Desire Lines: ‘Queering’ Health and Social Welfare

This article considers how knowledge about lesbians and gay men is produced inhealth and social welfare texts. It looks at the consequences of a reliance uponthe liberal ‘ethnic model’ of sexuality. The authors provide a critique of‘anti-discriminatory practice’ versions of sexuality categories which, in theirview, assert the liberal model at the expense of ideas found in the sociologicaltraditions of gay liberation, lesbian feminist, interactionist andqueer/postmodern theories. Through a queer reading of health and social welfaretexts specifically addressed to sexuality, the article considers the hierarchyof sexual knowledges which promote heteronormativity; the reliance upon fixedidentity models of sexuality; the functionalist view of a “gay culture”; thesilencing of lesbian feminism; and the traditionally gendered and fetishisticversions of ‘the lesbian’ produced. The authors argue against merely ‘adding in’lesbians and gay men, and in terms of practice, encourage a reflexive engagementby all practitioners with the ways in which these dominant discourses concerningsexuality populate and discipline knowledges within health and socialwelfare.