Ricky Mart on g out as gay: 'I've been super happy ever sce'

Contents:

• RICKY MART ON G OUT AS GAY: 'I'VE BEEN SUPER HAPPY EVER SCE'
• A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

RICKY MART ON G OUT AS GAY: 'I'VE BEEN SUPER HAPPY EVER SCE'

In my 2020 book“Come Out, Come Out, Whoever You Are, ”, I explore the history of this term, om the earlit days of the gay rights movement, to today, when has been adopted by other movements. The Mattache Society, the earlit important anizatn of what was known as the homophile movement – a precursor of the gay rights movement – took s name om myster medieval figur masks. At the first Gay Liberatn March New York Cy June 1970, one of the anizers stated that “we’ll never have the eedom and civil rights we serve as human begs unls we stop hidg closets and the shelter of anonymy.

For stance, 1978, his mpaign to feat a California iative that would have banned gay teachers om workg state public schools, openly gay elected ernment official Harvey Milk urged people to “Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are.

Milk gambled that if queer people told their iends they were gay, Californians would realize that they had iends, workers and fay members who were gay and – out of solidary – would oppose the proposn. As ttimony of this shift, today, marriage equaly is the law of the land, the popular TV edy “Morn Fay” featur a gay uple and one of the leadg ndidat for the Democratic printial ticket, Pete Buttigieg, is a gay man. The term gay is equently ed as a synonym for homosexual; female homosexualy is often referred to as different tim and different cultur, homosexual behavur has been varly approved of, tolerated, punished, and banned.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Others—om factns wh mastream Prottantism to anizatns of Reform rabbis—have advoted, on theologil as well as social grounds, the full acceptance of homosexuals and their relatnships.

Morn velopments Attus toward homosexualy are generally flux, partially as a rult of creased polil activism (see gay rights movement) and efforts by homosexuals to be seen not as aberrant personali but as differg om “normal” dividuals only their sexual orientatn.

The nflictg views of homosexualy—as a variant but normal human sexual behavur on one hand, and as psychologilly viant behavur on the other—rema prent most societi the 21st century, but they have been largely rolved ( the profsnal sense) most veloped untri. The stereotyp of male homosexuals as weak and effemate and lbians as mascule and aggrsive, which were wispread the Wt as recently as the 1950s and early ’60s, have largely been disrd. The Ksey report of 1948, for example, found that 30 percent of adult Amerin mal among Ksey’s subjects had engaged some homosexual activy and that 10 percent reported that their sexual practice had been exclively homosexual for a perd of at least three years between the ag of 16 and 55.