Forster wrote Maurice at a pivotal moment in LGBT history. In England, the 1885 Labouchere Amendment had criminalized all sexual activity between men; partial restrictions had been in place for centuries prior and were subject to capital punishment until 1861. Religious belief drove some of this anti-gay stance, but the era’s growing secularism also played a role; the drive to understand human nature scientifically facilitated the redefinition of gay attraction as a mental illness rather than a sinful act. At the same time, the idea that being gay was an internal and relatively stable trait allowed new kinds of communities to form, including what could be considered early LGBT advocacy groups. Those seeking positive visions of being gay could also look to certain non-Western or premodern traditions—most commonly, Ancient Greece’s tolerance of certain kinds of gay relationships.

Maurice invokes most of these perspectives at one point or another. The novel depicts Maurice’s attraction to men as an inborn characteristic he half-recognizes long before consciously experiencing any romantic or sexual feelings; when Ducie tries to explain heterosexual sex to Maurice, he “could not himself relate it; it fell to pieces […] like an impossible sum” (14). This is perhaps one reason why internalized anti-gay feelings doesn’t loom especially large in Maurice’s life; his sexual orientation is so integral to his identity that it’s the thought of changing it that strikes him as an unnatural “violat[ion]” of “body and soul” (170).