In our third extract of historian David Kynaston's book, he tells how the battle for gay rights divid Bra. It was not legalised until 1967 - 10 years after a remendatn by Baron Wolfenn (pictured).
Contents:
- FROM THE ARCHIVE, 24 JANUARY 1976: GUARDSMEN GAY MAGAZE RECEIVE MARCHG ORRS
- TELL: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF GAY MEN THE MILARY
- PRISONERS REVEAL MAT HAVE SEX WH GUARDS AND 'GOG GAY FOR THE STAY'
- JAM WHARTON, GAY BRISH SOLDIER, MAK COVER OF ARMY MAG
- WHAT A GAY OLD TIME THEY HAD AT THE GUARDS
- GAY AT SEA – A LOOK AT THE US COAST GUARD’S LGBT COMMUNY
- LIBERACE, THE TORY MISTER WHO SCED A GUARDSMEN - AND A BTERLY DIVID BRA: HISTORIAN DAVID KYNASTON TELLS HOW THE BATTLE FOR GAY RIGHTS SPL THE UNTRY
FROM THE ARCHIVE, 24 JANUARY 1976: GUARDSMEN GAY MAGAZE RECEIVE MARCHG ORRS
As "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" to an end, we sent Chris Heath to terview dozens of gay servicemen om the past and prent to fd out what life was really like as Ameri's ary stggled wh s last great inty crisis * gay guardsmen *
Eighteen guardsmen the ele Hoehold Divisn are beg discharged om the army for beg volved wh a homosexual magaze, and one officer is also beg lled on to rign his missn was announced the mons Mistry of Defence strsed that Bra’s secury had never been jeopardised through “Iron Curta blackmail.
” Intelligence chiefs had been ncerned about secury - both Brish and NATO’s - after a newspaper allegatn last October that several soldiers the Hoehold Cavalry were volved a homosexual vice rg.
9 Weeks, Jefey, “Inverts, Perverts, and Mary-Ann: Male Prostutn and the Regulatn of Homosexualy England the Neteenth and Early Twentieth Centuri, ” Hidn From History: Reclaimg the Gay and Lbian Past, ed. G., Grosskurth, Phyllis, ed., The Memoirs of John Addgton Symonds (Chigo, 1984)Google Scholar; Carpenter, Edward, Towards Democracy (London, 1914)Google Scholar, and Homogenic Love and Its Place a Free Society (Manchter, 1894)Google Scholar; Forster, E. "I remember beg the Castro, " says John Forrett (army rerve, 1987–99), "and watchg the TV at a bar wh some iends, watchg Al Gore and Bill Clton swearg that if they beme the tag team for Ameri they were gog to get rid of the harassment of gays and lbians servg the ary.
TELL: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF GAY MEN THE MILARY
Jam Wharton, Gay Brish Soldier, Mak Cover Of Army Mag * gay guardsmen *
" Gay people were allowed the ary but only as long as they didn’t reveal their sexualy; to facilate this, all members of the ary were also prohibed om quirg about anyone’s possible orientatn. And therefore few people realized that the first Amerin serly wound the vasn of Iraq durg the send Gulf war was a gay Alva signed up, before "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, " he had to lie on his paperwork.
And when, 2006, the battl over "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" the ary and gay marriage the wir muny were simmerg, Alva’s boyiend at the time poted out to him that he did have some notoriety that might be of e. (The meetgs have been arranged through a private onle work lled OutServe, set up only last year, which allows gay and lbian servicepeople a safe and secure way of fdg and munitg wh one another. In the shadow of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, " whenever gay servicemen did face any kd of homophobic harassment, they were powerls to draw attentn to whout potentially triggerg the end of their ary reer.
Of a number of latg events—Rocha was also force-fed dog food and locked to a sh-filled dog kennel—the most abive and explicly homophobic was when he was orred by his manr to act a dog-trag scenar, repeated over and over so that every dog the un uld be n through . Anyone who gets off thkg that ’Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ unr the Bh admistratn anyone uld have gone and said, ’Hey, I’m beg antagonized unr the prciple that I might be gay’ and feel safe is absurd.
PRISONERS REVEAL MAT HAVE SEX WH GUARDS AND 'GOG GAY FOR THE STAY'
Life Seventy Years Ago as a Gay Serviceman: World War IIIt was only really around the Send World War that ary discrimatn beme dified and anized, and that the foc moved om simply sanctns agast homosexual acts to an attempt to intify and weed out homosexual tennci—though, as would be seen aga and aga, when fightg bodi were need badly enough, such ncerns would often evaporate.
"JM: "I found out right after the war that if someone were discharged as homosexual, a notice of that fact was sent home to their lol draft board, so that their whole muny would e to know that they were gay.
JAM WHARTON, GAY BRISH SOLDIER, MAK COVER OF ARMY MAG
And this led directly to the formatn of gay ghettos the major ci, where people who uldn’t go home, bee their sexualy had been revealed by the army, had to move to Greenwich Village or the San Francis Castro. Manzella operated fully wh the vtigatn; when he was asked for evince that he wasn’t jt claimg to be gay orr to trigger a discharge, he even supplied photos, and footage of him and his boyiend passnately kissg on a road trip. "While he was ployed, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a mpaigng group who had been givg him guidance, told him that 60 Mut wanted to do a piece about an openly gay man servg a bat zone, persuadg him that would give a voice to the "65, 000 men and women the ary" who weren’t able to live as openly as he was.
I was nfed until beme clear that, partly by chance and partly by a cha of personal remendatns over the years, this trailer park had bee some kd of gay-veteran hot spot: There are eight or ten others livg here, and more nearby. ’ The CO looked at my iend and said, ’If somebody wants to get off my ship for beg gay, they have to e to me wh two Polaroids, both of them they have to be clearly suckg ck, and I want to be able to see their face.
One Man’s Secret Too ManyIt’s temptg to see gay servicemen’s entire ary existence through the prism of this sgle issue—the mpaigner, the opprsed, the stoic endurer—and as the totaly of who they are. In June 1998, Richard Merrt (Mar, 1985–98) appeared on the ver of The New York Tim Magaze, uniform but wh his face obscured, and si the story scribed what life was actually like for someone gay servg the ary.
WHAT A GAY OLD TIME THEY HAD AT THE GUARDS
’" The way he sometim jtified to himself what he did was that was a rponse to the ary’s homophobia, albe an extreme one: "I would feel very angry at the policy, and beme ’Well, fuck you, Mare Corps—I’m gog to do this and be as gay as I want to be for the world to see.
"Navy #3: "Nobody joed up to be ’the un gay guy, ’ but that’s who you’re gog to be, and I thk ’s cumbent on who are senr to basilly intify ourselv so that younger kids n look and say, ’Hey, is okay.
Some likely post-repeal plitns: ristant pockets of homophobia the ary; the ntued right to voice certa homophobic sentiments unr, for stance, the eedom of relig exprsn; possible aternizatn charg if gay servicemen of different ranks ntue to associate wh each other as they often did the silent years; growg disquiet at the absence of partner rights equivalent to those for servicemen’s wiv. But while the Netherlands, which 2001 beme the first untry to legalize gay marriage, has paved the wave for a queer royal to officially wear the crown, LGBTQ people have long been dog so unofficially.
GAY AT SEA – A LOOK AT THE US COAST GUARD’S LGBT COMMUNY
The liph’s sexualy has been the source of some bate: Acrdg to the French medievalist Évariste Lévi-Provençal, the phrase “hubb al-walad, ” found 16th-century historian Ahmed Mohammed al-Maqqari’s pendium "Nafh at-Tib" reference to Al-Hakam II, translat as a “preference for boys, ” though other scholars mata refers to paternal Medieval Europe scholar Francis Prado-Vilar wrote that knowledge of Al-Hakam’s homosexualy the urt of Córdoba “enuraged the ambns of the factns gathered around his much younger brother, Prce al-Mughira. Frerick the Great of Pssia (1712 - 1786)Even his lifetime, this Pssian royal was wily mored to be a homosexual, though that term wouldn’t be ed till nearly 90 years after his years after the kg’s ath, his physician Johann Ge Rter von Zimmermann published a book which he sperately tried to dispel gossip Frerick had a “Grecian taste love.
But he did ltle to obscure his sexualy: Sanssouci, his palace Potsdam, was filled wh homoerotic art and, across Europe, “l Potsdamists” beme slang for kg allegedly pursued the Veian philosopher Franc Algarotti and even famed French philosopher Voltaire, who lived wh him at Sanssouci, though ’s not certa if eher relatnship was Voltaire’s ath 1778, a mancript of his memoir tailg Frerick’s homosexual tennci tail was stolen and published the Netherlands. ”The archde spent the rt of his life secln at Klsheim Palace near Salzburg, where he died at the age of 76 1919, three years after his brother’s ath and one year after the Atro-Hungarian Empire was dissolved after the end of World War II of Buganda (1868 - 1903)Discsn of Uganda’s treatment of homosexualy ually settl on Print Yoweri Meveni’s “Kill the Gays” bill, but this 19th century kabaka, or kg, of Buganda allegedly had sexual relatnships wh men along wh his 16 1886, Mwanga II orred the btal torture and aths of dozens of urtiers and pag, wh many burned alive. Victoria is the only Atralian state or terrory that allows for njugal viss om partners, but most of the timate relatns gog on the prison system are not of the approved an terview wh YouTube channel Melbourne Callg, former mat Stacey and Ben (not their real nam) speak out about the s and outs of prison seems there's much more gog on the women's prisons - cludg 'gog gay for the stay' - than the men's.
LIBERACE, THE TORY MISTER WHO SCED A GUARDSMEN - AND A BTERLY DIVID BRA: HISTORIAN DAVID KYNASTON TELLS HOW THE BATTLE FOR GAY RIGHTS SPL THE UNTRY
In a culture where clothg is no longer a sure ditor of social class and when is both affordable and acceptable for anyone to wear anythg they like their leisure time, many gay men om all social backgrounds choose to adopt 'butch' workg-class styl. The 'nstctn worker' hard hat, torn jeans and muddy boots, the leather-clad biker, the 'clone' (an ersatz urban lumberjack plaid shirt and jeans), the tattooed skhead, all faiar gay styl of drs om the 1970s on, perpetuate the myth of the 'butch' workg man, as potent now as was when Monty took the photographs. That prostutn played such a central role homosexual life until relatively recent tim is evint many slang exprsns datg om the neteenth century that are still current gay age: 'tra' for sex, 'rough tra' for sex wh a workg-class man, 'rent' for prostute; even 'gay' self was ed the neteenth century to refer to a (female) prostute.
Apart om the qutn of their availabily, for many middle-class gay men the choice of workg-class sexual partners meant that their sex liv uld not only be kept away om their social liv (which were often centred on marriage and the fay), but also rced to a seri of simple, easily regulated transactns; the exchange of money of gifts for servic renred. In Monty's day the only men regnisable as homosexuals om their clothg were the screamg queens of the type personified by Quent Crisp, brave creatur paradg the streets of the Wt End vered lipstick and floatg chiffon srv years before the Radil Drag queens of the Gay Lib era. 'The price of givg his physil bety and sexual vigour, even if wh no good-will for the act, to the embrac of some sual homosexual client brgs him more money half an hour than he is likely to receive as his whole week's pay.
There was at least one known procurs operatg om a nfectners shop near the barracks Regent's Park, and soldiers were found to have been workg along wh post Office msenger boys the homosexual brothel Cleveland Street which beme notor when exposed 1889.