Determination Art Series Crowdfund
Who are they?!
What are they?!
Where do they come from?!
For centuries society has sought to explain the origin and purpose for the ‘homosexual’ — the queer, the abhorrent, the other. From its conception to present day, sexual minorities have made an easy scapegoat for social ills.
Religious leaders, politicians and proprietors exploited fears of persecution to profit, gain power and enact revenge through blackmail, rumor and innuendo.
Institutionalized oppression strengthened as puritanical rule in Europe expanded to the colonization of distant nations. Sustained capitalization necessitated the subjugation, degradation and fear of an ‘unknown’, ‘exotic’ or foreign threat.
Emerging sciences were utilized to categorize the perceived menace to social order. Creation of the Other was defined through the classification of a perceived norm and its opposition. The peril to long-established concepts of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, et al provided justification for dominance.
Compounded by previous attempts to reveal the exact nature of homosexuality, and influenced by prevailing beliefs of the time a wild variety of lore and theories developed.
Astronomy and phrenology gave way to burgeoning medical and social sciences. Early ‘case studies’, limited to a handful of homosexual patients, offered broad generalizations to conclude and affirm stereotyped behaviors and sentiment.
Having defied a singular explanation or rigid definition — a perpetual quest arose to resolve the mystery of an ‘unspeakable vice.’ The debate continues to this day with no discernible solution.
Determination endeavors to unravel and expose the convoluted history of contradictory myth and absurd sciences used to categorize and define the queer.