Representing the history of LGBT rights: political rhetoric surrounding the 50th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act 1967

ABSTRACT

To mark the 50th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act 1967, which partially discriminalised sex between men in England and Wales, all five living British prime ministers (Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and Sir John Major) wrote exclusively for the LGBT news website PinkNews. Drawing eclectically on recent work on social representations of history and a rhetorical psychological approach to commemorative discourse, this article examines how these prime ministers represented the history of LGBT rights and how such representations were used rhetorically. The prime ministers figuratively represented the Act as the start of a long road to LGBT equality. In doing so, the historical event was anchored in a contemporary political agenda for LGBT equality. However, despite this being an outward display of unified celebration, these prime ministers indirectly engaged in the business of party politics by selectively praising the achievements of their own parties and omitting how LGBT rights have been advanced by their opponents. Theresa May in particular managed the Conservative Party’s brand. It is argued that representations of the past provide a selective and partial view of the history of LGBT rights in the UK but that we should go beyond examining the content of representations to examine how they are put to political ends.

KEYWORDS:

• Gay rights
• political discourse
• epideictic rhetoric
• commemoration
• social representations

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. With regards to her personal voting record, Theresa May could be alluding to the fact that in 1998 she voted against equalising the age of consent; in 2002 she voted against the Adoption and Children Bill which allowed same-sex couples to adopt; in 2003 she was absent for the vote on the Local Government Bill which repealed Section 28; in 2004 she was absent for the vote on the Gender Recognition Bill and; in 2007 she was absent for a vote on the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations (TheyWorkForYou, n.d.).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Adam Jowett

Adam Jowett is a senior lecturer in Psychology at Coventry University, UK. He is Chair-Elect of the British Psychological Society’s (BPS) Psychology of Sexualities Section and out-going Editor of Psychology of Sexualities Review. He is also a BPS co-representative of the International Psychology Network for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Issues.