Lesbianism and the Criminal Law

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xix

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Caroline Derry

   Pages 1-39

3. Mary/Charles Hamilton: Eighteenth-Century Female Husband Prosecutions

   • Caroline Derry

   Pages 41-82

4. Louise Mourey and the ‘Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon’

   • Caroline Derry

   Pages 83-122

5. ‘Gross Indecency Between Females’: The 1921 Parliamentary Debates

   • Caroline Derry

   Pages 123-153

6. Victor/Valerie Barker: Sexology and Challenges to Silencing

   • Caroline Derry

   Pages 155-189

7. The Wolfenden Report: A Shift in Silencing

   • Caroline Derry

   Pages 191-225

8. Allen: Sexual Offences Prosecutions in the Late Twentieth Century

   • Caroline Derry

   Pages 227-266

9. McNally: After the Sexual Offences Act 2003

   • Caroline Derry

   Pages 267-302

10. Conclusion

    • Caroline Derry

    Pages 303-312

11. Back Matter

    Pages 313-323

    PDF

This book offers a comprehensive examination of the ways in which the criminal justice system of England and Wales has regulated, and failed or refused to regulate, lesbianism. It identifies the overarching approach as one of silencing: lesbianism has not only been ignored or regarded as unimaginable, but was deliberately excluded from legal discourses. A series of case studies ranging from 1746 to 2013 from parliamentary debates to individual prosecutions shed light on the complex process of regulation through silencing. They illuminate its evolution over three centuries and explore when and why it has been breached. The answers Derry uncovers can be fully understood only in the context of surrounding social and legal developments which are also considered. Lesbianism and the Criminal Law makes an important contribution to the growing bodies of literature on feminism, sexuality and the law and the legal history of sexual offences.

• legal history
• criminal law
• gender and law
• law and sexuality
• LGBT relationships
• lesbianism
• history of sexual offending
• same-sex relations
• feminist legislation
• crime and gender
• sexual offending
• gender, sexuality and law
• gender and sexuality

• Law School, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

  Caroline Derry

Caroline Derry is Lecturer in Law at the Open University, UK. She taught for fifteen years at London Metropolitan University where she was a senior lecturer in Criminal and Evidence Law and Gender and Law, and LLB course leader. She has been a visiting lecturer in Criminal Law at SOAS and at Paris Descartes. She is a co-author of Complete Criminal Law (OUP, 2018) and Gender and Law (Routledge, 2018).

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