Constructing the Heterosexual, Homosexual, Bisexual System, by Jonathan Ned Katz

This feature explores the human production of the terms and concepts "heterosexual," "homosexual," and "bisexual," which are presented here as evidence of the construction of a historically specific social order or regime. This is the social-historical institution or system that divides people, identities, desires, acts, relationships, and groups into heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual with profound subjective, objective, psychological, social consequences. The chronology includes scholarly works dating to the 1980s, when historians began to develop what is now called "critical heterosexual history," analysis that interrogates the historically specific discourses and institutions that comprise the hetero, homo, bi system. First published on OutHistory in 2014. Last edit: April 15, 2021.

1700: Randolph Trumbach: the construction of the heterosexual/homosexual sex/gender system, London

In his book Sex and the Gender Revolution: Heterosexuality and the Third Gender in Enlightenment London (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), historian Randolph Trumbach dates the construction of the heterosexual/homosexual sex/gender system to 1700 in London.

Contrast this with Jonathan Ned Katz in The Invention of Heterosexuality (NY: Dutton, 1995), who suggests that the development of the heterosexual/homosexual/bisexual organization of sexuality and gender as a historically specific system was roughly coterminus with the development and distribution of the terminology and ideas "heterosexual," "homosexual," and "bisexual."