Constructing the Heterosexual, Homosexual, Bisexual System, by Jonathan Ned Katz

This feature explores the human production of the terms and concepts "heterosexual," "homosexual," and "bisexual," which are presented here as evidence of the construction of a historically specific social order or regime. This is the social-historical institution or system that divides people, identities, desires, acts, relationships, and groups into heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual with profound subjective, objective, psychological, social consequences. The chronology includes scholarly works dating to the 1980s, when historians began to develop what is now called "critical heterosexual history," analysis that interrogates the historically specific discourses and institutions that comprise the hetero, homo, bi system. First published on OutHistory in 2014. Last edit: April 15, 2021.

1942, June 1: Time: "How do you get along with girls?"

In the attemp to identify homosexuals among draftees and volunteers, Time magazine reported that the question "How do you get along with girls?" was one of the many that the "eagle--eyed specialist" routinely "machine-gunned" at the selectee during the induction physical.

The question assumed that male homosexuals routinely had trouble getting along with the other sex and, implicitly, that the unnamed heterosexual men had little or no trouble.

Note
Allan Bérubé, Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II (NY: Free Press/Macmillian, 1990), page 21, note 40 on page 294 citing "In Uniform and Their RIght Minds," Time, June 1, 1942, pages 36, 38.