Why We Thk Sonic Should (And Will) Be Gay

Contents:

• THE HIDN GAY LIV FALLY BEG UNVERED
• ‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’
• PHILALPHIA WAS LIKELY FIRST CY TO HAVE A GAYBORHOOD
• BEFORE A GAY WD
• AM I GAY?
• WHY WE THK SONIC SHOULD (AND WILL) BE GAY

THE HIDN GAY LIV FALLY BEG UNVERED

For a long time, the mastream public didn't want to hear our Ca's The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle tells the story of a secretly gay postman searchg for a lost love om his youth (Cred: Headle Review)"I would venture to say that the public were disgted and outraged, " says thor Crystal Jeans. It's about a lonely, socially awkward and secretly gay postman livg a fictnal town the north of England who hs retirement, realisg he wants to turn his life around and fally be happy – but to do this, he needs to fd the love of his life, a man he hasn’t seen for nearly 50 years.

That same year, the so-lled "Alan Turg law" offered pardons to 49, 000 Brish gay men who’d been nvicted of homosexual acts – followg a mpaign arguably bolstered by the greater awarens brought about by The Imatn Game, the h film that picted the nvictn and chemil stratn of the Enigma-breakg puter scientist.

Over the last five years, a tr of Irish wrers have livered stunng gay-themed novels set predomantly perds of history that didn't wele them – John Boyne (The Heart’s Invisible Furi), Graham Norton (Home Stretch), and Sebastian Barry (the Costa Award-wng Days Whout End).

‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’

In the theatre, Matthew Lopez's exploratn of gay male history The Inherance triumphed London before transferrg to New York, where opened the year after a well-received revival of Mart Crowley's semal 1968 play Boys the Band. Pop star Harry Styl is starrg new film My Policeman as a closeted gay officer the 1950s (Cred: Getty Imag)"What we see all through history is that people are nied their past as part of a way to ntrol them, " says Hornby.

In dog so, they lnched the morn lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, and queer movement, creatg a touchstone moment that would fe the next half-century of activist the Supreme Court’s historic legalizatn of same sex marriage 2015, Congrs’s recent approval of the Equaly Act, and the creased acceptance and reprentatn of LGBTQ people popular culture, we have unniably e a long way om the time when ps routely raid gay bars and beg outed nearly guaranteed a person would be labeled a sexual psychopath, blacklisted, ostracized by iends and fay, and legally barred om employment most occupatns, as scribed by John D’E his classic book on the pre-Stonewall era, Sexual Polics, Sexual much ls is known about day-to-day life for LGBTQ people pre-Stonewall, and what took place prr to the rebelln that laid the groundwork for events that would change the urse of morn LGBTQ people have been sexually timate wh others of the same sex sce the begng of time, the social nstctn of a gay inty is a relatively new phenomenon. In the Uned Stat, this has happened mostly wh the last hundred D'E argu his groundbreakg 1993 say, Capalism and Gay Inty, was only through the velopment of palist dtrializatn, the acpanyg expansn of large urban centers, and the transformative effect this procs had on social life that the material ndns for the velopment of LGBTQ inti and muni beme possible.

The personal tonomy and privacy afford by cy life allowed for exploratn of non-heterosexual sir and greater genr exprsn, and the velopment of a muny based on those shared terts a way that was generally not possible unr prev “hoehold-fay based” mos of the late 19th and early 20th centuri, an extensive unrground gay world veloped major U. However, was not until World War II — what many gay historians refer to as a natnal g out experience — that LGBTQ history unrwent one of s first ccial turng home and abroad, World War II rearranged Amerin society to meet the untry’s ary needs. Genr relatns and sexual behavr were a big part of this shift, as lns of men and women were lled away om their hom and placed overwhelmgly sex-segregated environments, like ary bas, hospals, dtrial factori, ernmental offic, and urban new material ndns, upled wh the emotnally tensive circumstanc of war, enuraged unknown numbers of men and women to explore and pursue homosexual sir and to form timate and meangful same-sex relatnships on a sle that was prevly returng om bat abroad or ary productn at home, many gay men and lbians opted for the pennce offered by Ameri’s urban centers.

PHILALPHIA WAS LIKELY FIRST CY TO HAVE A GAYBORHOOD

As Sherry Wolf scrib her book, Sexualy and Socialism, those arrted often had their nam and pictur published newspapers, which often led to beg fired om their job and beg ostracized by iends and the other hand, Amerin society was more ncerned and terted homosexualy than ever before, thanks part to the 1948 publitn of Aled Ksey’s Sexual Behavr the Human Male, which fundamentally transformed the way society unrstood sexualy and quickly beme a media sensatn. The Ksey reports showed that homosexual acts were far more wispread among men than prevly assumed, and nclud that such behavr was not as abnormal as believed and would be more openly practiced if weren’t for societal rtrictns and documented Bronksi’s A Queer History of the Uned Stat, durg the 1950s and early '60s, there was an unparalleled outpourg of reprentatn and discsn of gay people lerature and the media. Far om shrkg, the LGBTQ world expand and bee more anized an era of both creasg visibily and growg reprsn — a ntradictn that would evably believe the first morn-day gay polil anizatn the Uned Stat was the Mattache Society.

Acrdg to Wolf, the anizatn now held that homosexualy was a mental ndn, enuraged s members to seek treatment, and abandoned polil years later, 1955, the first lbian anizatn, the Dghters of Bilis, was formed by Phyllis Lyon and Del Mart, among others. However, as D’E explas Sexual Polics, Sexual Communi, like Mattache, the Dghters of Bilis was heavily fluenced by the opprsive climate of McCarthyism and remaed a self-help anizatn for most of s existence, shyg away om open polil agatn and never growg beyond a uple hundred active gay people the 1960s, there was a ntradictn at play. As David Carter explas his book, Stonewall: The Rts That Sparked the Gay Revolutn, even as eedom, openns, and a mand for change creased throughout society, many areas (and New York particular) were simultaneoly creasg enforcement of anti-homosexual and genr-policg laws to such an extent that many plac beme effective police stat for LGBTQ people.

This passage om Stonewall pats a chillg picture of the legal landspe facg LGBT people:"By 1961 the laws Ameri were harsher on homosexuals than those Cuba, Rsia, or East Germany, untri the Uned Stat cricized for their spotic ways. Across the natn, genred clothg laws that began to appear the mid-19th century stayed on the books for s, makg variant genr exprsns who were charged wh a sex offense unr dranian laws like the uld lose everythg: profsnal licens, jobs and future prospects, and nnectns wh straight iends and the mid-1960s, thgs started to change the homophile movement.

BEFORE A GAY WD

As documented by D’E Sexual Polics, Sexual Communi, young homophile activists who had not been polilly active durg McCarthyism began to ph for Mattache to take a more ant, bative stance bee they were spired by Ain-Amerins who fied racist opprsn and a petn to the Supreme Court, Frank Kameny, founr of Mattache’s D. Meanwhile, as Carter explas Stonewall, young ants joed the group and began anizg publicΩ monstratns at plac like the Whe Hoe and the Uned Natns to advote for gay rights and challenge the psychiatric tablishment’s posn on homosexualy.

By 1964, progrsive relig lears and homophile activists had band together to create the Council on Relign and the Homosexual to provi servic to gay street youth and create Vanguard, which may have been the first LGBTQ youth anizatn and had a cheeky sensibily about prottg. Arguably, the most important and largt homophile anizatn the untry was San Francis’s Society for Individual Rights, which anized mpaigns agast police entrapment, phed for anti-discrimatn laws, and spearhead buildg a gay muny 1966, San Francis saw s own precursor to the Stonewall nontatn, the Compton Cafeteria Rts. This spurred other gay ctomers to rist — they turned over tabl, smashed their dish, threw objects through the wdows, and began fightg wh the the Compton Cafeteria, bars provid a place for LGBTQ people to meet one another and socialize a reprsive society, but also ma them targets for police actns.

AM I GAY?

The Stonewall uprisg arose this ntext as the moment when sparks turned to 1969, a young gay leftist San Francis named Carl Wtman penned “A Gay Manifto, ” an say that would soon bee a fg document the gay liberatn movement. The most important thg is to rpect how each dividual choos to share that timate piece of themselv wh assum that Lara Jean, and by extensn most of the school, knows that he is gay (a speculatn nfirmed shortly afterward by Peter, another letter recipient). After another supportg character livers perhaps the most famo lany of absurd phemisms for homosexualy ever picted on screen — cludg “Osr Wil–readg, ” “Streisand ticket–holdg, ” and “iend of Dorothy” (referrg to The Wizard of Oz) — the subject of Christian’s sexualy is abptly dropped, and he simply be one of Cher’s “favore shoppg partners.

He’s also the one to pot out that Lara Jean has long been ceivg herself, remag obliv to the fact that Peter (Noah Centeo) is madly love wh All the Boys’ portrayal of Lus as a self-actualized gay teenager who fli unr the radar and fac no social nsequenc for his difference may be ls than realistic. You so obvly nnot be gay, was her implitn, bee this is good was 2006, a full five years before Lady Gaga would set the Born This Way argument atop s unassailable cultural perch, but even then the popular unrstandg of orientatn was that was somethg you were born wh, somethg you uldn’t change.

But what feels most accurate to say is that I’m gay – but I wasn’t born this people may fd their sir changg directn - and n't jt be explaed as experimentatn (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)In 1977, jt over 10% of Amerins thought gayns was somethg you were born wh, acrdg to Gallup. Throughout the same perd, the number of Amerins who believe homosexualy is “due to someone’s upbrgg/environment” fell om jt unr 60% to ias reached cril mass pop culture, first wh Lady Gaga’s 2011 Born This Way and one year later wh Macklemore’s Same Love, the chos of which has a gay person sgg “I n’t change even if I tried, even if I wanted to.

WHY WE THK SONIC SHOULD (AND WILL) BE GAY

”People who challenge the Born This Way narrative are often st as homophobic, and their thkg is nsired backwardAs Jane Ward not Not Gay: Sex Between Straight Whe Men, what’s tertg about many of the claims is how transparent their speakers are wh their polil motivatns.

In fact, the homophobic and non-homophobic rponnts he studied shared siar levels of belief a Born This Way Samantha Allen not at The Daily Beast, the growg public support for gays and lbians has grown out of proportn wh the rise the number of people who believe homosexualy is fixed at birth; would be unlikely that this small change opn uld expla the spike support for gay marriage, for stance.

“It don’t seem to matter as much whether or not people believe that gay people are born that way as do that they simply know someone who is currently gay, ” Allen spe of the studi, those who ph agast Born This Way narrativ have been heavily cricised by gay activists. Siarly, Ward has received her own hatemail for phg agast the lg LGB narrativ, wh some gays tellg her she’s “worse than Ann Coulter, ” the ntroversial US thor of books like If Democrats Had Any Bras, They’d Be Republins. The efforts are potentially harmful, acrdg to the APA, “bee they prent the view that the sexual orientatn of lbian, gay and bisexual youth is a mental illns of disorr, and they often ame the abily to change one’s sexual orientatn as a personal and moral failure.