ABSTRACT
Species thinking perpetuates the biological and medical naturalisation of a minority status and the pathologisation of same-sex sexuality as an aberration or a mistake of nature in need of human correction. In current scholarship almost everyone under the influence of Michel Foucauldian ideas, post-structuralism, much of feminism and queer theory is agreed that species-thinking, usually understood as some form of biologism or essentialism, is a bad thing best avoided. Species thinking is problematic once it becomes part of diversity management discourses that stress the value of certain kinds of subjects and notions of worth, and even the presence of bio value in the general population. The species concept provides a portal onto Charles Darwin's thinking that might reveal some surprises. This chapter discusses the UK in the first decade of the century and to the policies of New Labour after considering Darwin's ideas. New Labour's community cohesion strategy combines both genealogical and autological understandings.
