I was recently asked by my church, the United Methodist Church of Palm Springs to participate in a series of talks for Gay Pride in Palm Springs in November. Since our Gay Pride weekend begins today for three days, I felt honored to be asked.
A great deal of time was spent researching this topic and the talk I will give (below) is what I will present at church this coming Thursday, November 7, 2019.
I am adding it to my column because I feel that our lives are shaped, are "designed by the societies and cultures we live in and have always lived in. As Americans we live under our Constitution, a document designed by man. Earlier mankind lived in tribes and loose gatherings of societies that were developed to ensure that they and their prodigy endured.
Many things were learned in my research and so I thought it was appropriate to share my findings not only in church but here as well.
Alan Krug
November 1, 2019
HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT: A Short History of the Gay & Lesbian Movement
I chose this title, HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT because throughout history there have been, well, men who like men and women who like women and probably a variety of other combinations we just don’t know about. The names vary by culture but it has been OR was not accepted since the beginning of time.
Every one of us grew up in some religious tradition that pretty much across the board condemned queers, butch, bears, faggots, and any action that caused men to spell their seed as it was considered an abomination against the will of God. How did we know? For most of us it was at church ... if you were a Jew, Christian or Muslim. All three religions come from the father Abraham and his wife Sarah. We are not alone though; other faiths have similar restrictions as all have been told in one way or another to be fruitful and multiply.
This reminds me of the time I heard Spencer Wells talk about his mapping of the world’s DNA.
He came on stage and without preamble said, “I’m here to tell you there was an Adam.” The air was suddenly sucked out of the auditorium. Continuing he added, “And he was black.” We had now reached the vacuum of outer space as there was NO air left in the room. Anyone who has come “out” of the closet knows the feeling.
As I contemplated what I would say about the history of Gays and Lesbians I wondered, were they Gay then too? Could they be any different than we are today?
Gay history, as we know it begins with the Bible. Everyone knows the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah. Did they lust after the angels? Were they hot? In any event the word sodomy, used forever now, came from that nasty town that God destroyed. I might add that even today theologians are arguing about what really happened and what it really meant. I would say from that time until now most people have already made up their minds, and it’s not favorable.
For some reason then and now men have much more concern about their fellow man and what they do. Leviticus notes in chapter 18, verse 22 “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have some done an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is on them.” That pretty much tells the tale, don’t you think? Or does it? I would ask then as now, what right does anyone have to judge what is done in your home, in your bed? I certainly don’t care what they do; why are they so interested in me? Jealous I might have more fun?
Among hundreds if not thousands of recorded cases of same sex acts recorded in justice or church records from Medieval Europe until today few were for relations between women. For men, the English law of 1533 made buggery punishable by death.
Century after century penalties ebbed and flowed. The Renaissance saw an openness not seen in hundreds of years. They saw serious penalties and then a relaxation. What I got from the histories though was a dry clinical outlook that made being Gay like a rat in a cage, being watched and then reporting what they saw. History seems to have no understanding of love, or passion, even caring. Since I have moved here (Palm Springs), I have seen couples that have been together longer than most “straight” marriages. I have seen the other side too but I have known many straight, whatever that might mean, men brag about their female conquests. My God, what do you think the MeToo Movement is about?
While there were periods in history against Lesbians they usually got off more easily than men, as men, who else right?, couldn’t possibly conceive of how Lesbians could commit the sin of illicit sex. After all they had no penis and no seed to spill. I’m not kidding. Sexual relations between women could only have one purpose: to enhance real sex, i.e., sex with a man. Read the histories, you will see.
You notice I haven’t used the word homosexual yet. I don’t because the word was only coined in 1869, the year one of my references started their Gay history because it was the first time a Latin - Greek word was created to describe same sex relations in a medical sense. It entered the medical lexicon in 1892 a few years after a similar German word. It was when a realization that all that had been thought before was reevaluated and people realized that men or women could love each other not only intimately but sexually. It was inborn. The word heterosexual was only coined a few years later as there was yet no word to describe relationships between a man and a woman! Homosexuals have the honor to be identified first!
An example of hidden in plain sight would be Oscar Wild’s famous and still popular play, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST. Many of us had to read it in high school and most of us have seen it performed at one time or another. It’s a theatre staple. However, did you know that the word “earnest” was a Victorian code word for being homosexual? So, like another scandalous movie, THE LAST TANGO IN PARIS, it’s not the girls the boys are after, it’s the boys. TANGO was considered so scandalous that the American version had Marlon Brando having an affair with an underage girl. In the original French version, it was a young man.
Silver Daddies, as one popular male web site is called, follows a long and venerable history of pairing older men, “Daddies” with younger men, “sons.” The first recorded actions of older adult males mentoring and loving youth starts with the recorded writings from Ancient Greece. There it had to be a free born adult male and a freeborn youth that had a form of mentorship. These youths were between the ages of about 13 until 19 when they then were considered men. The idea was the older man “trained” the younger in the habits of being a man. Similar societies occur in Africa. Many of my older students, when I was in the Peace Corps, had scaring on their bodies given when they were in the bush for up to 8 years learning the ways of their tribes and learning to be a man. Called secret societies they would never admit to or talk about what they endured. However, we do know there was sex between males.
Romans also practiced this kind of mentoring but were stricter allowing only slaves and those purchased youth to have such a relationship with an older Roman citizen. A citizen youth was not allowed such unions.
Many American tribes, north and south, had cultural traditions dealing with and mostly allowing men and women to have same sex relationships and also allowed men to dress as women and live as women. Settlers and the church condemned such actions and forbid them though it is said they still exist out of the white man’s view even today. Indeed, many Gay individuals were honored and became shamans and medicine men and women. The tribes believed they had special gifts and powers.
After WW I, many Gay men and Lesbian women went to Europe. Even though France has no laws against same sex liaisons, Germany did. Prof. Hirschfeld, a Jewish liberal Gay man fought most of his adult life to overturn the German Paragraph 175 that originally made sodomy between men and later women a crime with jail time. His research center was one of the first casualties of Hitler’s triumph of 1933. Speaking across Europe and to visits in the United States, he argued that same sex attraction was a natural phenomenon and could not be altered.
The biggest change in modern sexual history can be placed at the door of World War II. Millions of men and women, upwards of 30 million were displaced and left sheltered towns and homes and for the first time found others like themselves. While the U.S. Armed Forces prohibited such actions in WW I, liaisons were encouraged in WWII combat as it was recognized, as Romans had 2,000 years before, “buddies” could and would watch over each other in battle.” However, after the war, Gays and Communists were considered bedfellows and many Gay men, especially, didn’t fare well in either the government or private industry. It was a hard time to be Gay even as the number of clubs and groups grew. Cities enforced ordinances, treatments were often ordered and police raids became common targeting known hangouts. The irony was that many of the Gay and Lesbian bars were run by the Mafia and to stay open paid weekly bribes to the local police departments. Don’t pay and expect to be raided.
Many groups were started in the 1930’s and beyond but the battles they fought were more with each other than getting political traction. The Mattachine Society, formed in 1950 in Los Angeles, was an organization to support Gays and Gay rights. Most of the members were originally Communists but as the Red Scare of the early 50’s increased many members left. The group grew until 1953 when the founders left and the group wanted to assimilate, ape the mores of their heterosexual brothers and remain in plain sight with their “tastes” kept private. Others argued that they should be accepted as they were. By Stonewall they ceased to have much support.
Daughters of Bilitis, was the first Lesbian civil and political rights movement that was formed in 1955. It was conceived as a social alternative to bars subject to raids and police harassment. It morphed into providing support to women afraid to come out. The group rose at the same time feminists became active and there was a tension between older and younger members. It finally ended after the 1968 convention where fewer than two dozen members attended.
As we all know, in June of 1969 patrons of one of the worst bars in New York City fought back. It had been a bad month there and bar after bar was raided. Finally, late night patrons had had enough and fought back. It wasn’t just one night either, it went on for several nights and again the following weekend. As we heard here in church, those that were there that night didn’t realize what was started. It was a “raid” that was heard ‘round the world.
However, it was the AIDS epidemic that changed the course for Gay men forever. Finally identified in 1981, it would kill 660,000 Americans as of today and the count is still growing but at a much slower pace. It took groups like ACT UP in NYC to picket and press for medicines that were being used in Europe first to care for those with the virus. The other center was San Francisco that may have had the largest concentrated Gay population at the time. In just a few years thousands died and often the meds finally used could be as deadly as the disease itself.
Even today, there are about 26,000 new infections each year, infections that needn’t happen. As we said in my youth, “good girls don’t get pregnant” because no one told them about sex, just as many areas of the country today refuse to discuss Gay sex and prevention methods.
I have pointed out that religion, especially Evangelical religions have been no friend to the “Queer” community and continues its drive to take our rights away. I read that over 1,200 laws and regulations have been attempted in this country, mostly in the Deep South, to not serve Gays, not hire them and even attempts to take their rights away. Even though it is legal for same-sex couples to marry we thought this battle was over but just like Roe v. Wade, the battles have just begun.
People think they “know” Gay people, who they are and what they do. A study a few years back that actually asked Gay and Lesbians what they did for a living surprised the researchers. The top 15 were:
• Psychologists
• Training and development specialists
• Social and community service managers
• Technical writers
• Occupational therapists
• Massage therapists
• Urban and regional planners
• Producers and directors
• Teachers
• Probation officers
• Morticians, undertakers and funeral directors
• Physical therapists and exercise physiologists
• Computer and information systems managers
• Lawyers, judges and other judicial workers
• Web developers
You notice that hair dressers, decorators and such were not in the top 15. So, while they are there, the majority of people you deal with professionally are Gay in plain sight and you may never know it.
Another group that is considered vulnerable today are the transgender men and women following the time-honored judgment from ancient times that you are the sex that your genitals indicate. However, an excellent documentary at Cinema Diverse told another story. We have all been taught that sex is black and white. But as any Queer can tell you in the real world there is black and white and about 7 billion grays in between.
PBS did a wonderful special regarding young men coming out to their parents. One was a Mormon boy in a large Mormon family. They were shocked of course but finally accepted his orientation after much discussion, prayers and such. At the end, the father related how a friend came up to him and commiserated with him about his son. Then added that he didn’t know any Gay people. The father said, “I told him oh, you do, you just don’t know it.”
I would like to leave you with this thought, probably most if not all of the clothes you are wearing were designed or copied from a Gay clothing designer, many of the movies and cable shows have Gay writers, producers, actors and camera men. At the recent Cinema Diverse I saw the documentary on the artist Steven Arnold, a flamboyant artist who died of AIDS in 1994. Before his death he was interviewed on TV and asked about his thoughts on being Gay. He shrugged it off and said that he was proud to be Gay. Look at the heterosexual world, how boring! You need Gays and Lesbians to give the world some spice, some color. And you know, he was right!
Alan
Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!
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