"Comg Out Unr Fire": The Story of Gay and Lbian Servicemembers | The Natnal WWII Mm | New Orleans

Contents:

• "COMG OUT UNR FIRE": THE STORY OF GAY AND LBIAN SERVICEMEMBERS
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME
• LATVIA BE 7TH NATN TO BE LED BY AN OPENLY GAY HEAD OF STATE
• GAY WORLD (HAPPY WORLD)
• FILM REVIEW; GAY WORLD WAR II: ABE BY THE MILARY
• TELL: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF GAY MEN THE MILARY
• THE UNTOLD GAY HISTORY OF BRA’S FIRST WORLD WAR POETS REVEALED

"COMG OUT UNR FIRE": THE STORY OF GAY AND LBIAN SERVICEMEMBERS

The 1994 documentary Comg Out Unr Fire giv voice to the experienc of thoands of gay and lbian servicemembers who joed the ary durg World War II, a story that is largely ignored by historians and mms across the untry. Gay and lbian recs were forced to answer qutns vaguely, or lie about their sexualy, orr to be allowed to serve; otherwise, they would n the risk of beg sent home and brand as “sex perverts. Servicemembers on every waront enjoyed drag show entertament; an entire gay lexin was veloped om the wrgs of Dorothy Parker; and eventually an unrground queer newspaper emerged.

The feral discrimatory actns drove LGBTQ people further to the shadows of society and embolned law enforcement and policians, who beme more vlent toward gay and lbian cizens.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

My only hope is that anizatns around the untry m to pturg the voic of gay, lbian, and transgenr veterans and that we fd a place our history to honor their service as well. We sat down wh Sir John Dermot Turg, Alan Turg’s nephew and thor of a new book on Bletchley Park, to discs his uncle’s role pivotal role puter science and his persecutn for beg gay the 1950s.

It is unclear how many of the men publicly or privately intified as gay or were part of gay muni and works that had been tablished Germany before the Nazi rise to power.

LATVIA BE 7TH NATN TO BE LED BY AN OPENLY GAY HEAD OF STATE

In ntrast, the work of gay men that veloped around thor Adolf Brand and his anizatn Gemeschaft r Eigenen (The Communy of Kdred Spirs) took a different approach. Gay newspapers and journals, such as Die Frndschaft (Friendship) and Der Eigene (translated varly, but this ntext implyg “his own man”), ntributed to the growth of gay works. Fally, 1936 SS lear and Chief of the German Police Herich Himmler tablished the Reich Central Office for the Combatg of Homosexualy and Abortn (Reichszentrale zur Bekämpfung r Homosexualät und r Abtreibung).

Unverg the histori of gay men durg the Nazi era was difficult for much of the twentieth century bee of ntued prejudice agast same-sex sexualy and the ongog enforcement of Paragraph 175. For the first time, gay men who had suffered at the hands of the Nazis beme eligible for moary pensatn om the German ernment for jtic perpetrated agast them. A few years later, May 2008, the Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted unr Nazism (Denkmal für die im Natnalsozialism verfolgten Homosexuellen) was unveiled nearby Tiergarten park central Berl.

More than a century before Apti Aluadov, Chechnya’s puty terr mister and a manr of s police forc, told out ABC reporter Jam Longman last month the same thg that Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov has said, that there are no gays their untry; more than a century before Bishop Godey Makumbi of the Wt Buganda Dce of the Church of Uganda said 2012 there are no gays Uganda; more than a century before then-Print of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadejad said 2007 there aren’t as many gays his untry as the Uned Stat, var untri were claimg that homosexualy was somethg that only existed beyond their borrs. And homophobia was weaponized durg wartime, such as this WWI French postrd which the dancg men tut beg mocked reprented Atrian Emperor Franz Joseph and German Kaiser Wilhelm II. Associatg homosexualy wh Germany was so mon France around the turn of the 20th century that one way French gays discretely intified each other was askg, “Parlez-vo allemand?

GAY WORLD (HAPPY WORLD)

Followg German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebg’s 1886 Psychopathia Sexualis which foced on a number of “sexual pathologi, ” particularly homosexualy, was the send his 12 psdoscientific, psychopathologil romans à l’e rose (romance or trash) novels he lled, L déséquilibr l’amour (The Lunatics of Love). The sensatnal 1907 Harn-Eulenburg affair which bet members and nfidants of the Kaiser were publicly acced of beg gay rerced this naive ncept and was a wele distractn England om the lgerg stk of the Osr Wil trials. Then, durg WWI, a thls, amb member of the Brish Parliament named Noel Pemberton Billg who uld have given any ntemporary Amerin Antigay Indtry lunatic a n for his or her magogic money, published an article (allegedly wrten mostly by his assistant edor) lled “The Forty-Seven Thoand” which referred to “47, 000 highly placed Brish perverts” beg blackmailed by the Germans to “propagate evils which all cent men thought had perished Sodom and Lbia.

Eager to get even wh gays who’d nounced or shunned him for betrayg Osr, Douglas had earlier played his own direct role fanng wartime homophobia by wrg a pamphlet that sold thoands of pi: “Two fo thou hast, one there one here, One far one ultimately near, Two filthy fogs blot out thy light: The German, and the Sodome.

FILM REVIEW; GAY WORLD WAR II: ABE BY THE MILARY

For s many believed (and some still do) that, whatever else he was, Casement wasn’t gay, and that the Brish ernment had fed the diari to further vilify him the public’s md cludg Irish Catholics. Some fay and iends vehemently nied he was gay at all, as did some born after his ath such as late Irish thor and civil servant Eo Neon who wrote: “No one who knew him believed the allegatns and [they] are unanimo about his extremely high sense of moral tegry… The virtual impossibily of his practicg the gross generaci at all, let alone wh the equency alleged, is monstrable. Neon was one of those who accepted the ncln but exprsed fear that “Casement would be portrayed as some kd of homosexual in rather than the great man he was.

TELL: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF GAY MEN THE MILARY

In 1981, Dudgeon succsfully challenged Northern Ireland’s law agast nsensual adult homosexual acts before the European Court of Human Rights which led that vlated the European Conventn of Human Rights. Some evince of what might be lled today “sexual tourism” asi, Dudgeon noted: “It has to be said that the diari, as well as beg an important part of Irish history, are also a val part of gay history the twentieth century.

“I ntt the thenticy of the Black Diari not bee I doubt that Casement was gay, but bee I don’t accept that he would have left such self-crimatg evince to be so nveniently disvered. But Mchell’s assertn that “Dudgeon upheld the diari as the heart and soul of Casement’s bgraphy and ed them provotively as a means of stabilizg (or queerg) the martial spir of Northern Irish Prottant natnalism and reprentg as some viant youth movement” smells of the same kd of homophobia Neon exhibed but Mchell ni.

In any se, his assertn that “In 1916, homosexualy was still punishable unr English law by executn” serly impacts his credibily given sodomy stopped beg a pal crime wh enactment of the Offens agast the Person Act of 1861. As they did their profsnal approach to every other aspect of life, s before the Village People’s double-entendre “In the Navy, ” gay brother illtrators JC and Frank Leyencker brought their “hi pla sight” and naked phallic symbolism that might make Frd blh to their work durg WWI, om official recg posters to magaze vers to advertisg for men’s cloth. Fally, The Sexual History of the World War, wh “eyewns reports by hundreds of men and women participants the World War; scribg the sex life the warrg natns, ” Germany’s legendary sexologist and founr of the world’s first gay rights anizatn Magn Hirschfeld wrote: “The assumptn that the nscly erotic form of raship was not equent is the more jtified sce there are reports of a not nsirable number of such s between soldiers of the same rank as well as between soldiers and officers.

THE UNTOLD GAY HISTORY OF BRA’S FIRST WORLD WAR POETS REVEALED

Latvia swore the first openly gay print of a Baltic natn Rkēvičs, who sce 2011 was the untry’s foreign mister, was elected by Parliament May after Print Egils Levs did not seek re-electn.

She is thought to be the first openly gay prime mister the was an active unnist her nearly 10 years workg as a flight attendant, acrdg to the Council of Women World Lears, a work of female heads of state.