From Sexual Inversion to Homosexuality: The Changing Medical Conceptualization of Female "Deviance"

George Chauncey's article focused on LGBT however in the period of 1800 to around 1900, and back then the acronym LGBT did not exist. Words such as sexual inversion and homosexual were used instead. According to Chauncey sexual inversion meant anyone who exhibited cross-gender behavior. While homosexual meant one's sexual object choice, clearly this definition has changed dramatically over time. During this period, "The victorian assertion of male sexual aggressiveness and denial of females sexual interest established the logical framework for the earliest medical inquiry into sexual nonconformity, and determined the manner in which researchers defined it" (Chauncey 89). This meant that there was no place for lesbians during this time since they possible could not exist, since females were passionless, according to sexologists. For a female to be considered lesbian she literally had to become as man-like a possible (inversion). In addition, because of gender roles if a female drank or smoked often or was too independent as a sexual pervert. Thus sexologists assumed/created a relationship between sexual inverts and feminists or females who wanted independence from men. Chauncey says, "William Lee Howard, writing four years later in 1900, warned that feminists and sexual perverts alike both whom he classed as "degenerates," married only men whom they could "rule, govern and cause to follow [them] in voice and action" (92).

Then in the early 1900's Sigmund Freud defined "sexual aim," which referred to  a person's preferred mode of sexual behavior. While sexual object meant the object of one's sexual desire. Freud's definitions began to change the way people thought about sexual inversion and homosexuality. Chauncey says, "The growing differentiation of sexual object choice from sexual roles and gender characteristics, and the  growing importance of object choice in the classification of sexuality, were reflected, albeit inconsistently, in the increasing frequency with which the term "homosexuality" was used in the place of "sexual inversion" after 1900. I believe this was a change for the better since "sexual inversion" can be considered a negative term.

I believe sexual terms will continue to change in the future. Hopefully we can dispose of the radical, cruel ideas many sexologists had and move froward in a positive way. The LGBT community should not be considered a minority or looked down upon because they are considered "different" in a bad way by many people.