ABSTRACT
The politics of sexuality is inextricably interconnected with the politics of gender. Both were at one time frequently subsumed under the umbrella of 'sexual politics', a term used to encompass both feminist and gay politics, to denote opposition to both male domination and heterosexual hegemony. This usage dates from the early 1970s, when the gay and women's movements shared much common ground, and it was widely assumed that gay liberation, like women's liberation, required the dismantling of patriarchal structures and institutions. The alliances built in that period, however, proved unstable and short lived. As many lesbians withdrew from gay politics, putting their energies instead into feminism, the two movements parted company. It is not my purpose here to retell this story, since this has been amply recounted by others from both sides of the divide (Stanley 1982;Jeffreys 1990; Edwards 1994; Evans 1993). What does concern me is one legacy of this history: a form of gay activism within which the politics of sexuality has been divorced from the politics of gender.
