When I terviewed gay artist Jt Sayre last month about the prognosis for “gay culture” the age of mastream assiatn—pecially via gay...
Contents:
- GAY ASSIATN?
- THE END OF GAY CULTURE
- GAY LIBERATN TO CAMP ASSIATN
- WHAT DO GAY MARRIAGE MEAN?
- DO ASSIATN MEAN THE END OF GAY NEIGHBORHOODS?
- THE GAY LIBERATION FRONT, THE RADICALESBIANS, AUTHOR
- THE QUEER/GAY ASSIATNIST SPL
- SHOULD GAY MARRIAGE BE LEGAL?
- GAY MARRIAGE HAS NOT—AND WILL NOT—CSE ASSIATN
- WHAT THE GAY COMMUNY LOST WHILE IT WAS WNG GAY MARRIAGE
- THE GIFT: BUGCHASG/GIFT-GIVG, ASSIATN, AND MANAGG THE GAY BODY
- GAY INTY: IS THE TAIL WAGGG OUR DOG?
- ARE GAY MUNI DYG OR JT TRANSN? RULTS OM AN TERNATNAL NSULTATN EXAMG POSSIBLE STCTURAL CHANGE GAY MUNI
GAY ASSIATN?
AbstractThe troductn addrs how gay activists memorialized select people as martyrs orr to fluence natnal bat over LGBT rights. In particula * assimilation gay *
ADVERTISEMENTLetterMay 1, Center FilmsTo the Edor, Re “The Extctn of Gay Inty, ” by Frank Bni (lumn, April 29):Of urse, I don’t want to go back to the dangers and opprsns of those earlier days, but I don’t want to disappear don’t ask racial and ethnic muni to give up their cultural practic and habs as they ga their civil rights, but our lbian and gay culture — s boundary-btg prentatns of genr and so on — is too often required to “tone down, ” to prent ourselv as jt like everyone else the mastream world for the purpose of nvcg that mastream world we are not a threat to the stat New York, that enforced assiatn is, thankfully, ls te, but is not nonexistent.
East Village bohemians drift throughout the summer; quiet male upl spend more time browsg gourmet groceri and realtors than cisg nightspots; the predictable populatn of artists and wrers—Michael Cunngham and John Waters are fixtur—mix wh openly gay lawyers and ps and teachers and but unmistakably, gay culture is endg.
This was the era of the post-Stonewall New Left, of the Castro and the Wt Village, an era where sexualy fed a new meang for gayns: of sexual adventure, polil radilism, and cultural fact that openly gay muni were still relatively small and geographilly ncentrated a handful of urban areas created a distctive gay culture. Unlike Lato or Jewish or black muni, where parents and grandparents and siblgs pass on cultural norms to children their most formative stag, each generatn of gay men and lbians grows up beg tght the heterosexual norms and culture of their home environments or absorbg what pass for their gay inty om the broar culture as a whole.
THE END OF GAY CULTURE
Marriage equaly has bee a central pillar of the morn gay rights movement. Five stat and the District of Columbia offer same sex marriag and a se volvg California’s ban on gay marriage is expected to end up the Supreme Court. But spe recent advanc, not all gay people are so eager to rg the weddg bells. Mattilda Bernste Symore, self-scribed queer activist and thor of “That’s Revoltg: Queer Strategi for Ristg Assiatn,” says gay people should stop fightg to uphold what she nsirs to be the failed stutn of marriage. * assimilation gay *
If the end of gay culture means that we have a new plexy to grapple wh and a new, ls cramped humany to embrace, then regret seems almost a rebe to those untls generatns who uld only dream of the liberty so many now ty, rich space that gay men and women once created for themselv was, after all, the bt they uld do.
But Buckley fds other mted-but-non-marryg upl who posss more tertg rervatns, rangg om those who poe the femism-based crique of marriage as an outmod and opprsive patriarchal stutn to those who see as a tool that ele or upwardly mobile (whe) people e to solidify their wealth at the expense of more worthy gay , like youth homelsns and AIDS activism.
Created partly as a reactn to the hostili of the heterosexual world, Ghaziani says gay muni are now experiencg an inty crisis as the gay and nongay worlds creasgly mix and mgle and gays feel fortable livg openly muni far om plac like Wt Hollywood, San Francis’s Castro District or New York’s Greenwich Village.
GAY LIBERATN TO CAMP ASSIATN
* assimilation gay *
1994 would also mark the begng of a five year “sex panic” bate between gay journalists such as Gabrielle Rotello, Michelangelo Signorile, Andrew Sullivan, and Larry Kramer and queer activists/theorists such as Doug Crimp, Michael Warner, Eve Pendleton and Jim Eigo who favored the prcipl of gay liberatn to the polics of assiatn. AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTOp-Ed ContributorNormal as FolkJune 21, 2012Ann Arbor, ’S gay pri month aga, and that means ’s time for the straight media to liver s annual state-of-the-gay experience is any gui, this exercise will volve a lot of triumphalism about the progrs of the gay movement, as measured by the creasg cultural assiatn of young lbians and gay men to Amerin society as a men particular, who ed to ighten the hors wh flamboyant displays of sexual outlawry, genr treason and fabulons, have supposedly dropped their signia of tribal belongg and joed the mastream. At least sce the 1970s, gay men have been drawg vid generatnal parisons between gay boys their teens and 20s — morn, liberated, enlightened, untouched by gay culture, “utterly distguishable om straight boys” and “pletely lm about beg gay” (as Andrew Holleran put his 1978 novel, “Dancer From the Dance”) — and olr gay men, fanatilly attached to an outdated gay culture and nvced that is the only gay culture there is.
(Of urse, those sorry gay men their 30s and 40s, who allegedly clg to an outmod, passé versn of gay culture, mt be the very same people who, only a few years earlier, were those pneerg gay teenagers, takg their first nocent steps a brave new world whout homophobia, ignorant of gay culture and different to . Instead of worryg that the feme associatns of diva worship, terr ratg or the performg arts may make gay male psychology look diseased, the real qutn we should ask about gay style is what s refal of nonil masculy achiev and what enabl s practners, straight or gay, to quire to melodrama, mp, irony, drag, bodybuildg or Art De as “gay” styl is to seek the ntent of gay culture s practic — to scribe the terventn gay culture mak the world as is given.
WHAT DO GAY MARRIAGE MEAN?
On a Saturday night on Wt Hollywood’s Santa Moni Boulevard, the siwalks, dance clubs, bars and rtrants are packed. The crowd is ma up of mostly men; mostly gay, joyfully, proudly and unapologetilly… * assimilation gay *
On July 25, 2014 Miami-Da County Circu Court Judge Sarah Zabel led Florida’s gay marriage ban unnstutnal and stated that the ban “serv only to hurt, to discrimate, to prive same-sex upl and their fai of equal digny, to label and treat them as send-class cizens, and to em them unworthy of participatn one of the fundamental stutns of our society. 2016 printial ndidate and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fra stated that civil unns are aquate as an equivalent to marriage: “Benefs are beg btowed to gay upl [ civil unns]… I believe we need to rpect those who believe that the word marriage has a spirual foundatn… Why n’t we rpect and tolerate that while at the same time sayg ernment nnot btow benefs unequally.
Court papers filed July 2014 by attorneys fendg Arizona’s gay marriage ban stated that “the State regulat marriage for the primary purpose of channelg potentially procreative sexual relatnships to endurg unns for the sake of jog children to both their mother and their father… Same-sex upl n never provi a child wh both her blogil mother and her blogil father.
DO ASSIATN MEAN THE END OF GAY NEIGHBORHOODS?
As a gay man and as a queer person, I do not want to be normalized. Instead, I want to be regnized and accepted for my difference as a humanizg qualy. To that end, I want to state that my… * assimilation gay *
Queer activist Anrs Zanichkowsky stated June 2013 that the then mpaign for gay marriage “tentnally and malicly eras and exclus so many queer people and cultur, particularly trans and genr non-nformg people, poor queer people, and queer people non-tradnal fai… marriage thks non-married people are viant and not tly servg of civil rights.
Progrsive works of the 1800s tend to view homosexualy as a mental illns requirg passn, or held a romanticised nostalgia for Gre-Roman Ancient Greek ornamental plate pictg first mass queer movement to sweep across the Wt was spired by the zegeist of eedom that acpanied fights agast fascism the aftermath of World War II. Michael Sibalis, profsor emer of history at Wilid Lrier Universy, scribed the attu of the homophile movement as such:“Public hostily to homosexuals rulted largely om their outrageo and promiscuo behavur; homophil would w the good opn of the public and the thori by showg themselv to be discreet, dignified, virtuo and rpectable.
THE GAY LIBERATION FRONT, THE RADICALESBIANS, AUTHOR
Gay culture is not jt an affectatn. It is an exprsn of difference through style — a way of rvg out space for an alternate way of life. * assimilation gay *
However, polil gas were sparse and the movement died out the 1970s, but was soon replaced wh a new wave of more radil of the June 1958 issue of One start of this new gay liberatn movement is typilly ppoted to the 1969 Stonewall Rts, which have bee one (if not the only) event to transcend the pag of queer studi textbooks and enter public nscns. Legal reform that occurred as a rponse to the gay liberatn movement was astronomil: numero jurisdictns around the globe — cludg South Atralia — legalised same-sex activy, Swen beme the first untry to allow transgenr people to legally change their genr, and LGBTQ+ people entered public office unprecented numbers.
THE QUEER/GAY ASSIATNIST SPL
Proponents ntend that gay marriage bans are discrimatory and unnstutnal, opponents ague that marriage is primarily for procreatn. * assimilation gay *
What was once a rejectn of genr normativy and a unique form of self-exprsn for genr diverse and genr non-nformg folk — an tersectn of queerns and unrground party culture shunned to shady gay bars — has been transformed by the growth of social media drag to a mastream ponent of the bety and entertament dtri. ” David Rben’s 1969 bt-seller, “Everythg You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Aaid to Ask)”—a book I remember pesg shakily at the library—advised that “if a homosexual who wants to renounce homosexualy fds a psychiatrist who knows how to cure homosexualy, he has every chance of beg a happy, well-adjted heterosexual.
And Bishop Gene Robson, “God Believ Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage, ” imag a future which the prohibns of Juo-Christian scripture have fashnable explanatn for the turnabout creds popular culture: out-and-proud celebri and gay-iendly ss have ma straight Amerins more fortable wh their other-md neighbors. Leigh Moswz's new book, The Battle Over Marriage: Gay Rights Activism Through the Media don't set out to answer that qutn, but do ht at one possibily: that the public relatns revolutn was achieved, part, through the tremendo savvs and hard work of gay rights the 1990s and early 2000s antipathy to LGBT people the media was tense, and appeared ways both overt and subtle. At the extrem, this trend meant gay people themselv were siled, as the much-maligned failed 2012 Proposn 8 mpaign California, which foced on straight policians and alli toutg gay marriage rather than showg pictur of gay fai (though, as Moswz says, a mpaign Mae the same year which centered on gay fai also failed).
Such acunts scribe HIV as an evabily to which sexually active gay men are doomed; njunctn wh this psimism, bugchasers often implicly or explicly nmn the medil muny’s failure to fd a cure for the vis, and claim that seronversn—“givg ”—is the only te solutn to their feelgs of ep fear and anxiety about HIV. Such muni had long been faiar wh risk, as their very existence crouched the shadows of heterosexist vlence and excln; the HIV epimic dramatilly renfigured that risk, relotg danger to the terrs (ed, the very bedrooms) of gay muni while restg the external tablishment as a supposedly sympathetic and benign ally.
SHOULD GAY MARRIAGE BE LEGAL?
<p>This far-reachg and ntemporary new Encyclopedia exam and explor the liv and experienc of Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgenr and Queer (LGBTQ) * assimilation gay *
Bugchasers were not the only gay men to react towards assiatnism wh spicn and anger; siar reactns uld be found among many polilly-charged groups and subsets wh the gay muny, such as the Radil Faeri and Gay Shame, which mobilized activist efforts agast both mastream society and the assiatnist gay learship. Demands that gay men adopt the practic of ndom e, HIV ttg, and rced promiscuy equated an iologil mand that gay men mt adopt a self-policg culture of sexual moraly, that they mt take subjective rponsibily for their own bodi as well as for the overall health of the gay muny, and that they mt operate wh and abi by the attempts of the mastream medil tablishment to help them. This scientific breakthrough buri forever unfound and unexamed dogma by societi and religns around the world and throughout history that homosexualy is “unnatural” and needs to be celly stamped out by tellectual genoci, like nservative Judaism, Christiany, Islam, Hduism, and Buddhism today, or physil genoci, like ISIS and s kh and k, or both.
The Radil Faeri grew out of dialogu Hay and I had Los Angel durg the 1970’s whenever Hay traveled to Los Angel and along the R Gran at Hay’s home adjacent to the San Juan Pueblo New Mexi (se my “The Birth of the Radil Faeri” the “Gay and Lbian Review Worldwi, ” September-October, 2010) In late 1969, Hay, wh his pann John Burnsi, parted Los Angel to operate the general store on the San Juan Pueblo, where they remaed until June 1979, then livg genteel poverty, when I went there, helped pack them up, and brought them back to Los Angel. The 21st century paradigm shift om an old gay assiatn/sexual orientatn mol to a new gay sentialism/societal ntributn mol is siar meang to the 20th century paradigm shift om Newtonian to Esteian physics, a scientific and social revolutn g a radil, fundamental change how gay people perceive realy, role and inty. There are two opposg polil viewpots when to advocy and than of urse there are a variety of more morate middle-ground opns that fall between the Queer Liberatnists and Gay Assiatnist Assiatnists - This iology is to make gay/lbian people seem like average, normal everyday cizens the ey of the general public.
GAY MARRIAGE HAS NOT—AND WILL NOT—CSE ASSIATN
Dennis Kle, Assiatn and Dissiatn: Peter Gay's Frd, Jews and Other Germans: Masters and Victims Mornist Culture, New German Crique, No. 19, Special Issue 1: Germans and Jews (Wter, 1980), pp. 151-165 * assimilation gay *
Disurs of gay martyrdom reveal that secular gay advot habually employed Prottant Christian ias orr to prent gay Amerins as siar to the domant culture of straight Christians, a strategy that beme creasgly prevalent by the end of the twentieth century after gays were blamed for spreadg a natnal plague through sexual licentns. Polics mak her part of a lg class of “fancy” iends who get to hang out the owners box at Cowboys DeGener said that people are askg why a “gay Hollywood liberal” is stg next to “a nservative Republin print, ” she seemed to miss that many people felt they already know why: Bee powerful liberals have an tert rehabilatg the image of a former Amerin print, no matter how grim his rerd may be, for the sake of prervg fah the versn of Ameri where rich people on the right and left n have a pleasant Sunday afternoon together. For example, for gay men New York Cy at the turn of the twentieth century: “the emergence of gay speakeasi and drag balls…n be unrstood only the ntext of and more general chang the social geography of the cy, ” so that while neighborhoods like the Wt Village and Harlem afford spatial muny, the chang related heavily to the spir of the cy self.
WHAT THE GAY COMMUNY LOST WHILE IT WAS WNG GAY MARRIAGE
Reflectns on the gay muny’s polil progrs—and s future. * assimilation gay *
Some exampl clu: the ONE Natnal Gay & Lbian Archiv at the Universy of Southern California and olr LGBTQ archiv like the Buffalo Gay, Lbian, Bisexual, Transgenr Archiv now at SUNY Buffalo; the Black Queer Studi Collectn at the Universy of Texas at At; the June Mazer Lbian Archiv; the Gay and Lbian Archive of Mid-Ameri at the Universy of Missouri-Kansas Cy; the Transgenr Archiv at the Transgenr Foundatn of Ameri; and the Lbian Herstory Archiv. Ann Snow, Christe Stansell, and Sharon Thompson (New York: Monthly Review Prs, 1983), 100-113; Allan Bébé, “Marchg to a Different Dmmer: Lbian and Gay GIs World War II, ” Powers of Dire; Lillian Farman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lbian Life Twentieth-Century Ameri (New York: Pengu, 1992); Chncey, Gay New York; and Aldrich, “Homosexualy and the Cy. [24] Neil Smh, “‘Class Stggle on Avenue B’: The Lower East Si as the Wild Wild Wt” The New Urban Frontier: Gentrifitn and the Revanchist Cy (New York: Routledge, 1996), 3-29; Lawrence Knopp, “Gentrifitn and Gay Neighborhood Formatn New Orleans: A Case Study, ” Homo Enomics: Capalism, Communy, and Lbian and Gay Life, eds.
THE GIFT: BUGCHASG/GIFT-GIVG, ASSIATN, AND MANAGG THE GAY BODY
Have you felt prsured to behave a certa way once you entered the gay/LGBTQIA+ world? That you had to change your lik and hobbi? Talkg about mic, movi, terts. The rabow muny ... * assimilation gay *
Christa Schwarz, Gay Voic of the Harlem Renaissance (Bloomgton: Indiana Universy Prs, 2003); Hanhardt, Safe Space; Philalphia: Marc Ste, Cy Of Sisterly And Brotherly Lov: Lbian and Gay Philalphia, 1945-1972 (Philalphia: Temple Universy Prs, 2004); Elizabeth Kennedy and Male Davis, Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lbian Communy (New York: Pengu, 1994); Los Angel: Moira Rachel Kenney, Mappg Gay L. Jackson, Changg Tim: Almanac and Digt of Kansas Cy’s Gay and Lbian History (Kansas Cy, MO: The Orrly Pack Rat, 2011); Mneapolis: Enke, Fdg the Movement; Tw Ci: GLBT Oral History Project, Queer Tw Ci (Mneapolis: Universy of Mnota Prs, 2010); Stewart Van Cleve, Land of 10, 000 Lov: A History of Queer Mnota (Mneapolis: Universy of Mnota Prs, 2012); Milwkee: Enke, Fdg the Movement; The History Project, Improper Bostonians: Lbian and Gay History om the Purans to Playland (Boston: Bean Prs, 1998); Washgton, D.
Other cisg spac clu The Block (bound by First, Frankl, Ma, and Fohee Streets Richmond, Virgia) a gay cisg area the 1940s; and Pershg Square (South Olive St., Los Angel, California), known om the 1920s-1960s as “The Run, ” a cisg place for men that clud the Central Library (listed on the NRHP on December 18, 1970), bathrooms the Subway Termal Buildg (Hill and Olive Streets; listed on the NRHP on Augt 2, 2006; now ed as rinc), and the bar at the Biltmore Hotel (506 South Grand Avenue).
The ONE Natnal Gay & Lbian Archiv are loted at 909 Wt Adams Boulevard, Los Angel, California; the Buffalo Gay, Lbian, Bisexual, Transgenr Archiv are loted at 1300 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York; the June Mazer Lbian Archiv are loted at 626 North Robertson Boulevard, Wt Hollywood, California; the Gay and Lbian Archive of Mid-Ameri is at 800 East Fifty-First Street, Kansas Cy, Missouri; the Transgenr Archiv are loted at 604 Pacific Street, Hoton, Texas; the Lbian Herstory Archiv was found and hoed for many years the apartment of Joan Ntle on Nety-Send Street before movg to 484 Fourteenth Street, Brooklyn, New York.
GAY INTY: IS THE TAIL WAGGG OUR DOG?
Servg as the proto-typil gay bar, Molly Ho were unrground tablishments the early 20th century where gay men uld gather and Wtphal - first to the term “vert” Invert - an dividual habed by the soul of the oppose sexfirst to suggt homosexualy is ngenal Consired homosexualy an “abnormal ngenal maniftatn” nsired homosexuals as makg up a third genr known as Urngswrote Sexual Inversn, and ntued the work of both Wtphal and Ulrichs• Sexual versn was different om other kds of homosexualy• Inverts had a primary disposn for homosexualy• Other kds of homosexualy are duced by a lack of appropriate sexual object, such as the se homosocial environments like boardg schoolMagn Hirshfield - 1930s - Instute of Sexual Knowledge• Instute and scholarship voted to the study and legimacy of transgenr dividuals• Hirshfield was the first to advote for medil terventn• Attempts to normalize transgenr experienc• His library was stroyed by the Nazis1920s - Harlem Renaissance• A time of celebratn of black artists• Queer black artists enjoyed the same visibily as their heterosexual unterparts• Queerns was treated as an open secret - everybody knew, but no one talked about • Contued study of homosexualy lead to extreme backlash durg WWII• Please see Magn Hirshfield above• Queer prisoners ncentratn mps uld be intified by their upsi down pk triangle• When the muny reclaimed this symbol, we turned right si up Productn s for film and televisn where reprentatns of queerns MUST be regnizably punished, eher through ath, villay, or ridicule. 1950s - Joseph McCarthy - McCarthyism• McCarthyism is the pot time where Joseph McCarthy pursued and prosecuted perceived Communists• Homosexual dividuals were also clud this wch hunt; McCarthy viewed their “perversns” as dangero to Amerin societya movement foced on assiatn; gay and lbian dividuals should strive to be seen as “rpectable” to heterosexualsStonewall• June 28th, 1969• Stonewall Inn was a gay club Greenwich Village New York Cy most often equented by genr-nonnformg black and Lato/a people (trans women, drag queens, etc. Johnson (black trans woman)- threw a shot glass - Sylvia Riviera (Lata trans woman)- threw a brick - Storm DeLarverie (whe butch lbian) - punched a p- Rts ntued for two nights, and this moment is largely seen as the start of the morn queer civil rights movement- The Pri para is reenactment and celebratn of Stonewall- June is Pri month bee that is when Stonewall occurred• GRID - Gay Related Immune Disease - eventually known as AIDS• Ronald Reagan ref to acknowledge a public health crisis• Reaffirmed society’s villaizatn of gay men - sisted gay men were diseased• Gay men bee aaid to nnect wh each other - uld be lethal• Lbian nurs would act as primary re givers• AIDS and Marriage• As more and more gay men were hospalized, qutns arose around queer fai• Partners of sick men were kept om them bee they weren’t nsired fay• Partners would be unable to make medil cisns for their loved on• The AIDS crisis sparked the need for marriage equaly• Upon seeg the need for marriage sick gay men, the lbian muny started to regnize their own vulnerabily regards to their children• Concerns around legal parentage furthered the marriage equaly nversatnDOMA - Defense of Marriage Act• Ma okay for stat to refe to regnize same-sex marriag om other stat• Existed a legal grey area• Overturned 2013DADT - Don’t Ask, Don’t TellDADT - Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell• Ma illegal to serve as openly gay the ary• Overturned 2011• Tmp’s ban of transgenr people the ary is new - trans people have been servg the ary for years whout cint.