Alex Ross on Robert Beachy’s new book, “Gay Berl: Birthplace of a Morn Inty.”
Contents:
- BUT WERE THEY GAY? THE MYSTERY OF SAME-SEX LOVE THE 19TH CENTURY
- A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
- NEWLY PUBLISHED PORTRAS DOCUMENT A CENTURY OF GAY MEN LOVE
- GAY CONVERSN THERAPY’S DISTURBG 19TH-CENTURY ORIGS
- NETEENTH-CENTURY GAY AMERI
- HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
- THE GAY MARRIAG OF A NETEENTH-CENTURY PRISON SHIP
- GAY MEN LONDON, OM PERSECUTN TO PRI
BUT WERE THEY GAY? THE MYSTERY OF SAME-SEX LOVE THE 19TH CENTURY
* gay in 19th century *
" By 1911, there was enough awarens of homosexualy that when Fields pulled together a posthumo volume of Jewett's letters, edor Mark Antony DeWolfe Howe urged her to censor out the pet nam. 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. By the 20th century, a movement regnn of gays and lbians was unrway, abetted by the social climate of femism and new anthropologi of difference.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
LGBTQ Lerature is a Rears and Book Lovers seri dited to discsg lerature that has ma an impact on the liv of lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, and queer people. From fictn to ntemporary nonfictn to history and everythg ... * gay in 19th century *
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. Most historians agree that there is evince of homosexual activy and same-sex love, whether such relatnships were accepted or persecuted, every documented culture. We know that homosexualy existed ancient Israel simply bee is prohibed the Bible, whereas flourished between both men and women Ancient Greece.
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.
NEWLY PUBLISHED PORTRAS DOCUMENT A CENTURY OF GAY MEN LOVE
Durg Prohibn, gay nightlife and culture reached new heights—at least temporarily. * gay in 19th century *
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.
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. Sigmund Frd, wrg the same era, did not nsir homosexualy an illns or a crime and believed bisexualy to be an nate aspect begng wh untermed genr velopment the womb.
GAY CONVERSN THERAPY’S DISTURBG 19TH-CENTURY ORIGS
” 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. However, prewar gay life flourished urban centers such as New York’s Greenwich Village and Harlem durg the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.
NETEENTH-CENTURY GAY AMERI
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.
HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
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.
THE GAY MARRIAG OF A NETEENTH-CENTURY PRISON SHIP
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.
GAY MEN LONDON, OM PERSECUTN TO PRI
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.
Other important homophile anizatns on the Wt Coast clud One, Inc., found 1952, and the first lbian support work Dghters of Bilis, found 1955 by Phyllis Lyon and Del Mart. 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. But would not be until 1973 that the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn removed homosexualy as an “illns” classifitn s diagnostic manual.
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. In 1965, as the civil rights movement won new legislatn outlawg racial discrimatn, the first gay rights monstratns took place Philalphia and Washgton, D.