GAY STUDIES AND THE VICTORIAN PERIOD on JSTOR

Contents:

• SEX SYMBOL: HOW ANTO BEME A GAY CO WORD THE VICTORIAN ERA
• GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• THE SURPRISG TTH ABOUT THE LIV OF GAY MEN VICTORIAN ENGLAND
• A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
• GAY RIGHTS
• BEFORE STRAIGHT AND GAY

SEX SYMBOL: HOW ANTO BEME A GAY CO WORD THE VICTORIAN ERA

The Victorian era is important to be looked at so that we know the cultural ntext which Osr Wil ed to live homosexualy went agast the notn of masculy, was talked about rarely and threatened the fay stcture as well as was believed to go agast beg fundamentally Brish. Observable homosexualyEven though heterosexualy was nsired normal and natural throughout Victorian era, there is seen visible crease homosexualy pecially among men as well as telligentsia durg that perd of history. A nobleman, displayg an Anto his stately home, uld show off his taste and knowledge of the Classics, and perhaps drop a ht about his sexual 1861 Brish law did away wh the ath penalty for homosexual acts but ma them punishable by a mimum of 10 years prison.

GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Victorian poets and wrers began g Anto as a word for love between men, shieldg their exploratns of the forbidn ncept om censor 18th-century brooch shows reliefs of Anto (left) and Hadrian, and was likely worn by a gay man as a d signal to others.

THE SURPRISG TTH ABOUT THE LIV OF GAY MEN VICTORIAN ENGLAND

” Symonds argued that love between men rose to the plane of gay wrers were not as overt as Symonds but ed Anto as for same-sex sire, knowg that gay rears would pick up on the subtext and pdish typ would be none the Osr Wil’s nt novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), the tle character embodi the late 19th-century tensn between sexualy and moraly. 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. 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.

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.

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

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. In the 1970s and ’80s, gay polil anizatns proliferated, particularly the Uned Stat and Europe, and spread to other parts of the globe, though their relative size, strength, and succs—and toleratn by thori—varied signifintly. 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.

GAY RIGHTS

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. 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.

BEFORE STRAIGHT AND GAY

The Human Rights Campaign equal sign, tradnally yellow wh a navy background, is siarly regnizable, though is important to note that HRC is a group foced primarily on marriage equaly and do not reprent the views of all lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr dividuals. 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.

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. ” 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.