Developmental Perspectives on Lesbian and Gay Politics: Fragmented Citizenship in a Fragmented State

Responding to recent criticism that American political development (APD) has yet to fully engage with both contemporary and historical matters related to lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) politics, I use citizenship to provide one way to do so. Drawing on the central insight of APD scholarship that the polity is a composite of multiple clashing governing orders and by viewing citizenship as a relational dynamic between the individual and the state, I argue that citizenship is fractured across time, space, and policy issue. This claim is illustrated by two case studies: first, how gay, lesbian, and bisexual military participation has been redefined over time by the Department of Defense, with each policy shift toward equality revealing previously unseen and persistent inequities, and second, how conflicts between marriage and parental recognition have emerged after states recognize same-sex marriage. I aim to demonstrate how APD concepts can be fruitfully applied to yield new insights about institutional authority and the meaning and content of citizenship status. In short, much can be gained by increased developmental attention to gay and lesbian politics.

Lesbian Spaces: Sydney, 1945-1978

Asking ‘What is lesbian Sydney?’ and ‘Where is it?’, this article traces the shifting spaces and places of lesbian Sydney in the first decades after the Second World War. In the 1940s and 1950s, when camp bars were overwhelmingly male, lesbians enjoyed a very limited public presence in the city. Many women created lesbian spaces in isolation from a wider community, discreetly setting up house with a female partner and gradually building up a small network of lesbian friends. Groups of women met in each other’s homes or visited the parks and beaches around Sydney and the Central Coast for social excursions. By the 1960s, lesbians were beginning to carve out a more visible public space for themselves at wine bars and cabaret clubs in inner suburbs such as Kings Cross, Oxford Street and the city, and the commercial bar scene grew steadily through the 1970s. However, the influence of feminist and lesbian and gay politics in the 1970s also prompted a rethinking of lesbian spaces in Sydney, with well-known lesbian collective houses challenging older notions of private space and political venues such as Women’s House and CAMP NSW headquarters constituting new bases for lesbian community.