In Defense of Gay Children? `Progay' Homophobia and the Production of Homonormativity

Abstract

This article analyzes putatively homophobic rhetoric and practices and their antihomophobic responses to understand how homophobia and antihomophobia may work together to produce `homonormative' gay subjects. It does so by investigating current debates over the pathologization of homosexuality and gender nonconformity, specifically examining charges that the psychiatric diagnosis Gender Identity Disorder of Childhood (GIDC) is homophobic. The author argues that emerging forms of homophobia, or `progay homophobias', are key to our understandings of anti-queer sentiments in an era of increased tolerance for homosexuality.