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- Title
HOW THE RIGHT TO BE SEXUAL SHAPED THE EMERGENCE OF LGBT RIGHTS.
- Authors
Kosbie, Jeffrey
- Abstract
The right to privacy, as applied to LGBT rights, is often described as a sort of tolerance: Sexuality is tolerated as long as it remains hidden in the bedroom. This tension between tolerance and open expression of sexuality has been at the center of numerous debates over LGBT legal strategy. Thus, this Article argues for a counter-intuitive result: The right to privacy has also been used to advance the seemingly more radical right to be sexual. This Article excavates the early history of LGBT legal organizing in order to show how the tension between the right to privacy and the right to sexuality has played out within the LGBT legal movement, and how the right to privacy was shaped by and shared overlapping concerns with the right to be sexual. In order to support this claim, this Article takes a deep dive into the world of LGBT legal organizing in the 1960s and 1970s. This Article shows how contrasting visions over LGBT rights shaped the issues that became important and the claims that activists made in court. After examining the organizational history of early LGBT rights, this Article turns specifically to discussions between LGBT lawyers regarding sodomy reform. By tracing the decisions leading up to Bowers v. Hardwick, this Article shows how claims to the right to privacy were in tension with but also ultimately shaped by ideas about the right to be sexual. The payoff for this historical excavation is a richer understanding of the role of activist lawyers in pushing new constitutional meanings. This Article concludes with a discussion of how the right to be sexual helps us to understand the relationship between dignity and the identity-based logic of LGBT rights.
- Subjects
RIGHT of privacy; LGBTQ+ rights; HUMAN sexuality; SODOMY; CIVIL rights
- Publication
University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, 2020, Vol 22, Issue 5, p1389
- ISSN
1521-2823
- Publication type
Article