Homosexuality and the Making of Modern LGBTQI+ Greece

Abstract

This chapter traces the interwoven histories through which homosexual practices and discourses have emerged in modern Greece and its diasporas over the past two centuries, situating them within broader sociopolitical, cultural, and legal frameworks. It maps continuities and ruptures, moments of visibility and erasure, as shifting configurations of power, knowledge, and identity reshape understandings of sexuality. Beginning in predominantly male-dominated fields such as forensic medicine, law, and psychiatry and later reframed within the social sciences, anthropology, gender studies, and queer theory, these discourses reveal evolving conditions of knowledge production and circulation. Drawing on legal decisions, letters, press coverage, literature, film, and other cultural forms, the chapter locates changes in representation and debate within their historical contexts, from early notions of “unnatural” and “anti-national” acts to contemporary articulations of LGBTQI+ subjectivities and communities. Particular attention is given to the legal and institutional reforms of the early twenty-first century. The chapter argues that, as Greece consolidated itself as a modern nation, shifts in law and knowledge reflected changing epistemological paradigms and ideological frameworks. It highlights the dynamic interplay between national narratives and transnational influences, where local debates intersect with European and supranational trajectories, and where change emerges through both top-down institutional reforms and bottom-up cultural and activist initiatives.