Liberating Pathologization
The Historical Background of the 1961 Decriminalization of Homosexuality in Hungary
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21882557 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Judit Takács (0000-0002-7509-0739, GfK (United States)), Tamás P Tóth, Tamás Tóth (0009-0005-7535-2611, GfK (United States)) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 267-300 |
| Publication date | 2021-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Hungarian Historical Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2063-8647 • E-ISSN: 2063-9961 |
| Publisher | The Hungarian Historical Review (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.38145/2021.2.267 |
| OpenAlex | W3192497498 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 19 |
Analyzing the principles, considerations, and official explanations underpinning the (de)criminalization of sexual relations between same-sex partners can highlight that around the mid-twentieth century medicalizing references were used in legal and societal judgments on same-sex intimacy in Hungary (and elsewhere). In this study, we want to illustrate the medicalization process of social issues that otherwise seem difficult to “solve” (i.e., these issues, in this case, were put within a psycho-medical ambit) by focusing on a twentieth-century historical example from Hungary. The background of the decriminalization of consensual sexual acts between adult men in the 1961 Hungarian Penal Code will be explored in detail using previously unknown original archival material from 1958. This article will introduce the changes proposed by the Neurology Committee of the Health Science Council (HSC; Egészségügyi Tudományos Tanács) in 1958 leading to the HSC’s unanimous support for a proposal to decriminalize “unnatural fornication” between consenting adults and to the actual decriminalization of homosexuality (i.e., decriminalization of consensual sexual acts between adult men) in 1961. The empirical foundation of the present study includes archival records from the National Archives of Hungary and other primary sources
Criminalization · Criminology · Decriminalization · Homosexuality · Medicalization · Political science · Psychiatry · Queer · Queer theory · Sociology · European history and politics · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Gender Studies · German Social Sciences and History · Law · Psychology
Histoire de la sexualité, Tome I
Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia
Sexuality in Europe
Peripheral Desires
Transnational Homosexuals in Communist Poland
Lesbian Lives in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia
Routes to decriminalization
Rethinking the sexual citizenship from queer and post-Soviet perspectives
Disciplining gender and (homo)sexuality in state-socialist Hungary in the 1970s
The Two-Faced Fifties
Oscar Wilde, Sodomy, and Mental Illness in Late Victorian England
Cold War Pavlov
The Queer Cases of Psychoanalysis
Homosexuality and psychiatry in state-socialist Hungary
Should Homosexuality Arouse Therapeutic Concern
Homosexual Existence and Existing Socialism
"Unnatural Fornication" Cases Under State-Socialism
The German Invention of Homosexuality
Glad to be Gay Behind the Wall
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.75 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2025 (4) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |