Queer Chapter Summary

Living in a world where you’re scrutinized for being yourself is difficult, but living in a world where it’s illegal to be yourself is overwhelming and dehumanizing. Intolerance towards homosexuality had been very common in our society up until a point in time where LGBT+ people began to realize they were being denied basic civil rights that they should have had. The Stonewall riots took place when queer people had taken enough of discrimination and violence and began to band together to start the Gay Liberation Movement, a vital step towards equality for the LGBT+ community in their journey for civil rights.

Part of the problem comes from a lack of understanding of LGBT identities. Before the 19th century, there was little to no awareness of LGBT identities, and even in the present, misconceptions are extremely pervasive. Same-sex attraction was classified as a mental illness in the United States until 1973 (apa 1). Censorship in media—LGBT characters are often inherently viewed as more “adult” than other characters—has also been a problem. While some characters were able to slip past censors in early years, the Motion Picture Production Code, a law created to censor films, quickly ended any references to LGBT characters. More commonly known as the Hays Code, the code policed subjects considered to be too inappropriate for audiences, including “sex perversion, or any inference to it” (Motion 3). Yet even after the code was no longer in effect—it was only in effect from 1930–1968—the issue of LGBT representation prevailed. Allen Young, a gay activist and writer, comments, “When I was a young person…the words ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ we're almost never in the media. It was like we didn’t exist…if there were any gay people in the media, they were usually either villains, or portrayed as clowns, or tragic figures” (Young 1). The lack of positive, diverse representation that non-LGBT characters received was not granted to LGBT characters. Although

Life for most homosexuals during the first half of the Twentieth century was one of hiding, being ever so careful to not give away their true feelings and predilections. Although the 1920s saw a brief moment of openness in American society, that was quickly destroyed with the progress of the Cold War, and by default, that of McCarthyism. The homosexuals of the 50s “felt the heavy weight of medical prejudice, police harassment and church condemnation … [and] were not able to challenge these authorities.” They were constantly battered, both physically and emotionally, by the society that surrounded them. The very mention or rumor of one’s homosexuality could lead to the loss of their family, their livelihood and, in some cases, their

Gays were forced to stay under the shadow. They were afraid to show their own true colors. Harvey Milk was a gay activist who had encouraged people to come out of the closet and join their organization to fight for their rights. He says “Burst down those closet doors and stand up once and for all, and start to fight.” (Document G) In the the quote he explains that people who are scared and haven’t come out of the closet should and help join the movement for equal rights for homosexuals. Harvey Milk’s encouragement had a big impact in the past organizations, his voice and words have impacted the LGBT society in a big way. In document H it shows how people were doing riots to express how they felt. This helped make people aware of their movement and what they want. They were able to express how they felt through these riots. Today, all these riots and LGBT activist work have made an everlasting impact. They had finished their goal and had legalized gay marriage, something they have been fighting for a long time. Even though they face discrimination, they have had made a huge step for equality because of their hard work in the past and

“Sex was something mysterious which happened to married couples and Homosexuality was never mentioned; my mother told me my father did not believe it existed at all ‘until he joined the army’. As a child, I was warned about talking to ‘strange men’, without any real idea what this meant. I was left to find out for myself what it was all about.” Mike Newman, who was a child during the 1950s America recalls how homosexuality was perceived during the post-World War II era (F). This sexual oppression was not only in Newman’s household, but in almost everyone’s. While the civil rights movement began in the mid-1950s and ended late 1960s, the LGBT community started to come out of the closet slowly. The gay rights movement stemmed from the civil rights movement

The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, Queer community also referred to as LGBTQQ is no stranger to oppression. “In 1600-1800, colonists discovered buggery (sex between men or between women) among Native Americans. In 1869, Dr. Karoly Benkert coined the term “homosexuality” to describe same-sex acts. In 1870-1910, homosexuals

Before continuing onto an analysis of how the Stonewall Riots happened and what came of them, one must first take a closer look at the events and opinions that came before and brought upon the anger and frustration that many LGBT individuals felt on that fateful night. According to many historians, the years before Stonewall were considered a “dark age” for LGBT individuals, where their very existence was

In this time society was going through much social change. Protests and movements were very present. In the 1960s women’s rights movements, black power movements, and civil rights protest were going on. This influenced the gay community and sparked energy for them to stand up for their own rights. In 1969 Stonewall riots were occurring in result to the police raiding a gay bar by the name of Stonewall Inn. The legal system in the 1950’s and 1960’s was anti-gay. These groups were being formed to show and prove that society could function. Very few businesses welcomed publicly gay people in the 1950s and 1960s.After the series of riots and the push for social reform gays still faced many obstacles to being openly accepted and integrated into society.

“Gay men and lesbians continued to be treated with disgust, cruelty, and violence.” The main goal of Gay Rights was to “come out.” This decision for gays and lesbians wasn’t easy for them to make. Overall, the goal wasn’t met, and they continued to live the way they were until the were finally accepted.

Sexual acts between members of the same sex were specifically illegal, and cops would bait homosexuals to see if they were interested in such acts. Professionals who were found to be homosexuals lost their licenses. Homosexuality was a diagnosable psychiatric illness. A consensual homosexual act could get even life imprisonment, and a risk of castration. The book I choose to review is Stonewall: The riots that sparked the gay revolution by David Carter. It was published by St. Martin’s Press, with a copyright date of 2004. I bought the book at Half-price Books for $6.99

History is a complex chain of reactions; everything is the result of one event and the causation of another. Thus, if traced back decades, the Stonewall riots were the result of building social tensions in the United States and the approaches taken towards unearthing the psychology behind homosexuality. Following the upheaval caused during World War II, the people of the United States were eager to restore order in all elements of society. Security became the most valuable asset, making anyone who posed even a remote threat to the “American way” a target. An emphasis on anti-communism spurred by Senator Joseph McCarthy led to the onset of a national state of paranoia and disorder, alongside anarchists, supporters of radical revolution, and communists, the queer population was lumped into a category of people considered a threat to the United States government. Homosexuality was just short of a death sentence for those concealing their sexuality, so much so that during the late 1940s nearly 5,000

During the 1960’s to be gay in the United States was essentially a crime. It was the time of the “Lavender Scare,” in which thousands of people were fired from the federal government for no other reason than their sexuality. The fear stemmed from Cold War concerns that homosexuals would be a “security risk,” exploitable by communists (Sherouse) (Sears). Dozens of anti-gay legislation was in existence, specifically prohibiting employment of “homosexuals and other sex perverts” in civil service positions, and subsequently creating a president of discrimination throughout the country (Sears).

The case study that is being analyzed in this article is the death of J.R. Warren from Grant Town, West Virginia. He was a gay, black man with both learning and physical disabilities. His murderers were two white teenagers whose motive for killing Warren was the result of rumored sexual relations between Warren and one of the perpetrators (Moon). This immediately brought out the issues between social groups in that area. These problems specifically involved the perceptions of the murder from the gay community, the black community and the heterosexual white community. The gay community took the position of the crime being motivated by anti-gay sentiments. The black community believed that the crime was race motivated because of the historical

In the past decades, the struggle for gay rights in the Unites States has taken many forms. Previously, homosexuality was viewed as immoral. Many people also viewed it as pathologic because the American Psychiatric Association classified it as a psychiatric disorder. As a result, many people remained in ‘the closet’ because they were afraid of losing their jobs or being discriminated against in the society. According to David Allyn, though most gays could pass in the heterosexual world, they tended to live in fear and lies because they could not look towards their families for support. At the same time, openly gay establishments were often shut down to keep openly gay people under close scrutiny (Allyn 146). But since the 1960s, people

Throughout history in the United States, we have had a hard time accepting the concept of homosexuality and skewing from the idea that we are all gender binary. The police began to enforce what is known as the sodomy law to discriminate against those who do not comply with the norm of gender binary. The sodomy law can be defined as oral/anal sex between two partners (could be two women, two men, or a man and a woman). It has been present within our society for two centuries and has historically been a crime that went unenforced, for the most part, if committed by two consenting adults in private. Two specific cases became well-known for attempting to fight the law to gain rights for same sex couples who have been discriminated against due to