Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Playing Recognition Politics: Queer Theoretical Reflections on Lesbian, Gay, and Queer Youth Social Policy in Australia in the 1980s and 1990s

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Archives of Sexual Behavior Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This article provides a queer theoretical reflection on the emergence of lesbian, gay, and queer (LGQ) youth as subjects of policy attention in Australia in the late twentieth century. In particular, it focuses on the ways in which specific forms of social, bureaucratic, and organizational recognition have given shape to LGQ youth as categorical policy objects. To this end, this article critically interrogates social policy related to the provision of funding for LGQ youth support during the 1980s and 1990s in two Australian states: New South Wales and Western Australia. More specifically, it focuses on some of the ways in which LGQ youth have been discursively shaped and materially supported in three different organizations, two of which continue to be strongly associated with support of LGQ youth in Australia. This study of the emergence of these organizations, resourced by three different sectors—the state, the church, and the LGQ community itself—necessarily draws on ephemeral resources, reflecting the conditions of possibility in which this work was being enacted. We conclude with an analysis of the necessity for situating policy recognitions within specific contexts to examine the implications for LGQ youth as the subjects such recognitions simultaneously seek to constitute and serve.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. We use the acronym LGQ throughout this article to reflect the fact that the identity labels used by the community organizations focused on here were, in the words of the groups we focused on, “lesbian,” “gay,” and “queer.” To expand the acronym to one of its more conventional forms (e.g., LGBTQ or LGBTQI+, for example) would be to fail to recognize the erasure of bisexual, trans, and intersex youth in policy and program responses—which was commonplace in the 1980s and 1990s in Australia. Expanded acronyms continue to erase categories—contemporary discomfort with the erasure caused by the historical use of LGQ underscores some of the problems of recognition we highlight in this article. At the same time, we recognize of course that the erasure of categories can have negative consequences in terms of health and well-being (see Davy, 2015; Flanders, LeBreton, & Robinson, 2019).

  2. The term “identity politics” was coined by a group of black feminists called The Combahee River Collective (1983, p. 267) who argued that “that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else's oppression.”

  3. For a timeline of decriminalization in Australia, see: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-24/timeline:-australian-states-decriminalise-male-homosexuality/6719702.

  4. The name Twenty Ten refers to the postcode of the Sydney suburb in which the service was located. The organization name has changed over time and its current form is Twenty10. Some cited sources refer to Twenty10 or 20/10. We have elected to use Twenty Ten in this text to reflect the name of the organization at the time of our case study.

  5. By way of background, the Labor government of Peter Dowding in WA removed consenting male homosexual activity from the criminal code in December 1989. It passed into law in March 1990 under premier Carmen Lawrence. However, the change did not occur easily; there were four failed attempts at law reform in the state during the 1970s and 1980s.

  6. Koorie (also spelt Koori) is a term used by contemporary Aboriginal people and communities of Victoria and Southern New South Wales to identify and differentiate themselves from Aboriginal groups from other parts of Australia. http://koorieheritagetrust.com.au/about-us/.

  7. Law Reform (Decriminalization of Sodomy) Act 1989. This Act was repealed by the Acts Amendment (Lesbian and Gay Law Reform) Act 2002s. 86 (No. 3 of 2002) as at 21 Sep 2002 (see s. 2 and Gazette 20 Sep 2002 p. 4693).

References

  • Alcoff, L. M. (2007). Fraser on redistribution, recognition, and identity. European Journal of Political Theory, 6(3), 255–265.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Australian House of Representatives. (1999). Health is life: Report on the inquiry into Indigenous health—Testimony of Brother Gravener, Session 01/12/99.

  • Australian Senate. (1988). Parliamentary debates, 126, 2206–2208.

    Google Scholar 

  • Australian Senate. (1996). Sexuality discrimination inquiry, Legal and Constitutional References Committee, Session 23/09/1996.

  • Blackburn, M., Clark, C., & Martino, W. (2016). Investigating LGBT-themed literature and trans informed pedagogies in classrooms. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 37(6), 801–806.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, J. (1997). Excitable speech: A politics of the performative. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, J., & Spivak, G. C. (2007). Who sings the nation-state? Language, politics, belonging. New York: Seagull Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cover, R. (2019). Emergent identities: New sexualities, gender and relationships in a digital era. Berlin: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crenshaw, K. (1990). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davy, Z. (2015). The DSM-5 and the politics of diagnosing transpeople. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 44(5), 1165–1176.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Deleuze, G. (1991). Bergsonism. New York: Zone Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dufour, M. S. K., Maiorana, A., Allen, C., Kassie, N., Thomas, M., & Myers, J. (2013). How faith based organizations’ doctrines regarding sexuality affect their participation in the public health response to HIV in the eastern caribbean. Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 10(3), 221–232.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Duggan, L. (2003). The twilight of equality? Neoliberalism, cultural politics, and the attack on democracy. London: Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Emslie, M. (1996). Ignored to death: Representations of young gay men, lesbians and bisexuals in Australian youth suicide policy and programs. Youth Studies Australia, 15(4), 38–42.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fish, J. N., & Pasley, K. (2015). Sexual (minority) trajectories, mental health, and alcohol use: A longitudinal study of youth as they transition to adulthood. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 44(8), 1508–1527.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Flanders, C. E., LeBreton, M., & Robinson, M. (2019). Bisexual women’s experience of microaggressions and microaffirmations: A community-based, mixed-methods scale development project. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 48(1), 143–158.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fraser, N. (1998). Heterosexism, misrecognition and capitalism. New Left Review, 228, 140–149.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fraser, N. (2005). Mapping the feminist imagination: From redistribution to recognition to representation. Constellations, 12(3), 295–307.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frieh, E. C., & Smith, S. H. (2018). Lines of flight in sex education: Adolescents’ strategies of resistance to adult stereotypes of teen sexuality. Sexualities, 21(1–2), 174–193.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hines, S., & Santos, A. C. (2018). Trans* policy, politics and research: The UK and Portugal. Critical Social Policy, 38(1), 35–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holas, N. (2014, September 8). Gay or transgender youth feel alienated by faith-based homeless services. http://www.news.com.au, https://www.news.com.au/national/gay-or-transgender-youth-feel-alienated-by-faithbased-homeless-services/news-story/145b2a21fa37139968e1cd65def9c244. Accessed 18 May 2020.

  • Iskander, L., & Shabtay, A. (2018). Who runs the schools? LGQ youth activism and Ontario’s Bill 13. Journal of LGBT Youth, 15(4), 339–352.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johns, M. M., Pingel, E. S., Youatt, E. J., Soler, J. H., McClelland, S. I., & Bauermeister, J. A. (2013). LGBT community, social network characteristics, and smoking behaviors in young sexual minority women. American Journal of Community Psychology, 52, 141–154.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kendall, C. N. & Walker, S. (1998). Combating lesbian and gay youth suicide and HIV/AIDS transmission rates: An examination of possible education strategies in Western Australian High Schools in Light of Prevailing State Statutes. Murdoch University Electronic Journal of Law, 5(4).

  • Koorie Youth Council. (2016) Final report from the Koorie youth council: What’s important to YOUth? Author.

  • Kuhar, R., & Paternotte, D. (2017). Anti-gender campaigns in Europe: Mobilizing against equality. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lalor, K. (2015). Making different differences: Representation and rights in sexuality activism. Feminist Legal Studies, 23(1), 7–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leary, B. (1992). Fast cars don’t kill me: Marginalised young people, HIV and suicide. Preventing youth suicide. AIC conference proceedings. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. https://aic.gov.au/publications/proceedings/13.

  • Lucas, N. (2015). St Francis social services: 2015 annual report. Paddington: St Francis Social Services. https://www.stfrancis.org.au/sites/default/files/public/SFSS_Annual_Report_2015.pdf.

  • Luker, T. (2017). Decolonising archives: Indigenous challenges to record keeping in ‘reconciling’ settler colonial states. Australian Feminist Studies, 32(91–92), 108–125.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mulé, N. J., Ross, L. E., Deeprose, B., Jackson, B. E., Daley, A., Travers, A., & Moore, D. (2009). Promoting LGBT health and wellbeing through inclusive policy development. International Journal for Equity in Health, 8(1), 18. https://doi.org/10.1186/1475-9276-8-18.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Prestage, G. (1993). Garrett Prestage interviewed by James Waites on 26 May, Oral History Project: The Australian Response to AIDS, TRC 2815/30, Oral History Section, National Library of Australia, Canberra.

  • Priority One. (1986). Young Australia (program) & youth services documentation project. The Twenty Ten Association.

  • Rasmussen, M. L. (2006). Becoming subjects: Sexualities and secondary schooling. Berlin: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rawsthorne, M. (2013). How long in the wilderness? Australian lesbian parents and social policy reform. Critical Social Policy, 33(2), 266–284.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reynolds, R. (2013). Transforming gay subjects, Sydney 1970s–2000s. History Australia, 10(1), 144–166.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richardson, D. (2017). Rethinking sexual citizenship. Sociology, 51(2), 208–224.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rubenstein, R. (2017). Sex education: Funding facts, not fear. Health Matrix, 27, 525–554.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwartz, J. M., & Cook, T. (2002). Archives, records, and power: The making of modern memory. Archival Science, 2(12), 1–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shannon, B., & Smith, S. J. (2017). Dogma before diversity: The contradictory rhetoric of controversy and diversity in the politicisation of Australian queer-affirming learning materials. Sex Education, 17(3), 242–255.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simmons, A. (2019, September 27). LGBTQ youth become homeless for many reasons, not just family rejection. YouthToday.org. https://youthtoday.org/2019/09/lgbtq-youth-become-homeless-for-many-reasons-not-just-family-rejection/. Accessed 14 May 2020.

  • Sini, M. (2016). Marx of queerness: Politics, children and queer theory. Meanjin, 75(4), 47–52.

    Google Scholar 

  • The Catholic Congregation for Education. (2019). Male and female he created them: Towards a path of dialogue on the question of gender theory in education, Vatican.

  • The Combahee River Collective. (1983). The Combahee River collective statement. In B. Smith (Ed.), Home girls: A black feminist anthology (pp. 264–274). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ward, R. (2018). Safe schools coalition and the limits of radical reform: On being a proud gay communist in Australia. In S. Talburt (Ed.), Youth sexualities: Public feelings and contemporary cultural politics (Vol. 2, pp. 47–62). Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Young, I. M. (1990). Justice and the politics of difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The research described in this article was undertaken as part of the Belonging and Sexual Citizenship Among Gender and Sexual Minority Youth (“Queer Generations”) research Project, funded under the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects funding scheme (Project DP150101292). The views expressed are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Australian government or the Australian Research Council. We express our gratitude to those who contributed to the Queer Generations research Project as study participants. The study was led by Peter Aggleton, Mary Lou Rasmussen, Rob Cover, and Daniel Marshall. We thank Christy Newman, Kyra Clarke, Jess Gilbert, Kirsty Herbert, Max Hopwood, and Benjamin Hegarty who also worked on the Project. Thanks also to the Associate Editor and reviewers: their feedback has certainly strengthened the article.

Funding

The Queer Generations project was funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (DP150101292).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Sociology, Research School of Social Sciences Building 22, Haydon Allen Building, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia

    Mary Lou Rasmussen & Peter Aggleton

  2. Vitalities Lab, Social Policy Research Centre and Centre for Social Research in Health, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Clare Southerton

  3. School of Philosophical, Historical, and International Studies, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

    Geraldine Fela

  4. School of Communication and Creative Arts, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia

    Daniel Marshall

  5. School of Media and Communication, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia

    Rob Cover

  6. Centre for Social Research in Health, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Peter Aggleton

Authors
  1. Mary Lou Rasmussen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Clare Southerton
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Geraldine Fela
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Daniel Marshall
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Rob Cover
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Peter Aggleton
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mary Lou Rasmussen.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Rasmussen, M.L., Southerton, C., Fela, G. et al. Playing Recognition Politics: Queer Theoretical Reflections on Lesbian, Gay, and Queer Youth Social Policy in Australia in the 1980s and 1990s. Arch Sex Behav 49, 2341–2352 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-020-01751-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-020-01751-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation