Racial Discrimination within the LGBT Community

Reading the oral histories of gay Asian Americans got me thinking about the relevance of their accounts to the lives of queer people of color today. Eroticization and discrimination were not only obvious themes in these pre-AIDS oral stories, they persist as harsh realities for gay Asian Americans in the present.

As a marginalized group, the LGBTQ+ community is surprisingly 'tolerant' of racism. Sexual racism manifests in phrases such as "No blacks. No Asians." on dating websites and applications. By contrast, sexual objectification based on racial stereotypes also perpetuate racist perceptions vis-à-vis queer persons of color. This further complicates how masculinity is perceived in relation to race and ethnicity, and the troubling narrative of internal discrimination within the LGBTQ+ community.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/24/no-asians-no-blacks-gay-people-racism

Finding Love Again, This Time With a Man (NYT, 2016)

I was looking through some previous posts and I saw Emily M's post about a modern love article describing a man's divorce and coming out. It reminded me of a piece I read last year by a former Senator who had an unexpected relationship with a man very late in life. When this article first came out I know it created a  stir, mostly because of Senator Wofford's notoriety and the poignancy of his story. With special attention to our course, he serves as a good example of the fluidity of sexuality and one person's rejection of confining labels.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/opinion/sunday/findinglove-again-this-time-with-a-man.html

Today I was talking to a friend about our class and she asked if we were reading "LGBTQ States: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer People by the Numbers." I looked it up and it seems like a pretty interesting read with topics ranging from activism, politics, and law to sports and leisure activities. It also talks a little bit about the international aspects that we don't cover in class. Here is the link on Amazon if anyone is interested!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MTQ4JHX/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

1/137 Teens Identify as Transgender

Here is an article discussing the statistics regarding transgender teens. With the decision made by President Trump regarding bathroom use based on gender, it is interesting to see how many people are being directly affected. It will be interesting to see if these substantial figures take on any weight in debates seeing as thousands of people and children are impacted by this change.

Charts and Propaganda!

Here's an extensive timeline and chart regarding worldwide legal changes affecting LGBT rights, all the way through the twentieth century to today.

Here's a set of graphics regarding attitudes and laws about gay people by country.

And here's a homophobic propaganda film from the 50s (only a minute long) warning viewers about the dangers of the homosexual, who is sick and sexually predatory, and especially dangerous because of not being immediately identifiable.

Particularly Poignant Trans Activism Poster

This was super compelling, especially in lieu of the recent roll-back of Obama's transgender bathroom bill.

Histories of LGBT Teachers

I did some digging into Becca's inquiry in class about documented histories of LGBT professors/teachers and found a bunch of interesting material:


A Denison Professor Karen Graves is the author of the book And They Were Wonderful Teachers: Florida's Purge of Lesbian and Gay Teachers (2009). The timing of these prosecutions occurred between 1957 and 1963, where the state legislative committee pursued and interrogated gay and lesbian teachers without due process. This article also mentions the Supreme Court case Board of Education of Oklahoma City v. National Gay Task Force, which was the first case to concern LGBT teachers. Worth a read!

Link: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/159769


Coming Out From the Shadows: A History of Gay and Lesbian Educators in the United States: A brief overview of the project (2011)

Link: http://ccte.org/wp-content/pdfs-conferences/ccte-conf-sample-practice-proposal.pdf

Seems like there is a lot out there, it would be interesting to see what we could all find! I think focusing on LGBT professors is interesting because professorship is a very distinct profession. I could see backlash against these individuals in the late 50's early 60's because of a fear of "recruiting" young student, or perhaps being viewed as mentally ill or inadequate.

Pink Triangle, Holocaust History/Gay Liberation

This article is relevant to the brief discussion we had a couple of classes ago, as it connects Holocaust history and the oppression of gay individuals in WWII to the American civil rights movement. Evidently, it took a while for the treatment and persecution of gay individuals in Nazi Germany to reach the consciousness of American culture as the pink triangle wasn't reclaimed and inverted until gay liberation. There are also a number of plays about the persecution of homosexuals during the Holocaust, notably Bent by Martin Sherman.

"The Sixties" Documentary

Also, today in class I remembered a documentary series I watched on Netflix about a year ago called "The Sixties." It has ten episodes and the ninth one is called "The Times They Are A-Changing," which is all about the start of the Civil Rights Movement and how popular opinion of civil rights, feminism, gay rights, etc. were all developing in this decade.  Today's discussion in class about how all of these movements used each other's momentum to grow stronger thus reminded me of documentary.

I figured I'd post about the series here in case anyone was interested because I remember really enjoying the whole thing.  There is also a series on the 70s and I heard the 80s just came out (I still need to see the latter though).

Trump and Transgender Students' Rights

Today, I came across this NYT article about Trump's desire to reverse anti-discrimination policies for transgender students, expected to come out as early as today.  Reading this article reminded me of our discussion in class about Christine Jorgensen and how in the post-war period, American society was fascinated by the science of changing one's sex organs and in many ways was more accepting of transexual women than homosexual men.  Yet, this is clearly not true today, as is evidenced by issues such as the "bathroom debate."  While Trump claims to be "fine with" same-sex marriage legalization, he intends to leave trans-related policy to the states.

Kinsey and the Female Orgasm

In class, I wondered out loud if Kinsey's report was radical in its celebration of the female orgasm. This article helps us understand how Kinsey's report was one of the "top five" major events for the history of the female orgasm,  but it was by no means the first time science and sociology had been concerned with it or wrote about it. In Medieval times, people believed the female orgasm to be essential for conceiving children. In the 1800s, scientists and medical professionals used massive vibrators to induce female orgasms as a way to cure "hysteria." So Kinsey's report wasn't radical in the sense that it admitted that women do, in fact, have orgasms--people had publicly known that for years. But it was radical in so far as it celebrated female orgasms as something that men wanted to supply for women in sex, even instructing men to learn from other women how to please females.

Gender Revolution: Trans Identities, Spectra, and Pronouns

I'm sure that many of us have heard of Gender Revolution: A Journey with Katie Couric. The entire documentary is available for free here (movie night??), but a teaser trailer came up on my Facebook feed that I thought was particularly poignant. Katie was sitting down with a group of Yale students in a LGBT student group and they were teaching her about gender pronouns. One student, Matthew, used they/them/theirs and Katie asked them about what it meant to use those pronouns. They responded by saying:

"People are always saying 'Oh, but they is a plural pronoun, how could I refer to a single person that way,' but in my head I think, 'Well, I am plural.'"

I thought that this was an interesting way of conceptualizing the various spectra that we talked about in class on Monday.

Genderbread Person

Here's a link to the image of the Genderbread Person that we discussed in class. The image aims to illustrate spectrums of sex, gender, and sexuality. And here's a discussion guide, using that image, that you might find interesting.

The Kinsey Scale

https://www.kinseyinstitute.org/research/publications/kinsey-scale.php

A little background about the Kinsey scale and its origins. Also, this official blurb from the Kinsey institute points out that there is no official Kinsey test, but I've included a couple links to some unofficial ones if you guys want to see where you might lie! 

http://psymed.info/kinsey-scale-test

http://vistriai.com/kinseyscaletest/

Transgender on the Force

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/07/nyregion/transgender-on-the-force.html
"These days, the New York Police Department embraces “Out and Proud” as a motto. Officials boast of the hundreds of gay officers who help make up the department’s ranks. And inside Police Headquarters, on the monitors that serve as electronic bulletin boards with fliers for retirement parties and charity golf tournaments, among the rotating messages is one reminding officers of their rights to use the bathroom or locker room aligning with their gender identity." 
I found this article compelling, especially after learning about living as a gay, lesbian, or transgender person in the military. I enjoyed learning about Budd's experience and the NYPD's policies towards LGTBQ people in contrast to the government's policies following the war about which we read and watched. 

How the Mafia Once Controlled the New York Gay Scene

Over the summer (during Gay Awareness Month) I saw a movie about how NYC's gay bar thrived because of the mafia. The article below talks about how the mafia once had a near monopoly on the gay bar scene but also brought the early LGBT community together. It was an unlikely but mutually beneficial association that lasted well into the 1960s.

"There was a whole new audience who wanted to go to a bar or nightclub to experience the then luxury of being among other gay people. In the aftermath of Prohibition, a new underground scene developed, and naturally the Mafia wanted in on the action. "

Read more from Vice.

‘When We Rise’: Stories Behind the Pain and Pride of Gay Rights

'When We Rise' is a new mini-series from ABC:

"A more contemporary examination of gay life in America comes to network television later this month, in an eight-hour avalanche of prime time spread across four nights, and with a decidedly different take on the subject. Written by a prominent gay filmmaker, Dustin Lance Black, “When We Rise” is a 50-year history of the gay rights movement beginning on Feb. 27, told through four characters who suffer — and often triumph over — family rejection, landlord discrimination, gay-bashing, police harassment, legislative defeats and AIDS."

Read more from the New York Times.

Here's an extended, very positive review from the Los Angeles Times and an article about the contemporary relevance of the miniseries.

Straight men having sex with other straight men isn't gay?

I saw this article on Twitter with a debate about whether or not this article and the science behind it are trying to preserve heteronormative masculinity and erase male bisexuality. Personally, I think it's showing another dimension to the idea we have about sexuality and identification as well as a good example of sexual and romantic attraction not necessarily lining up. What about anyone else?

The ACLU and Gay Rights: A Complicated Relationship

Numerous times in our readings, the ACLU has rejected or ignored the pleas of lesbian and gay citizens. Given their status today as the blazoners of equality, I was curious as to when they first began to defend the LGBTQ+ community. According to their own website, the ACLU has been active since the 1930s, when they came to the defense of  Lillian Hellman's stage play The Children's Hour, which was being banned from performances in NYC due to lesbian content. While their case was unsuccessful, this does mark the ACLU's first foray into the gay and lesbian community. 

They go on to note that over 20 years later, they helped again. The ACLU, "came to the defense of City Lights Bookstore owner and prominent Beat poet, Lawrence Ferlinghetti for publishing Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems, which was deemed obscene due to its unapologetic references to gay sex. The closely watched trial, in which ACLU lawyers cited Balzac, Shakespeare and the Bible as examples of works with 'erotic' content, resulted in a complete acquittal." This marks the beginning of what we might now recognize as the ACLU championing gay rights. 

It is crucial to see that there is a two decade gap in their history. It is during this time we see that while the ACLU might defend cases of free speech, as in Hellman's play and Ferlinghetti's publishing, they were reticent to come to the aid of other gay issues. The NY Times wrote that in cases of sodomy and the Lavender Scare, "even the American Civil Liberties Union declared it had no interest in challenging laws 'aimed at the suppression or elimination of homosexuals.'" You can read the ACLU's response letter to the editor here. Canaday, in "Building a Straight State", points out that the ACLU "avoided cases where it  appeared that homosexual acts had occurred".

As is the case in most histories, the relationship between the ACLU and gay rights is not black or white. They neither ignored all of the pleas of the LGBTQ+ community, nor did they answer every call. I might suggets that the ACLU comes to the stand when they believe they are forwarding a socially digestible agenda, as in the cases of gay marriage and free speech. I would be curious to see how the ACLU might react to more inherently sexual cases in the 21st century.

Modern Love / "Story of a Tragic Marriage"

Reading the 1968 Good Housekeeping article for today's class, I was reminded of a NYT Modern Love column I read a few days ago, in which a gay man describes the end of his 22-year marriage:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/style/modern-love-conversion-therapy-gay-husband-haircuts.html?_r=0

It is obviously told from a different perspective than the GH article, but I thought it provided such an interesting parallel, 50 years later.  There are differences in spousal acceptance and reaction (ending the marriage or not) and societal acceptance (the wife in the GH article felt she had to remain anonymous, while this man openly shares his story), but I thought both articles provided a powerful glimpse into the enormous emotional complexity of the situation for all involved.

State Department Apologizes for Lavender Scare...in 2017

Here is a link to an article about the "Lavender Scare" written by a politics professor at Swarthmore. I was wondering if the State Department had taken any official stance regarding the "Lavender Scare" in the years following its height in the 1950s. Only a few weeks ago in January 2017 did then Secretary of State John Kerry issue an apology for this persecution of gay employees at the request of a Maryland senator. The author goes on to discuss the symbolic value of this apology and how it concerns other historical instances of discrimination against LGBTQ federal workers. He also brings up the point of "internal exile" and the ways in which the U.S. government has excluded certain groups of citizens, drawing a parallel between the Lavender Scare and the treatment of Japanese-Americans during WWII.

NBC Article Re: LGBT Military Involvement Under Obama

After watching the documentary last class I was curious about the state of LGBT involvement/protection today, and I found an NBC article from June 2016 that discusses some of the things the Obama administration were able to accomplish (a main one being ending the military ban on transgender soldiers). Here is the link to the article:

http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/transgender-military-ban-lifted-obama-cements-historic-lgbt-rights-legacy-n600541

Sex v. Sexuality in Discrimination Cases

Here is a link to an article which discussed how discrimination against someone due to their sexual orientation could also be considered as discrimination against one's sex. If it is considered discrimination against one's sex, then it would violate civil rights laws. With the recent marriage equality law, this brings an interesting perspective to our eyes and to judges eyes.

Gaycation

Hello, class!

I wanted to share this TV show. It's called Gaycation because it is a gay-vacation show where the hosts travel to different countries to explore LGBTQ cultures. It's a fascinating look at how concepts of identity, especially in relation to sexuality and gender, can vary. And along with these different concepts of identity come different systems of oppression. They also have an episode about American LGBTQ culture where they discuss two-spirited people with Native Americans.

The blurb on the website says: Ellen Page and her best friend, Ian Daniel, set off on a personal journey to explore LGBTQ cultures around the world.

Also, just as a warning you may need a subscription to VICE to watch it. But I believe some episodes may be on youtube. 

https://www.viceland.com/en_us/show/gaycation

LGBT Museums - Even A Sports Hall of Fame

 I found an article that lists some LGBT Museums around the world. I thought it was interesting - I never would have expected that to exist. Some of the museums include objects, publications, art, etc. There is one in Chicago (#4) that focuses on "the preservation of leather, kink, and fetish lifestyles." I think it's a great way to educate people and illustrate the history of LGBT people in different areas.

There's even one in San Fransisco -- class trip, anyone? :)

http://www.pride.com/lgbt/2016/3/17/10-incredible-lgbt-museums-and-archives-are-preserving-our-history#slide-7

Doll Based on Transgender Teen to Debut at New York Toy Fair

"Doll Based on Transgender Teen to Debut at New York Toy Fair"

Article Link: https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/02/10/us/politics/ap-us-transgender-doll.html

This article popped up in the NYT today, and announces that the first toy doll based on a transgender teen will be released next week at the New York Toy Fair. Depending on how the toy sells, they will continue to produce the doll at specialty stores. The doll is named "Jazz" and resembles a teenage subject of a television documentary series "I am Jazz." The "real" Jazz has identified as a female since she could talk!

Interestingly, this doll is being released 40 years after the release of the "Gay Bob" doll, which is supposedly the first "openly gay" doll. I did some digging into the Bob doll and found this out: Created in 1978. He comes with a flannel shirt, tight jeans, cowboy boots and 1 piercing. Additionally, his box is shaped like a closet. Bob was very controversial at the time, but was embraced by gay rights activists.

I just thought it was neat that Jazz is entering the toy market, given how gendered toys are these days.  Just goes to show how intersectional sexual identity and personal identity are. It will be interesting to see what she looks like/comes with, and how she is received!

50s photos and pulp novels!

Some cool relevant things I've seen online:

• A collection of lesbian pulp novels from the 50s and 60s, including pictures of the covers, summaries, and excerpts (nsfw)
• A collection of photographs from Casa Susanna, a "1950s transvestite hideaway"
• Also here is an excerpt from the book Radical Relations: Lesbian Mothers, Gay Fathers, and Their Children in the United States since World War II. The excerpt is about, in the 50s and 60s, "lesbian mothers raising children in lesbian-headed households [who] also had to worry about ex-husbands using their lesbianism to take custody of the children...In 1958, Vera Martin met and fell in love with Kay, a Japanese American woman who had come to the United States at the end of the Second World War after marrying an African American serviceman."

The Gay Hanky Code: a Modern Day Hairpin

Here's a link to the wikipedia page on the gay hanky code. In short, the gay hanky code was used in leather bars in the 1970s to signal men about the various fetishes one might participate in. It is still used today amongst the gay BDSM crowd. This site provides an extensive chart on the different colors, and what they mean on each side of the body.

I think this is a really cool form of the gay "hairpin" that Chauncey discusses because not only does it go unnoticed by the heterosexual community, it often goes under the radar of the more vanilla gay men. Using the hanky code is very much a part of a subculture within gay subculture.

US military's policy on homosexual conduct

Thinking about the Newport Scandal, I wanted to provide a little more information about how the armed services has treated sodomy cases/homosexual conduct in their ranks. During WW2, it was common to give soldiers caught exhibiting homosexual behavior an administrative discharge called a "blue discharge" (instead of an honorable or dishonorable one). This could cause embarrassment and shame to the serviceman's family and could bar him from some Veteran's benefits.

In 1992 Defense Force Management published a report titled "DOD’s Policy on Homosexuality." It explained the reasons for previous exclusion of homosexuals and the cost of this policy. It ultimately recommended an end to such practices. This was the eve of DADT. 

Arguments for the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, or even more open-minded policies, included practical and financial concerns. Advocates contended that what the Armed Forces lost in money and expertise because of their policy on homosexuals far outweighed any supposed personnel objectives it achieved. Among the 1992 report's many findings, standout numbers included an estimated 17,000 service members separated for reasons related to homosexuality from 1980 to 1990. Over that time, it estimated a $28,226 to $120,772 cost for training each replacement troop or officer, respectively. The report found a disproportionate percentage of homosexuality discharges in the Navy, and a higher impact on women within the Navy. Overall, most blue discharges were given to white, enlisted men, not a surprising outcome given the numerical dominance of that demographic at the time.[1]

The findings from that report and additional reviews published by the Department of Defense paved the way for policy reform regarding homosexuality in the armed forces. One of the most significant topics discussed in the report responded to the army’s defense of anti-homosexual enrollment practices. These included professed concerns about unit cohesiveness and order. At the time of the report’s publishing, the DOD’s policy on homosexuality read as follows:

Homosexuality is incompatible with military service. The presence in the military environment of persons who engage in homosexual conduct or who, by their statements, demonstrate a propensity to engage in homosexual conduct, seriously impairs the accomplishment of the military mission. The presence of such members adversely affects the ability of the Military Services to maintain discipline, good order, and morale; to foster mutual trust and confidence among servicemembers, to ensure the integrity of the system of rank and command; to facilitate assignment and worldwide deployment of servicemembers who frequently must live and work under close conditions affording minimal privacy: to recruit and retain members of the Military Services; to maintain the public acceptability of military service; and to prevent breaches of security.[2]

In conclusion, the Defense Force Management’s report professed outright rejection of such arguments. They recommended that the monetary loss and impracticality of the current system damaged the whole military body in a way that far outweighed any of the alleged risks. That language, from 1982, rested on the old notions of homosexuality as a mental illness. However, unlike in the times of the Newport Scandal, there was much more common acceptance of homosexuality.  

---

[1] Defense Force Management, “DOD’s Policy on Homosexuality,” June 12, 1992, http://www.gao.gov/assets/160/151963.pdf.

[2] Ibid, 2.

Gay Terminology

Based on our discussion of terminology today, I poked around for any current reference guides of gay terminology/descriptive categories. In my Google musings, I found reference to historic "gay glossaries"; one of the first prominent glossaries was included in a work by Leo Pavia about legal structures and social attitude toward homosexuality in England ("Die männliche Homosexualität in England mit besonderer Berücksichtigung Londons"). In the glossary, Leo Pavia defines 16 words used by members of the gay community to describe each other and their actions. Gary Simes (linked below) relates the existence of such a glossary to the status of the gay urban subculture in London:

That a glossary could be made attests to the reality of a considerable and highly developed homosexual underworld in London and some other big cities. It was necessarily an underworld because of the criminal status of homosexual acts, which had been frighteningly re-affirmed some fifteen years before in the trial, conviction, and imprisonment of Oscar Wilde. But it was in some respects also a demi-monde because otherwise respectable people frequented it, secretly of course, in order not to impair or lose their respectability.

Most of the references made to Leo Pavia's glossary were in journals about the evolution of slang, and I could only find a German copy of the original article. If anyone feels compelled to do some more digging for an English translation (or knows someone who speaks German), let me know!

Here are some links I looked at:
Gay Slang Lexicography: A Brief History and a Commentary on the First TwoGay Glossaries (Gary Simes)

A History of Cant and Slang Dictionaries: Volume III: 1859-1936 (Julie Coleman)

"Die männliche Homosexualität in England mit besonderer Berücksichtigung Londons (I. L. Pavia) - original German

FAIR Education Act

Inspired by our discussion in class today, I did a little bit of reading about California's FAIR Education Act.  Here's a relatively recent (July 2016) article about the framework that has been developed for its implementation, with quotes from CMC alum Don Romesburg:

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/07/why-california-is-teaching-its-students-about-the-lgbt-community/492221/

And here's a link to the FAIR Education Act website: 

http://www.faireducationact.com/

I did a little poking around and found it interesting to look at some of the lesson plans they have created so far.  But with today's discussion in mind, I wonder how nuanced of a history kids will learn -- the content seemed largely focused on more recent LGBT history (Stonewall, marriage equality, etc.), so I'm not sure it will necessarily dispel the myths about earlier LGBT history that Chauncey described.

First transgender mayor in Texas history

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/01/us/texas-transgender-mayor.html?_r=0

“As far as I know, I am the first openly transgender mayor on record in the state of Texas; there could be others who never came out,” Ms. Herbst said in an interview on Wednesday. “But I am the first to say, ‘Yes I am transgender and a seated mayor.’ ”

San Francisco Announces Nation’s First Transgender District

http://www.7x7.com/san-francisco-reveals-nations-first-transgender-district-2229111396.html

Boy Scouts Accepted Transgender Boys

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/us/boy-scouts-reversing-century-old-stance-will-allow-transgender-boys.html

On Monday, the Boy Scouts of America announced they will accept transgender boys as scouts. I was surprised reading this article how quickly the organization has reformed its stance on LGBTQ issues. Only 4 years ago, in 2013, did they lift the ban on gay members, and two years ago did they allow openly gay leaders. I wonder if the recent opening of this traditional, masculine, and heteronormative organization will be understood as a critical inflection point in LGBTQ rights movement. I also am curious to see if/how the Boy Scouts take steps in inclusivity for the newly allowed trans members.