The History of Gay Liberatn | Psychology Today

Contents:

• MART DUBERMAN ON WHAT THE GAY-RIGHTS MOVEMENT HAS LOST
• GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• PARTY AND PROTT: THE RADIL HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN, STONEWALL AND PRI
• THE GAY LIBERATN MOVEMENT
• THE HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN
• GAY RIGHTS
• HAS THE GAY MOVEMENT FAILED?

MART DUBERMAN ON WHAT THE GAY-RIGHTS MOVEMENT HAS LOST

On both the history of the polil left and the gay-rights movement, Duberman ocsnally reach back to his own wrg om four or more s ago: he has been wrg about the thgs for so long that some of his own ias have bee his source material. Utopia, genr would be an outmod ncept, kship would be a functn of muny and iendship, sex and love would be parsed out, and love would be tly years later, the gay-rights movement me to be reprented by lobbyg anizatns, not activist on, and s top aims beme the right to get married and serve the ary. He not, evably, but no ls omoly, that German anti-Semism “was to no extent changed or dimished” when German Jews blend hchg the future of the movement to the vehicle of marriage, Duberman suggts, gay people paid a price that may be too high.

“What has been most novative about the erotic patterns that have evolved over time the gay muny may partly be abandoned or wholly ncealed, or we will otherwise n the ser risk of beg rebrand as unreemable renegas pable of changg our ‘bizarre’ behavr, ” he wr. Add to this the fact that more than half the stat, is still legal to fire someone for beg argue effectively for marriage rights, gay lobbyists had to ntuoly assert two posns: that gays are not sexual outlaws and that homosexualy is immutable. By abandong a radil sex-liberatnist agenda a untry that is wagg a war on sex, he wr, the gay muny has abandoned some of s most vulnerable members, cludg teen-agers whose sex wh one another is crimalized many axm that homosexualy is immutable has shut the door on a nversatn about sexual fluidy, variatn, and possibily.

GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Issu are almost entirely absent om the nversatn on the left; Duberman surmis that they seem bourgeois and trivial to straight leftist gays to attempt to fd their place on the left, the story might end wh rejectn and tragedy, Duberman wr. E., for lbians, gays [homosexual mal], bisexuals, transgenr persons, and queer persons); seeks to elimate sodomy laws; and lls for an end to discrimatn agast LGBTQ persons employment, cred, hog, public acmodatns, and other areas of life. ) Gay rights prr to the 20th century Relig admonns agast sexual relatns between dividuals of the same sex (particularly men) long stigmatized such behavur, but most legal s Europe were silent on the subject of homosexualy and bisexualy.

PARTY AND PROTT: THE RADIL HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN, STONEWALL AND PRI

Dpe Paragraph 175 and the failure of the WhK to w s repeal, homosexual and bisexual men and women experienced a certa amount of eedom Germany, particularly durg the Weimar perd, between the end of World War I and the Nazi seizure of power.

THE GAY LIBERATN MOVEMENT

In the Uned Stat this greater visibily brought some backlash, particularly om the ernment and the police: the ernment often fired gay civil servants, the ary attempted to purge s ranks of gay soldiers (a policy enacted durg World War II), and police vice squads equently raid gay bars and arrted their patrons.

In the Uned Stat the first major male anizatn, found 1950–51 by Harry Hay Los Angel, was the Mattache Society (s name reputedly rived om a medieval French society of masked players, the Société Mattache, to reprent the public “maskg” of homosexualy), while the Dghters of Bilis (named after the Sapphic love poems of Pierre Louÿs, Chansons Bilis), found 1955 by Phyllis Lyon and Del Mart San Francis, was a leadg group for women. In Bra 1957 a missn chaired by Sir John Wolfenn issued a groundbreakg report (see Wolfenn Report) remendg that private homosexual liaisons between nsentg adults be removed om the doma of crimal law; a later the remendatn was implemented by Parliament the Sexual Offenc Act.

Now headquartered Geneva and renamed the Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associatn (ILGA World), plays a signifint role ordatg ternatnal efforts to promote human rights and fight discrimatn agast LGBTQ and tersex persons. This support, along wh mpaigns by gay activists urgg gay men and women to “e out of the closet” (ed, the late 1980s, Natnal Comg Out Day was tablished, and is now celebrated on October 11 most untri), enuraged gay men and women to enter the polil arena as ndidat. At the lol and natnal levels, the number of openly gay policians creased dramatilly durg the 1990s and 2000s, and 2009 Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir beme prime mister of Iceland, which ma her the world’s first openly gay head of ernment.

THE HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN

In Ai, Asia, and Lat Ameri, openly gay policians have had only limed succs wng office; notable electns to natnal legislatur clud Patria Jiménez Flor Mexi (1997), Mike Waters South Ai (1999), and Clodovil Hernans Brazil (2006).

Other issu of primary importance for the gay rights movement sce the 1970s clud batg the HIV/AIDS epimic and promotg disease preventn and fundg for rearch; lobbyg ernment for nondiscrimatory polici employment, hog, and other aspects of civil society; endg the ban on ary service for gay and lbian dividuals; expandg hate crim legislatn to clu protectns for gays, cludg transgenr dividuals; and securg marriage rights for same-sex upl (see same-sex marriage). Ary’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy (1993–2011), which had permted gay and lbian dividuals to serve the ary if they did not disclose their sexual orientatn or engage homosexual activy; the repeal effectively end the ban on homosexuals the ary.

GAY RIGHTS

Soon they were advotg nothg ls than “gay liberatn” nscns-raisg groups to fundraisg danc, protts outsi hostile newspapers to refug for homels trans and queer people, this surge LGBTQ+ anisg took many forms, and as the first anniversary of the rts me to view, some the muny began discsg how bt to mark what was beg regard as the “Bastille day” of gay rights. Wh a sgle lifetime, homosexualy has moved om beg a crime and a psychiatric disorr, punished the US by imprisonment, chemil stratn, social ostracisatn and a lifetime as a registered sex offenr, to a socially and legally regnised sexual inty.

HAS THE GAY MOVEMENT FAILED?

The roots of that bate go back to s earlit days, and suggt that Pri and the Stonewall rts have always been part of a ntent battle for inty and ownership – a battle that has helped produce the very ia of what beg a lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr or queer person might Stonewall rts were not the birth of the gay rights movement.

Seven years before that, when police had raid Coopers, a donut shop the cy ntled between two gay bars, LGBTQ+ patrons had attacked officers after the arrt of a number of drag queens, sex workers and gay had been a gay rights movement the US among people scribg themselv as “homophil” sce the late 40s.

Hirschfeld’s scientific approach, bed wh his sympathetic treatment of LGBTQ+ people – he was himself homosexual – had been key velopg the ia that their shared experienc uld be unrstood not jt as discrete sexual (and crimal) acts, nor as psychiatric illns, but as a legible sexual and genr inty, which uld be afford civil rights. Photograph: Getty ImagIn Los Angel 1950, a group of experienced polil activists and munists, cludg Communist party USA member Harry Hay, me together to form the Mattache Society, one of the first homosexual rights anisatns the US. ) The Mattache Society had radil roots activism, takg on the anisatnal stcture of cells and central anisatn favoured by the Communist well as publishg magaz for gay men, and supportg victims of police entrapment, the society had wir polil aims, cludg to “unify homosexuals isolated om their own kd” and to “te homosexuals and heterosexuals toward an ethil homosexual culture parallelg the cultur of the Negro, Mexin and Jewish peopl”.