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.

1939, August 15: Knoxville News-Sentinel, p.21

HET Knoxville_News-Sentinel_1939-08-15_21.pdf

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Indoctrination in heterosexuality:
“Perhaps 90 per cent of men and women reach the stage of heterosexual emotional development. But there is no specific month or year when we leave one stage and find ourselves in the next. We may be as old as Laura and her boy friend, who are in the heterosexual stage of emotional maturity, yet show signs of the previous stage.”