Yep, I'm Gay (April 14, 1997) | A History of Gay Rights Through TIME Covers |

Contents:

• GAY TIMES CELEBRAT THE POWER AND BRILLIANCE OF THE TRANS+ MUNY NEW ISSUE
• HOW TIME’S REPORTG ON GAY LIFE AMERI SHAPED—AND SKEWED—A GENERATN’S ATTUS
• GAY TIM
• GAY TIM STOCK PHOTOS AND IMAG
• GAY TIMES ISSUE 508
• A HISTORY OF GAY RIGHTS THROUGH TIME COVERS
• GAY TIM MAGAZE [UNED KGDOM] » 2020
• LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENR, AND QUEER (LGBTQ) STUDI
• READ THE 'YEP, I'M GAY' ELLEN DEGENER INTERVIEW FROM 1997
• THE GREATT MAGAZE COVERS CELEBRATG GAY PRI
• GAY TIM MAGAZE DUVET COVERS
• KYLIE MOGUE STUNS BLUE LEATHER ON THE VER OF GAY TIM MAGAZE

GAY TIMES CELEBRAT THE POWER AND BRILLIANCE OF THE TRANS+ MUNY NEW ISSUE

The brand new issue of GAY TIMES Magaze is champng the bety of the trans, non-bary and genr non-nfirmg muni. You n read GAY TIMES’ brand new issue full om 18 March via the GAY TIMES app, Apple News+, Readly, and Flipster. In that spir, TIME is publishg this article by Eric Marc, thor of Makg Gay History.

Over lunch one afternoon at our kchen table, wh the latt issue of TIME turned to an article about Ana Bryant’s succsful mpaign to repeal a gay-rights bill Da County, Fla., I raged over the jtice of both Bryant’s assertn that gay people were a danger to children and the wardly legislators who ved to prejudice and ignorance.

Unknowgly, my red-faced outrage offered another clue to my mother that there was more than a ltle self-tert at stake for me the fate of the gay civil-rights movement. Weeks later, she would ask me if I was gay.

HOW TIME’S REPORTG ON GAY LIFE AMERI SHAPED—AND SKEWED—A GENERATN’S ATTUS

June 20, 1997 TIME article about Ana Bryant’s mpaign to repeal a gay-rights bill Da County, Fla.

GAY TIM

It wasn’t until more than a later, when I began rearchg an oral-history book on what was then lled the gay and lbian civil-rights movement, that I realized that TIME magaze had also played a role shapg how my mother thought of homosexuals — and how she’d e to view her teenaged gay son.

GAY TIM STOCK PHOTOS AND IMAG

In my rearch, as I stggled to ga an unrstandg of why people saw homosexuals as sick, sful and crimal, I stumbled on a 1966 say TIME that jt about burned the sk off my face as I read .

I thk was meant as a medatn on what to make of the then-growg visibily of gay life Ameri. The media those years, as is most often the se today, reflected society’s prevailg views about homosexuals. Back then, homosexualy was still nsired a treatable mental illns, sexual relatns between two people of the same sex uld get you arrted almost every state, and thoands — perhaps tens of thoands — of gay men and lbians had been hound out of feral employment sce Print Eisenhower signed an executive orr 1953 banng them om ernment jobs.

In New York, a state law about “disorrly” nduct was terpreted as makg illegal to serve known homosexuals alhol, and the police routely raid gay bars. The now-celebrated 1969 Stonewall uprisg — triggered by a police raid of the Stonewall Inn gay bar — which is beg marked this month by 50th anniversary celebratns, march and protts, got a particularly pungent headle the New York Daily News: “Homo Nt Raid, Queen Be Are Stgg Mad. ” The Village Voice, an alternative downtown newspaper, published an article the immediate aftermath of the first night of rtg which the reporter ed a slur to refer to the uprisg’s participants, earng the Voice, jt days after the start of the uprisg, one of the first public protts that would e to characterize the newly ant era of “gay liberatn.

GAY TIMES ISSUE 508

31, 1969, ver story was headled “The Homosexual: Newly Visible, Newly Unrstood.

A HISTORY OF GAY RIGHTS THROUGH TIME COVERS

And yet the picture the article pated of the “newly unrstood” homosexual was still drippg wh sarsm and ntempt. One sectn of the report noted several “typ” of homosexuals: “The Blatant Homosexual, ” “The Secret Lifer, ” “The Dperate, ” “The Adjted, ” “The Bisexual, ” “The Suatnal-Experimental.

” After scribg the different tegori, the wrer not: “The homosexual subculture, a semi-public world, is, whout qutn, shallow and unstable. ” Although that ver story also said some paratively nice thgs about homosexuals, is any wonr members of the newly formed Gay Liberatn Front and the Dghters of Bilis (an anizatn for lbians found 1955 San Francis) picketed the Time-Life buildg after s publitn? ” Gay people weren’t gog to take anymore.

When I told my mother eight years later that y, I was gay, she jt looked at me wh a blank stare. Was she tryg to figure out what kd of homosexual I was? In tth, I was a prsed gay teenager who feared that his life was ed bee of this one, immutable flaw.

GAY TIM MAGAZE [UNED KGDOM] » 2020

” I’d e to unrstand om the rearch I’d done the Vassar College library that parents of gay children often felt that was their own flt (also thanks to TIME and all the other news outlets and so-lled experts who blamed homosexualy on a domant mother and passive father). Even before my mother asked me that fateful qutn, TIME had published a ver story on Leonard Matlovich, who was challengg the ban on gay people servg the ary. That and subsequent ver stori — the 1997 Ellen DeGener “Yep, I’m Gay” ver or the 2014 Laverne Cox ver about transgenr civil rights, for example — helped rhape a posive way how people like me thought of ourselv and how the rt of the world saw .

Marc and his mother at the 1993 March on Washgton for Lbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberatn.

LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENR, AND QUEER (LGBTQ) STUDI

My mother me around, too, and by the early 1990s was an activist her own right, volunteerg to lead a support group for gay men whose partners had died om AIDS and helpg found the Queens chapter of PFLAG (once known as Parents, Fai and Friends, of Lbians and Gays).

READ THE 'YEP, I'M GAY' ELLEN DEGENER INTERVIEW FROM 1997

Eric Marc is the thor of Makg Gay History: The Half-Century Fight for Lbian and Gay Equal Rights and the founr and host of a podst of the same name.

THE GREATT MAGAZE COVERS CELEBRATG GAY PRI

GAY TIMES Magaze is gog to be the place where you will fd sight and discsn on the issu and challeng that face LGBTQ+ people the the UK and across the world.

GAY TIM MAGAZE DUVET COVERS

We of urse had him for an all-pk Amplify by GAY TIMES digal ver last summer, but his reer has sky-rocketed sce then so we thought was time for his GAY TIMES Magaze but. This marks an excg new era for GAY TIMES Magaze, as well as the anisatn as a whole.

Enjoy the Autumn 2020 issue of GAY TIMES Magaze! While beg gay was accepted mastream culture, for those the public eye, g out was still seen as risky. TIME’s ver story shed light on her cisn, revealg how her character wouldn’t be immediately fortable yet wh her sexualy, ntrast to other loud-and-proud gay characters of the era.

KYLIE MOGUE STUNS BLUE LEATHER ON THE VER OF GAY TIM MAGAZE

The first qutn om TIME’s Michael Krantz: “So, for the rerd, are you yourself gay?

One n endlsly bate the qutn of whether televisn fluenc society or reflects : Do Ellen Man’s g out what is still our masst medium legimize homosexualy, or do the sponsorship of a bottom-le bs like ABC merely reflect s acceptance by a signifint portn of the populatn? Next The New Gay Stggle (Oct. > Gay Tim.