ABSTRACT
Since at least the 1950s, a social division between a dominant heterosexual majority and a subordinate homosexual minority has been central to American society. This hierarchy has been maintained, until recently, by primarily repressive practices. Repressive strategies do not aim to eliminate the homosexual, but to preserve the division between the pure heterosexual and polluted homosexual. Social resistance to normalizing gay identities remains strong. Two political responses to normalization stand out. First, new sexual identity movements have emerged. A second response to normalization has been the rise of a queer politics. A queer perspective holds that normalizing social controls assigns a moral status of normal and abnormal to virtually every sexual desire and act. Yet, libertarianism is limited as a politics. A concept of sexual autonomy assumes individual access to social resources (expertise, financial assistance, and information).
