ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the word rights in order to demonstrate that calls for 'lesbian and gay rights' may in fact be invoking one or more of three senses of 'rights'. It examines debate between essentialist and constructionist theorists of sexuality, and highlights some difficult definitional problems concerning the 'lesbian and gay' half of the phrase 'lesbian and gay rights'. The chapter explains why particular rights count as 'lesbian and gay rights' rather than rights of any other sort. It discusses some of the difficulties presented by rights-based strategies. Contemporary 'lesbian and gay rights' claims invoke the varying legal, moral and social senses of rights in much the same way as did the liberationist claims. Lesbians and gays, like heterosexuals, possess legal entitlements covering areas of life which appear–in day-to-day, practical terms–to be largely unrelated to their sexual orientation.
