A History of LGBT Rights in the US

Abhorsen

Local Degenerate
Moderator
Staff Member
Comrade
Osaul
So this is me deciding to finally start a long term writing project. Basically, a history of the Gay Liberation movement (as it was first called), what started it, and what it became.

Some warnings: This will be done piecemeal as I get to parts of history that I know, and some things in this might not be correct because (especially at the start) I'll start with what's already in my head from books I've read in the past, then do more research to build off of this. There will be a crap ton of edits as I add to the story, so don't expect the stuff to be static.

Also, as all good histories do, this history will be an attempt to prove a (or really multiple) points, and we'll see if I do that successfully or not, or if my hypothesis has to change.

So first, I'm going to outline a few theses that should span the history, and to keep in mind. Of course, I need to prove them, but that'll take a while. I plan on working on this a little each day.

First, opposition to gay rights took largely two forms: Gays don't exist, and gays aren't acceptable. So much of the gay rights movement can be analyzed at a strategic/tactical level by looking at how pro-LGBT factions did (or didn't) deal with the opposition.

Second, acceptance lead to less degeneracy, and thus gay rights accomplished the one of the biggest family values wins in decades.

Third, why is it now off the rails? For this, I have a few hypotheses, but I'm not sure which is correct, and I need to look at it closer. My current hypotheses are a) career activists ran out of actual problems, b) silent majority type problems, and c) useful idiots by the Democratic machine. I will admit, this is the part I'm shakiest on.

Fourth, capitalism deserves a lot of credit for gay rights. The history of gay rights as a blow to capitalism is hilariously wrong.
 
Last edited:
Pre-Stonewall

Abhorsen

Local Degenerate
Moderator
Staff Member
Comrade
Osaul
Prior to Stonewall, few Americans knew much about gays. It was considered a mental illness by psychologists, and some treatments included lobotomy, sterilization, and electroshock therapy. Walter Freeman, the 'Father of Lobotomy' who traveled around the country performing lobotomy with an icepick under the eye, gave about 40% of his quick fixes to homosexuals.

And sodomy was illegal in every state, with harsh punishments. Eva Kotchever, who ran a Lesbian bar in the 30s, was deported to Poland, and died in Auschwitz. Others would end up with the choice of castration or lobotomy.

But let's hear instead from a primary source:



There was no word known for same sex relationships at the time, even by gay couples. It hadn't even entered the dictionary. The only time the terms were used was in academia and criminal codes. Gay couples would refer to gay people as being 'that way' or 'nervous'. On top of that, if you were arrested for gay relations, the first time was 6 months, the second was your choice, castration or lobotomy. Third, there was super canceling, where your name would be released to the newspapers, and you would lose your job, lodging, and any sort of financing you might have for a car.

Prior to the 1950s, or so, the gay community was quite limited. They didn't even have a name to refer to themselves. One of the few places exceptions was around gay centered businesses, such as gay bars, dance halls, and bathhouses. But there was a risk to going to these: the vice cops were looking to arrest homosexuals, and if you were arrested, you were super canceled. Job, housing, even finance for your car were gone after the cops published your name in the newspaper or read it on the radio. Worse, if they arrest you again, you might end up with the choice of castration or lobotomy in a state prison.

So all of this combined to create an amazing disincentive to be out, and was quite effective at hiding the gay population from everyone else's notice. For anyone who wanted to create a community, they have to contact people, and in contacting people, you create risk that you get found out. Effectively, this became the world's biggest coordination problem. If you move by yourself, you will be ignored, but if you make a medium sized problem, you will be crushed. The only way would be something big and something noticed.

Now let's look at a group that failed: The Mattachine society (founded by Harry Hay, the man in the interview above). Originally, the Mattachine society was founded by communists, and adopted a similar organizational structure cell structure to the CPUSA, which allowed it to spread without one person reporting everyone as gay. But after an internal struggle, the communist founders and leaders stepped down and were replaced by liberal non-communists, eventually resulting in them protesting Castro's enslavement of gay men in work prisons.

But other than arguably making the beginnings of a community, the Mattachine society had little success, and this is because of their tactics. They would adopt protests from the African American civil rights movement, but to no avail. A typical protest from the Mattachine society (and the female equivalent: the Daughters of Bilitis (no commies there)), consisted of them dressing up formally in suits or skirts as gender appropriate, and protesting without doing anything that could be perceived as gay other than the signs they held (yes, handholding was forbidden). And they were ignored by society quite easily.

See, they didn't realize the difference between them and black Americans. Black Americans never had to prove they exist. It's immediately obvious to most people. What they had to do was demand equality, and in knowing they would be attacked, garner sympathy. It worked quite well. But gays using the same tactics of demanding equality missed a step: people didn't bother acknowledging that they actually existed. They told that they homosexuality was a fixable perversion, or worse ignored. All of the Mattachine's sip ins did nothing, because no one noticed. And that's death for any social movement.
 
Last edited:

ShieldWife

Marchioness
Interesting stuff. While I do think that the modern LGBT movement has gone too far, it’s still a lot better than some of the anti-gay policies that existed even in living (if you’re old) memory like castration, lobotomies, long prison sentences, even the death penalty.
 
Setting the Stage for Stonewall

Abhorsen

Local Degenerate
Moderator
Staff Member
Comrade
Osaul
I think it's also important to look at how gay people interacted while it was largely illegal. First, there are basically two reasons one would want to meet up with other gays then: allowing you to be fully yourself, and sex/romance (though few felt hope for the later at that time, it was occasionally found), and talking freely could end up with you talking to undercover cops (which did exist). Note that political activism for gays wasn't around until the mid 50s, and at that point all that was there was the mostly useless Mattachine Society (and the Daughters of Bilitis equivalent). So all the industry based around them was focused on those things, (with sex taking a priority), hence why there are gay bathhouses, bars, and housing.

Obviously, however, the gay bars and bathhouses were known about, and were frequently raided. And gay bars were especially easy to attack because of their liquor license. Frequently, the state liquor licensing board would ban same sex activity from happening in licensed bars, such as dancing within so many feet of each other, etc. So how does a gay bar survive if it is likely to be raided? Mafia payments, known as Gayola. Despite professing Catholicism, the Mafia cared about little more than money. So every gay bar had to pay the mob to keep the cops off their backs, or were sometimes even mafia owned. Fat Tony, a member of the Gevonese Family, bought a normal bar known in 1966, and turned it into a gay bar, or more accurately, the gay bar. It was considered the place to be, as it allowed people to dance in each other's arms, had prewarning of any raids, and had alcohol, despite it being watered down. It was called the Stonewall Inn.

On top of this, a note should be given to New York, as it is the background for the biggest even in LGBT history. In 1950, New York was the first state to lower consensual sodomy to a misdemeanor, with a maximum penalty of 6 months, and no lobotomy. With the increasing urbanization in the 1940s causing gays especially to take advantage of leaving their home towns for the anonymity of a big city, New York quickly became a gay mecca, driving demand for gay bars and bathhouses.

But this also caused a problem. A large number of people fleeing for New York would be youth, as they were kicked out of their homes or left out of fear. And where would they go? New York, thinking it would be the safe place to be. Those could afford it would end up in one of the many gay lodgings, like the Y or Sloane house. But others had no money and no contacts. So they ended up homeless. Known as Street kids, they would have few places that were safe. The most popular was known as Stonewall.
 

Abhorsen

Local Degenerate
Moderator
Staff Member
Comrade
Osaul
Also, if people have questions about gay history or parts they'd like me to focus on first, I'd be happy todo so, as this only somewhat a chronological history (I'll fix that by ordering the threadmarks).
 
Strategies

Abhorsen

Local Degenerate
Moderator
Staff Member
Comrade
Osaul
This post is clearly out of chronological order, but let's look at how gay rights was won.

CAPITALISM:

First, capitalism was integral to victory throughout. Anyone who says that capitalism is heterocentrist or whatever is an idiot, a liar, or both.

In the beginning, when they were most persecuted, gays relied on gay bars, gay bathhouses and gay friendly housing... which some gay people don't seem to realize are businesses that exist only because of capitalism. These aren't businesses that those in charge wanted to happen, these were illegal businesses that existed only because they made money. Housing especially was influenced by the free market, because the landlord, competing with other landlords, doesn't care where the money is coming from, just that the money is coming.

This later lead to the almighty pink dollar, which helped further the below strategy.

REPRESENTATION IN MEDIA

Representation in media is one of those woke buzzwords that now means that everyone needs to be represented, and also that only gay people should play gay characters and other bullshit. It's completely stupid and ineffectual, and largely backfiring. But as with many things, the original use of this was very effective politically.

First, one must realize that different communities have bigotry expressed against them in very different ways. You won't here Jews get told to go back in the kitchen, or blacks that they control the banks, or Latinos that they don't exist. Anti-gay bigotry frequently takes the form of LGBTs don't exist, and also that the ones that do exist aren't normal or are just perverts (and hence don't really exist anyway). The lack of being real is core to anti gay hate. So how does one fight it? By making it very obvious that you exist, which leads to both pride parades and also the main story of this section: media that features gays.

Originally, gays were helped to normalize by representation in media in ways that might not meet the ultra woke requirements of today. The media did this largely in two ways: having lesbians, cause lesbians are hot, and having flamboyantly gay males, who are both easy to characterize (because being gay is their major character trait) and good comic relief. The Sweeps week lesbian kiss is a prominent example of this, as is the Sassy Gay Friend. Even bigger were people coming out as gay, such as Ellen Degeneres.

Each time someone saw a character (or even bigger, an actor) come out as gay, it told vast numbers of people that gay people both existed and were normal. This was directly useful to gays everywhere, as it normalized their lives. Learning about one of these shows could even be the first time a person even learned that there were other people like them.

But other minorities? That's not their problem. They have different problems, ones that won't be solved. That's why the current iteration is so stupid: It doesn't advance any purpose anymore.
 

Abhorsen

Local Degenerate
Moderator
Staff Member
Comrade
Osaul
Don't know where to put this and thought it might interest you @Abhorsen

Oh, I've always agreed that the Greeks were not really much of a gay paradise (same thing with Feudal Japan, and other cultures). Instead it was a pederast's paradise (though it's nice to learn that some of the relationships weren't sexual). It checks out when you consider that many of the Greeks who were engaged in such relationships (both as the abuser and abused) engaged in straight relationships as adults. What does this mean?

It a) reinforces that pedophilia is a fetish, not an orientation, and b) provides yet more evidence that pederastry != gayness, something there's a fair bit of studies and history backing.
 

TheRejectionist

TheRejectionist
so this does discuss to an extent the T out of LGBT because it is JKR of course so a good chunk is about the Trans rights stuff.
 

Abhorsen

Local Degenerate
Moderator
Staff Member
Comrade
Osaul
so this does discuss to an extent the T out of LGBT because it is JKR of course so a good chunk is about the Trans rights stuff.

Not really the thread for this, I don't think? Maybe this thread instead:

The goal of this thread was for me to try to write a summary of the LGBT movement in the US (that I've since left to languish, sadly) and discussion of that, not so much a current event stuff.

Note this is me asking as an OP, not a mod.
 

TheRejectionist

TheRejectionist
Not really the thread for this, I don't think? Maybe this thread instead:

The goal of this thread was for me to try to write a summary of the LGBT movement in the US (that I've since left to languish, sadly) and discussion of that, not so much a current event stuff.

Note this is me asking as an OP, not a mod.
Probably it is better suited there yeah. I completely forgot about said thread and I think I might even have partecipated in it.
 

DarthOne

☦️
Watch this professor play "Queer Theory-Pedophilia Jeopardy" to demonstrate how pedophilia is at the roots of the LGBT movement


Professor Derrick Jensen is out here spittin' truth. It's an old video, but one most of you haven't seen because our tech lords don't want you to know the pedos are behind the rainbow flag movement.

[Strong language and content warning]




Every founding document of "queer theory" and the academic basis for the LGBT movement, including the LGBT movement, is tied to these academics who not only approved of homosexuality but on the same grounds argued for pedophilia.

Foucault, Gayle Rubin, Pat Califia, Judith Butler... the list goes on.

There's almost no queer theorist who doesn't also argue for pedophilia.

Are you paying attention yet?


Are you paying attention yet?
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top