Our Hearts Were Young and Gay: On Weakns, Strength, and Friendship -The Toast

Contents:

• WHEN DID YOU KNOW YOU WERE GAY?
• MORE THAN HALF OF GENERATN Z GAY, BISEXUAL TEENAGE BOYS REPORT BEG OUT TO PARENTS
• AGE DIFFERENC GAY COUPL
• AT WHAT AGE DO KIDS INTIFY AS GAY?
• A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
• THE HIDN GAY LIV FALLY BEG UNVERED
• OUR HEARTS WERE YOUNG AND GAY: ON WEAKNS, STRENGTH, AND FRIENDSHIP
• WHEN OUR HEARTS WERE YOUNG AND GAY
• GAY RIGHTS

WHEN DID YOU KNOW YOU WERE GAY?

If I was gay, I wonred if meant that I would be required to cut my hair to a buzzcut like the (first, ostensibly) lbian (I had ever nfirmed as such) my mother had poted out to me at the Ralph Lren outlet a middle-class untry town you might fd somewhere like Vermont; a untry town where you might fd lbians.

WASHINGTON — A majory of gay and bisexual Generatn Z teenage boys report beg out to their parents, part of an uptick g out among young people that rearchers have noted recent s, acrdg to rearch published by the Amerin Psychologil Associatn. In the study, published the journal Psychology of Sexual Orientatn and Genr Diversy®, rearchers examed survey data om 1, 194 13-to-18-year-old boys, all of whom intified as gay, bisexual or as beg attracted to people regardls of genr. Many quiri I have received over and over aga through the years beg somethg like this: “I've always liked olr men, but many gay iends close to my age are cril of me and spic of my motiv.

Var labels have been ascribed to tergeneratnal upl, whether straight, gay or bisexual: tergeneratnal, age-gap, age-discrepant, or, more often than not, “May-December” relatnships. Inially, I was unnvced the relatnships were ser, but that was bee I held stereotypil views: an olr gay man who was lookg for a trophy-mate and has the money to take re of his boy toy and a younger man who was lookg for a sugar daddy.

MORE THAN HALF OF GENERATN Z GAY, BISEXUAL TEENAGE BOYS REPORT BEG OUT TO PARENTS

Based on the number of tim this qutn drops to my mailbox, the reasons for the age-discrepant attractns nsum a great al of bandwidth the thoughts of a lot of young gay and bisexual men. Was pletg his doctoral dissertatn, “May-December: Navigatg Life as an Intergeneratnal Gay Couple, ” he thoroughly rearched what proved to be the limed available lerature on tergeneratnal upl. That beg said, some rearchers om the Sexualy Informatn and Edutn Council of the Uned Stat talked wh llege stunts who intify as gay and bisexual to learn when they were aware of their sexual preferenc.

Bona = good, dolly = pretty, eke (ef) = face, lalli = legs, naff = bbish/poor, nanty = no/nothg, ogle = look/eye, omi = man, omipalone = gay man, palone = woman, riah = hair, varda = seeRound the Horne, Sunday 7 March 1965, 14. Man Alive broadsts two edns weeks ahead of the Act lookg at the liv of gay men and lbians Alive: Consentg Adults: 2: The Women, BBC Two, Wednday 14 June 1967, 1970s: Breakthrough.

Negative portrayals of the LGBT+ muny on televisn are wispread at this time, but radil for s day, toward the end of this episo of Steptoe and Son a gay police officer is troduced, whout all the ual stereotyped characterisatns. Meanwhile science strand Horizon broadsts Killer the Village, the first full-length -pth UK documentary on the health crisis emergg New York’s gay village known as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or AIDS. Most LGBT+ performers om Freddie Mercury to Gee Michael keep their sexualy quiet as the mic dtry mands, but two new bands wh out-gay members and lyrics wh gay them break nventn wh their h but sgl Frankie Go to Hollywood’s ‘Relax’ and Bronski Beat’s ‘Smalltown Boy’.

AGE DIFFERENC GAY COUPL

50 years on om the first relaxg of anti-LGBT+ laws, the BBC’s major Gay Brannia season looks back at LGBT+ history and tells many new stori om different perspectiv about life for LGBT+ people 2017.

Where homosexual activy or viance om tablished genr rol/drs was banned by law or tradnal ctom, such nmnatn might be munited through sensatnal public trials, exile, medil warngs, and language om the pulp. However, throughout 150 years of homosexual social movements (roughly om the 1870s to today), lears and anizers stggled to addrs the very different ncerns and inty issu of gay men, women intifyg as lbians, and others intifyg as genr variant or nonbary. Whe, male, and Wtern activists whose groups and theori gaed leverage agast homophobia did not necsarily reprent the range of racial, class, and natnal inti plitg a broar LGBT agenda.

Such eyewns acunts the era before other media were of urse riddled wh the bias of the (often) Wtern or Whe observer, and add to beliefs that homosexual practic were other, foreign, savage, a medil issue, or evince of a lower racial hierarchy. The European powers enforced their own crimal s agast what was lled sodomy the New World: the first known se of homosexual activy receivg a ath sentence North Ameri occurred 1566, when the Spanish executed a Frenchman Florida. Biblil terpretatn ma illegal for a woman to wear pants or a man to adopt female drs, and sensatnalized public trials warned agast “viants” but also ma such martyrs and hero popular: Joan of Arc is one example, and the chillg origs of the word “faggot” clu a stick of wood ed public burngs of gay men.

AT WHAT AGE DO KIDS INTIFY AS GAY?

” In Wtern history, we fd ltle formal study of what was later lled homosexualy before the 19th century, beyond medil texts intifyg women wh large cloris as “tribas” and severe punishment s for male homosexual acts. Their wrgs were sympathetic to the ncept of a homosexual or bisexual orientatn occurrg naturally an intifiable segment of humankd, but the wrgs of Krafft-Ebg and Ellis also labeled a “third sex” generate and abnormal. ” German rearcher Magn Hirschfeld went on to gather a broar range of rmatn by foundg Berl’s Instute for Sexual Science, Europe’s bt library archive of materials on gay cultural history.

His efforts, and Germany’s more liberal laws and thrivg gay bar scene between the two World Wars, ntrasted wh the backlash, England, agast gay and lbian wrers such as Osr Wil and Radclyffe Hall. The blu mic of Ain-Amerin women showsed varieti of lbian sire, stggle, and humor; the performanc, along wh male and female drag stars, troduced a gay unrworld to straight patrons durg Prohibn’s fiance of race and sex s speakeasy clubs.

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

The disptns of World War II allowed formerly isolated gay men and women to meet as soldiers and war workers; and other volunteers were uprooted om small towns and posted worldwi. This creasg awarens of an existg and vulnerable populatn, upled wh Senator Joseph McCarthy’s vtigatn of homosexuals holdg ernment jobs durg the early 1950s outraged wrers and feral employe whose own liv were shown to be send-class unr the law, cludg Frank Kameny, Barbara Gtgs, Allen Gsberg, and Harry Hay.

Awarens of a burgeong civil rights movement (Mart Luther Kg’s key anizer Bayard Rt was a gay man) led to the first Amerin-based polil mands for fair treatment of gays and lbians mental health, public policy, and employment.

Studi such as Aled Ksey’s 1947 Ksey Report suggted a far greater range of homosexual inti and behavrs than prevly unrstood, wh Ksey creatg a “sle” or spectm rangg om plete heterosexual to plete homosexual. In 1951, Donald Webster Cory published “The Homosexual Ameri, ” assertg that gay men and lbians were a legimate mory group, and 1953 Evelyn Hooker, PhD, won a grant om the Natnal Instute of Mental Health to study gay men.

THE HIDN GAY LIV FALLY BEG UNVERED

Throughout the 1950s and 60s, gay men and lbians ntued to be at risk for psychiatric lockup as well as jail, losg jobs, and/or child ctody when urts and clics fed gay love as sick, crimal, or immoral.

OUR HEARTS WERE YOUNG AND GAY: ON WEAKNS, STRENGTH, AND FRIENDSHIP

The turng pot for gay liberatn me on June 28, 1969, when patrons of the popular Stonewall Inn New York’s Greenwich Village fought back agast ongog police raids of their neighborhood bar. Fstrated wh the male learship of most gay liberatn groups, lbians fluenced by the femist movement of the 1970s formed their own llectiv, rerd labels, mic ftivals, newspapers, bookstor, and publishg ho, and lled for lbian rights mastream femist groups like the Natnal Organizatn for Women.

And polil actn explod through the Natnal Gay and Lbian Task Force, the Human Rights Campaign, the electn of openly gay and lbian reprentativ like Elae Noble and Barney Frank, and, 1979, the first march on Washgton for gay rights. The creasg expansn of a global LGBT rights movement suffered a setback durg the 1980s, as the gay male muny was cimated by the Aids epimic, mands for passn and medil fundg led to renewed alns between men and women as well as angry street theatre by groups like Aids Coaln to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and Queer Natn.

WHEN OUR HEARTS WERE YOUNG AND GAY

In the same era, one wg of the polil gay movement lled for an end to ary expulsn of gay, lbian, and bisexual soldiers, wh the high-profile se of Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer publicized through a ma-for-televisn movie, “Servg Silence.

GAY RIGHTS

” In spe of the patrtism and service of gay men and lbians uniform, the unfortable and unjt promise “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” emerged as an alternative to s of ary wch hunts and dishonorable discharg. Durg the last of the 20th century, lns of Amerins watched as actrs Ellen DeGener me out on natnal televisn April 1997, heraldg a new era of gay celebry power and media visibily—although not whout risks.

Wh greater media attentn to gay and lbian civil rights the 1990s, trans and tersex voic began to ga space through works such as Kate Boernste’s “Genr Outlaw” (1994) and “My Genr Workbook” (1998), Ann Fsto-Sterlg’s “Myths of Genr” (1992) and Llie Feberg’s “Transgenr Warrrs” (1998), enhancg shifts women’s and genr studi to bee more clive of transgenr and nonbary inti.

The possible reprsn of inty which may have played a role the killer’s choice of target has generated new attentn to the price of homophobia—ternalized, or culturally exprsed— and beyond the Uned Stat. But when I heard people ravg about the show, wrten by Rsell T Davi, I was stck by how many of them admted to knowg ltle about the epimic – and the stctn wreaked among the gay muny. 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.