A website supporting my switchingview YouTube Channel

This webpage lists and explains some of the definitions, labels and laws I use in the switchingview project.

Some of these will be standard defintions already in widespread use. Others will be my own neologisms (newly invented words) created to describe new concepts that I have developed.

In my experience it is vitally important to pay close attention to definitions. It is very easy to create confusion when different people imply very different things despite using the same words.

For example, some people define 'homosexuality' simply as having sex with somebody of the same sex. For others homosexuality is congenital, an intrinsic disposition. I have a friend who knew he had a profound homosexual disposition but he maried a woman and had children due to social and religious pressures. Such a person could be labelled as either homosexual or heterosexual depending on which definition you use. This could create confusion if two people were debating and unknowingly using these different defintions (which happens a lot!)

Similarly, people often use the words 'sex' or 'gender' interchangeably to describe if somebody is male or female. Yet as we shall see, the two words mean very different things.

Detailed attention to the use of defintions and labels is vital. In this Definitions and Laws webpage I carefully describe how I use these concepts in my own work.

Theme 1. Intermediate Types

Intermediate Types, Queer Minstry and Warrior Love - Link

How do you tell the History of Homosexual People?

Homosexual Identity and Orientation - Link

The Essentialist / Social Construct Debate - Link

Theme 2 - Queer Ministry

Sex and Gender - Link

Theme 5 - Reassessing Patriarchy

Patriarchy, Matriarchy and Biarchy - Link

Biarchy, Patriarchy and Intermediate Type Cultures - Link

Simon Dawson's First Law of Patriarchy - Link

Intermediate Types, Queer Minstry and Warrior Love

Intermediate Types is an umbrella term used by Edward Carpenter, in the very early years of LGBTQIA+ research, to denote people who appear to fit somewhere between the poles of male and female in some aspect of their being.[Footnote 1.1]

Such people might be labelled LGBTQIA+ in a modern Western culture, but people living in different historical cultures may have had different understandings about their own identity and behaviour, and applied different labels to themselves.

I like to use the label Intermediate Types because it avoids the risk of projecting western constructs such as 'gay' or 'trans' into contexts where it may not be appropriate, and leaves open the question of what intrinsic dispositions such people had.

Queer Ministry is a label I created to describe the reports across history, and across continents, of Intermediate Type people being valued for their involvement in religion and spirituality - as priests, shamens, teachers, counsellors, and in many other vocations.

Warrior Love is a label I have adopted from the Biblical scholar Theodore Jennings who describes a context in which:

warriors are often accompanied in their exploits by younger male companions who share in the adventures and the dangers of their 'lovers'. [Footnote 1.2]

Warrior Love often exists within a pattern of age structured homosexuality where a young man (typically from puberty through to about age 20) is the junior partner or 'beloved' in a same sex relationship, and then (age 20 to 30) he is the senior partner or 'lover', and then he moves into heterosexual married life. Many military cultures had such relationships embedded within their customs and values.

Such relationships were said to have had two benefits:

• The mutual loving support between the partners encourages virtue and courage in battle.
• It provides a teacher/mentor role in which the older partner teaches the skills and values of warfare to the younger apprentice, in return for love and/or companionship, and service as page, armour bearer or whatever.

The relationship between such age structured homosexuality and the more typical Western idea of lifelong homosexual disposition is a contested topic in homosexual scholarship. I will be exploring this in the Talking about Homosexuality theme.

Eight case studies of Queer Ministry and Warrior Love can be found in the Intermediate Types - The Evidence. Stories of Queer People in History YouTube Video.

The study of homosexual history is a complex and contested field. One big question is this. If we look back in history and study same-sex loving or erotic behaviour, then is this the same thing that we call homosexuality today. Sometimes the behaviours seem similar, sometimes they are quite different. So how can we be sure?

Some people argue that homosexuality has an Essential or congenital nature. Some people across history had the same inborn homosexual nature as homosexual people today. They may have had differing beliefs and behaviours relating to to their same-sex attractions, but the underlying cause was the same and so we can safely make that link.

Others disagree. They argue that homosexuality should be seen as a Social Construct, a set of behaviours and understandings that one learns from the culture around you. There is no stable biological cause. We cannot assume that old historical constructs are related to modern ones. One should even not use the word 'homosexual' to label people or constructs from before the 20th century when modern ideas of homosexuality were created.

I set out my own approach to this debate below which combines parts of both arguments. I often use the words Intrinsic and Identity in my own work to avoid using the politically loaded words 'essential' and 'construct'. Having explained my own position I will then discuss this essentialist/constructionist debate, and try and find a constructive way forward.

Homosexual Identity and Orientation - My Own Approach

In simple terms Orientation relates to a person's relationship with another person, whilst Identity relates to how a person labels, describes and understands their own sense of self.

A homosexual person has both an identity and an orientation. Getting these two ideas mixed up has caused great confusion in the study of sexuality.

A homosexual person has a sexual and romantic orientation towards another person of the same sex.

Some scholars define homosexual orientation only in terms of erotic and sexual behaviour (i.e. who you have sex with) This is a poor definition due to the innate flexibility of our sexual urges. Homosexuality also relates to your affective feelings (i.e. who you fall in love with), and some scholars argue for additional differences (i.e. how you fall in love with and relate to other people). We need nuanced definitions of homosexuality that can include all of this complexity.

I believe there is strong evidence that homosexual orientation is an intrinsic disposition, or congenital. Something one is born with and stable through life. This was the belief of the earliest scholars studying homosexuality back in the late 19th century. For example Edward Carpenter cited German scholars such as Moll and Kraft Ebbing to say that homosexuality was:

a phenomenon widespread through the human race and enduring in history

and

in a vast number of cases quite instinctive and congenital, mentally and physically, and therefore twined in the very roots of individual life and practically ineradicable.[Footnote 1.3]

This matches much modern scientific research which argues that homosexuality is strongly related to genetic and intra-uterine (hormone flow in the womb) factors. People come out of the womb programmed to have a homosexual orientation.[Footnote 1.4]

Such an orientation will often remain dormant until a person hits puberty or later. These people then begin to realise that they have different feelings and desires to many of their their contemporaries. They look around in their society seeking answers to this puzzle, and hopefully they will find other people who appear like them to question and learn from. They can begin to understand themselves and, after some trial and error, begin to attach a label, or identity, or construct to themself. This may be associated with changes in behaviour, dress and lifestyle. [Footnote 1.5]

They then have both an homosexual orientation and some form of emerging homosexual identity or construct.

Although homosexual orientation is stable across history, the labels, identities and constructs that homosexual people choose for themselves (or have imposed on them) have varied hugely from culture to culture, and even within cultures.

Living as I do in 21st Century England I regard myself as homosexual (by orientation) and both 'gay' and 'queer' (by identity). Had I lived in a different time ot place but with a similar homosexual orientation I might have regarded myself as a 'Molly' in Eighteenth Century England, or a 'Kinaidos' in ancient Greece and Egypt.

Some contemporary conservative homosexual christians refuse to apply the label gay or queer to themselves because they say this implies a promiscuous sexual lifestyle choice which they believe is against their faith values. They adopt the construct 'same sex attracted' to describe their homosexual orientation but celibate life.

Some scholars argue that the word 'homosexual' can only be applied to people and constructs dating after about 1870 when the word was invented. I think this is misguided. Homosexually oriented people clearly existed back in history. I would argue that, with proper academic caution, the identities and constructs that such historic homosexual people lived with can be compared and contrasted to the identities and constructs of modern homosexual people.

In our scholarship we need to find ways of dealing with this overlap of orientation and identity. In particular we need to be careful about how we label these different concepts. In my own work I have begun to use the word 'homosexual' to refer only to this intrinsic homosexual orientation across history, and then different lables to refer to varied cultural identities.

The Essentialist / Social Construct Debate

It has to be said that my approach, outlined above, is very much a minority view within current gender and sexuality related scholarship. I think the history of such scholarship can be explained as follows.

Essentialism is the idea that people and things have 'natural' characteristics that are inherent and unchanging. Essentialist ideas about the congenital nature of homosexuality were widely accepted within early academic debate starting in the late 19th Century. The main question at that time was whether homosexuality was a pathology in need of treatment, or instead an entirely healthy variation in the normal human condition.

Essentialist ideas began to be challenged in the late 20th century, mainly in the context of gender and race rather than homosexuality. Feminist scholars such as Judith Butler criticised beliefs that it was the 'essential' nature of women to be passive nurturing child bearers in the service of dominant men. Gender should instead be seen as a social construct:

an idea, concept, or category that is created and maintained by society rather than existing naturally or objectively, its meaning is determined by collective agreement and cultural context.

Women had been forced to perform these passive roles within a patriarchal society, but that was not women's true, fixed nature. Women should have the choice and freedom to adopt and perform different roles instead. One could even choose to perform certain roles as a form of social action.

Similarly, there was a pushback against eugenic arguments that it was the 'essential' nature of black African people to be less evolved, or to have a lower IQ than white people.

These arguments against essentialist social constructs were taken up into the study of sexuality and queer theory. Much queer theory explores these ideas around performativity and construct as a form of protest. It was said by many that sexuality was entirely a construct, a personal choice, a performance, a behaviour learned from the surrounding culture, and with no biological or congenital cause.

These theories around social constructs are incredibly important, a major addition to academic theory. I have incorporated them into my own ideas (see the discussion around identity above). But there have been two problems.

Firstly, and very understandably when you look at the original debate, proponents of essentialist ideas became regarded with great suspicion, people who wanted to revert back to the old ideas. Sadly this suspicion has continued. It is almost impossible to present essentialist ideas within academic debate today, 50 years later. It is not that your ideas will be criticised if they are found to be at fault. It is simply considered wrong to present essentialist ideas in the first place, almost as an act of faith.

Secondly, it seems to me that anti-essentialist arguments are applied across the board, whereas I would argue that race, gender, and sexuality are different contexts. It is entirely possible that strong anti-essentialist arguments may still be appropriate in the context of race and gender, but are no longer sustainable in the separate context of homosexuality.

It seems to me that in the past two decades new evidence has emerged which supports the idea of homosexuality having an intrinsic or essential cause. We should be prepared to analyse this evidence with an open mind.

1. Biological and other research in humans suggests that homosexuality is strongly related to biological causes, such as genetic and intra-uterine (hormone flow in the womb) factors. The social environment (a person's upbringing and culture post-birth) has been shown to be much less important. (see paper cited in Footnote 1.4 above)
2. Much research and experience suggests that a homosexual orientation is intractable and cannot be changed by, for example, conversion therapy, even with the full desire and cooperation of the 'patient'.
3. There is extensive research into widespread expressions of homosexuality within the animal kingdom. Over 1500 separate species exhibit some form of homosexual behaviour, some of which (in monkey species) appears similar to expressions of human homosexual behaviour. This raises questions about the evolutionary causes and benefits of homosexuality. I will explore this in the'Talking about Homosexuality' theme in due course. (See A Little Gay Natural History published by the Natural History Museum, London)
4. Much research into sexuality looks only within a Eurocentric bubble with unconsciously embedded patriarchal assumptions. Too often the only historical cultures studied are limited to Europe and within the Roman/Greek empires. But if one opens out one's field of view one can see expressions of same-sex erotic and loving behaviour, often linked to spirituality, which are similar right across the continents and right across thousands of years of history. Whilst correlation does not prove causation, this massively extensive correlation must raise profound questions. (see the 'Intermediate Type'/'Queer Ministry discussion above, or the 'Patriarchy/Matriarchy/Biarchy' discussion below).

It seems to me that arguments which reject any idea of homosexuality as a biologicaly caused, historically stable human condition can no longer be sustained in light of this new data.

One constructive way of moving forward with this debate may be to apply the dialectical process of thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

The original late 19th century thesis of homosexuality as an intrinsic, essentialist disposition was valid for it's time.

The late 20th-century antithesis developed the incredibly valuable ideas of social constructs and identities. For entirely understandable reasons there was a strong disapproval of essentialist ideas. But now, 50 years later, new research calls for a reappraisal.

We can now develop a synthesis which accepts a complex balance of both both essentialist and social construct arguments as the best way of describing the complete situation. One's total being is a nuanced combination of both intrinsic drive and culturally dependant performance.

Such a synthesis can only be developed constructively if we are aware of new research challenging many embedded patriarchal ideas and assumptions. [Footnote 1.6]

Sex and Gender

A person's Sex is defined by their physical characteristics and can be assessed in a hospital or laboratory. Sex is typically assigned at birth by the appearance of the External Genitalia. A more detailed assessment will include assessment of Chromosomes, Hormones and Internal Genitalia.

Sex is not a simple binary but a spectrum. Many examples exist which fit somewhere between the poles of fully male and fully female for a huge variety of reasons. For example, research suggests that as a homosexual man parts of my brain are more similar to that of a heterosexual woman than a heterosexual man.[Footnote 2.1]

A person's Gender is determined by their own innate sense of self. It is what they feel themself to be in terms of the Male/Female dynamic. It cannot be measured, but has to be stated or affirmed by the person themself. It may be demonstrated in a person's clothing, activities behaviour, and speech, and whether or not they choose to conform to gendered roles.

For most people their sex and gender coincide but in some others people their sex and gender do not sit comfortably together. In Western cultures such a person might choose to use transgender or non-binary labels and identities. Across history gender variance has a huge variety of different labels and constructs. Many of them are related to spirituality in some way.

A Map of Gender-Diverse Cultures

At a time when transgender people are under great attack in the US and across the Western world, it is important to use maps such as this and other evidence showing that gender variance is an entirely natural part of human existence, and has existed right across the world and right across history.

Whilst this map refers to gender variance, I will be arguing that many other examples of queer ministry can be found related which are related to homosexual orientation.

See Theme 5 (below) for detailed content on Patriarchy, Matriarchy and Biarchy

Patriarchy, Matriarchy and Biarchy

IN European scholarship it used to be thought that Patriarchy (from the Greek - 'Father-First') was the natural state in the human and animal world: a state ordained by a patriarchal God. In 1680 the English political theorist Sir Robert Filmer defined Patriarchy as:

"the natural rule of a father over his family and a king over his state". [Footnote 5.1]

Theories around Patriarchy were such obvious common sense that they needed no defending. Patriarchal assumptions were projected into the study of both human and animal behaviour (i.e. in many David Attenborough wild-life documentaries).

In the past few decades, however, these assumptions about patriarchy have been seriously challenged. This scholarship has not, yet, come to widespread attention outside certain university departments. The first phase of this challenge asserted that Matriarchy (Mother First) preceded patriarchy. Many of these theories described a female dominant, nurturing and peaceful range of cultures. Such theories could not however be made to completely match the evidence.

A second phase of challenge asserts a more nuanced picture in which men and women shared authority within society. Within my own work I have created the word Biarchy (Both First) as a label for this scholarship. One description says this:

Neolithic cultures were relatively matrifocal, peaceful, and non-hierarchical in their social arrangement.

It should be noted that proponents of this theory do not necessarily believe that matriarchy proceeded patriarchy.

It is more likely that roughly egalitarian societies, in which women and men shared responsibilities and power, preceded patriarchal forms of cultural organisation.[Footnote 5.2]

One key factor to understand is the timescale and process for the transition from Biarchy to Patriarchy. No one is quite certain why this transition happened. Some current theories suggest that technological changes such as the use of horses, and metallurgical developments (producing effective weapons and portable wealth) made military raiding cultures attractive and viable. There are also interesting suggestions around the effect of Matrilocal and Matrilineal societies. [Footnote 5.3] This change probably happened on at the Steppes (now Ukraine/SW Russia) and spread outwards from there.

Phase 1 - About 4000 BCE to about 500 CE

The first major phase of Biarchy/Patriarchy transition started about 4000 BCE in and around Mesopotamia and the Steppes. It was a very slow transition only fully completed around 500 CE in the late Roman Empire. This transition can be seen in the surviving texts from these cultures, noting how the attitudes towards male, female and gender variant (both as humans and gods) changed slowly over time.

Whilst patriarchal cultures diffused outwards from this nucleus over the next 1000 years, many other parts of the world were totally unaffected. Many parts of the Americas, Eastern Asia, India, and the Pacific Islands remained Biarchal.

Phase 2 - 1500 CE to the Present

The second major phase of the transition to patriarchy happened when European colonialism enforced patriarchal cultures on virtually the rest of the world through cultural genocide, forced education, and imposition of patriarchal law. Many such cultures had remained virtually biarchal until this time. Whilst this phase started with the Spanish in South America in the 16th century, many major cultural changes were often not enforced until the late 19th/Early 20th century. For example in Canada the British North America Act of 1867 gave the colonial government unilateral powers to control 'Indians and lands reserved for Indians'.

The Indian Act . . . . made massive changes in the lives of Indigenous women by implementing patriarchal rule with the man at the head of the family and women dependent on the husband. This Act took away Indigenous women's rights and undermined the power that they once had. The Indian Act gave men greater political, social, and economic influence than women as 'Indian status was defined solely on the basis of the male head of the household'.

This had a drastic, negative impact on Indigenous women and began the marginalization of Indigenous women in Canada. [Footnote 5.4]

Similarly, homosexuality was criminalised in the 1870s in British colonial possessions, and 'eunuchs' criminalised in India in only 1900.

If you study this timescale you can see that there are peope living in cultures across the world for whom Biarchal, Intermediate Type, and Queer Ministry constructs were considered entirely normal and natural within their parent's and grandparent's living memory. But patriarchy has been the norm for almost two thousand years for those people living in more Eurocentric cultures, where ideas around patriarchy have become normalised and embedded. People in those 'western' cultures can struggle to understand that other ways of living might have existed.

This is one of my major criticisms of much current scholarship into homosexuality. It is Eurocentric dominated and studies cultures inside Europe, or perhaps looks back to the Greek and Roman empires. What happened in other continents is often totally ignored.

Biarchy, Patriarchy and Intermediate Type Cultures

Whilst these Biarchy/Patriarchy ideas are important for anybody studying the history of gender or sexuality, I think it is especially important for those of us looking into the Intermediate Type/Queer Ministry Question.

I will be arguing in my switchingview project that in general, Biarchal cultures were welcoming to people with Intermediate Type or Queer Ministry identities and vocations. This welcome then turned to suppression when that culture turned Patriarchal for any reason.

A number of the scholars I have used have all, independently, commented on this correlation between cultures in which a woman's role is valued, and cultures which accept Intermediate Type identities. [Footnote 5.5]. Whilst correlation does not prove causation, I think there is sufficient evidence to put this idea forward as a valid thesis worthy of detailed investigation.

• In general, Biarchal cultures which display gender equality tend to be welcoming to Intermediate Type and Queer Ministry lives and vocations.
• Patriarchal cultures tend to have a negative attitude towards Intermediate Type and Queer Ministry lives.

Notes

1. I have called this a 'Law' with my tongue firmly in my cheek, but by doing so I hope I can trigger debate, investigation and feedback. If I am right it provides a helpful thesis to explain the hugely varied reactions to homosexuality and gender variance across the world and across history.

2. Within these broad trends, Biarchal systems often tend to be Communitarian and Cooperative. There is an egalitarian value system with land, wealth and property co-operatively managed for the good of the community. Patriarchal systems tend to be more Possessive, Transactional and Competitive, with value systems based around the acquisition and control of personal wealth, and a man's possession and control of his wife and children. These Macro (economic) and Micro (human relational) factors often inter-react.

3. Each culture must be assessed on it's own history and characteristics. For example the Scythian culture (800-200 BCE, Steppes East of Caspian Sea) had a militaristic raiding culture which valued wealth, but had powerfully independent women and many tribes ruled by warrior queens (they were the actual origin of the Amazon female warrior legends). Perhaps this was a culture in transition from Biarchy to Patriarchy with qualities from both constructs. That idea is reinforced by this Scythian culture having many reports of gender variant shamanic style healers, but a few reports of such people being denigrated and attacked.

4. In late 19th Century USA a federally sponsored school/training bureaucracy with over 1000 employees was set up to break down indigenous children's attachment to their own cooperative communities and systems, and settle them on individually atomised homestead units, owned by a man with his wife and children, operating independently within a capitalist system.

'No pains should be spared to teach them that their future must depend chiefly on their own exertions, character, and endeavours. They will be entitled to what they earn . . . . They must stand or fall as men and women, not as Indians'.

This process was set up in the 1880s and ran through the first half of the 20th Century. The principal aim was the conversion of tribal reservation land into economically productive land to benefit the State. This was done by breaking down communitarian systems and teaching the patriarchal ideal of a man supporting his family unit on land that he owned for himself. Any tribal customs which deviated from that were to be suppressed. This had the effect of enforcing patriarchy and heteronoramativity. The traditional matrilineal naming and inheritance system was abolished by legislation that young children must be named after the father. There was an economic as well as a religious reason for suppressing expressions of homosexual and transgender identity, as well as suppressing women's control of their own sexual and economic lives. [Footnote 5.6]

5. Despite the text above, it is vitally important that we don't impose a universal set of values on all cultures. Whilst this scholarship can describe possible general trends across history, there will be a huge variation between cultures, and many cultures will not fit the patterns suggested here. Each society must be assessed, described and valued on its own merits.

6. Warrior Love constructs work to a separate mechanism from Intermediate Type and Queer Ministry constructs. They will often be found and valued within patriarchal, militaristic cultures.

6. The text above refers to patriarchal, heteronormative assumptions within human history. A similar re-evaluation is taking place within zoology and the study of animal behaviour. Again traditional patriarchal assumptions have been shown to be invalid. For example over 1500 members of the animal kingdom have been shown to exhibit some form of homosexual behaviour. The world is much more varied, strange and 'queer' than people used to think. [Footnote 5.7]