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

Sexuality / Sexual Behaviors

Movements and Activism

Politics, Government, and Law

Science, Medicine, and Health

War and Military

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

1600s-1700s

1800s

1900-1920

1920-1940

1940-1960

1970s

1990s

1990s

1960s

Katz, Jonathan Ned

Kertbeny, Karl

von Krafft-Ebing, Richard

Jager, Gustav

Kiernan, James G.

Dorland, William Alexander

Chamberlain, Alexander F.

Sterns, Albert

heterohomobi