Permission to be queer: the case for liberty
Update: 2025-10-14
Description
Contributor(s): Professor Deirdre Nansen McCloskey | Join us in welcoming back to LSE, economist Deirdre Nansen McCloskey who will deliver this special lecture.
Fear of the queer, says McCloskey, undermines our liberty every time, from the persecution of heretics and witches down to the demonization of Catholics, gays, immigrants, and trans people.
The ideal of a liberal society has been 'Do anything you want, but don't spook the horses'. Don't damage people physically but otherwise feel free. It's a noble and uniquely modern ideal. No masters. As Richard Rumbolt declared from his scaffold at Edinburgh in 1685, ‘there was no man born marked of God above another, for none comes into the world with a saddle on his back, neither any booted and spurred to ride him'. Such an equality of permission is threatened worldwide-and now even in the first home of our liberties.
Fear of the queer, says McCloskey, undermines our liberty every time, from the persecution of heretics and witches down to the demonization of Catholics, gays, immigrants, and trans people.
The ideal of a liberal society has been 'Do anything you want, but don't spook the horses'. Don't damage people physically but otherwise feel free. It's a noble and uniquely modern ideal. No masters. As Richard Rumbolt declared from his scaffold at Edinburgh in 1685, ‘there was no man born marked of God above another, for none comes into the world with a saddle on his back, neither any booted and spurred to ride him'. Such an equality of permission is threatened worldwide-and now even in the first home of our liberties.
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