Reference
E. Kosofsky Sedgwick, The Epistemology of the Closet (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991), 7.
The Special Report from the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill [henceforth, HC Paper (1995–1996) No 143]. I also refer to previous quinquennial Armed Forces Bill Select Committee Reports, that is, HC Paper (1990–1991) No 179, and HC Paper (1985–1986) No. 170.
Ministry of Defence’s Report of the Homosexuality Policy Assessment Team, February 1996, henceforth: HPAT 1996.
R v. Ministry of Defence, ex parte Smith and other applicants [1995] 4 All E.R 427–453, henceforth R v. MoD [1995].
Rv. Ministry of Defence, ex parte Smith and other appeals [1996] 1 All E.R. 257–275, henceforth R v. MoD [1996].
S. Seidman, Difference Trouble (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 154
L. Moran, The Homosexuality of Law (London & New York: Roudedge, 1996), 5.
This approach is developed from the work of various Queer Theorists such as Butler and Sedgwick (which will be referred to throughout the text) as well as Steven Seidman’s work especially his attempt to go beyond Queer Theory in his essays collected in his book Difference Troubles (supra n.7, at 4) and in his edited collection Queer Theory/Sociology (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996). However I also owe a debt to authors who have introduced me to praxis in the form of engaged, ethical academic research/activism; for example: A. Bottomley & J. Conaghan, “Feminist Theory & Legal Strategy”, Journal of Law and Society 20/1 (1993), 1–5
L. Stanley, Feminist Praxis (New York & London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1990)
E.M. Schneider, “The Dialectics of Rights & Politics: Perspectives From the Women’s Movement”, in At The Boundaries of Law: Feminism & Legal Theory, ed. M.A. Albertson Fineman & N.S. Sweet Thomadsen (New York & London: Routledge, 1991), 301–319
M. Foucault & G. Delcuzc, “Intellectuals & Power: A Conversation Between Michel Foucault & Gilles Dcleuze”, in Michel Foucault: Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, ed. D.F. Bouchard (New York: Cornell University Press, 1977), 203–217.
E. Goffman, Asylums (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1962), 12.
This is presented here as a fear of a sexualising “look” from an embodied homosexual onlooker. However, because this could be described as being an example of scopophobia, a fear of being looked at, perhaps this alleged “look” could be more accurately described as a gaze, which is a more spectral, disembodied seeing. This distinction is made by both Kendal Thomas and Kaja Silverman: K. Thomas, “Shower/Closet”, Assemblage 20 (1993), 80–81
K. Silverman, Male Subjectivity at the Margins (New York: Routledge, 1992).
S.D. Westbrook, “The Potential for Military Disintegration”, in Conduct Effectiveness: Cohesion, Stress and the Volunteer Military, ed. S.C. Sarkesian (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1980), 244–278,251.
A.M. Smith, “A Symptomology of an Authoritarian Discourse”, New Formations 10 (1990), 41–65,49. One cannot but surmise that the unfixity of sexual orientation of a number of young recruits must result in “defences” against same-sex sexual expression occurring especially in the “special” non-privacy and intimacy of the Forces’ environment referred to above. Perhaps the demonization of the practice of homosexuality and concentration of this in the articulation of “the homosexual” figure, as in the discussion of homosociality (later in this paper), is one such mechanism. According to D.H.J. Morgan, “Theatre of War”, in Theorizing Masculinity, ed. H. Brod (London: Sage Publications, 1994), 165–182, at 167: it cannot be denied that this is indeed part of the story, “... especially where young men are coming to terms with or to an understanding of their own sexuality away from home and in the company of men...”.
Captain Lyons, HC Paper (1990–1991) No. 179, para. 631, 89.
Rear Admiral Brown, HC Paper (1985–1986) No. 170, para. 669, 185.
Hansard, Commons, 9 May 1996, col. 489.
S. Hall, “Ethnicity: Identity and Difference”, Radical America 13/4 (1991), 9–20.
Hansard; Commons, 9 May 1996, col. 489.
Cited in Weekly Hansard, Commons, 9 May 1996, col. 508.
Captain Lyons; HC Paper (1990–1991) No. 179, para. 622, 88.
Lord Justice Simon Drown, R v. MoD [1995], at 439,427.
HC Paper (1995–1996) No. 143, para 775,102.
P. Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 82.
K. Thewelict, Male Fantasies Vol. 2 (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989), 145.
M. Foucault, Discipline & Punish (London: Penguin Books, 1977).
Bourdieu, supra n.33, at 86.
E. Goffman, Stigma (London: Pelican Books, 1968), 93.
I am indebted here to: Lauren Berlant’s essay, “National Brands/National Body: Imitation of Life”, in The Phantom Public Sphere, ed. B. Robbin (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 173–208, in which the material circumstances which contributed to successful racial passing are demonstrated.
Mr Cashman; HC Paper (1990–1991) No. 179, para. 717, 100.
J. Butler, Bodies That Matter (New York: Routledge, 1993), 5.
J. Butler, “Gendering the Body: Beauvoir’s Philosophical Contribution”, in Woman, Knowledge & Reality, ed. A Garry (New York: Routledge, 1989), 253–262, 256.
M. de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkley: University of California Press, 1984), xix.
This has been observed by numerous authors; for example Hunt and Wickham: “... it should be noted that his attention to resistance is never as developed or as full as his analysis of power...”: A. Hunt & G. Wickham, Foucault and Law (London: Pluto, 1994), 17. However, as regards this Foucauldian over-theorisation of power, Colin Gordon describes Foucauldian power as composed of three elements: its discourses, its practices, and its effects. According to Gordon, these three elements never fit together or correspond C. Gordon, Michel Foucault Power/Knowledge (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1980), 246–255. Therefore, implicit but not explicit in Foucauldian power are the conditions for resistance or subversions and “unintended consequences” (Hunt & Wickham: 1994, 29).
J. Ahearne, Michel de Certeau: Interpretation and Its Other (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995), 162.
J. Fornas, Cultural Theory and Late Modernity (London: Sage Publications, 1995), 59.
M. Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol I (London: Penguin Books, 1978), 101.
E. Kosofsky Sedgwick, Between Men (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), 1.
C. Stychin, “To Take Him ‘At His Word’: Theorizing Law, Sexuality and the US Military Exclusion Policy”, Social & Legal Studies 5/2 (1996), 179–200, 194.
J. Derrida, Of Grammatology (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1963), 163.
J. Derrida, Margins of Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 65.
A.M. Smith, New Right Discourse On Race & Sexuality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 71.
R. Gashe, The Tain of the Mirror (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986), 172–173.
S. Critchley, The Ethics of Deconstruction: Derrida & Levinas (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), 15.
C. Douzinas & R. Warrington “The (Im)possible Pedagogical Politics of (the Law of) Postmodernism”, The Critical Lawyers’ Handbook, ed. I. Grigg-Spall & P. Ireland (London: Pluto, 1992), 31.
J. Terry, “Theorizing Deviant Historiography”, Differences 3/2 (1991), 55–75, 57.
A. Lingis, Foreign Bodies (New York: Routledge, 1994), 175.
P.D. Jacobson, “Sexual Orientation and the Military, Some Legal Considerations”, in Out in Force, ed. G.M. Herek (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1996), 39–61,39.
J. Butler, Excitable Speech (New York, Routledge, 1997), 107.
Stychin, supra n.68, at 192. Carl Stychin is the author of Law’s Desire, (New York: Routledge, 1995). He is an avid advocate of Queer legal Theory, with an emphasis on “theory”. The focus of my discussion here is primarily his essay of 1996 supra n.68), which exemplifies what can be described as a Queer legal theoretical analysis of the US Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy.
L. Bersani, Homos (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995), 4 & 5.
M. de Certeau, Heterologies (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986), 228.
W. Godzich, “Foreword”, in Heterologies, ed. M. de Certeau (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986), supra n.112, at xii.
H. McManners, “Army To Lift Ban On Gay Soldiers”, Sunday Times, 5 April 1998, 1.
M. Simpson, Male Impersonators (London: Cassell, 1994).
A. Sinfield, “Foreword”, in Male Impersonators, ed. M. Simpson (London: Cassell, 1994), ix–xii, supra n.129, at xi.
D.A. Miller, “Anal Rope”, in Inside/Out, ed. D. Fuss (New York: Routledge, 1991), 119–141, 131.
L. Shawver, And The Flag Was Still There: Straight People, Gay People and Sexuality in the US Military (New York: Harrington Park Press, 1995), 39.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
I would like to thank the following people for their various “involvements” with this paper: Andrew Cullis, Ann Cronin, Elena Loizidou, Rob Shields, Jonathan Cox, Scott Lash, Angela Mason and especially Leslie J. Moran.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
McGhee, D. Looking and Acting the Part: Gays in the Armed Forces — A Case of Passing Masculinity. Feminist Legal Stud 6, 205–244 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03359630
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03359630