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.

Auteur
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).

Contenu
Abbreviations
Table of Statues
Table of Reported Cases

1.Introduction 1.1What is lesbianism?1.1.1Anachronism1.1.2Definitions1.1.3(Not) defining individuals1.2Silencing1.2.1Legal silencing1.2.2Why silencing for women but not men?1.3Making lesbian legal history1.3.1Sources1.3.2Methodology1.4Arrangement of chapters
2.Mary/Charles Hamilton: eighteenth-century female husband prosecutions2.1Mary/Charles Hamilton, female husband2.2Female husbands and silencing2.3Identities and perceptions2.3.1Motivations for marriage2.4Wives2.5Sexual offences and the Bloody Code2.6Why were female husbands prosecuted?2.6.1Social change2.6.2Changing medical theories2.6.3Changes in the criminal justice system2.6.4Why were female husbands punished?2.7Conclusion: silencing and the dildo
3.Louise Mourey and the 'Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon'3.1 Louise Mourey 3.2 The development of indecent assault3.2.1 Indecency3.2.2 Age of consent 3.3 Social and legal context3.3.1 Female husbands in the nineteenth century3.3.2 Attitudes to gender and sexuality3.3.2 Sexuality and insanity3.3.3 The criminal justice system3.3.4 The sexual double standard3.4 Louise Mourey and silencing3.5 Conclusion: the (lack of) impact of Mourey
4.'Gross indecency between females': the 1921 Parliamentary debates4.1 The 1921 debates4.1.1 Why was the issue of lesbianism chosen?4.2 Lesbianism and women's sexuality4.2.1 Sex and danger in the First World War4.2.2 New parallels to male homosexuality4.2.3 Lesbian sex4.3 Social change4.3.1 Social class and race4.3.2 Feminist diversity and resistance4.3.3 Women and lawmaking4.4Conclusion
5.Victor/Valerie Barker: sexology and challenges to silencing5.1Victor/Valerie Barker5.2The rise of sexology and the female invert5.2.1Criminality and female inversion5.2.2Sexology in legal and popular understanding5.2.3Sexology and silencing5.3Female husbands and class5.4Comparison with earlier cases5.5Aftermath: renewed silence5.6Conclusion
6.The Wolfenden Report: a shift in silencing6.1 The Wolfenden Report6.2 Changing law: legislators and sexual offences legislation6.2.1 From moralism to liberalism?6.2.2 Silencing the lesbian comparator6.2.3 Limiting political claims6.2.4 Articulating the lesbian comparator6.3 From congenital inversion to medicalised homosexuality6.4 Cracks in the wall of silence?6.4.1 Wartime regulation6.4.2 The post-war lesbian marriage-breaker6.4.3 The post-war unnatural friendship6.4.3 Rights claims and an emerging movement6.5 Conclusion
7.Allen: sexual offences prosecutions in the late twentieth century7.1 R v Allen 7.2 A new social context7.3 A new legal context7.4 Court attitudes7.4.1 Jennifer/Jimmy Saunders7.4.2 Perversion and corruption7.4.3 Questioning as harm7.4.4 Lesbianism as embarrassment 7.4.5 Sentenc...