06 Scientific Racism and the Invention of the Homosexual Body - Siobhan Somerville - Queering the Color Line; Race and the Invention of Homosexuality in American Culture

Havelock Ellis positioned sex as a central problem of life in his work, signifying the importance of sexuality in societal issues.
Ellis draws parallels between sexual and racial anxieties, suggesting a connection between the two issues even if he does not fully explain it.
This chapter examines the intertwining of sexual and racial discussions, focusing on late-19th to early-20th century medical literature.
Medical discourse played a crucial role in defining sexual identities, with shifts in understanding around homosexuality reflecting broader societal attitudes.

Development of sexology overlaps with earlier European medical discussions, aiming to transfer the authority of diagnosing sexual "abnormalities" from the judiciary to medicine.
Medical paradigms of sexuality evolved from viewing same-sex attraction as a criminal act to assuming it as a disease.
The work of Richard von Krafft-Ebing in "Psychopathia Sexualis" introduced terms like "Urnings" and "Uranism" to describe individuals with same-sex desires.
George Chauncey highlighted the evolution from understanding sexual inversion to defining homosexuality based on deviant object choice.

Ideologies about gender shaped and were shaped by racial constructions, with the emergence of homosexuality discourse coinciding with stronger racial segregation practices.
Medical and sexological texts often ignored race, however, they still operated within the confines of prevalent racial ideologies.
Analysis includes a focus on how both race and gender discourses impacted conceptions of homosexuality, viewing them as intertwined rather than separate spheres.

The emergence of sexology was influenced by scientific racism, with the study of sexual categories echoing methods earlier used for racial categorization.
Proponents sought to define homosexuality as a physiological abnormality rather than a crime, advocating for understanding through medical frameworks instead of legal ones.
Havelock Ellis’s "Sexual Inversion" became a key text in this shift, using case studies primarily based on American subjects.

Eugenics emerged as a response to societal fears of racial decline and became intertwined with sexology, influencing perceptions of homosexuality as a pathological phenomenon.
The concept of "homosexuality" evoked anxieties about racial and sexual purity, revealing fears around societal degeneration.
Ellis's writings and involvement with eugenics illustrated how scientific racism and sexology were connected through notions of racial improvement and control.

Comparative anatomy provided methodologies that sexologists employed to define physiological marks of sexual deviancy.
Notably, some sexologists emphasized the anatomy of female subjects, reinforcing gender and racial stereotypes within their findings.
Medical literature endorsed notions of physiological markers of difference that echoed earlier racial and anatomical theories.

Early 20th century shifts saw emerging psychological models of sexuality incorporating racial discourse.
Interracial and homosexual desires were pathologized and viewed as "abnormal sexual object choice," revealing the interconnectedness of these identities within societal perceptions.
The chapter highlights that as scientific understandings of race evolved, so did conceptions of sexuality, with both drawing on similar frameworks to define "normalcy."

Late 19th and early 20th century discourses demonstrate a complex understanding of how race and sexuality shaped societal norms, particularly through medical and scientific frameworks.
The rise of the cinema as a new visual technology during this period also framed and perpetuated societal discourses on race and sexuality.