Suchergebnisse

Early in February 2005, the Governor of New South Wales, Professor Marie Bashir, launching the annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival, noted that this event had been 'absolutely priceless' in helping change social attitudes to sexual variation. This had helped create a more tolerant society: Most Australians are increasingly taking pride in that sense of freedom which springs from the considerable diversity within our society – diversity of race, religion, culture and also sexual orientation. Increasingly we have seen this diversity engender a greater environment of inclusiveness, respect and tolerance. Indeed, more than 'tolerance' – rather 'acceptance' – an acceptance and respect. Such public approbation from the head of state is in stark contrast to the views, expressed over 200 years previously, by the first governor, Arthur Phillip: There are two crimes that would merit death – murder and sodomy. For either of these crimes I would wish to confine the criminal till an opportunity offered of delivering him as a prisoner to the natives of New Zealand, and let them eat him. In the intervening centuries, attitudes to same-sex sexual activity, affection and relationships underwent dramatic changes, to the point where Sydney has acquired the reputation of being one of the iconic gay cities of the contemporary world. Yet the process has not been easy, and the major changes are only relatively recent. Indeed, over most of Australia's history since the white invasion of 1788, governments have actively persecuted those men who have been caught expressing their homoerotic desires, even though lesbian identity and behaviour were never criminalised in the same way. Further adding to the complexities of social change, men with same-sex desires have seen themselves transformed from persons who might commit an act – sodomy – to persons with an identity inextricably bound up with their sexuality – homosexual or gay. Two centuries have seen attitudes and conceptualisations change dramatically. A problem for writing a history of groups or communities designated criminal, demonised and persecuted over so much of our white history is both the relative paucity of records, and the bias in those that exist. Three institutions of society – the law, the Christian churches, and the medical profession – have played particularly important roles in setting the parameters for controlling homosexuality, both directly and by conditioning the wider society's attitudes to homosexuality and thus how gay people can live. This can be seen when we look back over the emergence of gay, lesbian, and what some now refer to as 'queer', life and subcultures in Sydney, from criminal secrecy within a disapproving society to such open activity, and at the more general changing attitudes to homosexuality in Australia.

The argument that children require role models of both sexes is a central theme in opposition to lesbian parenting. Challenges to this opposition have emphasised the ways in which children in lesbian families are compensated for the alleged deficit of a father. In this paper I provide an antidote to gender normalising discussions of male role models by exploring critical accounts of 'gays as role models'. The first half of the paper examines the deployment of traditional, liberal and critical discourse on male role models in relation to lesbian families. The second half provides a discourse analysis of excerpts from an interview with a lesbian couple raising three children, examining tensions in claiming gay men as positive role models for children in a lesbian family. I conclude by considering the costs and benefits of liberal and critical responses to claims about the necessity of male role models.

Gay parenting is a topic on which almost everyone has an opinion but almost nobody has any facts. Here at last is a book based on a thorough review of the literature, as well as interviews with a pioneering group of men who in the 1980s chose to become fathers outside the boundaries of a heterosexual union?through foster care, adoption, and other kinship relationships.This book reveals how very natural and possible gay parenthood can be. What factors influence this decision? How do the experiences of gay dads compare to those of heterosexual men? How effectively do professional services such a

This ground-breaking book explores the experiences of gay men and their understanding of what it meant to be gay in the 20th Century: from when homosexuality was illegal though the less repressed but no less difficult eras of gay liberation and the HIV-AIDS epidemic

Social networks are increasingly recognised as being beneficial to health and wellbeing. This paper, drawing from a qualitative study into health services targeted at gay men in London, explores the facilitation by service providers of social networks among gay men. Networks are dependent upon reciprocity among their participants and the study examines how shared narratives can generate a sense of the reciprocity that contributes to the development of networks. The networks discussed here promote instrumental support or communication or emotional well-being or a combination of those. The paper explores the diversity of narratives among the thirty eight gay male service users who were informants to this study. While narratives around experiencing same sex desire, encountering social isolation and making decisions about coming out were articulated by all these informants, there were other organising principles in their lives which also shaped their narratives and their decisions about whom they shared these narratives with. The paper focuses on the development of social networks among three groups of gay men: young South Asian men accessing HIV prevention services, men seeking to give up smoking in relation to their experiences in the commercial venues which constitute the gay scene and carers of gay men and lesbians suffering from a chronic disease. The paper seeks to generate opportunities for reflection about the means to promote health and well-being among members of this marginalised population group.