ABSTRACT
The “homosexual pejorative” references a strategic pathological framework on which so-called homosexuals are objectified and diminished. Homosexuality represents “madness that modern consciousness assimilate, against which the only defense is an entirely negative one, in the form of refusal and absolute condemnation”. Homophobic rhetors first expunge references to gay subjectivity and then assert homosexual pathology in “gay’s” absence. This chapter discusses the ways in which artifacts from US-based 1960s’ pro-gay advocacy campaigns contextualize the American Psychiatric Association’s 1973 removal of homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. It highlights a dialogic relationship between French philosophy emerging in the 1960s and US-based homophile social movements that materialized in the same decade. Silence is a dominant theme in Foucault’s archaeologies and genealogies.
