United States Lesbian and Gay History Final
The Ladder
Started in 1956, months publication of the DOB; most conservative of the 3 publications (ONE, Mattachine review, and The Ladder)
Ki-ki
term used to taunt men and women who did not perform a consistent role of gender performance
Bayard Rustin
(1912-1987): Leader in Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), but arrested in 1953 for having sex with another man in a car forced to resign from the civil rights peace organization but he continued being an important organizer and theorist for the civil rights movement • Rustin persuaded MLK to adopt nonviolence as a key principle Rustin even attended the 1963 March on Washington
The Children's Hour
(1961): Film starring Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine • Film shows how nervous gay people were about the consequences of people finding out their sexuality; institutions had informal power over gay people but they were still effective at regulating them because they had knowledge about them and were able to keep them under surveillance o Threat of excommunication: When the older woman expels Karen and Martha from her house o Internalization: film exhibits how their gayness made many feel ashamed ♣ Edmond Bergler's research became popular, making gay people feel like they were diseased; "Ballad of the Sad Young Men" song is about gay people growing up sad gay people had no other optimistic perspectives to look to!
Advise and Consent
(1962 film): Man is being blackmailed because of a homosexual relationship he had in Hawaii during the war; club shows an all-gay all-male masculine scene --> shows how gay men embraced masculine culture and then eroticized it
Christine Jorgenson
(formerly George Jorgensen) was reported on by the NY Daily News in 1952 for her sexual reassignment surgery; sold life story to a newspaper for $25,000 people were fascinated with Christine because they didn't understand how an ex-GI could become a sexual figure
Radicalesbians
(founded in 1970): talked about their intersections with men in order to determine that their problems were related to sexism; worked with battered women to determine that all male-female relationships were inherently unequal
Gay Bars' Strategies for Survival
1. Challenged loss of liquor licenses in court: some bars would challenge regulations against serving homosexuals; courts in NY and CA ruled in 1930s that people could not be excluded based on their homosexuality alone but they COULD be excluded for ebing disorderly; entrapment was often used to close gay male bars 2. Pay-offs and mob connections: bar owners would pay off cops 3. Hiring gay staff: most bar owners were straight but they would hire gay staff to draw a crowd; "Sam Lawes/Sophia/Diva All Black" was a popular waiter at Harlem's Lucky's Rendezvous 4. Excluding "obvious" queers: would exclude women whose hair was too short or men who wore makeup 5. Regulating customers' behavior: policed behavior of "normal looking" customers to prevent them from doing anything that could seem disorderly (like no dancing rule!); also taught their customers methods to thwart undercover cops
3 Functions of LGBTQ 1950s Organizations
1. Created safe spaces 2. Built community networks 3. Provided support to gay individuals
Social Service Responses to AIDS Epidemic
1. GMHC (Gay men's health crisis), AIDS project New Haven, Buddy systems, GMHC also set up hotlines for information on AIDS a. Effects of these community organization responses: i. Friendship circles became support networks ii. Expanded gay communities' institutional capacities AIDS organizations had large budgets iii. Brought lesbians and gay men back together politically
Sexual Revolution's Effects on Gay People
1. Gay people got to see their friends reject the sexual moral code 2. Heterosexuals made gay people feel that their freedom to love was universal 3. Opened sexuality of others and encouraged gay people to be more open and come out
Causes of the Heterosexual Revolution of the 1970s
1. Growth of sexual commercial culture: adult bookstores, theaters, arcades, etc. a. Economic decline led to pop up cheap venues that specialized in porn 2. Heterosexual Revolution in Sexual Practices (like Woodstock, 1969) a. Became common for couples to live together before marriage b. Wider availability of birth control c. Decriminalization of abortion in Roe v. Wade in 1973 d. Sexual freedom and promiscuity was as important for straight culture now as it was for gay culture
Importance of Gay Bars
1. Only all-gay public spaces where people felt they could be openly gay 2. Cruising: place where gay people could overtly seek sexual or romantic partners 3. Crucibles of distinctive gay culture: they were training ground for how people would dress, act, and relate to one another "Call her Savage" (1932 film) was one of the first films to depict a gay bar
3 Consequences of Policing
1. Pervasive policing of gay life strengthened the gay identity 2. Policing of gay bars reinforced class and gender divisions within gay culture increased resentment of "normal looking" gay people and the most marginalized gay people became the first to riot 3. Because bars had to pay the police off to survive, it was easy for opponents to accuse them of corrupting the police
Queer POC Organizations
1. Queer POC organizations: a. Third World Gay Liberation, established early 1970s b. Kiyoshi Kuromiya: born in Japanese internment camp but became confidant of MLK 2. Critiques of exclusion of queer POC: a. Lesbian feminists of color became active in awareness advocacy b. Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa compile "The Bridge Called My Back"
Margaret Mead
1901-1978: Wrote about other cultures that accept a wider variety of sexual presentations than in the united states
The Double Life
1950s: (passing, being wise, open secrets, the social contract) • Most gay people kept quiet as a matter of survival, but that does not mean that they were isolated from other gay people at the time
The "Urban Crisis"
1960s-1970s; gay white people were basically the only white people moving to urban neighborhoods because the others were doing "white flight" to suburbs gay people moved into these neighborhoods because they didn't have kids and weren't as worried about safety! led to process of gentrification of these spaces
Mattachine Society Sip-in at Julius' Bar
1966, action Leitsch took in NYC to reframe the way that straight people thought of gay people
Richard Penniman "Little Richard"
Black gay performer in the 1950s; performed at the Dew Drop Inn in NoLa in 1950s, where he studied with female impersonators; later signed to a record company to sing "Tutti Frutti" but they sanitize the words
DJ Knuckles
Black queer DJ that popularized house music, present in the vogue ball scene of the 1970s
Magnus Hirshfeld
Early 1900s, was most important figure linking sexological research and homosexual activism • Began institute for sex research Campaigned against Germany's statute 195 (sodomy law), arguing that homosexual desire was rooted in biology • Wrote "Yearbook for sexual intermediate types" and related to Anders als die Andern (different from the others) 1919 film
Adolf Brand
Founded community of the self-owners and self-directed in 1903; created publication filled with images of handsome youth, saying homoerotic desire was characteristically German because images of homoerotic youth were seen in old Roman architecture, it led Brand to embrace fascism and racist nationalism
Der Kreis
Founded in 1932 in Zurich, Swiss homophile magazine that was able to survive WW2 because Switzerland maintained neutrality during the war many other European homophile groups were founded in the late 1940s though!
ONE Magazine
Founded in 1952, Publication sponsored by the Mattachine society most militant of homophile publications at the time
Vogue Balls
In 1970s when young Black and Latino men were expelled from their homes, they constructed "houses," fabricated familial systems • Houses were led by mothers, talented individuals who played parent role they competed in performing "Realness" • Vogueing became a mode of competition
Nazis and Homosexuals
Nazis seize power in 1933 and burn Hirschfeld's library • Thousands and thousands of homosexuals were sent to concentration camps, marked by the pink triangle Nazis partially repressed homosexuals in order to prove that their own movement was not homoerotic
Gay Liberation Front
Organization that believed gay liberation would not occur until old regulatory institutions were abolished • Rejected homosexuality vs. heterosexuality social roles and said homosexuality was a potential for EVERYONE! • Gay Activists Alliance: single-issue group devoted to securing gay rights • "Zaps" = slang that these activist groups would have with politicians • Older gay people disagreed with aspects of the liberation front; coming out could threaten the safety of the gay community and traditional moral codes but younger homosexuals said that coming out was a moral imperative! • By the end of the 1960s, coming out as gay became imperative to being a gay activist the idea of the double life was seen as hypocrisy
Reagan and AIDS
Reagan did not say word "AIDS" until 6 years had passed and 20,000 Americans had died • CDC allayed people's fears by saying general public was not at risk
Donald Webster Cory
Wrote "The Homosexual in America" (1951) • Read and discussed by thousands of gay people; drew on discussions from Black civil rights movement to say that homosexuals should also be treated as minority struggling for their rights used anti-fascist and anti-communist rhetoric to criticize anti-gay policing • Modeled on Gunnar Wyrdals "An American Dilemma" and W.E.B. DuBois' "The Souls of Black Folk" • Said that homosexuality must be natural because it is "natural to homosexuals!" there was no winning for them and said that anti-gay hostility is taught to children from a young age through subtle behavior toward homosexuals
Homosexuality and Black Nationalism
a. Eldridge Cleaver denounced James Baldwin in 1968 and said that homosexuality should have excluded him from being a leader in the Black civil rights movement b. "Moynihan Report on the Black Family" (1965): blamed problems on poverty, which they said had resulted in a system of Black matriarchy
Different Queer Stylizations In Gay Bars in the 1950s
a. Gay people were exposed to distinctive gay styles in bars b. Duck tails: hairstyle that lesbians would wear when they went out but wouldn't give them away at work c. Lesbian bars also became tourist destination for male impersonators; Mona's bar featured male impersonators in the 1940s
Leitsch and NYC Mayor Lindsay
a. Leitsch also met with NYC mayor John Lindsay to demand that gay men stop being entrapped Lindsay started treating gay people as a minority group that would demand equal rights and treatment
Growing Early Militancy of Gay Activists during AIDS Epidemic
a. New York post called gay bars "AIDS dens" in 1985 b. 1985: GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) is formed in response to NY Post campaign to demonize gay bars c. Bowers v. Hardwick: 1986, supreme court decision upholding sodomy laws
Early Homophile Efforts to End Employment Discrimination
a. Pickets are organized in the 1960s to argue for employment rights; first organized picket was in 1965 in Philadelphia b. All picketers dressed in formal, gender-normative clothing kind of following the politics of respectability in order to affect change
American Family Foundation
also founded in the 1970s and organized a boycott of the TV show, ThirtySomething because of its depiction of queer characters
Lesbian Pulp
although there was a short boom of books about gay men following WW2 (James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room), this period did not last long • Paperbacks were first published in the 1920s and Pocket Books began selling small paperbacks that men could fit in the pockets and women in their purses hundred of lesbian novels became best sellers during this time and were distributed in news stores, drug stores, and variety stores • Lesbian pulp novels often portrayed gender-normative women who were merely seduced by older lesbians into relationships • 1952 Committee Investigating Obscene Literature denounces lesbian pulp novels like Women's Barracks but did not have effects on these novels' sales
Newton Arvin
arrested from Smith and fired in 1960 for possessing "Tomorrow's Man" and "Physique Pictorial" magazines
Holly Woodlawn
assigned at birth as Puerto Rican man but she became a part of Andy Warhol's velvet underground; Holly decided to never have sexual reassignment surgery but did take hormones to soften skin and grow larger breasts
Gender Presentation Divide In LGBTQ Community
before SRS became available, many gay people presented as butches or queens because they felt trapped in a body they could not change while others performed these gender presentations in order to rebel against gender norms the emergence of SRS forced people to sort themselves out and differentiate across trans* vs. gay • Many gender normative people feared the media attention that trans people got, because they thought people would think that all gay people wanted to be trans divide between gay people and trans people grows!
Camp
cultural style that men learned from each other in gay male bars; mocked gender conventions and the seemed naturalness of sex and gender; Judy Garland, Josephine Baker, and La Lupe were all female stars that performed intense portrayals of femininity (acting as women in ways that gay men wished they could act)
Frank Kameny
dismissed from his government job in 1957 when they found he was gay so he became a leader of the D.C. Mattachine Society -Came up with "Gay is Good" slogan -Helped declassify homosexuality as mental illness of APA with Lambda Legal Services
Mayor Daley of Chicago
first Black Chicago Mayor who supports gay rights as a natural extension of the Civil rights movement local Black leaders were more likely to support gay rights legislation in the 1970s than white legislators
Gene Robinson
first openly gay Episcopalian to be consecrated a bishop in 2003; meant that religious conservatives could no longer argue that ALL Christians shared anti-gay opinions!
Moral Majority
founded 1979, led by Jerry Falwell evangelicals traditionally rejected political activism but finally convinced fundamentalists that USA faced a moral crisis and they need to become politically involved
Mattachine Review
founded in 1955 after split in Mattachine Society, this is similar to ONE but less militant
Dignity (organization)
founded in 1969, organization devoted to helping gay Catholics deal with their sexuality and faith; John Paul II becomes pope in 1978 and leads to stricter treatment of homosexuals • "On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons": publication in 1986 that condemns violence against gay people but still harshly anti-gay Pop expelled organizations like Dignity from the formal church
National Gay Task Force (NGTF)
founded in 1973 by Bruce Voeller; Lambda convinces APA to rule homosexuality is not a mental disorder in 1973
ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power)
founded in NYC in 1987; channeled people's anger into militant demonstrations • Most notably stormed St. Patrick's Cathedral in NYC for a protest and held protests on research campuses of large pharmaceutical companies • Slogan was "Silence = Death" put pressure on people to come out when it had immense consequences for the gay movement
Gay Culture at Yale in the 1950s
gay students didn't tell their friends about their homosexuality but instead gravitated toward settings where men talked less about women and they could perform less heterosexuality gay men would experience pressure to find female dates for special weekends
Presumption of Heterosexuality
it was fairly easy for lesbians and gay men to pass as straight in universities in the 1950s because it didn't even occur to their peers that they could be queer
Anita Bryant
leads the "Save Our Children" campaign in 1977 in Florida; feared that gay people would corrupt children and lead them into their homosexual ways • Reawakened images of gay people as child molesters claimed that male teachers could show up to school wearing a dress (so gay people started distancing themselves from trans* issues more) • Launched more than 140 initiatives to take away gay people's rights over the 1970s and 1980s Amendment 2 brochure in Colorado in 1992 repealed gay rights laws and explicitly accused gay people of molesting children
1970s Women's Health Movement
lesbians viewed the topic of reproductive rights as a lesbian issue; helped open women's health centers where women could get advice and reliable medical care • "Our Bodies, Ourselves" is published in 1971 by the Boston Women's Health Book Collective • These lesbians also aimed to save women from violent men by founding battered women centers, rape crisis centers, self-defense classes o Women Against Violence Against Women (WAVAW) boycotted music and films that were derogatory toward woen o Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media is also founded in 1978
Pauli Murray
mid 20th century, dedicated life to civil rights and women's rights; first African American woman to earn doctorate in law form Yale Law School • Compiled "States' Laws on Race and Color" in 1951 and wrote a brief for ACLU saying that it was unconstitutional for juries to be all-white and all-male • Murray did not hide her relations with women and even requested male hormones in hear 20s
Franz Boas
o 1858-1942: Attacked Nazi ideas of biological differences between races helped support idea that homosexuals weren't biologically different either
Alfred Kinsey
o 1894-1956: Interviewed subjects through ethnographic method; never discussed homosexuality but rather studied homosexual contact ♣ 37% of men had had at least one homosexual contact that led to orgasm o Effects and Significance: many became even more fearful of widespread nature of homosexuality; showed that homosexuality was not actually that statistically abnormal
Evelyn Hooker
o 1907-1996: "The Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual" is her publication in which she administered personality tests on 30 straight males and 30 gay males and found no significant personality differences ♣ Also the gay men studied were normal and not those that sought out help from a clinic
Film Production Codes
o 1930 Production Code creates tiered system of censorship in films; immoral acts can be portrayed as long as they are punished in the context of the film 1934: Stricter enforcement comes along and all gay characters are completely banned
Boys Beware
o 1961 Film that warns children about the dangers of homosexuals and that you never know who might be gay demonstrates the fear that homosexuals are to blame for sex crimes (the coverage that leads to increased policing of homosexuality)
Post-War Psychoanalytic Theories on Homosexuality
o Eroticizing any part of the body besides genitalia was thought to be immature believed that homosexuals were all stuck in another part of developmental process ♣ Many blamed mothers for their children's gayness But Freud himself said that homosexuality was "nothing to be ashamed of" o Irving Bieber and Edmund Bergler were two psychoanalysts; Bergler called homosexuality a disease that he thought he could cure
5 Changes in Anti-Gay Policing
o Escalation of policing o Shift from incidental to targeted policing of homosexuality o Shift from regulation of homosexual conduct to discrimination on the basis of homosexuality as an identity o Older laws regulated male conduct; newer laws discriminated against both gay men and lesbians o Continuing cultural conflict and debate
Women in US during WW2
o Even though women had some increased independence, the war still reinforced idea of men's aggression and women's passivity o War propaganda made it seem like she had to support him and he had to protect her o At end of WW2, many people are left thankful to soldiers but also nervous about their readjustment into society
Post-War Heterosexual Push
o Films in 1950s portray heterosexual relationships as a driving force o Higher % of population got married in 1950s and 1960s than at any other time in history harder for people who weren't married because they seemed immature
Effects of Great Depression on Attitudes Toward Gay People
o Gay people were blamed for the attitude of putting pleasure over hard work blamed gay people for the culture of consumption that had taken over the older culture of self-sacrifice o Depression greatly changed the gender dynamics within families many men feared that they would lose power associated with being the head of the household ♣ Government sought to restore men's control/ability to provide for their families with their public works projects
WW2's Impact on Gay Men
o Masculinization of gay male culture: ♣ "Queens" used to guiding force for young gay men but now WW2 destroyed many gay social circles • Instead they learned highly-masculine way of being gay in the US military • War introduced idea that iffeminacy and gayness did not go hand in hand o Solidified gay identities and minority identity as gender-normative men ♣ Helped gender-normative gay men identify as gay and also see themselves as part of this larger (persecuted) community o Revealed fluidity of sexuality ♣ Reminded people that straight men often partook in homosexual activity ♣ Marked temporary pause in heterosociality
First Openly Gay Elected Officials
o Nancy Wechsler: Ann Arbor Council, 1972: followed coalition politics and passed anti-discrimination law, but also agreed to advocate against police harassment of other minority groups o Harvey Milk: SF Board of Supervisors (1978): also a coalition politician; helped lead the Coors boycott and won the support of the labor movement
NY "Padlock" Law
o Passed in 1927; prevents gay and lesbian characters from appearing on stage, meaning "The Captive" has to close o Female impersonation acts are banned shortly after forcing Julian Eltinge to stop his act
WW2's Impact on Lesbian Women
o Wages meant new independence from men o Easier for women to live together o Lesbian bar culture expanded o Butchiness was normalized
Ruth Benedict
o Writes "Patterns of Culture" in 1934, which is about how what is abnormal in some cultures is entirely normal in other cultures
Helms Amendment
passed 1987, said that federal funding could not be used for posters that were about AIDS or spread information that would in any way imply a positive attitude toward homosexuality
Gay Codes
people who could pick up on these codes were classified by "being wise" moral ode of the double life meant that gay people relied on each other to protect their secret, which bound them together as a community -"The Big Sleep" (1946 Film): Movie-goers loved the thrill of reading codes, expertise in reading gay codes was a source of pleasure and satisfaction for gay people
Dick Leitsch
president of the NY mattachine society, felt strongly about gay activism after seeing his friends arrested in gay bars gay militancy was a product of the increased militancy in other civil rights movements - Helped organize "sip-in" at Julius' Bar in NYC - Worked with Mayor Lindsay of NYC to stop police entrapment policies
Queer Underground
queer artistic movement in the East Village in the 1950s-1970s; became a space of collaboration between white people and Puerto Ricans; where Andy Warhol started his underground movement
Clone look
self-conscious effort of gay men to reject femininity of the "queen" and turn themselves into the masculinity they were attracted to (but then eroticized this masculinity)
Homophile Organization
• "Homophile" was criticized for dodging "homosexuality" as a term and ignoring same-sex nature of desire these groups also used "friendship" as a euphemism for homosexuality
HIV/AIDS Facts
• 37 million people live with AIDS worldwide and 1.2 million of those people are in the USA o Black people make up nearly half of new HIV infections each year • AIDS was originally called Gay-Related Immune Deficiency but later becomes Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) o Originally covered as the "gay cancer" and by 1988, 82,000 cases of HIV existed in the US o US deaths grew 20% per year until protease inhibitors were introduced in 1995 o PEP and PrEP are high effective now at preventing infection for those with consistent HIV-positive partners
Castro Street Neighborhood, San Francisco
• A "gay mecca" where every gay individual hoped to visit at least once; became headquarters of the Mattachine Society and the DOB in the 1950s; Castro Street Fair was an annual gay tourist attraction in the 1970s
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Adopted by the United Nations in 1948; recognized the rights of all persons regardless of race, sex, religion, etc. also declared the freedom to marry and choose one's partner as one's fundamental right response to Nazi laws that criminalized marriages between Jews o This led to the repeal of the law in the United States that criminalized interracial marriages
Gay Male Physique Magazines
• As popularity of football and bodybuilding grew, magazines that portrayed undressed young men also grew; magazines like "Strength and Health" cultivated interest in the male body pinup culture was popular in the 1950s, portraying men as the epitome of heterosexuality o Playboy (founded in 1952) inspired gay entrepreneurs to found gay magazines posing as bodybuilding magazines; Athletic Model Guild for sell erotic photos of men for "artistic purposes" o Grecial Guild Pictorial launched in 1955 and was intended to celebrate Greek culture and directed to men who strived for Grecian ideals
Early Lesbian Writers and Publications
• Audre Lorde: mid 20th century, wrote key texts for lesbian feminists, including "Zami: A New Spelling of My Name" • Adrienne Rich: lesbian poet active in mid 20th century • Lesbians begin to publish their own journals where feminist theories could spread (like Azalea and DYKE)
Gay Berlin
• Berlin had most vibrant gay scene in the 1920s; gay scene was still divided between gender normative and gender progressive queer people!
Civil Rights Movement
• Black soldiers returning from fighting overseas in WW2 insisted on sharing democracy that they had fought for so gay rights movement began borrowing language from the Black civil rights movement
Daughters of Bilitis (DOB)
• Founded in 1955 by Phyllis Lyon & Del Martin; social club for semi-professional lesbians that rejected butch culture and lesbian bars
Black Drag Balls
• Funmakers Ball (Phil's Black Ball) 1952: fashioned his ball to resemble a classical society ball • Crowds would show up to watch black female impersonators and their escorts but in the 1960s, these impersonators started to face young groups of men that would rob them and picket them
Stonewall
• Gay bar in NYC that did not have a liquor license; was one of the only bars that was accepting of youth, POC, and non gender normative people • Police enter the bar in 1969 only to arrest the manager but crowd started rioting, which continued for 3 more nights • Mattachine Society despised the Stonewall and called on gay youth to not challenge the police/stop rioting • Gay Liberation organized a parade in 1970 to remember Stonewall for Gay Liberation Day had manifested in annual pride parades in major cities
New York Gay Bars in the 1950s
• Greenwich Village: tolerated a small # of blacks and latinos • Times Square • West Seventies: home to fist latino bars after large migration in the 1950s from Puerto Rico • East Fifties: biggest concentration of gay male bars • Harlem: most welcoming to black clientele o Lucky's Rendezvous: served elit black enclave in Harlem **note: in smaller towns, there weren't as large gay populations so gay bars would draw more diverse crowds because there were fewer options
Summarized US Privacy Law Developments
• Griswold v. Connecticut: 1965, gave married couples the right to use contraceptives • Eisenstadt v. Baird: 1972, extended this right to unmarried couples • Roe v. Wade: 1973, women have the right to terminate pregnancy • Lawrence v. Texas: 2003, gay people have the right to sexual intimacy
Eisenhower's First Executive Order
♣ Signed in 1953; gives permission to purge government agencies of people who will be a threat to the national security (including gay people) o Homosexuality becomes tied up with communism people know they are not the same but they are associated in their minds
Women's Folk Music
• Holly Near and Meg Christian played role in shaping women's folk music; Cris Williamson makes "The Changer and The Changed"; Michigan Womyn's Music Festival is founded in 1976 and is lesbian separatist (attitude of women that they wanted to exist in all-female spaces in order to forge lesbian identity)
Lessons the Gay Rights Movement took from the Black civil rights movement
• Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964: white students went down South to help in voter registration and manyyoung white gay students were radicalized by what they saw learned how to organize politically 1. Mobilize people around everyday indignities 2. Take symbolic actions that reframe the problem
Policing of Gay Male Physique Magazines
• Several of the gay male photgrpahers were arrested and sent to jail • Subscribers were questioned by the FBI and forced to come out to their families through questioning
Structural Changes versus Cultural Politics
• Some gay activists argued that activists should work to change the structure of society keep cops from raiding gay bars, etc. • Others thought, however, that these organizations reproduced the same social hierarchies that they were designed to overcome so they instead engaged in cultural politics (creating social relations and social organizations that would change gay life) • This difference is SUMMARIZED BY: Direct action to change the system or pre-figurative politics (creating new, alternative culture)
GI Bill of Rights
♣ Subsidized suburban developments ♣ Cheap mortgages for veterans ♣ Affirmative action in hiring veterans ♣ Education allowance for veterans leads women to make up smaller proportion of people in higher education ♣ Does not provide benefits for those who were discharged on the basis of homosexuality so it directly discriminates against soldiers on the basis of their status as homosexuals (not on basis of homosexual conduct)
How gay people responded to claim that homosexuality was:
• Unnatural: used personal beliefs as evidence ("it was natural to them"), feelings did not go away when they resisted them, used Kinsey's evidence that it was widespread in humans and other animals • Unconventional: Said American Society itself was abnormal other countries had homosexuality already incorporated into their societies (and veterans saw this when they were abroad at war), post-war romantic individualism also applied to homosexual couples' thinking • A sin: Said it could not be a sin if God made them this way; if God did not answer gay people's prayers to not be gay, it meant that he wanted them that way • Sick: Gay people were seen as intellectually stunted so they build a narrative around gay culture and looked to gay relationships around them to show that gay people could share a mature love
Lesbians and Pornography Disagreements
• Women against Pornography say that porn is a manifestation of men's hatred toward women • FACT (Feminist Anti-Censorship Taskforce) however, say that these opponents only reflected people's anti-sex attitudes Debate becomes known as "The Sex Wars"
Gender Identity Clinic
• established 1964 at Johns Hopkins University to perform sexual reassignment surgeries in the US now SRS surgery requests are roughly equal for men and women, but initially there were many more for male to female
Focus on the Family
• established 1973, founded by James Dobson, who advised parents how to raise children in an anti-Christian culture o FOF founded Family Research Council in 1983, organization that has fought for pro-life legislation, etc.
Mattachine Society
• founded in 1950 in Los Angeles, founded by Harry Hay o Composed of both men and women but mostly gay men o Largest organization that established chapters within 6 cities in one decade
Gay Community Building in the 1960-70s
• gay people were encouraged to form gay organizations on college campuses/in professional fields women needed alternatives to gay bars even more because they weren't served there! o So lesbians formed food stores and book stores instead of gay bars
Rock Hudson
• heterosexual icon movie star that contracted AIDS, increased spreading idea that gay men were sneaky and could hide the disease, leading it to infect straight people o Heterosexuals became afraid to use the same phones and water fountains as gay people o 50% of Americans wanted to quarantine gay people and 16% wanted to force tattoos on gay people