The strategic use of institutionalized homophobia by Hungarian state security services in the 1960s

Abstract

Abstract This study focuses on the strategic use of institutionalized homophobia by state security services in Hungary during the 1960s on the basis of original archive material related to two cases in which homosexuality served as the basis for compromise. In the first case, the confessions of a homosexual priest were used to reach out for other higher-ranking ecclesiastical staff in order to compromise them, too. The second case – known within the secret services under the “Apostles” code name – was related to the largely unspoken subject of female homosexuality: here the secret services targeted a group of young religious women led by a former Dominican nun. The goal was to dissolve the group by sending anonymous letters to the young women’s parents on behalf of fellow parents, with the group leader accused of being homosexual. The study draws attention to the generic nature of the preventive methods applied by the state security services in the 1960s, and also to the fact that in the same way that anti-Semitism can exist without the actual presence of Jews, homophobia does not necessarily gain its social exclusory power of homosexuality. Keywords: archive research, Hungarian state security services, homosexuality as a basis for compromise