to be an example of, rather than an exception to, the idea of the sexuality of the judiciary as a strictly extra judicial phenomenon. Yet, the public/private divide is far from neat in this commercial setting. These self same biographical accounts interweave the supposedly private domestic lives of the judiciary with their institutional status. Does the same interweaving happen in more formal judicial institutional settings? This chapter draws upon some of the work I have developed in an attempt to answer this question. This chapter pursues the answer to that question by way of a case study that explores the formation and operation of sexuality in the judicial institution. It is a project that some might find bizarre, particularly for a legal scholar. It is a study of judicial images, and more specifically, judicial portraits. The particular subject of my study is images of Lord Justice Etherton, a judge in the Court of Appeal of England and Wales. The official announcement of his appointment to that Court in 2008 by the Prime Minister’s Office contains the following short biographical note; The Honourable Mr Justice Terence Etherton (57) was called to the Bar (Gray’s Inn) in 1974 and was made a Bencher in 1998. He took Silk in 1990, and was appointed as a Deputy High Court Judge in 2000. He was appointed a Judge of the High Court (Chancery Division) in 2001 and appointed Chairman of the Law Commission in 2006. —Mr Justice Etherton was knighted in 2001. (Number 10, 2008)

This biographical note is a form of what might best be described as judicial life writing (Moran, 2011). In a mere seven lines it offers a succinct textual portrait of a State official. It has a strong hagiographic quality, reporting and celebrating the excellent credentials of the new appointee by way of a chronological list of previous appointments. It fashions the subject as an exemplary individual and as a subject that by way of his professional career embodies the virtues of the judicial institution. There appears to be no reference to sexuality here. More specifically there is no reference to the fact that Lord Justice Etherton is a gay man. He has a long term male partner. On the 8th of February 2006 he

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and his partner announced their civil partnership in The Times. Drawing on work I have previously undertaken on judicial images more generally (Moran 2008a; Moran, Skeggs & Herz 2010; Moran 2011a; 2011b) and judicial portraits in particular (Moran 2008b; 2009) I want to examine two portraits of Lord Justice Etherton. The first portrait is a photographic image produced at the time the Honourable Mr Justice Etherton (then a judge of the High Court) was sworn in as Lord Justice of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales. The photographer is David Wimsett. He is a photographer with Universal Pictorial Press and Agency (UPPA)/Photoshot. UPPA, has been in operation since 1929. It is one of the earliest independent press photographic businesses in the UK. In 2003 it was acquired by Photoshot. The website of Photoshot describes UPPA’s business as, “the photography business of record for royalty, politicians and the judiciary, also photographing the...appointments of judges” (Photoshot undated, p.4). UPPA is described as one of a small group of agencies ‘chosen’ to represent these subjects by those responsible for these institutional figures. This suggests that the first image has the quality of being an authorised or ‘official image’. The second portrait, again a photographic study, has a different origin. It was commissioned by Lord Justice Etherton for possible use on a judicial biographical webpage that until April 2011 was on a website of Her Majesty’s Court Service. The format for the judicial biographical web pages at the time included both written text and a space for an image (see Fig. 5-1).

Fig. 5-1 Lord Justice Etherton’s Biographical Sketch (Reproduced)

The biographical webpage for Lord Justice Etherton as it appeared on the website of Her Majesty’s Court Service. No image of the judge ever appeared in the space provided on that page. The information was limited to a short biographical note. One objective of this study is to examine the aesthetic and artistic traditions used in these two portraits. This raises two closely related

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questions; how are judges portrayed and why? Connected to these two questions is a second objective, to consider how, if at all, sexuality is represented in and through judicial portraits in general and in these two examples of judicial portraiture in particular. But before addressing these matters I begin with a brief reference to Queer theory. I refer to it here as it has been an invaluable theoretical tool providing a number of insights enabling me to respond to these questions.

Public Sex Queer theory offers a number of useful insights. The first is that sexuality is a matter of “culture” (Berlant & Warner, p.548)-a “sexual regime”. It is a field of, “meanings, discourses and practices that are interlaced with social institutions and movements” (Seidman, 1994, p.169). As such, sexuality, Berlant and Warner explain, is always in play. It is always in public. More specifically, a requirement to be silent about sexuality is not the absence or disappearance of sexuality but rather a key dimension of its mode of public appearance and operation. Thus, the perceived and proposed ‘absence’ of sexuality from the institution of the judiciary needs to be treated with caution. Silence is a device by which sexuality appears in public and is one of the devices through which heterosexuality as the norm is reproduced in society in general (Moran, 1996) and in the institution of the judiciary in particular. Sexuality, including gay or lesbian sexuality, is not so much a troubling new addition, a threatening invasion, an inappropriate incivility or an irrelevant matter in judicial settings but a pre-existing, persistent and very public dimension of them (Moran, 2011a). The hesitations, refusals and silences I came across in my research on sexual diversity in the judiciary is evidence of the existing public sexual culture of that institution. Silence, absence and invisibility all play a key role in the public fabrication of the heterosexual as the privileged sexual subject. As the basic idiom of the personal, and the social, heterosexuality is fashioned as the unmarked. Heterosexuality is in some respects, like the air we breathe, a diffuse all-pervasive presence (a sense of rightness), but, at the same time, out of mind, unnoticed, unrecognizable, often unconscious, and immanent to practice or to institutions. The attribution of absence to the pervasive presence of heterosexuality plays a central role in linking certain qualities and values to that subject position. One characteristic attributed to heterosexuality as the unmarked is that of “a state of nature” which gives rise to a multitude of positive connotations. One is the link between

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heterosexuality and the ideal. Another is the assumption that heterosexuality is the very pinnacle of moral accomplishment (free from bias, the universal, not the partial). Queer theory identifies all these characteristics as part of a heteronormative regime. In that context, heterosexuality is a rather paradoxical phenomenon, always both present and absent. Thinking of sexuality as a regime or culture, rather than as an identity, requires us to recognize the diffusion of heterosexuality; it has no centre. There is no singular moment of operation or final moment of realization. It is fragmented, diffuse, inconsistent and contradictory. In a contemporary setting it may simultaneously be formally absent and formally present. At best it is never more than a fragile, provisional unity. No matter how fragile, as Berlant and Warner explain, we must still take seriously; “the metacultural work of the very category of heterosexuality... consolidates as a sexuality widely differing practices, norms and institutions” (Berlant and Warner, 1998, p. 553). The purported totality of heterosexuality, displays of its cohesion and singularity, not only seek to mask but also tend to expose the fragility of the category of heterosexuality. Its temporal and spatial diffusion potentially poses a major challenge: the increased difficulty of recognizing its forms of operation (Berlant and Warner, 1998, see p. 556). So how are we to make sense of the judicial institution in general under a heteronormative regime? And how, if at all, are non-heterosexual subjects being fashioned and represented in and through the judicial image in that context?

Judicial Portraits Various scholars have suggested that the study of judicial image making and image management is central to understanding of the nature of the institution of the judiciary (Baum, 2006; Haltom, 1998). While legal rules, such as the rules of natural justice and contempt of court, play a role in shaping and managing judicial appearance they are not the only, or primary, means by which the judicial image is produced and managed. The image of the judge is produced through a wide variety of cultural forms and cultural practices that include reported judicial writings, the geography of the courts in which judges perform their office, court web sites, popular print media, film, TV and portraiture (Moran, 2009). Formal judicial portraits are a particular sub-genre of portraiture. In part they are portraits of legal professionals and in part they are portraits of state officials. What impact, if any, does this have on the nature of these portraits? Portraiture of members of professions has distinctive qualities. It

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plays an important dual role: first in the (self) fashioning of the sitters, and secondly in the self-fashioning of the institution (Jordanova, 2000). Through these portraits the individual’s image is fabricated according to the abstract ideas, values and virtues associated with the institution and the collective. Through the sitter’s image these institutional values and virtues are made visible, public and more accessible. This plays a role not only in the construction and representation of the identity of the individual sitter but also, importantly, in the composition and construction of collective identities and of the identity of the institution (Jordanova, 2000, pp.14-15). Judicial portraits are also state portraits, a distinctive type of portraiture, being representations of rulers or their deputies. In state portraits the image of the individual sitter is fashioned by, and made to embody and thereby represent, a set of abstract principles, qualities and characteristics of the State (Jenkins, 1947, p.1) In the case of a judicial portrait the sitter is fashioned by, and made to embody and thereby represent, the abstract principles, qualities and characteristics associated with the constitutional role of delivering justice under the rule of law. So, the question then is, what do judicial portraits as state portraits look like? What aesthetic traditions do they draw upon? What are the particular values and virtues that inform these representations of particular individual sitters? How do they affect the sitter’s image? How, if at all, is sexuality represented in and through judicial portraits as state portraits? This brings me to the first judicial image: a photographic portrait of Lord Justice Etherton (Fig. 5-2, p. 67). First, the pose; this is a full face, three quarter body portrait. The body of the judge, not the face, dominates the image. More specifically the picture is dominated by the insignia of judicial office: a full bottom wig, a voluminous black robe elaborately embroidered in gold, a white lace scarf, lace cuffs, white gloves. The face of the sitter, the part of the body that perhaps most clearly differentiates one sitter from another and has well-established associations with character and individuality, is a very small part of the image. In addition the full bottomed wig obscures many key individualizing characteristics such as hair, the shape of the face, the ears and so on. His facial expression is one of calm contemplation with a gentle smile. Overall it is a composition that plays down the quixotic, the particular or the idiosyncratic. Last, but not least, props. There is only one prop in this portrait, books; row upon row of almost identical law books (Goodrich 1999). In this case they also provide the backdrop. Overall composition orientates the viewer’s gaze to the symbols of office that cover and frame the body and face of the sitter.

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Fig. 5-2 Judicial Portrait 1 (Reproduced with permission of Photoshot. Original in colour)

This is a portrait of Lord Justice Etherton that more than amply fits the description of official portraits offered by Charlotte Townsend-Gault; “bland…and predictable”. This is clearly demonstrated if you go to the Photoshot website and type “Lord Justice of Appeal” into the site’s search engine. The resulting images, over eight hundred of them, are almost identical to the one in Figure 5-2 above. Townsend-Gault goes on to explain that this often leads to official portraits being, “dismissed as vacuous statements and indifferent art” (Townsend-Gault, 1988, p. 511512) and on that basis largely ignored. But we should resist the temptation to dismiss these images as these official portraits can tell us much about the nature, meaning and formation of the judiciary and the judicial institution more generally and about the interface between individual and institutional identity. The aesthetics described above fashions the sitter according to a long established tradition developed to represent social, political and institutional elites in a society (Brilliant, 1981; West, 2004). In line with that tradition,

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the surface of the portrait of each judicial subject shows a preoccupation with the symbols of power, status, authority and legitimacy (Moran, 2009). The picture formats, poses, backgrounds, props and so on, form the subject of that image according to the enduring values and characteristics of the judicial institution: of independence, integrity, impartiality and majesty. The sitter’s public persona is made to appear as a subject selflessly dedicated to the word of the law. Likeness and individuality in the judicial portrait are produced according to the need to fashion the individual office holder as an exemplar, as the embodied ideal of the values and virtues of the institution. In this regime of representation the differentiation of one sitter from another is not an aesthetic preoccupation. The individual judicial subject is shaped by an aesthetics that produces the sitter’s image as the embodiment of the virtues of sameness: repetition, continuity and consistency.

Sexuality, Judicial Virtues and Judicial Portraiture What, if anything can be learnt from these portraits about how sexuality is fashioned in the institution of the judiciary? There are a number of possible answers. One is that the preoccupation with the judicial symbols of authority puts the sitter’s sexuality out of the frame: sexuality is missing from the image and the institution is made without reference to it. But queer theory draws attention to other ways of making sense of these institutional portraits. If sexuality is always public then sexuality is necessarily figured in these images as the unmarked, the absent presence of heterosexuality as the norm. A third response is that sexuality makes a more formal appearance. Under a heteronormative regime the values and virtues associated with the office and institution of the judge coincide with those attached to heterosexuality: the assumption and expectation that heterosexuality is the basic idiom of personal and social virtue, that it is the natural (unbiased) state or condition, that it is the ideal or the apotheosis of moral accomplishment, free from personal perspective or partiality. The identification and recognition of the judicial virtues in this image of Lord Justice Etherton is the recognition and identification of the institutional subject and of that subject as a heterosexual subject. But there is a need for caution here in order to avoid what has been described as the “illusion of immanence”: that all the meaning is within the frame of the image (Soussloff, 2006, p.5). In part, maybe in good part, the various approaches to representations of sexuality in this image outlined above come from outside the frame by way of the social, political and cultural context. The viewer brings a wide array of assumptions about

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the nature of portraiture and the thing portrayed into play. The form and meaning of the image is the effect of complex social processes and social relations. It begins with the exchanges between the one producing the image (for example, the photographer) the sitter and, where relevant, the party commissioning the image (Brillant, 1981). The location and display of the image (which also involve questions about the formats and forms of production and reproduction) and the various audiences viewing the portrait in a variety of locations all contribute to making the various meanings of the image (Pointon, 1993). For example had the portrait in Figure 5-2 been added to the biographical web-page (Fig. 5-1), the accompanying biographical text might well contribute to both a reading suggesting sexuality is formally absent from the portrait and thereby the institution, as a private matter, and at the same time a reading that takes (hetero)sexuality as an absent presence in the image. Close colleagues, friends and the partner of Lord Justice Etherton may well read the sexuality depicted in Fig. 5-2 in the same way but they may also arrive at a different meaning.

Fig. 5-3 Judicial Portrait 2 (Reproduced with the permission of Lord Justice Etherton. Original in colour)

A second portrait, commissioned by the sitter, is rather different (Fig. 5-3). The sitter now wears a dark blue suit. The jacket is unbuttoned, open, revealing a blue shirt and dark blue tie with a white stippled diamond motif. The full bottomed ceremonial wig has disappeared; his head and face are now fully exposed and distinguishing features are more readily visible. In short the traditional signs and symbols of office dominating the first image and obscuring the sitter’s body and face have gone. The overall effect appears to give greater emphasis to character and the individuality of the sitter.

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Another difference is in the way the pose engages the viewer. Like the first portrait, the sitter’s direct gaze and gentle smile into the camera’s lens, engages the viewer. But now the viewer is positioned at “eye level” with the judge; not positioned below, looking up, as in the first portrait. The viewer is also positioned with the sitter behind his desk. The use of props is also different. The one prop that appeared in the first portrait, the law book, is notable by its absence from the second portrait. Is this because of an absence of props or more specifically the absence of references to the text of law? There is certainly no lack of props. In fact there is an abundance of props. Almost all refer to the text of law. These take the form of office paraphernalia; a double desk, a book rest, desk lamp, computer screen, keyboard, mouse, printer. In the second portrait the image of the text of law has been modernised. It is no longer represented as a print based dusty tome. It has gone digital: law is now a paperless text. Another prop that refers to the text of law is to be found in the right hand of Lord Justice Etherton: a pair of reading glasses. The pose, dress, props and the position of the camera, behind the desk and next to the judge, work to create a portrait that emphasises intimacy not remoteness, and offers an experience of some proximity rather than distance and hierarchy, between the sitter and the viewer. How are we to make sense of this different aesthetics? Allard, commenting upon the emergence in the 19th century of the use of more intimate and informal styles of portraiture to represent important political figures explains that the emphasis upon the individuality of the sitter rather than the symbols of office expresses “democratic and bourgeois principles” (Allard, 2006, p. 82). The qualities and characteristics of the institution and the social status attached to the elite are not, he suggests, missing from this more informal composition, but are now coded in a different way. Status now has to be represented as using a certain discretion. It is now, “not so much [what] is shown as the manner in which it is shown that betokens dignity and exemplarity of the illustrious man” (Allard, 2006, p. 83). The sober suit, the engaging gaze, the character expressed in the slight angle of the head, and the face of the sitter. These now carry much of the burden of representing the values and virtues of the judicial institution. While the aesthetics are very different from that found in some traditional formal portraits of state officials the picture that results is still an image that needs to be understood within the state portrait tradition; a picture making tradition in which the sitter is portrayed as the embodiment of the qualities and virtues of the institution. The more intimate and informal second portrait is still an image of an elite institutional figure: a senior judge. If that is the case how, if at all, is

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sexuality and more specifically Lord Justice Etherton’s different sexuality depicted in this image? As noted above there are a number of responses to this question; sexuality is missing from the image and the institution is made without reference to it; sexuality is necessarily figured in the image as the “unmarked”, the absent presence which under heteronormativity represents it as heterosexuality. A third response is that sexuality is more overtly marked in some way. Is that the case here? Two props formally put sexuality into the second portrait. The first is the wedding ring worn by Lord Justice Etherton. It is prominently displayed on the finger of the judge bottom centre of the portrait. The second prop is a photograph. It appears on the desk, by the sitter’s right shoulder. It occupies a place on the desk commonly associated with family photos. But this image not only shows Lord Justice Etherton in full judicial regalia but standing next to him is his civil partner. Are these two props out of place, a rude and scandalous intrusion, into the judicial image? My research on the depiction of sexuality in judicial institutional settings suggests that they are not. In a slightly different context, official judicial swearing in ceremonies, in a different jurisdiction, not England and Wales but New South Wales, Australia, I discovered that all the formal swearing in speeches analysed, contained references to sexuality, both hetero and where appropriate, homo-sexuality. Their appearance was far from being misplaced, arbitrary or scandalous. In fact the references to sexuality were put to use to identify and represent important qualities of the judicial institution. Let me give one example to illustrate the use of sexuality in this context. It is a reference to (hetero)sexuality, the most common appearance of sexuality in the speeches I studied. It takes the form of a reference to the female spouse of a newly appointed male judge. One dimension of that relationship picked out by one of the swearing-in speakers was the judge’s devotion to his wife (Moran, 2011, p.275). This reference to devotion in a domestic setting is far from arbitrary or irrelevant to the office of judge. It is put to work to represent not only an aspect of the new appointee’s individual persona but also his official persona. Devotion is a virtue associated with the judicial institution. In this instance the judicial subject of the swearing in speeches is represented as the embodiment of a capacity for unswerving devotion; devotion to the law, devotion to justice, devotion to the ideals and practices of the judicial institution. In short sexual references are selected and put to work to represent ideal qualities of the institution. So the wedding ring and the

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“family” photograph that appear in the portrait of Lord Justice Etherton are props that denote and connote the judicial attributes he embodies. Again, there is a need for some caution at this point. Law and Urry point out that there is a need to resist the temptation to either assume that meanings are single or fixed. The meaning, they suggest, is produced, “in dense and extended sets of relations. It is produced with considerable effort, and it is much easier to produce some realities than others” (Law & Urry 2004, pp.395-6). The ring and photograph have to battle with other props to be read. When read they may be both simultaneously an “open” display of Lord Justice Etherton’s sexuality and “secret”, depending on the audiences who may well be viewing the image at the same time (Sinfield, 1991, p.50). Under conditions of heteronormativity the assumption of heterosexuality makes gay men (and one could add lesbians) invisible on the bench. Considerable effort may be needed to produce different experiences of reality. Justice Edwin Cameron a gay man who now sits in South Africa’s Constitutional Court, that country’s highest court, offered the following example of his experiences of the ongoing labour that crossing the ever shifting boundary from invisibility to visibility entails. The incident he described occurred during the course of his visit to London in July 2006. He participated in a meeting about judicial diversity with three senior members of the English judiciary. At the end of the meeting he explains: …the presiding judge, who was very courteous said to me as we were going to lunch, ‘Is your wife here with you?’ It was so funny because as I said coming out is a never-ending process. I had that trillionth of a second, not even half a second, of hesitation about, how do you deal with this? Do you say, ‘no my wife isn’t with me’ or ‘I’m not married?’ I said to him and I have to admit it wasn’t easy. I said to him, ‘I’m a gay man and I don’t have a spouse and I don’t have a wife with me.’ It was quite interesting and of course they responded very cordially and in a very friendly way….It’s more an interesting observation on the continual process of coming out. That one still, 24 years after coming out and 12 years after being appointed as an openly gay man in South Africa and a year and a quarter after publishing a book, one still has coming out moments. (Moran, 2006 p. 584)

This incident occurred some 20 years after Justice Cameron came out as gay man, activist and a scholar with an extensive body of writings relating to lesbian and gay human rights and HIV/AIDS, including the publication of his memoirs (Cameron, 2005). It offers an illustration of the ongoing labour that is required to disrupt the assumption of heterosexuality. Returning to the second portrait of Lord Justice Etherton, different though it may be, under prevailing conditions of heteronormativity the “open”

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display of Lord Justice Etherton’s sexuality as a virtue of the judicial institution may be much more difficult for some readers of this image to identify than for others.

Conclusion Portraiture and judicial portraiture in particular, offers a useful vehicle for examining sexuality in the institutional setting of the judiciary. It is the nature of portraiture to make visible and public the values and virtues of the institution. Judicial portraits are images dedicated to forming and showing the identity of the sitter as the embodiment of institutional values and virtues. In relation to my research on sexuality in the judiciary, portraits provide a means to examine the fabrication of sexuality as an aspect of institutional identity that is said to have no place in the institution. The analysis of the aesthetics of the two judicial portraits considered in this chapter provide an opportunity to examine how sexuality is fashioned both as an absent institutional presence and as a more formal sign of judicial virtues. My analysis suggests that there is no simple solution or answer to the challenge of sexual representation in this setting. It also suggests that it is important not to reduce the answer to an either/or. By way of challenging the illusion of immanence, my argument seeks to highlight the importance of the role of context, setting and social relations in the generation of multiple possible meanings in the institutional image. It seeks, in line with some of the insights offered by queer theory, to highlight the contingency of sexuality in the institution, its fragility as a regime of meaning. This provides an opportunity to re-read the traditional aesthetic of judicial portraiture and thereby what counts as values and virtues of the institution of the judiciary and legitimate judicial authority. That aesthetic can no longer be read as one that necessarily fashions the institutional subject of judicial office without sexual reference.

References Allard, Sebastian. “The Status Portrait.” In Citizens and Kings: Portraits in the Age of Revolution 1760-1830, edited by Sebastian Allard et al., 80-109. London: Royal Academy Publications, 2006. Baum, Lawrence. Judges and Their Audiences: A Perspective on Judicial Behaviour. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. Berlant, Lauren and Michael Warner. 1998. “Sex in Public.” Critical Inquiry 24 (1998): 547-566.

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Brilliant, Richard. Portraiture, London: Reaktion, 1981. Cameron, Edwin. Witness to AIDS Cape Town:Tafelberg, 2005 Goodrich, Peter. “The Iconography of Nothing: Blank Spaces and the Representation of Law in Edward VI and the Pope.” In Law and the Image: The Authority of Art and the Aesthetics of Law, edited by Costas Douzinas and Lynda Nead, 80-116. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Haltom, Wiliam. Reporting on the Courts: How the Mass Media Cover Judicial Actions, Chicago: Nelson Hall, 1998. Jenkins, Marianna. The State Portrait: Its Origins and Evolution, USA: College of Fine Arts Association of America, 1947. Jordanova, Ludmilla. Defining Features: Scientific and Medical Portraits 1660-2000. London: Reaktion Books, 2000. Law, John and John Urry. “Enacting the Social.” Economy and Society 33(2004): 390-414. Moran, Leslie J. “Judicial Diversity and the Challenge of Sexuality: Some Preliminary Findings.” Sydney Law Review, 28 (2006): 565-598. —. The Homosexual(ity) of Law, London: Routledge, 1996 —. “Projecting the Judge: A Case Study in the Cultural Lives of the Judiciary.” Studies in Law, Politics and Society 46 (2008): 93-115 —. Judicial Bodies as Sexual Bodies: A Tale of Two Portraits.” Australian Feminist Law Journal 29 (2008): 91-108. —. “Judging Pictures: A Case Study of Portraits of the Chief Justices Supreme Court New South Wales.” International Journal of Law in Context 5 (2009): 61-80. —. “Forming Sexualities as Judicial Virtues.” Sexualities 14 (2011): 273290. —. “Studying the Judiciary after the Cultural Turn.” In Social Research after the Cultural Turn, edited by Sasha Roseneil and Stephen J. Frosh, 124-143. London: Palgrave, 2011. Moran, Leslie, J., Beverly Skeggs, and Ruth Herz. “Ruth Herz Judge playing Judge Ruth Herz: Reflections on the Performance of Judicial Authority.” Law, Text, Culture 14 (2010): 198-220. Number 10. “Appointments to Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court and Lord Justice of Appeal.” Accessed July 6, 2011. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.number10.gov .uk/Page16744

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Photoshot. Photoshot: the world of photography on the web TM. Accessed July 14, 2011. http://www.photoshot.com/pdfs/photoshot_about_us.pdf. Pointon, Marcia. Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England. Newhaven: Yale University Press, 1993. Richardson, Colin. “Homosexuality and the Judiciary.” New Law Journal 31 (1992): 130-131. Seideman, Steven. “Queer-ing Sociology, Sociologizing Queer Theory: An Introduction.” Sociological Theory 12 (1994): 166-177. Soussloff, Catherine. The Subject in Art: Portraiture and the Birth of the Modern. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006. Townsend-Gault, Charlotte. “Symbolic Facades: Official Portraits in British Institutions since 1920.” Art History 11 (1988): 511-526 West, Shearer. Portraiture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Woodall, Joanna. Portraiture: Facing the Subject. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997.

CHAPTER SIX FROM CRUISING TO DOGGING: THE SURVEILLANCE AND CONSUMPTION OF PUBLIC SEX CHRIS ASHFORD

Introduction As Kinsman (2008, p. viii) has noted, our concept of “public” and “private” has shifted over time. When it comes to “public” sex, we are considering those physical actions that have traditionally been regarded socially and often legally as “private” acts, hidden from the view and thus, the immediate consciousness of others. To render these acts “public” – visible outside the private and personal membrane – is to therefore transgress sexual norms. The law has historically rendered such transgressions silent through criminalisation, and continues in this attempt today. Thus, any such visual depiction is to illustrate the deviant and the dangerous (see more generally Ashford, 2006, 2007; Dalton, 2007, 2008; and Johnson, 2007, 2010). Concomitantly, these visual representations also serve to evidence the continued operation of these activities, despite a transformation in sexual citizenship and an apparently more “open” sexual society that removes the rationale of “necessity” (see Couture, 2008), and in doing so is to give radical effect to these acts of continued sexual transgression. Indeed, these private acts in public places serve to challenge what Rubin (1984, pp. 281-282) described as the “charmed circle” of heterosexuality, marriage, monogamous, procreative, in pairs, in a relationship, in private, vanilla activity. Engagement in them is to embrace “bad” sex, abnormal, sick, unnatural, sinful sex, at the expense of “good” sex. In the same-sex context, seeking out sexual acts in public toilets – termed “cottaging” in the UK, and “tearooms” in the USA – has been well

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documented, along with the broader activity of cruising; the seeking out of sexual activity in the open, typically in parks and wastelands. These noncommercial spaces collectively can be classified as public sex environments (PSEs) in contrast to public sex venues (PSVs) or commercial sites, which would typically comprise of sex clubs, bathhouses and saunas, bookstores, cinemas and porn store “buddy booths”. Whilst these commercial establishments are regulated and legalised, the non-commercial are, in general terms illegal and illicit. The sexual-cultural operation of swingers clubs has been well documented as locations for commercial public sex desire among different-sex couples and groupings. However, there has generally not been a parallel activity pertaining to same-sex non-commercial venues. Although the construct of the “lovers’ lane” - a remote location for “courting” couples to drive to and traditionally kiss, cuddle and copulate due to a lack of alternative venues - has long been established, recent years have also seen the emergence of the “dogging” phenomenon. This activity (Ashford, 2012; Bell, 2006; Byrne, 2006) similarly revolves around the need for a motor-vehicle but in contrast to the “lovers’ lane”, which seeks to retain privacy although conducted in a space open to the public, dogging is about the public display, or viewing of a sexual act. There are a number of different aspects of dogging (Ashford, 2012; Bell, 2006; Smith, 2010) encompassing a couple engaged in a sexual act in public (often in or on their car) so that others can view, the viewing of a couple or participants, and participating in the sexual act itself – although this is typically directed at the female player rather than the male. Obtaining an appropriate ratio of men to women in the erotic habitat of the dogging ground is therefore important to the erotic play dynamic. Whilst academic enquiry has sought to understand and develop knowledge of public sex; the media have often used public sex to castigate sections of society for transgressing sexual norms (see Hennelly, 2010). O’Brien’s (2006) observation of the “Witchfinders-General” dominance of public discourse around Internet sexualities has similarly been applied in the context of cyber carnalities and particularly the emergence of the Internet as a space that public sex locations can be shared, discussed and promoted (Ashford, 2006; Mowlabocus, 2008). In the public sex context, that typically translates as a media-driven localised moral panic regarding the exposure of – previously unknown – dogging sites in a local community. Moreover, recent decades have been characterised by a desire to root sexual culture(s) in normative intimacies. The legalisation of homosexuality in 1967 was accepted on the assumption that there would only ever be two adults present at any sexual act, and that it would be conducted “in

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private” (see Moran, 1996). Homosexuality has been re-positioned legally and culturally within Rubin’s “good” sex paradigm (1984, pp. 281-282) and domestic homonormativity (see Berlant & Warner, 2000; Harding 2011). The re-casting of sexual desire by AIDS in the 1980s provoked a crisis over the framing of knowledge relating to the human body and pleasure (Watney, 1987, p. 9). The health crisis became a useful tool to re-assert the ideology of patriarchal heterosexuality and condemn promiscuous behaviour. The perception that gay men have “brought it upon themselves” was particularly acute in the context of public sex. In San Francisco for example – which along with New York had been the scene of the first AIDS cases – promiscuous behaviour became effectively re-cast as anti-social, and the city’s bathhouses closed in a high-profile move designed to remove sites of highest risk, and thus change the behaviour of the city’s homosexual men (see Bérubé, 2003). Public sex has consistently stood as a challenge to these notions of domesticity, intimacies and “good” sex. We have seen a fictionalisation of public sex, and construction of it as erotic stimulation in literature (Abby, 2005; Gordon 2007) and in film and television. We also see the visual depiction of public sex through pornographic “documentation” and pornographic erotic fictionalisation by amateur and commercial porn distribution channels. Where, in the case of dogging, there has been an absence of literature, the pornographic public sex narrative has been all the more important. This chapter explores the visual presentation of public sex through a variety of media including pornography and will consider how the representation of law and sexuality as cultural and socio-legal phenomena are documented.

Documenting Public Sex In 1970 Laud Humphreys published Tearoom Trade (2005): a project which had begun with the aim of discovering “where the average guy goes to get a blowjob” (Gallier et al., 2004, p. 27). The text was to become as authoritative as it was controversial (see Nardi, 1999), offering the first indepth study of sex in public places. He sought to document the sexual activities that took place in public lavatories, how they operated, and who the men of the tearoom/cottage were. He also exposed the role of law enforcement in this space and the tactics they might resort to in order to secure criminal convictions.

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Molotch (2010, p. 11) noted that “men do not simply have sex “in” restrooms; the facility and the erotic acts are intrinsic to one another”, and thus the un-kempt graffiti-rich dirty interiors of the cottage with its broken cubicle doors, glory holes and other ephemera serve to construct the erotic dynamics of the space. This is important in understanding subsequent visual accounts of homosexual public sex. Earlier accounts of public sex activity did exist – albeit in a less comprehensive and academic context. Paul Pry’s 1937 text For Your Convenience offers a coded tour of the cottages of London extoling the virtues of some public toilets whilst advising caution regarding others, particularly if frequented by the police. Law reports – those cases that were deemed significant and reported in official reports have provided accounts of gay men’s arrest alongside police reports of arrests that have survived (see Moran, 1996), and although these accounts whether from the cottager or their law-enforcement stalkers carry in the inherent biases that go with their role, they do offer a rich historic account of public sex. While these descriptions of same-sex public sex are rooted deep in the twentieth century and beyond, it was not until the publication in the British newspaper, The Sun, of a story exposing the “dogging shame” of a former professional footballer in 2004, that dogging was introduced to the mass public for the first time (Smith, 2010). The exposure of the relatively young and attractive Stan Collymore amidst cries of “shame”, and media narratives of danger to children and wider society (Hennelly, 2010; Smith, 2010) was to blend immediately glamour, desire and morality so as to immediately create a cultural phenomenon that was commensurately hedonistic and forbidden. The emergence of dogging gained further cultural space in literature such as Daniel Davies’s The Isle of Dogs (2008) and Abby’s Dogging: The Novel (2005) both offering textual documentaries of this phenomenon. Davies’s well-constructed text is particularly noteworthy for the key role that an attractive dogging footballer plays (clearly satirising Collymore) and also presents the central character – Jeremy Shepherd – as someone living in a small town with a respectable job as a civil servant, who listens to BBC Radio 4, daydreams about philosophers and thinkers and who just happens to love dogging. Glamorous doggers are mixed with the unattractive, the ordinary; the young with the old, and the erotic with the comical. Davies offers a comprehensive examination of the phenomenon through fictional writing, describing the initial encountering of a dogging environment, using the Internet to find other sites, the sensory experience of those locations, the sense of fragile community that can emerge and evolve in the dogging environment, and finally, the conduct of and

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attitudes towards the police. Whilst this fictionalised account of dogging was significant for offering an account of a phenomenon still being defined, Simon Payne’s earlier The Beat (1985) offered a gay male literature perspective on public sex, exploring Australia’s “beats” (cruising spaces and cottages) in the context of a queer bashing. In contrast to the new and exciting (with danger) phenomenon of Davies, Payne offers a darker, necessity driven account of homosexual public sex. From literature to films, to videos and DVDs and now, online streaming, pornography has responded to changes in technology (Slayden, 2010, p. 57), and with the emergence of “Porn 2.0”, taking advantage of ‘on-trend’ developments in social networking and sites such as Xtube. This explicit ‘pornified’ version of YouTube allows people to upload their own videos as well as copyright protected material (see more generally Mowlabocus, 2010). This amateurisation of pornography (see Kipnis, 2006) was to coincide with the dogging phenomenon, leading, perhaps somewhat appropriately to a voyeur driven cultural phenomenon being documented through a voyeuristic pornographic lens.

Pornography as Documentary? At the heart of these depictions is a belief that public sex is being presented as authentic, or real in some way. In contrast to the established narratives of pornography with its well known real narratives of the visiting plumber, delivery boy/fast food worker that are perhaps now seen as fake, public sex pornography – and particularly the emergence of the dogging phenomenon – served to create a new form of democratic authentic sex, the sex that you too could venture out and engage in. However, as we will see, as commercial pornography has developed, it has sought to (re)define public sex in as broad a manner as possible so as to provide new scenarios, new spaces and new commercial films. For, as Attwood has noted (2010, p. 240) “realness” can take on a range of diverse definitions accompanying a diverse set of porn texts. Despite these difficulties as to the nature of “authenticity”, it has long been noted that pornography has been produced in abundance in every historic epoch and culture (Roth, 1982, p. 2) and just as Greek sixth century BC vases now document homosexual relationships, so too might contemporary visual media, including pornography, be seen as documenting contemporary sex lives.

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Dogging Diaries and (Hetero)sexual Desire Dogging: A Love Story (2009) was an attempt to capture the new phenomenon of dogging in a main-stream film narrative. The film suffered terrible reviews with The Guardian commenting: “It's sleazy, tedious stuff, padded out with tittery voxpops quizzing passers-by on the term” (Shoard, 2009). The Telegraph added: “I can’t recommend this – it is entirely about grotty, voyeuristic sex in various Newcastle car parks” (Robey, 2009). Contrary to these descriptions, the film was far from pornographic or even erotic. It attempted to blend information about dogging with humour. Set in the North East England city of Newcastleupon-Tyne, the film follows a young aspirational journalist investigating dogging who happens to meet a girl and fall in love. It suggests a world of strange and quirky characters, unfulfilled evenings waiting for something to happen (a recurring theme in dogging cinema) and the superior power of monogamy and domestic relationships. This film itself had encountered a series of difficulties from other local authorities reluctant to be identified in a “dogging” film, and the film utilized actual dogging locations for the dogging scene (although it did not feature any actual doggers or dogging footage). The much more ubiquitous and popular visual recording of heterosexual public sex comes in the form of pornography. Perhaps the largest DVD dogging line is the Killergram series On a Dogging Mission. This series of films see the Don “dogging” Roobles travelling throughout England in order to record real sexual encounters in real dogging locations. As the series progresses, location signs, and occasionally verbal references are used to identify the location – and these locations are, on the basis of online listings, authentic dogging locations. In doing so, the films act as documentary and resource to those who want to practice what they are witnessing in porn. It seeks to authenticate spaces as dogging spaces at a time when online discussion boards increasingly avoid mentioning exact dogging locations (in contrast to same-sex PSEs, see Ashford, 2012). The films celebrate and revolve around the female performer who is sometimes shown travelling to dogging locations and is almost always seen waiting for the men to show-up and receive oral sex and/or to penetrate her. Sometimes this may be a sole male encounter, and on other occasions it can be multiple-men although typically their heads are not shown on camera and they are usually rendered silent, effectively their role is reduced to that of providing a penis. The men come in all sizes, and from what we can see ages. Very small penises along with average and occasionally large penises are utilised creating a “real men” layer to

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the films. The women vary in age and size too although there is a large number of women who appear to be East European rather than the English girls utilized in other films. Roobles typically acts as a narrator of the dogging scene, commenting on the weather (usually that it is cold), noting the occasional distant police siren, bemoaning the lack of men at some times, celebrating the large number of men at other times. These interventions not only offer to direct the erotic play unfolding, but also do contribute towards the humour of the dogging environment and the imperfect and thus apparently authentic sexual encounter. This general approach is reflected in the DVD series Pussystalker.com and The Pussy Prowler which both added the dimension of night-vision footage to create an increased sense of “authenticity” and were also website spin-offs. These films arguably do much to challenge the more orthodox “truths” of pornography with its enhanced breasts and big penises. As Klein has noted, pornography which presents the truth that anyone can feel sex, that many people love sex and “nice people” enjoy “nasty” fantasies challenged the dominant sexuality paradigm (2006, p. 253). Dogging pornography often pivots upon these very truths. Its premise on the so-called “ordinary guy” seeking sexual pleasure in public sex locations is based on the notion that these are respectable people engaged in private acts in public places. In the film Sexpose! Dogging, we begin with the crew arriving at the wrong site after confusion about the place-name. They then move on to the car park they should have arrived at. The scene serves no clear erotic function and could easily have been cut if it was genuine error–indeed, why record the conversation? The insertion of this “authentic” scene serves to insert a preliminary stage to dogging, just as Humphreys (2005) has previously noted the approaching stage in the cottaging context. This film deliberately seeks to expose the dogging phenomenon, and follows this opening scene with an introduction to “Ian”, the dogging expert. He is positioned sitting in his Porsche (instantly rooting dogging in wealth, choice, and attractive narratives rather than the dirty and anonymous environment that one might associate with same-sex encounters). It is also a high-profile vehicle that one is likely to recall – and render the owner anything but anonymous. “Ian” explains some of the dogging etiquette relating to flashing lights (signifying interest), the winding down of windows to invite other participants and the physical positioning of dogging players. However, the girls used here – in contrast to many of the Dogging Mission series – are young and attractive. After encountering a friend with a female companion (and a sex scene) the crew happen to encounter a lesbian sex scene in another car (which they allow to be

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filmed), followed by other swinging scenes on different days. The scenes –as with the other dogging films mentioned–position dogging as a male sexual fantasy. The end of the film moves to a couple who do not realise they have been watched by a “piker” or “watcher” who masturbates as they watch the unfolding action – thus introducing a further character and dimension to the dogging scene. Throughout the film we also hear ‘English’ accents – and this “Britification” has been significant in fuelling the dogging porn films. Other dogging titles include Real UK Dogging (1 & 2), British Dogging and British Pub Dogging, all positioning the ‘British’ brand as significant in defining this sexual cultural phenomenon. This “Britification” of dogging is also evident when it might not be explicit in the title. For example, Dirty Dogging describes itself as, “an all-British dogging fuckathon! British dogger whores can't get enough shagging in public places!” The film also reflects the need for pornography to move beyond the traditional conception of dogging environments – and instead presents scenes in a public toilet (which is very clean, and “studio” in appearance, a sex shop and a club. The series Dogging Diaries appeared to take this even further, applying the term dogging to any open air or apparently abandoned location so as to trade on the commercial interest in all things “dogging”, and in doing so perhaps blur our very understanding of the term. The growth in amateur porn (see Kipnis, 2006) feeds into the voyeuristic element featured in the above films and in the host of public sex websites which have emerged depicting couples of groups engaged in public sex in a series of open spaces. Publicbanging.com for example features scenes at bus stops, train stations, petrol stations and the roadside, all apparently in mainland European locations. Similarly, Public placepussy.org operates with the strapline “shameless girls carry out your outdoor fantasy” and features public sex scenes in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, at a café and in parks. These websites highlight the exportable nature of a broadly defined dogging phenomenon, positioning dogging beyond its traditional same-sex desire boundaries.

Documenting Same-Sex Desire In 2008 Nicholas de Jongh’s play, Plague Over England (2009) was performed at the Finborough Theatre, going on to the Duchess Theatre in 2009. The play offered a fictionalised account of the English actor, Sir John Gielgud’s 1953 arrest for importuning in a public lavatory. His arrest for “cottaging”, (also see Mangan, 2004) was notable for enabling

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Gielgud’s career to survive apparently unaffected despite it being a criminal activity at the time and providing a further high-profile homosexual scandal in 1950s Britain (see more generally Wildeblood, 1999; Cook et al., 2007). In the United States in 1964, the so called “Jenkins Affair” involved the arrest of Walter W Jenkins – a member of President Johnson’s administration – in a Washington DC YMCA men’s restroom. His arrest prompted concern and outrage, although a more blasé tone could be found in San Francisco based media (Ormsbee, 2010, p. 11). It was this narrative of scandal which traditionally defined same-sex desire. Tony Kushner’s landmark play – and subsequent HBO production – Angels in America featured Central Park as a scene for anonymous sex, and the space that Joe – the closeted Mormon character – phones his mother from to reveal his own homosexuality, explaining that he goes to the park “to watch” (Kushner, 2005, p. 56). Here, fictional writing reflects a history of shame and sex in the shadows. Chay Yew’s play Porcelain, first performed in 1992 depicts a murder in a public lavatory set against a background of cottaging and describes the silent exchange of glances to establish signalling and the graffiti to be found on cubicle walls suggesting the possibility of sexual encounters (Yew, 1997, p. 14). The posthumously published diaries of the playwright, Joe Orton (Lahr, 1998) offered the insights into London’s cottages of the 1960s, which were also depicted in the film of his life, Prick Up Your Ears. These largely dark themes were evident in perhaps the first mainstream visual record of cruising. The 1980 film, simply titled Cruising starred Al Pacino as an undercover cop investigating a series of murders of gay men who are patrons of New York bars and cruising areas. Such was the negative depiction of the gay community that the film was delayed and sent over budget following a series of pickets and protests organised within the gay community and suffered negative reviews from gay and straight commentators upon its release (Miller, 2007; Wilson, 1981). The film also perhaps marked an important turning point in dividing the gay community and providing a clear voice for those who wanted to reject a sleazy world, driven by leather imagery and public sex. Gay pornography however, offers some degree of alternative perspective. As Williams has noted (1992, p. 244) gay male porn is as prolific and long-lived as its straight counterpart, often revealing the “hidden” homosexual identity (Moorman, 2010, p. 161). However, unlike the emergence of series titles such as On A Dogging Mission or Dogging

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Diaries discussed above, there has not been the same development in homosexual public sex depictions. There are however, some exceptions. The controversial US-based bareback porn company Treasure Island Media (see more generally Dean, 2009) produced a film in 2010 directed by their “man in England”, Liam Cole. Wild Breed featured a scene entitled “Woodland Cruising”. The film, like the Dogging Mission series involved visiting an ‘authentic’ public sex environment; in this case, the well-known cruising ground of Hampstead Heath in London. Whilst the film celebrates the ‘wild’ nature of cruising, it is also conducted amidst open whispers and slow, careful manoeuvring through woods, still suggesting something of the secretive and shameful. Although the film begins in full colour and with blue skies, as the film moves to the substantive sex, we shift to grainy colourless footage, suggesting a strange combination of fakery and authenticity. Authenticity is however lent to the film by the unusual hiding of identities (other than our central character being followed by the camera) through the blurring of heads. The film has earlier been re-edited and released as a short art project entitled Nightcruising in a collaborative effort between Cole and Mark Lippiatt and shown at the Matt Roberts Arts Project Space in London, redefining the same footage as overtly “art” and “documentary” rather than pornography. The US based website outinpublic.com is one of a comparatively few number of same-sex public sex commercial websites. Like its straight counterparts, the site broadly defines public sex beyond the traditional cottage and cruising space. It encompasses public transport (often echoed in amateur porn on sites such as XTube), the supermarket, back alleys, building site, office and bus stop. Along with broad collections such as XTube, blogs and personal websites also offer spaces for people to place home-produced public sex material. Some sites feature footage of sex in cubicles and also secret footage filmed through “gloryholes” – holes in toilet cubicle walls – or under partitions, of sex in adjacent cubicles, or masturbation at urinals. This footage, non-commercial, freely available and often of poor quality is as important a documentary tool as the expensive well produced pornography of films such as Wild Breed. However, perhaps the most authentic record of same-sex public sex can be found in William E Jones’s art film, Mansfield 1962. The film was a re-working of a film called Camera Surveillance, produced by Mansfield Police in the United States, originally Sex Deviates and intended as an instruction film. Jones’s film removes the voice-over that was present in the original film and which Jones described as being as, “hateful a text as I

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have ever heard committed to film” (Jones, 2009). The short black and white film (it was originally in colour) features some staged scenes of the police revealing their hidden camera equipment and then scenes that they observed through their large hidden toilet camera. Thus, it is the erotic imagery, of men engaged in anal penetration, fellatio and masturbation that is ‘authentic’ in this film, revealing the furtive glances and sexual acts of men unknowingly filmed, and shot to document in as much detail their ‘deviant’ acts in order to secure conviction.

Conclusion Together with textual law reports, it is striking that it is not to the world of pornography, but the world of law that one must turn for a record of this cultural phenomenon. Yet, the Mansfield 1962 film is an art project, shown at small galleries and which has failed to receive the attention and recognition that perhaps it deserves. It sits alongside detailed textual explorations of same-sex public desire recorded in Humphreys’ historic Tearoom Trade alongside a host of other important literature produced principally in the 1970s by figures such as Delph (1978), Jacobs (1974), and Lee (1978) but these too are rarely consumed beyond narrow sections of academia. In contrast, pornography is a ubiquitous media. It, like mainstream cinema, reaches billions of homes around the world through traditional modes of delivery such as DVDs and magazines, but also increasingly through the Internet and streaming. Thus, it is perhaps unsurprising that the comparatively recent emergence of dogging as a cultural phenomenon has been so extensively visually documented in pornography. The twin engines of news media and porn propelled dogging into the collective public consciousness and explained it to newcomers, which along with growing Internet sites supported its rapid rise. Yet, having done so much to define dogging, porn began to apply the term ever more broadly and as Internet postings and media stories led to the new dogging community shrinking and becoming more insular (see Ashford, 2012). Fearful of locations appearing in newspapers, they are rarely revealed online (in contrast to cruising and cottaging listings) and at the same time, series such as On A Dogging Mission appear to have reached a natural conclusion. The porn and news bandwagon has, it seems, moved on. It has however created a lasting legacy of documentary of heterosexual public desire. Together with films such as Treasure Island Media’s Wild Breed, cinema challenges dominant sexual norms and moralities (see Smith,

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2010). These films, and their Internet fellow-travellers, present an alternative vision of sexualities. Notions that only homosexuals engage in public sex, or that it is a reflection of desperation, a lack of alternative venues are clearly dismissed in a very visual “public” way (echoing earlier academic work on motivational factors, see Church et al, 1993). These films also reveal a society actively seeking to re-define the space around them. As public authorities continue to regulate public space and define it as non-sexual (Casey, 2009), except in commercial terms, we see sexual citizens actively seeking to re-claim car parks, toilets, abandoned wasteland, picnic locations, lay-by’s and rest-stops as their own. As such, they document as radical a re-statement of sexuality as any worthy academic tome.

References Abby. Dogging: The Novel. London: Abby’s Books, 2005 Ashford, Chris. 2006. “The Only Gay in the Village: Sexuality and the Net.” Information & Communications Technology Law 15 (2006): 275-289. Ashford, Chris. 2007. “Sexuality, Public Space and the Criminal Law: The Cottaging Phenomenon.” Journal of Criminal Law 71 (2007): 506-519. —. “Heterosexuality, Public Places and Policing”. In Policing Sex, edited by Paul Johnson and Derek Dalton, 41-53. London: Routledge, 2012. Attwood, Feona. Porn.com: Making Sense of Online Pornography. New York: Peter Lang, 2010. Bell, David. “Bodies, Technologies, Spaces: On ‘Dogging.” Sexualities 9 (2006): 387-407. Berlant, Lauren and Michael Warner. “Sex in Public.” In Intimacy, edited by Lauren Berlant, 211-330. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2000. Bérubé, Allan. “A History of Gay Bathhouses.” InGay Bathhouses and Public Health Policy edited by William J. Woods and Diane Binson, 55-70. New York: Harrington Park Press, 2003. Byrne, Richard. “Beyond Lovers’ Lane: The Rise of Illicit Sexual Leisure in Countryside Recreational Space.” Leisure/Loisir, 30 (2006): 73-85. Casey, Mark E. “The Queer Unwanted and Their Undesirable ‘Otherness’.” In Geographies of Sexualities: Theory, Practices and Politics, edited by Kath Browne, Jason Lim, and Gavin Brown, 126136. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009. Church, Joseph et al.. “Investigation of Motivational and behavioural Factors Influencing Men who Have Sex with Other Men in Public Toilets (Cottaging).” AIDS Care, 5 (1993): 337-346.

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Cook, Matt et al. A Gay History of Britain: Love and Sex Between Men Since the Middle Ages. Oxford: Greenwood World Publishing, 2007. Couture, Joseph. Peek: Inside the Private World of Public Sex. New York: Routledge, 2008 Dalton, Derek A. “Policing Outlawed Desire: 'Homocriminality' in Beat Spaces in Australia.” Law and Critique 18 (2007): 375-405. —. “Gay Male Resistance in Beat Spaces in Australia: A Study of 'Outlaw' Desire.” Australian Feminist Law Journal, 28 (2008): 97-119. Davies, Daniel. The Isle of Dogs. London: Serpent’s Tail, 2008. De Jongh, Nichola. Plague Over England. London: Samuel French, 2009. Dean, Tim.Unlimited Intimacy: Reflections on the Subculture of Barebacking. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. Delph, Edward W. The Silent Community: Public Homosexual Encounters. London: Sage, 1978. Galliher, John F., Wayne, H. Brekhus, and David P. Keys. Laud Humphreys: Prophet of Homosexuality and Sociology. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004. Gordon, L. Sex in Public. London: Black Lace, 2007. Harding, Rosie. Regulating Sexuality: Legal Consciousness in Lesbian and Gay Lives. Abingdon: Routledge, 2011. Hennelly, Sean. “Public Space, Public Morality: The Media Construction of Sex in Public Places.” Liverpool Law Review, 31 (2010): 69-91. Humphreys, Laud. Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places. New Brunswick: AldineTransaction, 2005. Jacobs, Jerry. Deviance: Field Studies and Self-Disclosures. Palo Alto: National Press Books, 1974. Johnson, Paul. “Ordinary Folk and Cottaging: Law, Morality and Public Sex.” Journal of Law and Society 34 (2007): 520-543. —. “The Enforcement of Morality: Law, Policing and Sexuality in New South Wales.” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology 43 (2010): 399-422. Jones, William E. Tearoom. Los Angeles: 2nd Cannons Publishing, 2009 Kinsman, Gary. “Foreward: The Contested Terrains of “Public” Sex.” In Peek: Inside the Private World of Public Sex, edited by Joseph Couture, vii-xv. New York: Routledge, 2008. Kipnis, Laura. “How to Look at Pornography.” In Pornography: Film and Culture, edited by Peter Lehman, 118-129. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2006. Klein, Marty. “Pornography: What Men See When They Watch.” In: Pornography: Film and Culture, edited by Peter Lehman, 224-257. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2006.

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Kushner, Tony. Angels in America: Park One: Millennium Approaches. London: Nick Hern Books, 2005. Lahr, John. The Orton Diaries. London: Methuen Publishing, 1998. Lee, John A. Getting Sex: A New Approach: More Fun, Less Guilt. Don Mills: Musson Book Company, 1978. Mangan, Richard. Gielgud’s Letters. London: Phoenix, 2004. Miller, D.A. Cruising. Film Quarterly, 61 (2007): 70-73. Molotch, Harvey. “Introduction: Learning From the Loo” In Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing, edited by Harvey Molotch and Laura Noren, 1-20. New York: New York University Press, 2010. Moorman, Jennifer. “Gay for Pay, Gay For(e)play: The Politics of Taxonomy and Authenticity in LGBTQ Online Porn.” In Porn.com: Making Sense of Online Pornography, edited by Feona Attwood, 155167. New York: Peter Lang, 2010. Moran, Leslie, J. The Homosexual(ity) of Law. London: Routledge, 1996. Mowlabocus, Sharif. “Revisiting Old Haunts Through New Technologies: Public (Homo)sexual Cultures in Cyberspace.” International Journal of Cultural Studies, 11 (2008): 419-439. —. “Porn 2.0? Technology, Social Practice, and the New Online Porn Industry.” In Porn.com: Making Sense of Online Pornography, edited by Feona Attwood, 69-87. New York: Peter Lang, 2010. Nardi, Peter. “Reclaiming the Importance of Laud Humphreys’s Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places.” In Public Sex/Gay Space, edited by William Leap, 23-27. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. O’Brien, Mark. “The Witchfinder-General and the Will-o’-the-Wisp: The Myth and Reality of Internet Control.” Information & Communications Technology Law 15(2006): 259-273. Ormsbee, J.Todd. The Meaning of Gay: Interaction, Publicity, and Community among Homosexual Men in 1960s San Francisco. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2010. Payne, Simon. The Beat. London: GMP Publishers, 1985. Pry, Paul. For Your Convenience: A Learned Dialogue Instructive to All Londoners & London Visitors Overheard in the Theleme Club and Taken Down Verbatim. London: George Routledge & Sons, 1937. Robey, Tim. “Dogging: A Love Story.” The Telegraph, December 18,2009. Roth, Martin. “Pornography and Society: A Psychiatric View.” In The Influence of Pornography on Behaviour, edited by Maurice Yaffe and E.C.Nelson, 1-27. London: Academic Press, 1982.

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Shoard, Catherine. “Dogging: A Love Story” The Guardian, December 17, 2009. Slayden, David. “Debbie Does Dallas Again and Again: Pornography, Technology, and Market Innovation” In Porn.com: Making Sense of Online Pornography, edited by Feona Attwood, 54-68. New York: Peter Lang, 2010. Smith, Clarissa. “British Sexual Cultures.” In The Cambridge Companion to Modern British Culture, edited by Michael Higgins, Clariossa Smith, and John Storey, 244-261. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010 Watney, Simon. Policing Desire: Pornography, AIDS and the Media. London: Methuen. 1987. Wildeblood, Peter. Against the Law. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 1999. Williams, Linda. “Pornography on/scene or Diff’rent Strokes for Diff’rent Folks.” In Sex Exposed: Sexuality and the Pornography Debate, edited by Lynne Segal and Mary McIntosh, 233-262. London: Virago, 1992. Wilson, Alexander. “Friedkin’s Cruising, Ghetto Politics, and Gay Sexuality.” Social Text, 4 (1981): 98-109. Yew, Chay. Porcelain and a Language of Their Own: Two Plays. New York: Grove Press, 1997.

Films and Television British Dogging 1 (2007) Dir. Unknown. British Dogging 2 (2007) Dir. Unknown. British Dogging 3 (2007) Dir. Unknown. British Dogging 4 (2007) Dir. Unknown. British Dogging 5 (2007) Dir. Unknown. British Pub Dogging (2007) Dir. Unknown. Cruising (1980) Dir. William Friedkin. Dirty Dogging (2009) Dir. Unknown. Dogging: A Love Story (2009) Dir. Simon Ellis. Dogging Diaries: The Series (2005) Dir. Rob Stone. Mansfield 1962 (2006) Dir. William E Jones. Nightcruising (2009) Dir. Matt Lippiatt and Liam Cole. On a Dogging Mission 1 (2006) Dir. DiSanto. On a Dogging Mission 2 (2006) Dir. DiSanto. On a Dogging Mission 3 (2006) Dir. DiSanto. On a Dogging Mission 4 (2006) Dir. DiSanto. On a Dogging Mission 5 (2006) Dir. DiSanto.

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On a Dogging Mission 6 (2007) Dir. DiSanto. On a Dogging Mission 7 (2007) Dir. DiSanto. On a Dogging Mission 8 (2007) Dir. DiSanto. On a Dogging Mission 9 (2007) Dir. DiSanto. On a Dogging Mission 10 (2007) Dir. DiSanto. On a Dogging Mission 11 (2007) Dir. DiSanto. On a Dogging Mission 12 (2007) Dir. DiSanto. On a Dogging Mission 13 (2007) Dir. DiSanto. On a Dogging Mission 14 (2007) Dir. DiSanto. On a Dogging Mission 15 (2008) Dir. DiSanto. On a Dogging Mission 16 (2008) Dir. DiSanto. On a Dogging Mission 17 (2008) Dir. DiSanto. On a Dogging Mission 18 (2008) Dir. DiSanto. On a Dogging Mission 19 (2009) Dir. DiSanto. On a Dogging Mission 20 (2009) Dir. DiSanto. On a Dogging Mission 21 (2009) Dir. DiSanto. Prick Up Your Ears (1987) Dir. Stephen Frears. Pussystalker.com: The Video (n.d) Dir. Remminton Steele. Pussystalker.com 2: You Dirty Bitches! (n.d) Dir. Remminton Steele. Real UK Dogging 1 (2007) Dir. Pete Walters. Real UK Dogging 2 (2008) Dir. Pete Walters. Sexpose! Dogging R18 (2004) Dir. Hazza B’Gunne. The Pussy Prowler 1 (n.d) Dir. Remminton Steele. The Pussy Prowler 2 (n.d) Dir. Remminton Steele. The Pussy Prowler 3 (n.d) Dir. Remminton Steele. The Pussy Prowler 4 (n.d) Dir. Remminton Steele. Wild Breed (2010) Dir. Liam Cole.



CHAPTER SEVEN CISGENDERISM IN MEDICAL SETTINGS: CHALLENGING STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE THROUGH COLLABORATIVE PARTNERSHIPS Y. GAVRIEL ANSARA

Introduction This chapter focuses on cisgenderism. While some readers may be more familiar with the term “cisgender” as a classification for people who are “not transgender”, some recent research has used the term cisgenderism (instead of “transphobia”) to describe discriminatory approaches towards people’s self-designated genders and body diversity (e.g., Ansara & Hegarty, 2011; see also Serano, 2007); cisgenderism is increasingly used in activist circles by people seeking language that goes beyond notions of “phobia” to address systemic problems. Cisgenderism includes various forms of ideology about people with self-designated genders and/or bodies that are not strictly male or female. I use the term ideology here to describe systems of meaning constructed by and reflected in everyday language, gestures, other acts, and images in response to dilemmas of daily life. One form of cisgenderist ideology is the assumption that all people with selfdesignated genders constitute a universally and essentially distinct type of being, as when all people with self-designated gender are categorised as ‘transpeople’ and universally assumed to share a single “community” focused around this category, regardless of their cultural or personal context or self-identification. Another form of cisgenderist ideology is the characterisation of body diversity that is not strictly male or female as “disordered”, inferior, or undesirable. Numerous texts focus on theories of “identity”, while ignoring contrasts between cisgenderist ideology and our own understandings of our lives. As Viviane Namaste (2000) observed:



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Chapter Seven our lives and bodies are made up of more than gender and identity, more than a theory that justifies our very existence, more than mere performance, more than the interesting remark that we expose how gender works. Our lives and our bodies are much more complicated, and much less glamorous...They are forged in details of everyday life, marked by matters not discussed by academics or clinical researchers. Our lives and our bodies are constituted in the mundane and uneventful (p. 1).

Cisgenderism in medical settings impedes these otherwise uneventful tasks of living. Institutionalised cisgenderism treats some people’s genders and bodies as “out of the ordinary”, while simultaneously treating their oppression as ordinary (see Namaste, 2005). I examine how cisgenderism in medical settings can affect people’s daily lives outside of medical environments. I critique three components of medical systems that can perpetuate institutional cisgenderism: evidence-based medicine, feedback pathways, and consultations with community leaders. Next, I propose new ways to achieve genuine partnership between professionals and laypeople when designing medical systems and determining policies. I call this structural partnership collaborative system co-authorship because it involves professionals sharing with laypeople the power to co-author procedures, policies, care pathways, feedback mechanisms, and other institutional processes. After giving examples of these collaborative system partnerships, I pose questions to guide structural changes and challenge cisgenderism in medical settings. Formal academic research is often ill-equipped to capture the kinds of information that I present here. The personal narratives that follow were not structured interviews conducted as part of my academic research, but informal data that have been gathered from multiple contexts on multiple continents and from multiple experiential roles beyond that of an academic researcher. I use this information here to illustrate some of the current gaps in formal research: “data” that I have been able to hear and see in these contexts are rarely captured in formal interviews, survey questionnaires, or outcomes assessment measures. This chapter challenges the idea that most formal research fully captures all relevant “evidence”, provides a critique of how those “data” are omitted from academic research, and offers suggestions for how to address erasure and exclusion in research. All people who have been quoted here provided written permission to use their information, and all specific identifying details have been changed or composited as necessary to preserve their privacy.

 



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“The System Wouldn’t Let Them” Malik1 describes himself as “a 31 year old British Pakistani man of trans experience in a medium sized English city”. When discussing his medical care during an informal conversation with me as a health advocate, Malik said: I was having periodic abdominal pain and spotting for a few weeks last year. It had been several years since my last smear test, so I thought it would be a good idea to make sure there wasn't a problem. When I tried to make an appointment to have one, I was told that it wouldn't be possible, because my medical record lists me as male. After several minutes of insisting that it was necessary, the receptionist told me that the only way to do it was to change my record to female. If I hadn't been in so much discomfort, I would have just not done it, as I had in the past. I eventually agreed to her changing my record temporarily. So, I had the test and got the results, but then they wouldn't change my record back to say male. They said that 'the system' wouldn't let them and that I would need to be able to receive reminders to have my next routine smear. I started getting post addressed as 'Miss' and even pink smear reminder postcards. I was mortified, and the postman started giving me very strange looks. It didn't take long for my previously friendly neighbours to avoid me, and I was eventually getting harassed by local kids. I had to move to a new city to ensure that the rumours wouldn't catch up with me. My new doctor doesn't know my history. That kind of scares me, because I don't know what to do if I have a problem.

This misgendering system contrasted with the clinic’s official description as a “patient-centred” and “empowering” care facility. Written and verbal mispronouning (Ansara, 2010) in medical communication constitutes serious ethical misconduct that violates medical privacy legislation and accreditation requirements. Some critiques of cisgenderism in medical settings focus on actions by individual professionals, who are assumed to have sole authority to set policy. Malik’s experience highlights the authority that medical systems exert over individual professionals.

Cisgenderist Structural Violence in Medical Settings Malik’s experience with the receptionist is an example of structural violence—harm caused when societal structures and institutions deny people’s basic needs (Galtung, 1969). The term structural here describes how systemic inequalities are integrated into organisations and institutions,



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and the term violence describes how these structural arrangements harm people (Farmer, Nizeye, Stulac, & Keshjavee, 2006). Since 1946, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has defined health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (WHO, 2011). This definition of ‘health’ provides a useful frame for understanding structural violence. Malik’s experience illustrates that “health care” can actually damage people’s health when medical systems engage in structural violence. Several people who contacted me for assistance in my health advocacy role shared personal narratives of having to relocate for similar reasons. Many told me they withhold clinically relevant information from medical professionals or avoid the social health risk of medical care altogether due to privacy concerns. Medical professionals seeking to improve people’s health often engage in this form of violence unwittingly. Even with individual good intentions and practices, structural violence can be very difficult to challenge. Structural violence is deeply ingrained in how our societal structures function, and normalised through institutional processes that are part of people’s regular experiences (Gilligan, 1997). This form of violence often becomes an invisible and integral aspect of how medical systems work. Farmer et al. (2006) assert that structural violence can only be challenged effectively with structural interventions. Interventions to reduce cisgenderist structural violence must be informed by laypeople’s direct, personal knowledge of cisgenderism. This point becomes evident when we consider, “with few exceptions, clinicians are not trained to understand such social forces, nor are we trained to alter them. Yet it has long been clear that many medical and public health interventions will fail if we are unable to understand the social determinants of disease” (Farmer et al., 2006, p. 1686). Farmer et al. critique the desocialisation that occurs in medical contexts when health issues with biosocial components that include poverty and discrimination are treated as strictly biological. Thus, structural interventions must be informed by people’s own insights about how ostensibly biomedical interactions affect their physical, mental, and social well-being.

Authoritarianism in Medical Systems Authoritarianism has been defined as the belief that purely personal needs and values should be subordinated to group requirements (Duckitt, 1990). Medical professionals are understandably uncomfortable with the notion that authoritarianism has anything to do with their own organisational



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practices. Discomfort with this concept often stems from its association with right wing violence. Yet organisational strategies for assessing and improving lay people’s medical experiences typically contain elements of authoritarianism, and these forms of authoritarianism often inhibit successful structural interventions (e.g., Mayo, Hoggett, & Miller, 2007; Wilson & Kenkre, 2009). Malik’s narrative reveals authoritarian elements in a nominally “patient-centred” clinic. Duckitt (1990) defined authoritarianism in terms of collective group behaviour. Medical systems often contain core elements of authoritarianism: conventionalism— when medical professionals promote and enforce conformity with social norms approved by established authorities, as when Malik was told that “the system” could not be altered to meet his needs; authoritarian submission—acquiescence to the sole authority of established authorities, as when the receptionist accepted “the system” that failed to meet Malik’s needs; and authoritarian aggression— hostility or coercion directed at people perceived as challenging authorities or social norms, as when Malik was told he would be denied necessary medical care unless he permitted the clinic to engage in the harmful act of misgendering him. Mayo, Hoggett, and Miller (2007) discussed how external or centralised assessments often dismiss insights and experiences of individual professionals. Wilson and Kenkre (2009) identified how professionals’ own attempts to build communicative partnerships with laypeople can contrast with agency demands. In order to meet Malik’s needs, the receptionist and other colleagues would need to be empowered by the agency to make actual systemic improvements. Receptionists and frontline medical employees are rarely deemed competent to recommend or implement structural recommendations, even though these employees usually have far more direct exposure to laypeople’s concerns than practice managers or administrators. “Patient-centred” and “empowering” care cannot be achieved until those interacting with laypeople are allowed to make necessary structural adjustments.

“Evidence-Based” Medicine “Evidence-based” has become a buzzword to describe medical approaches that are considered legitimate. “Evidence-based” interventions in clinical medicine address topics ranging from HIV prevention to substance use, from cancer treatment to young people’s emotions. Sackett et al. (1996) defined evidence-based medicine as:



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Medical professionals whom I consulted when writing this chapter confirmed that this definition accurately reflects their understanding of “evidence-based medicine” today. This medical decision-making model overestimates medical professionals’ ability to identify people’s predicaments and preferences accurately from information gained during clinical encounters. Evidence-based medicine authorises professionals to speak on behalf of laypeople. As one retired health professional stated when we discussed problems with this medical model, “in the vast majority of cases, we do not speak for patients and cannot ethically (or objectively) substitute our judgment for theirs. Authoritarianism among professionals is a form of structural violence (which is not excused by being somehow well-intentioned).” Alexis, who describes herself as a “24 year old white, class-privileged, queer trans femme from Sydney,” Australia, exchanged private, text-based communications with me about her experiences, based on my health care advocacy and activist roles. During our communications, Alexis shared a common experience of feeling that her own knowledge would not count as “evidence” during clinical decision-making about her endocrine care: omg progesterone SUX!!! i took ALL the different kinds and they still fucked me up. i don't bother taking it anymore and i'm really happy. i've read a bit and heaps of trans women don't take it. but i've also heard from other trans women that if you go to a compounder and get natural progesterone it doesn't have the mental health impacts. (and i don't bother telling my endo i'm not taking it, i just say it's going fine and he writes me a script i don't ever fill).

Professionals have often responded to discovery of laypeople’s inaccurate or incomplete disclosures by advocating measures to ensure “truthful” communication. This response ignores systemic power imbalances that close off avenues for laypeople’s empowered communication in medical settings, thus leaving them with few options other than Alexis’s



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strategy of creative information management. Medical professionals typically have poorer communication with people from historically disadvantaged populations, and poor communication between medical professionals and laypeople contributes far more to health disparities than patient preferences or professional prejudices (Ashton et al., 2003). Medical systems perpetuate health disparities by failing to provide mandatory training in communication skills with people affected by cisgenderism. In the context of medical systems that often disregard laypeople’s insights, clinicians must actively encourage laypeople to collaborate or risk missing information necessary for quality care. When professionals failed to provide useful information, Alexis relied upon evidence from other laypeople about how to avoid negative mental health effects from progesterone. Many professionals who rely on evidence-based medicine have no exposure to these channels of information shared among laypeople, and thus are unable to consider this information during clinical decision-making processes. Even highly experienced medical professionals specialising in “trans medicine” can miss this vital clinical knowledge when gathering “evidence”. Training in cisgenderism-aware medical interviewing techniques is likely to result in more fully informed clinical judgements and intervention strategies. Sackett et al. (1996) note that definitions of “evidence-based medicine” continue to evolve and adapt, suggesting that new interpretations have the potential to improve the quality of what is considered evidence. Some researchers have recognised that the concept of “evidence” itself is constructed rather than neutral. Messing, Schoenberg and Stephens (1983) described how ideology can influence all aspects of the research process, including how research questions are framed, how studies are designed, and how results are interpreted. Similarly, Spanier (1995) has shown how gender ideologies influence descriptions and interpretations of “evidence” in molecular biology. Clinical interventions are often based on discriminatory ideology cast as “evidence”. Ansara and Hegarty’s (2011) quantitative content analysis of pathologising and misgendering forms of cisgenderism in psychological literature on children’s gender and expression, published from 1999 to 2008 inclusive, found that cisgenderism had remained stable; that mental health professionals were more cisgenderist than authors in non-mental health professions; and that articles by members of an ‘invisible college’ structured around the most prolific author in this research field were more cisgenderist and had higher impact than other articles. These cisgenderist research findings often determine medical approaches to young people



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with self-designated genders. Ansara and Hegarty described three decades of research in the pathologising field of “gender identity disorder” (sic): research has been predominantly limited to children seen only in clinical contexts wherein children’s definitions of themselves have been effectively erased. This erasure persists despite recent findings from researchers using participatory methods that children can be knowledgeable and competent co-researchers whose own experiences, perceptions and social agency are often necessary for successful health interventions (p. 15).

“Evidence-based” medicine typically relies on these strictly clinical accounts from the perspectives of health care professionals. These accounts omit lay people’s own insights about how existing structures can thwart their health needs. The World Professional Association for Trans Health (WPATH) is “a professional organization devoted to the understanding and treatment of gender identity disorders” (sic) aiming “to promote evidence based care, education, research, advocacy, public policy and respect in transgender health” (WPATH, 2011a, emphasis added). WPATH aspires to guide health care practices and research around the world through its Standards of Care (SOC) (WPATH, 2011b). In the past, these “standards” have determined whose information counts as “evidence”; many people around the world have been denied access to hormones and surgery when their genders and bodies did not conform to WPATH-endorsed psychomedical ideology. On September 25th, 2011, WPATH published the first new SOC since 2001. I discussed his individual view of the new SOC7 with WPATH Board Member Sam Winter, who noted that “the new SOC represent a major shift in the work of trans healthcare providers: from raising barriers to extending services; from one-size-fits-all healthcare to meeting individual needs; and from treating disorder to embracing difference” (personal communication). These SOC begin to address multiple structural problems in WPATH. SOC7 is also the first version to state explicitly that attempting to change young people’s self-designated genders to match their assigned genders is unethical. Numerous problems remain. SOC7 states that psychotherapy should not be required for people who are labelled “transgender” or “gender variant” to access medical resources for gender affirmation, while recommending psychological assessment before providing these resources to people whose bodies are not strictly male or female. SOC7 further embodies cisgenderist ideology when stating that “it is advisable for patients with a DSD to undergo a full social transition to another gender role only if there is a long-standing history of gender-atypical behavior”



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(p. 71, emphasis added). WPATH’s International Journal of Transgenderism routinely publishes highly cisgenderist articles that violate both the spirit of SOC7 and American Psychological Association publication guidelines for reducing bias in language (APA, 2010). SOC7 may consider attempts to change young people’s self-designated genders unethical, but current WPATH leadership includes several highly cisgenderist professionals linked to this unethical practice (see Ansara & Hegarty, 2011, p. 12; Winters, 2008). SOC7 also perpetuates cisgenderism by explicitly rejecting nonpathologising language like “intersex”, which is the current preferred terminology among people being described by this language. SOC7 even claims that WPATH’s use of pathologising “Disorders of Sex Development” (DSD) terminology to which “some people object strongly” (p. 69) is “objective and value-free” (p. 69). Citing a misnamed consensus document from which dissenting professionals and activists were excluded, SOC7 states that “the terminology was changed” (p. 69). This account ignores and silences extensive evidence from the many laypeople and health professionals who continue to reject “DSD” (WPATH, 2011b). Far from “embracing difference”, “DSD” terminology has been used to promote harmful and medically unnecessary infant genital surgeries that violate human rights described in the Yogyakarta Principles (International Commission of Jurists, 2007) and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, 1989). To fulfill the aims Sam Winter described, WPATH will need to make significant structural and policy changes that challenge institutional cisgenderism. Medical systems authorise professional researchers to determine which information counts as “data” and which will be dismissed as mere anecdotes. Cisgenderist erasure can occur when researchers apply these methodological assumptions uncritically. Consider “outliers”, people whose data are excluded from statistical analysis because they are considered too “out of the ordinary”. This practice can perpetuate erasure of people affected by cisgenderism. For example, one researcher told me that her study had multiple respondents who wrote non-binary gender categories on a demographic questionnaire. Instead of altering her analysis and future coding system to match the variety of actual participant data, this researcher informed me that she would be removing all of these respondents as “outliers”. Dismissive medical approaches to “outliers” can lead to health disparities. Clinical studies of congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) typically exclude people who identify as men or boys, assuming that all people with CAH self-designate as women and are raised as girls. Health



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research and social support resources for people with CAH systematically exclude these men and boys. As a result, many do not receive adequate medical monitoring for serious medical complications common among people with CAH. Similarly, screenings for testicular, breast, cervical, and prostate cancer are gendered by cisgenderist policies that assume people’s genders and bodies match up in particular ways. I served for several years as director of Lifelines/Cuerdas de Salvamento, a non-profit organisation focused on the needs of people affected by cisgenderism. As a medical advocate, I frequently accompanied our constituents to medical appointments. During one such visit, the layperson who had requested my presence counted six times that he had been misgendered by medical staff before he had even met the endocrinologist with whom he had scheduled his appointment. He asked me to share his discomfort with the specialist, since he felt “shut down” by medical staff in a supposedly safe place. The endocrinologist responded briskly, “Well, what do you expect? Only five percent of our patients are trans anyway!”

Feedback Pathways Feedback forms are among the most widely used measures to assess people’s experiences in medical settings (Evans, Edwards, Evans, Elwyn, & Elwyn, 2007). The experience of Matt, who describes himself as, “a 19 year old white British man from southeast England”, illustrates how existing feedback systems conceal structural violence: About four years ago, I decided that transitioning was the way forward for me, that I was male, and that I needed my body to be aligned with that. I spent about a year and a half considering the process of transition, making sure I understood the ramifications of the decision I was making, and that I was ready to make these changes to my body. I felt by that point I’d completed the vast majority of ‘emotional work’ necessary to transition, and was prepared to embark on the physical process. Following the referral procedure I’d read online (my GP had no idea what to do), I went to the local mental health team, and asked for a referral to a gender identity clinic. The local team decided therapy was the way forward, and I spent about six months discussing my gender over and over with them, “yes it’s still the same, yes I’m still a boy…” Being under eighteen, my only option was the Portman and Tavistock – the only clinic in England that deals with ‘gender identity disorder’ in children and adolescents. However, since by that point I was 17, there was little reason for me to be referred there – funding and appointments take so long to



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arrange that they might only have managed to see me once before I turned 18. I hung on another year, constantly attempting to persuade them to write a referral to Charing Cross Gender Identity Clinic, where adult services are located. During that time I got increasingly depressed, moved onto antidepressants, and started on depo provera, which is progesterone based, to stop my periods while I waited for testosterone. Well it did stop my periods, but it also changed my boyish androgynous figure into an hourglass worthy of a Victorian lady. When I turned 18, surely it would be time for my referral to be sent? No, another 4 months of waffling before my referral was finally sent off. It took me over a year to get an appointment. I begged to be able to start university on hormones. No chance. I looked into private treatment, but since I’d been offered an NHS appointment, the private clinic wouldn’t see me. By then I’d been living as male for two years, my name was changed, and I really just needed hormones to help me be better ‘read’ by society as male. The first appointment was an hour of talking, and I had to get blood tests and wait another 4 months for an appointment with a different doctor, who looked at my blood tests, all the results in the normal female range, and decided that since my testosterone levels were at the high end of the female range, I had to see an endocrinologist as well. Thankfully that went well, and I started hormones in February 2011, 3 full years after trying to take that step. Now the journey to chest surgery has begun. In all likelihood I’ll have to wait another year from now before that can happen, bringing it to four and a half years of waiting. And phalloplasty? God knows when the system will let me have that (emphasis added).

The systemic delays Matt faced had an impact beyond the medical settings in which they occurred, interfering with his entry to university, his social life, his body, and his mental well-being. Matt would have liked the opportunity to share negative aspects of his medical care with the gender clinic. His critical feedback was silenced by the design of the feedback pathway: Once at Charing Cross Gender Identity Clinic, I was able to give feedback on five points. I remember one of them was the quality of the reception service, and I remember one of them was to do with how involved you feel in the decision process about your treatment, but for all of them, all you can do is mark it on a scale of good to poor.



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Organisations often assume that lack of objection means satisfaction. Matt’s example is a reminder that feedback pathways rely on solicited feedback limited by the unequal power relation between people’s critical insights and the authority of medical hierarchies to determine which of these insights can be expressed through official feedback pathways. A community health centre in the United States responded to numerous complaints about insensitive medical professionals by creating a separate care pathway for people with self-designated genders. Newcomers were directed to a “trans health navigator” who was responsible for ensuring a positive experience at the clinic. While benevolent aims motivated the “system navigator” approach, some laypeople resented what they experienced as an invasion of their privacy or the imposition of ‘trans mental health’ services that they found unhelpful and unnecessary. Others were disappointed that medical professionals at the health centre continued to use misgendering terminology to describe their intimate anatomy. Many sensed that the system navigator’s job was intended more to manage their complaints than to effect meaningful change to the system being navigated. Several people expressed anger when their complaints to the system navigator were met with apologetics rather than structural intervention. This clinic’s status as an emerging “best practices model for trans health” suggests widespread ignorance about these problems. During one of my patient advocacy visits, I accompanied Tom, a man with a self-designated gender, to his medical appointment at this clinic. Tom noted his discomfort with the general practitioner whom he was told “sees all the trans patients”, because this practitioner was a woman and Tom prefers to be examined by another man. After significant effort, he was granted an appointment with a man on staff as a physician’s assistant. The separate pathway for people with self-designated genders meant that most of the clinical professionals had little knowledge of how to conduct a physical examination appropriately with “trans patients”. This clinician remarked about the size and shape of Tom’s genitals “compared to normal parts” (emphasis added), and described Tom using terms culturally associated with women’s bodies (e.g., breasts, vagina, clitoris, labia). While some men prefer these terms, Tom clearly stated that he wanted his chest, cock, and frontal opening referred to in that manner. He found this examination traumatic. When the physician’s assistant rebuffed Tom’s



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clear statements about his preferred anatomical terminology, Tom expressed resentment about being denied the authority to determine how his own body was described. The physician’s assistant excused his behaviour based on his lack of familiarity with “bodies like yours”, a deficiency enabled by the exclusion of ‘trans patients’ from regular medical pathways. Failure to provide laypeople with effective feedback pathways keeps health systems from being able to identify people’s unanticipated needs and make informed structural improvements. Marking people with self-designated genders as “out of the ordinary” while excusing and enabling professionals’ inadequacies perpetuates systemic inequities. Tong prefers not to be referred to using men’s or women’s pronouns, preferring to be referred to simply as Tong. Tong identifies as “a Vietnamese refugee from Thailand who is third gender and a traditional healer”. Despite Tong’s status as a medical professional, Tong experienced problems obtaining basic medical care as a layperson from the moment Tong was asked to complete the intake questionnaire: I had to put down all this stuff about male or female or transgender. I didn’t put transgender, because it doesn’t fit me. The nurses assumed that I am female. Then when the doctor saw me, she decided I am male. I am known for sticking up for myself, but I felt silenced by the system. How can I tell them, ‘I am me, Tong, I am not a male or female or transgender?’ I tried to tell one of the nurses, and he started laughing as if he was nervous.

This clinic had no existing feedback pathway to address exclusionary documentation, and Tong’s attempt to provide this feedback was met with nervous laughter rather than changes to the intake questionnaire. Tong’s feedback is important because it reminds medical professionals that quality care requires ongoing attention to seemingly mundane details: how medical forms are designed; which categories are acknowledged or excluded; which words are used to address new people upon first meeting; and which assumptions are made about people’s anatomy based on their perceived or actual gender. Tong’s feedback also illustrates how imposing culturally and linguistically specific terms like “transgender” can enact ethnocentric erasure (see also Namaste, 2000). Different people use words differently, and allowing people to self-designate ensures that clinical practice is informed by accurate information. As Tong’s narrative demonstrates, gender cannot be determined merely by evaluating people’s visual presentations or by using predetermined categories. Quality care must acknowledge cultural, geographical, and linguistic diversity instead of assuming that all people with self-designated genders have a ‘trans’



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identity or even that the constructs ‘trans’ and “identity” are universally valid.

Consultations with “Community Leaders” Mea, who describes herself as, “a Khmer and Black immigrant trans woman”, recalls her disappointment with community leaders who organised a national trans community gathering in a large city: I found out that the event was going to be held at the police headquarters. Now a lot of us in the trans people of colour communities have been harassed by police or know people who have been beaten up or threatened with deportation. The thing is that the police building, to get in there to where the event was going to be, you need to go through a metal detector and show your ID. Now you imagine how many trans people of colour want to show ID or go through a body scan. I mean, a lot of trans people have the wrong gender on their IDs anyway, even if they haven’t experienced racism from police. I knew a lot of people who didn’t feel safe going to this event. A friend of mine called one of the organisers to tell her how worried many trans people of colour were feeling and ask her to change the venue. Well, of course all of the organisers were white. This woman told my friend, “you aren’t the target population anyway”. So I guess we’re not part of ‘the trans community’ after all!

Some organisations elect trans activists and medical professionals with self-designated genders to serve in key policy-making roles, Unfortunately, these trans leaders and professionals are typically white, middle class, literate, and university-educated; they are rarely recruited from the most marginalised populations (Namaste, 2000). They are often as unfamiliar as other medical professionals with the experiences of people from diverse backgrounds whom they claim to represent. This ignorance often leads ‘trans community leaders’ to promote structural violence, as when ‘trans leaders’ at a community health centre embraced a proposal that would deny approval for genital surgeries to people living with HIV. In the course of my efforts to build contacts with local health-related organisations as a non-profit organisation director, people often shared troubling insights with me about the practice of consulting community leaders. During one such private conversation, a public health manager told me that he had been present at meetings at which several prominent trans community leaders consulting with officials from the regional health department had advocated denying hormones to anyone who did not identify as strictly a woman or man. Another health educator expressed shock when she heard several trans leaders at a senior-level policy meeting



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tell medical administrators they should restrict access to hormone blockers and hormones for anyone under 18. When ‘trans leaders’ endorse these exclusionary and discriminatory approaches, they harm far more people than they help. Most people harmed by cisgenderism are neither medical professionals nor activists. For the vast majority, living their lives “is not about challenging the binary sex/gender system, it is not about making a critical intervention every waking second of the day, it is not about starting the Gender Revolution” (Namaste, 2005, p. 20). Most do not consider themselves part of a community organised around their gender histories or bodies. Christine Burns, an internationally recognised Equality and Diversity professional who chaired a Department of Health committee on 'trans health issues' in the UK, documented how listening to people's concerns in their own words can improve structural problems (personal communication, 31st August, 2011). There is no substitute for listening to people’s own experiences in their own language.

From Authoritarianism to Collaborative System Co-Authorship Undoing cisgenderist structural violence means recognising that “the same normative valuation on impersonal, generalized rules that defines bureaucracies and makes them powerful in modern life can make them unresponsive to their environments, obsessed with their own rules at the expense of primary missions, and ultimately lead to inefficient, selfdefeating behaviour” (Barnett & Finnemore, 1999, p. 699-700). If we want responsive medical systems that promote health across all domains of people’s lives, we need to encourage people affected by cisgenderism to co-author these systems in collaborative partnership with medical professionals. Every single medical encounter must be recognised as an opportunity for structural change. Each interaction can contribute to reducing institutional cisgenderism. I have witnessed the powerful change these partnerships can effect. One community health clinic changed their forms when they realised that people were omitting key medical information due to the gendered nature of existing questionnaires (e.g., “if you are a woman, when was your last period?”, which overlooked many women who had never experienced menstruation and many men who did). One clinic created an anonymous, online feedback form; anonymous feedback led administrators to insist that their medical lab process test results without changing gender markers on people’s medical records. One specialist connected people with our



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peer support group when she recognised that she lacked knowledge shared among laypeople. Medical professionals Jody Rich3 and Norm Spack4 collaborated with me on a grand round at which I shared laypeople’s direct personal narratives with several hundred medical professionals and students in continuing medical education accredited by the American Medical Association. Our collaborative partnership led numerous professionals to transform their practices. Several contacted me to convey how the presentation would inform future clinical decisions.

Seven Reflective Questions for Medical Professionals Collaborative processes can quickly shift to reinforce existing hierarchies when professionals cease to interrogate their own assumptions and practices. Guidelines and standards of care that impose rigid and static rules are poor substitutes for critical thinking and empathic listening. Health professionals and organisations must continually question their practices and change ill-fitting policies. Initial questions will often lead to questions of greater depth and understanding rather than static answers; additional questions must be generated in collaborative dialogue between laypeople and professionals. I invite readers to initiate these partnerships with the following questions:



•

What assumptions do I have about the laypeople involved in my research or clinical practice, and how can I seek critical feedback from them about these assumptions?

•

Whose information and experiences are missing from my definition of evidence, and how can I include laypeople’s varied experiences and knowledge in my evidence-based practice?

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Have I sourced laypeople beyond activists or community leaders when asking health policy questions, including people with nonbinary self-designated genders and people whose bodies are not strictly male or female?

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Have I created safe and accessible environments in which nonactivist laypeople can communicate their views about health systems on their own terms and in their own languages?

•

Are these communication pathways equally accessible for people who may be Deaf, visually impaired, non-literate, night shift workers, undocumented immigrants, single parents, of limited

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physical mobility, rural, speakers of other languages, people whose voices and visual appearances are likely to be misgendered, reliant on public transport, and people who do not have private space in which to access phone or internet resources? •

Have I consulted people in health systems and cultures that differ markedly from my own regarding how my health policy or standard of care might affect them?

•

Have I asked laypeople from diverse demographics about possible structural inequities that my policy or standard might perpetuate or create?

Acknowledgements I am grateful to all people whose narratives appear in this chapter; and to Richard Ward; Ian Rivers, Israel Berger, Christine Burns, Peter Hegarty, Brian Kovacs, Allán Laville, Tucker Lieberman, Gráinne O’Brien, Freyja Quick, the LGBT Lives Seminar Series, and GayCon 2010, a national Scottish public health conference.

Notes 1. Pseudonyms have been used for personal narratives. 2. Josiah D. Rich is a Professor of Medicine and Community Health at Brown Medical School, Attending Physician at The Miriam Hospital, and Director and co-founder of The Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights at The Miriam Hospital Immunology Center. 3. Norman Spack is a paediatric endocrinologist at Children’s Hospital in Boston, founder of the Gender Management Service (GeMS) Clinic, and Associate Professor of Paediatrics at Harvard Medical School.

References Ansara, Y. Gavriel. “Beyond Cisgenderism: Counselling People with Nonassigned Gender Identities.” In Counselling Ideologies: Queer Challenges to Heteronormativity edited by Lyndsey Moon,167–200. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010. Ansara, Y. Gavriel & Peter Hegarty (2011). “Cisgenderism in Psychology: Pathologizing and Misgendering Children from 1999 to 2008.” Psychology & Sexuality iFirst (2011): 1-24. DOI:



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10.1080/19419899.2011.576696. Ashton, Carol M. et al. “Racial and ethnic disparities in the use of health services: Bias, preferences, or poor communication?” Journal of General Internal Medicine 18 (2003): 146-152. American Psychological Association. The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Washington, DC: Author, 2010 Barnett, Michael and Martha Finnemore (1999). “The Politics, Power, and Pathologies of International Organizations.” International Organization 53(1999): 699-732. Duckitt, J.H. “Authoritarianism and Group Identification: A New View of an Old Construct: Reply.” Political Psychology 11 (1990): 633-635. DOI:10.2307/3791671. International Commission of Jurists. “Yogyakarta Principles - Principles on the Application of International Human Rights Law in Relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.” Accessed November 29, 2011. http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/48244e602.htm Farmer, Paul et al. “Structural Violence and Clinical Medicine.” Plos Medicine, 3(2006): 1686-1691. DOI:10.1371/journal.pmed.0030449. Evans, Richard G. et al. “Assessing the Practising Physician Using Patient Surveys: A Systematic Review of Instruments and Feedback Methods.” Family Practice 24 (2007): 117-127. Galtung, Johan. “Violence, Peace and Peace Research.” Journal of Peace Research 6 (1969): 167–191. Gilligan, James. Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Lee, Peter et al. “Consensus Statement on Management of Intersex Disorders: International Consensus Conference on Intersex.” Pediatrics, 118 (2006): e488-e500. Mayo, Marjorie, Paul Hoggett, and Chris Miller. “Navigating the Contradictions of Public Service Modernisation: The Case of Community engagement Professionals.” Policy & Politics 35 (2007): 667-681. Messing, Alice, Robert Schoenberg, and Roger Stephens. “Confronting Homophobia in Health Care Settings: Guidelines for Social Work Practice.” Journal of Social Work & Human Sexuality, 2/3 (1983): 65– 74. Namaste, Viviane K. Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000. —. Sex Change, Social Change: Reflections on Identity, Institutions, and Imperialism. Toronto: Women’s Press, 2005.



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Sackett, David et al. (1996). “Evidence-Based Medicine: What It Is and What It Isn't.” British Medical Journal 312 (1996): 71-72. Serano, Julia. Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity. Berkeley: Seal Press, 2007. Spanier, Bonnie B. Im/partial Science: Gender Ideology in Molecular Biology. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995. United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. UN General Assembly. New York: UNICEF, 1989. Wilson, Christine and Julia Kenkre. “A Ward Manager's Toolkit for Service-User Engagement.” Nursing Management 16 (2009): 30-34. Winters, Kelley. Gender Madness in American Psychiatry: Essays from the Struggle for Dignity. Dillon: GID Reform Advocates, 2008. World Health Organization. “Frequently Asked Questions.” Accessed November 29, 2011. http://www.who.int/suggestions/faq/en/index.html World Professional Association for Trans Health. “Home page”. Accessed November 29, 2011. http://www.wpath.org/ —. (2011b). “Standards of Care.” Accessed November 29, 2011. http://www.wpath.org/documents/Standards%20of%20Care%20V7%2 0-%202011%20WPATH.pdf.



CHAPTER EIGHT QUEER COLLISIONS OF MEDICAL SEX AND CONTEMPORARY ART PRACTICE PAUL WOODLAND

Introduction The research for my doctoral thesis (Woodland, 2011) investigated the dissemination of the medical model of the sexed body from a queer perspective. This was conducted primarily through a form of case study at one particular school of medicine, which was contextualised by examining relevant content in factual books aimed at children and young people. Art practice was an integral element of every stage of the research process and the thesis consisted of both written and art practice components. The following discussion focuses on the artworks that were produced and exhibited as part of the final submission. As a reflexive practitioner I wish to declare my hand before I continue; I identify as queer, by which I mean that although I have a so-called “male” body which I do not wish to alter, I do not readily identify as a “man”, and although my sexual orientation is almost exclusively homosexual, I do not readily identify as “gay”. I see both as useful labels which I occasionally employ, but I am uncertain of them as descriptions of identity because of the cultural load attached to each term. This uncertainty is part of the motivation for both my research and my practice as an artist. The medical model of the sexed body can be characterised by two fundamental principles. Firstly, it presents two distinct kinds of human anatomy, the male and the female. These are differentiated primarily by the sex organs, or “genitals”, however, at its most extreme the anatomical differentiation can incorporate almost every part of the body (Glucksmann, 1981). Secondly, the physiological function of the differentiated anatomy,

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and by association that of sexual activity is understood primarily, and indeed almost entirely, to be directed towards the “natural” purpose of reproduction. Put simply, the model is predicated on essential dimorphism and a reproductive teleology. It is fair to say that the dimorphic and reproductive model of the sexed body is one of the major underpinnings of current notions of both gender and sexuality. Witness how we commonly separate things like public toilets or sports into binary groups that are based on a presumption of genital conformity and how this is disrupted by transsexuality and intersex. Witness also how non-procreative sexual activities such as masturbation, homosexuality or some heterosexual women's choice not to have children have been, and continue to be considered by some to be “unnatural”. The field of medicine often plays the role of arbiter of what is “normal” as we have seen recently in the so-called “gender-testing” of the athlete Caster Semenya, and this notion of “normal” is predicated on the dimorphic and reproductive medical model. Furthermore, when something is deemed as “abnormal” (i.e. that which does not fit the model), again it is the charge of medicine to rectify, or at least attempt to rectify, the situation, for example in diagnosing and then “treating” transsexuality and infertility. This pattern of applying the medical model not only reflects a dominant heteronormativity it also valorises what is quite a rare event, i.e. procreation, over much more common non-reproductive sexual activities. This could be said to sideline the majority of human sexuality. Procreative sexuality is further legitimised because the medical model is understood to derive from a scientific basis, and therefore is associated with the commonly held belief that science provides us with factual information about “nature” that is objective and rational, what Sokal and Bricmont call “naïve positivism” (1998, p. 183). As an example, the commonly used terms “biological mother” or “biological father” actually conflate a natural phenomenon, i.e. being the source of the gametes that gave rise to an infant, with a scientific discipline, i.e. biology. But the science of biology is not simply a report of the natural world-it is “bio-logos”-the study of life mediated by human beings. The seemingly axiomatic conflation demonstrates how engrained and intertwined is science in our ideas about sexed bodies, particularly what is deemed legitimate and “natural”. In recent years a number of theorists both outside and inside scientific disciplines, among them Ruth Bleier (1984), Anne Fausto-Sterling (1985, 2000), Bruce Bagemihl (1999), Joan Roughgarden (2004) and Mira Hird (2004), have destabilised such presumptions and conflations. However, the research that accompanies the artworks discussed here suggested that despite this the authority of the medical model of the sexed body is

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relatively intact. It is true that medical doctors are required to take account of the individual in ways that reflect social changes in attitudes to gender and sexuality (General Medical Council, 2003), and some medical educators demonstrate a similar awareness (Rondahl, 2009; Nicholson, 2002, Phillips & Ferguson 1999; Arnold et al., 2004), however these changes are couched in purely sociological terms and there is little evidence of a problematisation of the essentially dimorphic and reproductive model evident in anatomical and physiological discourses.

Becoming “Doctor” During a series of informal observations of learning sessions at the school of medicine it became evident that there was something of an unacknowledged dilemma facing medical students. This dilemma is presented in the artwork Medical Body/Social Body (see Fig. 8-1). The “medical body” manifests in the subjects of anatomy and physiology, which tend to be reductive, mechanistic, essentialist. The square regularity of the computer generated graphic element reflects a formal and contained certainty of knowledge mediated through technology that expands over time, but conversely focuses ever more narrowly. On the other hand the “social body” consists of a variety of other formal and informal configurations of the sexed body; individual social and cultural attitudes and ideas about sex, sexuality and gender sometimes referred to as a “hidden curriculum” (Phillips, 2009). The formal manifestation of this social discourse is in the teaching of clinical practice, where students learn how to interact with real bodies (for example in using an otoscope) and real, whole people (for example in taking a sexual history), but it also manifests informally in almost all the social interactions between staff and students. In the artwork the hand-drawn, roundish form implies a relatively informal irregularity that is shaky and changeable-shifting, expanding and contracting-and that is influenced and mediated by subjective experience and preconceptions about the bodies and lives of others. The observation suggested that the two sometimes conflicting forms of knowledge are completely interwoven in the teaching, often to the point of indistinguishability, however, the subjective elements, the “social body”, remain largely unacknowledged. By disentangling these different discourses and presenting them separately the work acknowledges the normally hidden element, but at the same time it names both and presents them in the same frame to make clear their association.

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Fig. 8-1 Medical Body/Social Body

As an outside observer, especially one from the discipline of fine art practice where subjectivity is not only evident but is an essential tool, the lack of acknowledgement of a subjective experience that seemed so apparent was something of a conundrum. However, a possible reason began to emerge during the observations. It became increasingly clear that during their training students become doctors not only through gaining knowledge and skills but also by adopting a set of codes of language, behaviour, attitude and self-presentation. The sequence of drawings entitled Becoming “Doctor” pt I (Figs. 8-2 a—f) narrates this development. In the first image the viewer is part of the audience of the lecture, but becomes increasingly excluded in the following drawings. The students’ process of “becoming” is signalled by the incremental appearance of the white lab coat, a feature that is highlighted by overdrawing onto the glass with white oil pastel.

Fig. 8-2a Becoming “Doctor” pt I

Fig. 8-2b Becoming “Doctor” pt I

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Fig. 8-2c Becoming “Doctor” pt I

Fig. 8-2d Becoming “Doctor” pt I

Fig. 8-2e Becoming “Doctor” pt I

Fig. 8-2f Becoming “Doctor” pt I

By the final and most controversial image (the images are normally displayed side by side, from left to right) the viewer is completely excluded from a cabal of white-coated and headless figures who seem to have fully become “Doctors”. I say controversial because when the work was exhibited in the school, the headlessness was of particular interest. As one member of staff put it, “is that how you see what we do here, turn out a load of headless morons?” The head, however, was intended as a symbol of individuality rather than intelligence, the headlessness symbolising a potential loss of identity, but one that is still indicated by the individual differences in the clothing that is covered by the students’ lab coats. This loss of identity could be seen as indicative of a shift in the self-perception of the individual – becoming “Doctor” could be viewed as more than just a career choice but also as a process of embodiment, whether consciously or unconsciously, of the role of a social archetype that is associated with professional distance and scientific objectivity and rationality and where the subjective and/or the social are denied or suppressed, an archetype

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formulated through the set of codes that are being adopted by the students. Is this part of the reason for the lack of acknowledgement of an evident subjectivity in the teaching of the sexed body?

The Medical Cabal Textbooks of anatomy and physiology are major repositories of the knowledge of the cabal of medicine and an essential tool in the dissemination of the medical model of the sexed body to medical students they were therefore an important component of the doctoral research. Attempts at Holism (Fig. 8-3) examines the visual culture of these text books, focussing specifically on discourses of anatomy. The work consists of a series of eight collages made up of photographic images of parts of the human body as they appear in the four main anatomy textbooks recommended at the school of medicine. The sources are made clear by using references to text books such as mounting the collages on paper and centring the male/female pairs to resemble open pages and by giving the title in pencil at the bottom of each. The collages form strangely distorted but recognisably human figures; each constitutes the most complete representation of the body possible by reassembling the images from each book. A number of features emerge from examining the resultant figures that echo the epistemological assertions of Medical Body/Social Body. Firstly, by using partial images taken from a compartmentalised discourse, the work highlights the reductiveness inherent in a scientific approach. Secondly, the individual images are reproduced to be transparent, a reference to the most recent manifestations of traditional so-called “flap anatomies”, an example of which is found in Solomon, Schmidt and Adragna’s Human Anatomy and Physiology. It consists of layers of transparencies that reveal various depths of internal anatomy and is described as a “window on the human body” (1990, pp. 32-33). However, in the artwork the expectation associated with transparency clashes with the visual experience of the work; the images on every layer depict only the surface of the body: unlike a “window”, access to the internal is denied. The clash raises questions about the veracity of a reductive anatomical knowledge based only on a non-contextualised physical depiction, a question that is further complicated by the use of a medium, i.e. photography, commonly held to document the “truth”. Furthermore, the work has an inbuilt three-dimensional effect created by mounting the layered partial images with space in between each layer. This means that regardless of where the viewer stands the collages never quite line up – the figures change with every viewpoint. By making explicit use of such a

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technique to highlight the subjectivity of perspective the work destabilises the presumed objectivity of the anatomical discourse.

Fig. 8-3 Attempts at Holism

The collages are arranged in four male/female pairs which reflect the dimorphic arrangement of information about the sexual anatomy in the textbooks. An evident bias is revealed by this; an image of a recognisably female body occurs most often only where it differs markedly from a male (e.g. the breasts and the genitals). To be fair, some text books occasionally use images of female bodies (and of non-white bodies) in other locations, but taken as a whole the visual culture is dominated by representations of the young, white, athletic male. This confirms what Carol Tavris’ reports in her book The Mismeasurement of Woman, about the findings of an examination of medical textbooks by a group of psychologists which showed that in general 64% of the illustrations were male and 11% female (1992, p. 96). The visual culture of the texts, then, is not just dimorphic, but privileges an idealised male as the generic human form. Alongside the inherent sexism and its attendant problems, this could also be said to reveal a basic flaw in discourses of anatomy that further undermines the apparent objectivity of the model – the problem of self-identification. Given the historically male domination of the discipline (Bleier, 1984, p.196), this generic body could be read as much as an idealisation of the

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bodies of the scientists and other medical professionals as it could an objective presentation of human anatomy.

Fig. 8-4 Attempts at Holism (Self Portrait) [detail]

Attempts at Holism (Self Portrait) (Fig. 8-4) is a related work that embodies the above critique. It is a collage constructed from photos of my own naked body that resemble the partial images of the source materials, but in this case rather than utilising a technique of layered mounting they are all taken from the perspective of my own viewpoint. The collage is assembled with adhesive gum onto the outside surface of a clip frame, which gives a sense of temporariness and potential for change and draws attention to the conversely definitive nature of the other collages. Taking the place of the white voids in the other collages, the clip frame is filled with photos of me from personal albums that are arranged haphazardly and are spilling out. These make visible something that is missing from the textbooks; while the images of the body in the self portrait may be imperfect as anatomical studies, they are presented in the context of a lived subjective reality – an individual life drawn in personal photos. Here is the dilemma of the medical student enacted visually; while the

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textbooks present an idealised, standardised, largely male, generic body, medical practitioners are asked to take account of the individual living human beings in front of them in all their variety. The work acknowledges and reinstates the subjectivity of the individual – both in the sense of the missing context of lived reality and in the subjective perspective of the body images. Following on from discourses of anatomy, the artwork Baby Machines (Work in Progress, Abandoned in Protest)[detail] (Fig. 8-5) focuses on discourses of physiology. The work is an installation consisting of a series of four unfinished automata, with tools of construction, left over fixings, drawings and other materials on and around a work-table. Also on the table are four textbooks of anatomy and physiology, two of which are open at the sections on sexual response. One of these begins with a reference to Masters and Johnson which is underlined to give a clue to the starting point of the work. Their first major publication, Human Sexual Response (1966), represents the first real attempt by scientists to investigate the physiology of the human sex act. Importantly for the artwork they used mechanical devices as an integral element of their research methodology (Roach, 2008, pp. 47-61) – the use of simple geometric shapes and basic mechanical forms such as cogs and pistons in the work refers to this, but also implies a more general mechanistic approach to the understanding of sexual activity. Masters and Johnson deliberately eliminated nonprocreative sexualities from their study, preferring to use married couples where possible (1966). Not only does this bias reflect the mores of the time, but it demonstrates a deeply ingrained belief in a reproductive teleology which still frames current discourses of sexual physiology. This belief is reflected in the nomenclature: the Reproductive System. In the founding scientific research and subsequent discourse on sexual physiology, non-procreative sexual activity and indeed sexual pleasure, seem to be subsumed in an epistemological framing of the physiology of sexual anatomies as “Baby Machines”. Each automaton has seemingly abstract yet deliberate scratches on the surface of the acrylic an explanation of which is provided by the gridded line drawings found on the cartridge paper on the floor underneath the table and by the remainders of sheets of acrylic hung on the wall behind. The drawings are hand-made depictions of four of the five types of sexual activity that Masters and Johnson investigated (1966, p. 21). The scratches were made by tracing the drawings with a knife, again by hand, onto each sheet of acrylic before it was laser-cut. They draw attention to the transparency of the material in a way that echoes the use of personal photos to fill the otherwise empty white space in Attempts at Holism.

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There is something missing here, something that is alluded to in the markmaking. The spaces that exist within the discourses of physiology are filled by unique, personal, hand-made responses, the traces of which remain even though they have been deconstructed and reconstituted as mechanical objects. The mark-making draws attention to the artificiality and constructedness of the discourses/automata and refutes the claimed objectivity and factuality of the accompanying textbooks. Perhaps sexuality in particular is just too subjective for the lab-coated “Doctors” of the medical cabal, and the reductive and mechanistic approach is a deliberate strategy to put distance between themselves as embodied human beings and an abstracted knowledge? Finally, the subtitle gives a clue to a very personal response. The work was “abandoned in protest” in a performative gesture of artistic political activism against a medical model that remains largely deterministic, denies sexual pleasure and nonprocreative sexualities and refuses to acknowledge the inherent subjectivity enmeshed in the discourses.

Fig. 8-5 Baby Machines (Work in Progress, Abandoned in Protest) [detail]

What the Doctor Ordered Why is a critique of a medical model relevant to those of us outside of the cabal of medicine? This question is explored in two artworks: Maquette for Pillars of Society (unrealised during the pursuit of a PhD) (Fig. 8-6) and Battlefields (Fig. 8-7). The first of these is a model of an imagined art space made of greyboard containing a proposed installation. This installation consists of a plaster pillar with a Latin inscription in negative relief, a slab of fired terracotta on the floor below it on which is a mirror image of the inscription in positive relief and finally prints on paper of the same inscription hung around the walls. The pillar seems to have been rolled in the terracotta and the prints then taken from it. The separate

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elements of the work recall influential histories, the traces of which are evident today and pertinent to the current discourse: Latin and Ancient Greek are root languages in medical terminology; the cylinder seal marks the birth of writing as a regulatory practice; and the prints on paper evoke the dissemination of ideas made possible by the development of printing. The inscription on the pillar reads: Homo spermas facit. Femina ovulum facit foetumque enutriat. Verpa thecam penetrat spermasque in visceris feminae deponit. Spermae ovulo certant. Victor ovulum penetrat utque fecundatur. Dein ovulum in infanto augescet.

Fig. 8.6 Maquette for Pillars of Society

Although it is not translated, this contains enough recognisable terms, such as homo, spermas, femina, ovulum, penetrat, visceris feminae, victor, fecundatur, infanto, to guess at the meaning. It is a simplified statement of the medical model of the sexed body that is sanctioned by biomedical discourse and authorised through the “pillars of society”. In the artwork the pillar stands as a kind of phallic symbol of patriarchal authority, but the use of text specifies this to Derrida’s notion of phallogocentrism, which he explains as “a certain indissociability between phallocentrism and logocentrism” (1992, p. 57). The focus here, then, is specifically textual dissemination – sex being “put into discourse” (Foucault 1981, p. 11) – and thus the discursive regulatory practices of a phallogocentric hegemony. This is echoed in the personal narrative alluded to in the subtitle, which came about during a period when it felt as if the visual practice was being subsumed by the textual requirements of the academy – the subjective and individual lived reality, essential elements of the

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practice, seemed to be in dialectic opposition to the required semblance of objectivity insisted upon by an authorised mode of structuring and language. However, rather than being petulant, the work actively embodies challenges to the phallogocentric authority. In the first instance this can be seen in the issue of scale that is intimated by the status of the object as a “maquette” enshrined in the title. On the outside of the model facing towards the approaching viewer is a lightly drawn human stick figure that is approximately the same height as the door into the proposed space and gives a rough idea of the intended scale, and particularly the height of the pillar, were the work to be realised. This gives the clue that scale is important to an interpretation of the work. The proposed height of the pillar is over seven feet, but the size of the pillar in the model is the upper end of the medical “norm” for the erect penis. The archetypal phallus is thus reduced to real-world proportions and in so-doing a link is re-stated between phallogocentric authority and the male, designated in medical terms by male genitalia. This echoes the generic medical body in Attempts at Holism. However, by the same token the authority has been “brought down to size” by the work. The “pillars of society” are revealed as simply human, with the fallibility and subjectivity that this implies. In the second instance the work also contains elements of a destabilising interplay of gender. For example, on first viewing the pillar is the masculine principle – upright, structural, architectural, civic; the terracotta slab is the feminine principle – prostrate, subordinate, earthy, natural; and the prints are the offspring of their union – each similar but unique. Yet the inscription on the pillar is in negative relief (sometimes referred to as a “female” in the workshop), which the terracotta “penetrates” in order to become a positive (sometimes referred to as a “male” in the workshop). This interplay destabilises the authority of the engraved statement of the medical model of the sexed body. Equally the deliberate use of a dead and largely unintelligible language for the text highlights one of the techniques of authorisation of the model – the deliberate obfuscation evident in the construction of a cabal of knowledge which purposefully excludes the uninitiated as we experienced in Becoming “Doctor” pt I. The whiteness of the pillar can be seen to make a link to the white lab coats in this earlier work, while the use of text relates to the text books of Attempts at Holism and Baby Machines. The relevance for those of us outside of the medical cabal that is posited here is in the perpetuation of a problematic model via authoritative textual dissemination that relies at least in part on an archetypal status for legitimacy. Further relevance is posited by the artwork Battlefields (Fig. 8-7), especially with respect to the application of the model. The work consists

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of a wall-mounted medical cabinet containing a series of spherical objects coloured in various combinations of pink and blue, in most cases in three separate layers of colour. Mostly in pairs, they are attached by clear acrylic rod to square mounts with a label underneath. In two cases there are no spherical objects but rather a single flat circle of clear plastic with just two layer of colour.

Fig. 8-7 Battlefields

The labels are predominantly the names of intersex conditions, now referred to as DSDs or disorders of sexual development, i.e. where an aspect of the sexual anatomy of an individual does not conform to the dimorphic model, conditions that are usually deemed “abnormal” and subsequently medicalised and pathologised. The label gives the name of the condition, the most common genetic karyotype of a person with that condition (i.e. an alpha-numeric representation of the number and form of the chromosomes, e.g. 46XX) and also a code letter. At the bottom of the cabinet a key explains that the code designates genital, gonadal or genetic abnormalities. The cabinet is arranged into two separate groups on a light pink and light blue back-plate respectively and whilst the colour of the objects corresponds predominantly to the back-plate, this is not entirely the case. Importantly, the door to the cabinet remains slightly open. As in the previous work, the simulated medical cabinet with its attendant connotations of objectivity and hierarchy relates to the notion of authority – the transparent doors are a barrier between “us” and “them”, the viewer and the viewed. The reference to authority is also evident in the use of text and particularly in the choice (where it existed) of a nomenclature derived from an individual so-called “expert’s” name (for

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example Turner’s Syndrome or Noonan’s Syndrome). However the title of the work suggests some kind of conflict. With the technological and epistemological development of the medical gaze the site of the diagnosis of sex has shifted: from the gross visual, (external and internal genitalia); to the microscopic (gonadal tissues and gametes); to the current site at the sub-microscopic level of genetics. The three layers of colour in the objects are symbolic representations of the three visual sites of external, internal and gonadal sex, while the notional site, the genetic karyotype, is given on the label. The resulting visual complexity that confronts the viewer undermines the simplistic dimorphism of the medical model and this leads to questions about its validity and its authority in particular in the way that it is applied in pathologising non-conforming bodies. The act of pathologisation can be read as an acknowledgement of variation, but at the same time as an attempt to account for it in a way that still maintains the authority it would otherwise challenge – the object/condition is placed within the cabinet. However, the relationship between intersex/DSD and medicine is not so straightforward. Dreger (1998) postulates that hermaphroditism (an older related term), i.e. sexual “abnormality” was central to defining “normal” sex in the nineteenth century and this idea is important in the experience of Battlefields – the open door disrupts the simplistic binary of “us” and “them” by allowing interrelation between the inner and outer. This disruption is concretised by the “normal male” and “normal female” found within the alphabetic categorisation of somatic variation within the cabinet. One of the most important visual metaphors in the work is the use of the gender-specific colours pink and blue, markers derived not from science but from current cultural/social proscription. This relates to Judith Butler's assertion that our notions about sex come through gender, not vice versa, i.e. they are socially and/or culturally constructed (1990, p. 7). This assertion is just as relevant to a specifically medical discourse, as demonstrated through many of the existing critiques. It destabilises a belief in scientific objectivity by reminding us that scientists are also embodied and embedded within society and culture. The use of social markers also expands the possible reading of the work to include other kinds of sexual variation, so that a challenge to the notion of essential anatomical dimorphism could also be seen to encompass any nondimorphic, non-reproductive configuration of the sexed body. Furthermore, it can be seen to offer a response to the automatic pathologisation of nonconforming bodies – a holistic continuum of “sex” which has the potential for complexity and diversity at each juncture, braiding together the medical and the social, the somatic and the symbolic, sexual activities and

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anatomies. The work argues that there is a need for a point of view based on the naturally occurring diversity of sexed bodies and sexual activities, rather than the pathologisation of bodies that do not conform to the dimorphic and reproductive norms of the authoritative and seemingly axiomatic medical model. The intention here is that every possible configuration of the somatic sexed body (and by implication gender and sexuality) is represented within the cabinet, reflecting any possible configuration in the viewers outside of the cabinet. But more than this, every viewer is empowered with the choice to open the door.

Artist as Interlocutor Critique of various aspects of the medical model of the sexed body is not new. What is different here is the use of contemporary art practice as a mode of dissemination. The question arises as to how might this be particularly valuable? Artworks function very differently to textual critiques in ways that could be particularly relevant to the issues of sex, sexuality and gender. To begin with, art objects come into the public domain in different ways to text, and whether it is via exhibition, publication, presentations or representation, this enables dissemination of critical discourses to a different, non-academic audience. It also capitalises on the current interest in contemporary art in a growing section of the public, making it an effective tool for public engagement: particularly so given the current trend for “interpretation” in exhibitions (i.e. providing supporting written information to assist the viewer in approaching a work), which gives the artist an opportunity to elaborate some of the ideas. The value of using art practice can also be related to the social role of its maker, i.e. the artist, which for Graeme Sullivan is as a cultural lamplighter, human visionary and educator (2005, p. xviii), while Lucy Lippard makes an association with shamanism (1983, p. 47). Traditional shamans made journeys into the “other realms” where they communicated with the spirits that dwell there; both notions are closely allied to the Jungian concepts of the collective unconscious and the archetypes that inhabit it (1991), which inform some of the conclusions of the research here. The shaman’s role was to bring back important information to educate or shed light on a situation – Sullivan's view and Lippard’s analogy suggest that artists can be seen to play a similar role. The artist Karen Ingham makes a point about the privileged access she was able to gain into dissecting suites specifically because she was an artist (2004), it is debatable whether the same access would have been permitted to others;

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like the shaman, then, the artist has the ability to enter different realms. In the example presented here these realms could be characterised as those of essentialism and relativism, positivism and constructionism, the cabal of medicine and a lay audience. However, the artist may not fully inhabit these realms, but rather could be said to sit at an interface between them, from which unique perspective they can act as an interlocutor, translating and re-presenting information from both in the visual language of art practice. The artworks here emerge from an examination of disseminated medical discourse, but one that implicates and informs lived realities in a much larger context; translating into the visual allows the work to speak to both those within the realm of medicine and a broader lay audience. Finally, dissemination through practice makes use of art's social context as being inherently subjective. Indeed when negotiating my entry into the school of medicine I was told that one of the reasons they were keen on the idea was that an artist would bring a 'much needed subjective perspective'. The research uncovered some of the subjectivities currently evident in the dissemination of an essentialist, reductive and mechanistic medical model that views the sexed body solely in dimorphic and reproductive terms, and that derives its authority at least in part from an assumption that the underpinning science is rational and objective. In so doing it demonstrated what has been postulated by others, namely that sex, sexuality and gender are uniquely subjective issues in which such claims are readily contestable. To disseminate findings through the medium of art practice, however, is to not only refute the objectivity and authority of medical discourses, but to powerfully and firmly locate that refutation within a counter-context of subjectivity and ambiguity. The artworks interweave the findings and conclusions of the research with symbolic references and subjective elements to form a visual gestalt that not only represents information in new and sometimes revealing ways, but also places the subjective experience at the centre of meaning-making. Unlike some textual dissemination, meaning in contemporary art is neither explicit nor didactic; artworks have multiple entry points and the primacy of meaning ultimately lies with the viewer. This is especially pertinent given the nature of the critique here. Furthermore the use of art practice radically alters the nature of that critique. No longer does the research simply analyse and criticise, but through the practice it actively embodies and enacts those critiques in visual form. As such, the findings of research can to be seen to become a kind of art activism – making interventions into the dissemination of the medical model of the sexed body that attempt to actively disrupt the knowledge structures and mechanisms of authority upon which it is based.

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What became evident through the course of research was the continuing influence of the medical model in social discourses of sex, sexuality and gender, the practice discussed here presents a novel and potentially effective way to continue to bring critiques into the public domain.

References Arnold, Oliver et al. “Austrian Medical Students' Attitudes Towards Male and Female Homosexuality: a Comparative Survey.” Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift 116 (2004): 730-736. Bagemihl, Bruce. Biological Exuberance. Great Britain: Profile Books, 1999. Bleier, Ruth. Science and Gender: A Critique of Biology and its Theories on Women. New York: Pergamon, 1984. Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge, 1990 Derrida, Jacques. Acts of Literature. New York: Routledge, 1992 (1989). Dreger, Alice D. Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex. Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1998. Fausto-Sterling, Anne. Myths of Gender: Biological Theories about Women and Men. New York: Basic Books, 1985. Fausto-Sterling, Anne. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. New York: Basic Books, 2000. Foucault, Michel. The Will to Knowledge, History of Sexuality Vol. 1. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981. General Medical Council.“Tomorrow's Doctors.” Accessed January 17, 2010. http://www.gmc-uk.org/education/undergraduate/tomorrows_ doctors_2003.asp#indiv_ Glucksmann, Alfred. Sexual Dimorphism in Human and Mammalian Biology and Pathology. London: Academic Press, 1981. Hird, Myra J. Sex, Gender and Science. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Ingham, Karen. Anatomy Lessons. Stockport: Dewi Lewis Publishing, 2004 Jung, Carl G. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. London: Routledge, 1991 (1968). Lippard, Lucy. Overlay: Contemporary Art and the Art of Prehistory. New York: The New Press, 1983. Masters, William. H., and Virginia E. Johnson. Human Sexual Response. London: Churchill, 1966. Nicholson, Sandra. (2002) “'So you row, do you? You don't look like a

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rower.' An account of medical students' experience of sexism.” Medical Education 36 (2002): 11. Phillips, Christine B. “Student portfolios and the hidden curriculum on gender: mapping exclusion.” Medical Education 43 (2009): 847-853. Phillips, Susan P., and Karen E. Ferguson. “Do students' attitudes toward women change during medical school?” Canadian Medical Association Journal 160 (1999): 357-361. Roach, Mary. Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Sex and Science. Edinburgh: Canongate, 2008. Rondahl, Gerd. “Students inadequate knowledge about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons.” International Journal of Nursing Education Scholarship 6 (2009): Article 11. Roughgarden, Joan. Evolution's Rainbow; Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Sokal, Alan, and Jean Bricmont. Fashionable Nonsense. New York: Picador, 1998. Solomon, Eldra P., Richard R., Schmidt, and Peter J. Adragna. Human Anatomy and Physiology. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1990. Sullivan, Graeme. Art Practice as Research. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage, 2005. Tavris, C. The Mismeasurement of Woman. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992. Woodland, Paul. “Artist as Interlocutor: Artistic Interventions in the Dissemination of the Medical Model of the Sexed Body.” PhD diss., Swansea Metropolitan University, 2011.



CHAPTER NINE REFLECTIONS ON REPRESENTATIONS IAN RIVERS AND RICHARD WARD

Reflections on LGBT Lives In the original seminar series that underpinned this book, our aim in bringing together academics, activists, artists and their allies was to build a network of individuals and organisations that could take forward a shared sense of pride and support, and develop collaborations that would both enhance our understanding of LGBT lives and challenge the bigotry and discrimination that currently impedes those lives. From the outset it was a multidisciplinary project. Multidisciplinarity, we believe, is the inherent strength of this book, and the various chapters we have brought together demonstrate the struggle LGBT people face in being recognised and valued by those who see difference as a threat to the salience of the systems that underpin their lives. There are few books and, indeed, conferences or seminars where one would find presentations and writings from artists, psychologists, and lawyers, back-to-back with playwrights, sociologists and community workers. While the styles of writing may differ, the stories have a focus and a direction that is common–that of cultural and political representation as a battlefield for the recognition of sexual and gender diversity. The authors of this book have not only provided testimonies demonstrating the ways in which LGBT lives have been devalued, objectified or ignored, but have themselves experienced attempts by others–sometimes first-hand–to devalue their contributions. This book recognises their strength and commitment to promote a better understanding of LGBT lives. In the following sections of this concluding chapter, we reflect upon what we have learned from this exciting series of essays. In particular, we seek to synthesise some of the messages and insights offered according to what we consider to be four inter-connected and over-arching themes to the book as a whole:



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• • • •

Social and cultural (in)visbility The everyday representation of LGBT lives The public/private binary, and The body and embodied experience

Social and Cultural (In)visbility Throughout this book one theme has emerged above all others, that of visibility. To be more specific, the book addresses questions concerning the physical disappearance and discursive silence over LGBT perspectives and interests at a social, political and cultural level. Collectively the chapters offer illustrations and insights into how this erasure is achieved, detailing the mechanisms by which sexual and gender dissidence are regulated and controlled. Each author has demonstrated how LGBT people have been made visible in some contexts and, more particularly, invisible in others. Whether it is a result of the subtleties of portraiture or of the clinical asexuality of the doctor’s white coat, any sense of sexual or gender difference is often lost in the milieu of daily existence. That loss can sometimes be deliberate, and result from a failure to engage with LGBT issues, and sometimes it is the result of a lack of understanding of the lived experiences of LGBT individuals. The chapters of this book show us that both invisibility and visibility carry a price. Jo Clifford’s frank account of the volley of abuse she received through the media and from those who chose not to see her play demonstrate the penalties attached to the cultural visibility of trans identities. By way of contrast, Paul Woodland’s art work tells us the story of medical education which involves a process of deindividualisation and de-sexualisation not just for the patient but for the doctor too. Through the adoption of codes of language, behaviour, attitudes and modes of selfpresentation, the doctor “becomes” a white coat and the patient “becomes” little more than a machine, where neither is able to acknowledge the sexual being and potential of the other (except at a very surface level). According to a medical model, human bodies are “Baby machines” privileging a certain version of heterosexuality while silencing those aspects of desire that extend beyond procreation. Indeed, medical training appears largely unconcerned with non-procreative forms of desire. For Chris Ashford, a degree of privilege surfaces in the pornographic and media representation of public heterosexual desire. Far from being a subject of outrage as “cottaging” once was, Chris’ analysis reveals a social and very “open”, if rather prurient, heterosexual fascination with “dogging”.



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Yet, as the demonstrations against Jo’s play show us, deviant identities are sometimes made visible in order that they can be made to disappear or be rendered silent. By contrast, Les Moran draws on queer theory in suggesting we understand sexuality less as an identity and more a regime. Under the heteronormative conditions of the modern judicial system, silence is one way in which sexuality appears in public, underpinning the public display of the sexuality of the judiciary as exclusively heterosexual. So how do we challenge the ways in which LGBT people are doubly stigmatised both in their visibility and by their invisibility? Jacq Goldthorp’s argument that libraries need to stock LGBT literature is a compelling one. If public libraries are truly to be places of knowledge, exploration, advice and recreation then they should reflect the diversity that exists within the communities they serve. The fact that librarians are often unaware of the needs of this section of their community, and that there is apparently little access to training for library managers or their staff on LGBT issues, suggests that enforced invisibility will continue until this is addressed. Jo Clifford, in her chapter, shows us how stories, performed or written, convey LGBT representations that bring meaning to an audience. In representing Jesus as a trans woman, she opened up religious narratives to a new and engaged audience. Yet, as one member of Jo’s audience wrote: I had witnessed a piece of theatre which was inoffensive, gentle, and celebratory of the teachings of Christ, in a way which made it relevant to me, a 21st century lesbian.

The fact that a “21st century lesbian” could leave a theatre uplifted and able to engage with the messages behind Jo’s work is a far greater acknowledgement of the importance of the arts and creativity in delivering messages of tolerance and hope than the group of protestors who claimed to speak for God through placards and a wish to silence the play. The representation of LGBT lives in positive and meaningful ways is a much sought after goal for activists and academics alike. Gavriel Ansara’s chapter shows us how different personal experiences and trans perspectives can be brought together to inform effective person-centred services, and yet how the routines and mundane bureaucracy that structure healthcare continue to render these perspectives invisible. As Judith Butler (1988) argues, visibility and presence challenge the stability of society’s views of sex and of gender, and radicalises our understandings of these constructs. This point is reinforced by Antoine Rogers in his chapter which attests to the invisibility of those social, cultural and religious differences that exist among a group he describes as Black



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British gay men (BBGM) and efforts to overturn this. Antoine’s assessment of the recent history of BBGM’s experiences offers valuable insights into the complexities of (in)visibility in relation to sexuality, ethnicity and race. His analysis reveals how visibility in the gay and black communities requires careful negotiation. Such negotiation highlights an awareness and understanding of different forms of prejudice amongst these men that has been little appreciated or understood in efforts to represent them. Antoine highlights the importance of attending to the process by which we become visible and problematizes any simplistic notion that visible is good, invisible bad.

Everyday Representations of LGBT Lives A central concern for many of the chapters in this collection is with our understanding of the everyday and the notion of ordinariness. How is the ‘ordinary’ in ordinary life constructed and upheld? And what does it mean to be ruled outside of it? Throughout the chapters we see the world as one where a reductionist approach to understanding lived experience is in place. Our lives are structured in terms of binaries: male and female; black and white; heterosexual and homosexual and these artificial oppositions organise our understanding of social relations in ways that are unremarkable and largely unseen. To sit outside the ordinary and to lead “non-normative” lives creates risks and challenges. Jacq Goldthorp’s assessment of the public library system demonstrates just how little there is in terms of information about LGBT lives that is free and in the public domain. The scarcity of LGBT literature ultimately means that there are few positive and generally accessible representations of LGBT people, their families, their successes and their failures. LGBT lives in print are, too often relegated to the tabloid media that provides a negative and frequently deviant “spin” on the lives of those who are sought out and exposed. But Jacq goes further than simply arguing that there are no books on the shelves of our public libraries. In a novel way, she draws our attention to the often mundane origins of the social and cultural inequalities faced by LGBT groups and individuals. How often does a debate on equality and the egalitarian provision of services concern itself with the everyday minutiae of large public providers such as library services? The impact of Jacq’s account lies in how she maps these largely unseen, every-day practices: the cataloguing of books; the design of software that allows service users to search a collection; or the arrangement of books on the shelves. Indeed both Jacq Goldthorp and Gavriel Ansara reveal the crucial



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role played by the everyday mundanities of institutional routines in upholding patterns of inequality and disadvantage. For Paul Woodland and Gavriel Ansara, the tensions between the authorised and authoritative notions of the sexed and gendered body in medicine and healthcare underlines that what is “ordinary” is inherently heterosexual. Paul and Gavriel show that heterosexuality is the benchmark against which both health and illness are measured. It is for LGBT individuals to navigate a path that leads to physical and emotional health and requires engaging with professionals who are technically “expert”, but unskilled in the language and meanings of sexual and gender diversity.

Public/Private Perhaps one of the most significant and certainly impactful contributions from queer theory to date has been the critique it has offered of the public/private binary and its relation to the politics of sexuality (e.g. Sedgwick, 1990). Central to this analysis has been the exposure of how notions of what is public or private are deployed in the social management of sexuality and in maintaining a certain hierarchy whereby sexual identities are ruled “in” or “out” of different domains and settings. Hence, the push to uphold notions of sexuality as private has undermined the recognition and acknowledgement of LGBT perspectives and interests within a political arena. This is a theme taken up and explored by a number of our authors - indeed this book makes an important contribution to a debate on sexual citizenship. In his chapter on public sex, Chris Ashford attends to the phenomenon of “private acts in public places”. In the example of “dogging” we are shown how social constructions of heterosexuality as respectable, accorded an elevated status in the moral order of sexuality based upon notions of privacy and fidelity, are undermined through the documentation of heterosexual public desire. His analysis reveals how the public nature of gay sex, in cottages and cruising grounds, has been used to inform the vilification of homosexuality on the basis of its departure from respectable heterosexual desire, contained within the private realm of the (procreative) marital bedroom. Yet, the advent of “dogging”, as an essentially heterosexual version of gay cruising, and the different efforts made to document and represent it, serve to disrupt and problematise the disassociation of “bad” public gay sex from “good” private straight sex. Along similar lines, Les Moran charts questions of what is ruled “in” and ruled “out” of the formal representation of the judiciary. Here we are shown that overt indicators or signifiers of sexuality are considered to



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have no place in the judicial system. No formal reference is made to the sexual identity of judicial figures – on this basis sexuality is “different” from the other strands of the equality agenda - in that it is constructed as “extra-judicial” by virtue of being a private matter. And yet, as Les argues, heterosexuality has a determining absent presence. This may seem a contradictory assertion, but it is a cornerstone of queer theory. The very naturalness of heterosexuality, its commonplace normality and “ordinariness” mean that it exists as something that is unmarked and hence is assumed to be present and “read into” cultural artefacts such as judicial portraits unless it is explicitly (and visibly) challenged. In this respect, the introduction of such a challenge to a formal portrait, albeit in the somewhat subtle form of a background image of a gay couple, can undermine the regulatory conventions of what is ruled “in” to the public face of the judiciary and what is ruled “out” on the basis of being a private matter. The book makes a further contribution to debates in queer theory through opening up to scrutiny the ways in which notions of “the public” are used to validate and justify heterosexist logic and practices (Warner, 2005). Indeed, collectively the chapters contained here lead us to question the very definition of what is “public”, not least in terms of how a particular institution or service defines the public that it serves through its lines of accountability and responsibilities. For instance, Jacq Goldthorp’s analysis highlights the way in which LGBT interests are ruled out of the public domain according to the budgetary allocation for fictional literature by library services and more widely the lack of promotion or exposure given to LGBT literature in publishing and literary circles. We are shown that the public to which libraries often cater rarely encompasses sexual difference and that indeed, the “public purse” upon which these libraries draw appears disconnected from and unaccountable to the LGBT communities. Similar efforts to disentangle LGBT interests from those of the wider public are exposed by Jo Clifford in her account of the response to her play. Here, the attacks on Jo’s work include questions concerning public expenditure where “tax-payer” is a category that appears to exclude members of the LGBT communities. Indeed, Jo’s critics have recourse to hackneyed claims of the wasting of tax-payers money in order to justify their opposition to her work. Collectively, these chapters reveal that LGBT identities are afforded no place or belonging within the public/private matrix. They are neither part of or party to respectable domestic privacy, nor do they have a place in the public domain and through this a legitimate claim to some form of recognised citizenship. And it is against this paradox that many of the contributions to this book align themselves.



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The Body and Embodied Experience The body and bodily practices have been shown to be central to the politics of sexuality and gender identity (e.g. Butler, 1993) and throughout this book the contributors demonstrate not only how our embodied experiences serve as a locus for an understanding of the world but also as a point of connection. At the same time, as a number of the chapters collected here illustrate, bodies are central to the politics of prejudice and discrimination. As both Paul Woodland and Gavriel Ansara reveal, bodily difference and diversity presents a challenge to the standardised and normative models of the body that circulate within medicine and healthcare. Central to both chapters is the manner in which medicine assumes an unwarranted authority in how the body is constructed, labelled and subsequently disseminated. Little scope is offered for self-definition in a context where rigid and heteronormative readings of the body are imposed, an act that Ansara argues illustrates the violence of representation within medicine. In a rather different context, Antoine Rogers shows how the representation of black men in the gay community prefaces their bodies and physical attributes. Les Moran and Jo Clifford have both illustrated the tensions that emerge when LGBT individuals come to embody certain ideals and beliefs. The figure of the judge, as an embodiment of the judicial system and more broadly the values and virtues of the institution, is shown to be incompatible with an openly LGBT identity. According to a heteronormative sexual culture, expressions of sexual difference in the judiciary are disallowed in ways that many senior figures seem to willingly admit and allow, despite the provisions of the Equalities Act. For Jo Clifford, a trans woman seeking to embody a religious icon, efforts to disallow such an act are both more extreme and overt. In many ways Jo’s chapter records a process of misperception and consequent misrepresentation. Her efforts to explore and communicate a trans faith are condemned by groups and individuals unable to countenance a trans body as compatible with their own notions of an embodied Christ. Of particular note is the way their embodied responses structure the expression of prejudice towards a trans person. Jo’s contribution to this book takes the form of a moving personal account of her efforts to engage with organised religion in a way that is meaningful to her as a trans person. Alongside this however, her chapter offers a case study in transphobia; how it manifests itself, the reasoning that organises it and the interests behind it. In her discussion of hate crime, the queer theorist Sara Ahmed (2004) points out that there is a visceral and



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embodied dimension to discrimination that is all but overlooked within equalities policy and legislation. We see this clearly illustrated in the excerpts that Jo offers us of the emotive and at times physically threatening responses to her play. These reflect broader patterns of prejudice towards the trans community where the body is both a focus for discrimination and the means by which it is expressed, sometimes violently. In this respect Jo’s chapter is significant for detailing the way that transphobia operates, revealing how a backlash to her play emerges through a shared hatred often facilitated by the media. As Ahmed points out: What is at stake in hate crime is the perception of the group in the body of the individual […] hate crime works as a form of violence against groups through violence against the bodies of individuals (p.55).

Ahmed (2004) suggests that hate is “part of the production of the ordinary” where the reasoning behind hate crimes rests upon the notion that the ordinary is under threat from the bodies of others. Jo’s account of the staging of (The Gospel According to) Jesus Queen of Heaven illustrates this important point–by virtue of being cast as “out of the ordinary” she becomes a figure of hate who poses a threat to ordinariness itself. Prominent amongst the attacks upon Jo’s play are the examples of religious bigotry on display from all levels of the church in Scotland and beyond. From the prayer group that congregated outside the theatre to the opprobrium of the Archbishop of Glasgow, we are shown how such bigotry works through the “conversion” of hate into an expression of love. Here emotions are used to align certain bodies against those of others: ...the conversion of hate into love allows (such) groups to associate themselves with ‘good feeling’ and ‘positive love […] these groups come to be defined as positive in the sense of fighting for others and in the name of others (p.123).

In many respects this book helps us to understand what is at stake in the politics of the ordinary and the ways in which it is represented. Not only is the ordinary sexualised but it is embodied according to an array of authoritative and defining social forces that include medicine, the church, politics and the law. If nothing else, it is hoped that this book has helped to question and radically disrupt this ordinary world, by bringing into focus those aspects of everyday life that are so easily overlooked and taken for granted we hope to have lifted our readers “out of the ordinary”.



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References Ahmed, Sara. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. New York: Routledge, 2004. Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory (1988).” Accessed January 22, 2012.http://www.mariabuszek.com/kcai/PoMoSeminar/Readings/BtlrP erfActs.pdf. Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. New York: Routledge, 1993. McDowell, Sara. “Library Instruction for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered College Students.” In Teaching the New Library to Today’s Users, edited by Trudi E. Jacobsen and Helen C. Williams, 71086. New York: Neal-Schuman, 2000. Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Epistemology of the Closet. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990. Warner, Michael. “Public and Private” In Publics and Counterpublics, edited by Michael Warner, 65-124. New York: Zone Books, 2005.



CONTRIBUTORS

Yousef Gavriel Ansara is a PhD student within the Department of Psychology at the University of Surrey. Chris Ashford is Reader in Law and Society within the Faculty of Business and Law at the University of Sunderland. Jo Clifford is a playwright and formerly Professor of Theatre at Queen Margaret University Edinburgh. Jacq Goldthorp currently works for Moray Community Health and Social Care Partnership. Les Moran is Professor of Law within the School of Law at Birkbeck, University of London. Ian Rivers is Professor of Human Development within the School of Sport and Education at Brunel University London. Antoine Rogers is Senior Lecturer in Social Policy within the Department of Social Sciences at London South Bank University. Richard Ward is a researcher employed by the University of Manchester and the Greater Manchester West Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust. Paul Woodland is currently a practising contemporary artist and, having recently been awarded his PhD, he is now a fully fledged “doctor” who is contemplating his next steps.

INDEX

Academia, 3 Amazon, 34 American Library Association, 37 American Medical Association, 108 American Psychological Association, 101 An Apple a Day (play), 14 Angels in America (play and series), 85 Arts, 2 Bar Council, 61 BBC, 19, 25, 80, Beat, The, 81 Black American, 46 and Minority Ethnic, 4 British Gay Men, (BBGM) 4349, 52-56, 54-56, 134 Civil rights,49- 50 Gay Men, 43-48, 50-55, 137 LGBT, 44, 46-47, 56 History, 45 Press, 49 Blasted, 24 Brighton and Hove Libraries, 32, 38 British Film Institute (BFI), 48 Britsh/Pub Dogging (film), 84 Camera Surveillance (film) 86 Cameron, Justice Edwin, 72 Catholic Archbishop, 21 Catholic Truth, 16 Church, 17 Encyclopaedia, 15 Scottish Catholic Observer, 17

Celestina (play), 13 Cisgenderism, 8, 93-109 Civil Partnership, 63 Chapman (magazine), 13 Charing Cross Gender Identity Clinic, 103 Christian/Christianity, 15-16, 21-23 Cisgenderism, 8, 102-119 Collaborative System CoAuthorship, 94, 107 Collymore, Stan, 80 Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH), 101-102 Constructionism, 128 Court of Appeal (England and Wales), 62-63 Cruising, 7, 85 (film) Culture. Media and Sport (Select Committee), 31 Daily Mail, 24 Deuteronomy, 15 Disorders of Sexual Development (DSD), 100-101, 125 Doctor/Doctors, 115-118, 122, 124, 135 Dogging, 4, 7, 78, 86-87, 132, 135 Dogging: A Love Story (film), 82 Dogging: The Novel, 80 Dumfries and Galloway Council, 38 Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), 2 Edinburgh, 13 International Festival, 13 Equalities Act, 137 Etherton, Lord Justice (Sir Terence), 62-63, 66-73

144 Faust, Parts One and Two, 13 Florence, 13-14 Gay Liberation, 49-50 Glasgay!, 15, 21, 24-25 Glasgow Archbishop of, 21, 138 City of, 5, 16, 11, 13 City Chambers, 25 City Council, 25, 37 Museum of Modern Art 16 Library Service, 34-35, 37 Life, 25 Women’s Library, 37 Glory Holes, 80 Gielgud, Sir John, 84 God’s New Frock, 11, 13-14 God the Father, 12 Good Samaritan, 19 Google, 19 Guardian (newspaper), 30, 82 Health, Department of, 107 Henry, Hugh (MSP), 25 Herald (newspaper), 21 Her Majesty’s Court Service (HMCS), 63 Heterosexual/Heterosexuality, 3, 4, 64-65, 68-69, 78-79, 136, 146 HIV/AIDS, 44, 50, 72, 79, 97, 106 Homophobia, 16, 51, 61-62 Homosexuality, 15, 78-79, Innes, Sue, 13 Intersex, 101, 125 In This Our Lives (ITOL), 6, 43, 4850 Islamophobia, 21 Isle of Dogs (film), 80 Jenkins Affair, 85 Jesus, Queen of Heaven (The Gospel According to), 5, 11, 2024, 138 Jesus/Christ, 5, 14-17,, 20, 133, 137 Judicial Portraits, 7, 65-73, 136 Lesbian, 32, 38-39, 83

Index LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) Books/Literature, 3, 35-38, 133, 136 Fiction, 5-6, 30-40, Issues, 33, People, 1, 3, 5-6, 9, 33-35, 3739, 47, 50, 51-53, 56, 131134 Readers, 30-31, 34 Students, 33 Visibility, 30 Libraries (see public libraries) Lifelines.Cuerdas de Salvamento, 102 Limonaia, Teatro della, 13 London South Bank University, 6, 44 London, 4, 43, 72 Mansfield 1962 (film), 86-87 Mary Magdalene, 14 Masters and Johnson, 121 Medical/Medicine, 3, 113, 128, 135 Body, 115-116, 118 Education, 7, 132 Evidence-Based, 97, 100 Model, 8-9, 113, 126, 129 Professionals, 8, 96, 98-99, 108, 120 Records, 117 Settings 94-95, 102-104, 128 Students, 9, 115-118 Textbooks, 118--119, 121 Metro (newspaper), 24 Mother Goddess, 12 MSM (Men who have sex with men), 45-46, 53-54 Muslim/Islam, 21 Native Americans, 4 New York, 79 Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, 82 New South Wales (Australia), 71 New Testament, 15

Out of the Ordinary: Representations of LGBT Lives Noonan’s Syndrome, 126 Old Testament, 12 On a Dogging Mission (DVD series), 82-83, 85 Orkney, 34 Phallogocentrism, 123 Pink List, 37, 39 Plague Over England (play), 84 Popular Cultures, 2 Porcelain (play), 85 Pornography/Porn, 7, 13, 79, 81, 85, 87 Positivism, 128 Prick up Your Ears (film), 85 Prodigal son, 19 Publicbanging.com, 84 Publicplacepussy, com, 84 Public Libraries, 6-7, 29-30, 33, 39, 134 Librarians 32-33 Public Sex, 7, 77-81, 83, 86-88, 135 Pussy Prowler, 83 Pussystalker.com, 83 Queer Theory, 64-65, 133 Racism, 53 Real UK Dogging (film), 84 Sandyford Initiative, 37 Scotland, 5, 34, 138 Scottish Executive, 37 Scottish Library Service, 5, 34, 3738 Scottish Sun, 25 Scrivener, Anthony, 61 Section 28, 52 Semenya, Caster, 114

145

Sex Discrimination, 32 Sexual Offences Act, 6, 43 South Africa’s Constitutional Court, 72 Sun (newspaper), 80 Tearoom Trade (book), 7, 79, 87 Telegraph (newspaper), 90 the rukus! Federation, 544, Times (newspaper), 63 Transgender/Transgendered/Trans, 5, 19, 104-105, 133 Transgenderism, Journal of, 101 Transphobia/Transphobic, 14, 16, 25, 93 Transsexual, 12, 14-15, 20, 22 Traverse Theatre, 13, Tron Theatre, 5, 11, 13, 16, 23, 25 Turner’s Syndrome, 126 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), 101 UPPA/Photoshot, 63 Weeks, Jeffrey, 49 Who’s Who, 62 Wild Breed (pornography), 86-87 World Health organisation (WHO), 96 World Professional Association of Trans Health (WPATH), 100101 Standards of Care (SOC), 100101 XTube, 86 Yogyakarta Principles, 101 YouTube, 19, 81