• In the 1940s, the military began to use psychiatrists to keep homosexuals from enlisting and issued “blue discharges” (they were printed on blue paper) to military personnel identified as homosexuals

• After the war was over, the military considered blue discharges “vague and protective” and homosexuals would receive an “undesirable discharge” instead

• At the close of World War II, lesbians and gay men began to see themselves as a social minority

• This helped create an environment in which the notion that homosexuality was a sickness or perversion could be effectively challenged not only by physicians and psychotherapist, but also by homosexuals themselves

-Klein Sexual Orientation Grid (KSOG): like the Kinsey scale but more intense to make the test results more unique to the individual. You add up your numbers and divide by 21 to get your final answer.

-Storms Sexuality Axis (SSA): Includes heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, and asexuality on an x and y axis. With this one, you are not limited to the homosexual-heterosexual binary as in the other tests. Therefore, it is better in charting sexuality because it is more diverse.

-Proving that sexual orientation is inherited (born with) will allow more people to be ok with the matter. Rights will improve for homosexuals. However, some may still think gay-is-sick and attempt to cure LGBT people. Because it is medical/biological.

-Liberationist politics supports sexual freedom- the right to choose how, when, who, and why to engage in sexual activities. Some LGBT people prefer this side.

1. the absence of more “natural” objects of affection

2. significant disappointment in romantic relationships with the opposite sex

3. seduction by a member of the same sex

• Halberstam warns that anyone writing about the past needs to consider carefully how contemporary notions and constructions of desire and identity can easily be imposed on past persons, incidents, or issues

• She argues that instead for a “perversely prescentist model of historical analysis, a model that avoids the trap of simply projecting contemporary understandings back in time, but one that can apply insights from the present conundrums of the past”
• Perverse presentism highlights the need to avoid imposing current ideas about and constructions of sexualty on the past at the same time that it acknowledges the historical expression of sexual intimacies and practices that seem connected to current LGBT identifications and practices

• In Greece, the social and sexual relationship between an older man and a youth represented the ideal form of love

• In the epic, the Greek hero Achilles, feeling slighted by the king, withdraws from the fighting outside Tory

• His youthful lover Patroclus, fearing that Achilles is losing honor, puts on Achilles’s armor and goes out to fight in his place

• The less powerful Patroclus is killed, his death spurs Achilles to return to the battlefield and defeat the Trojan Hector

• Erastes- older man

• Eromenos (youth)- typically a postadolescent between the ages of about 12 and 18

• Once a young man’s beard sprouted, he was considered past the age of eromenos

• the erastes-eromenos pairing was designed to provide pleasure and friendship for the older erastes in exchange for protection, training, and social advantage for the younger eromenos

• Same-sex attachments did not preclude heterosexual marriage, but the pederastic (love between man and a boy) combination of spiritual and physical connection represented a higher kind of love, more conductive to the military, political, and educational responsibilities of the male citizen of the Greek state

• Poet who lived in the seventh century BCE on the island of Lesbos

• Little of her work has survived and that which has is mostly in fragments, yet she is still known for her sensuous and personal poetic voice

• Many young, wealthy Greek women were sent to Lesbos to study the arts with Sappho and her lyrics describe her love for these women

• In many native american tribes, a person who possessed characteristics of both genders; one who understands a male and a female

• carried spiritual and physical power; two-spirit individuals could function as healers and could be valued in some tribal groups accordingly

• they were born of a certain gender, but dressed as the opposite sex and took on the opposite sex’s daily routines and roles within the society

• while there were some born females who took on male roles, it was much more rare than a born male taking on female roles.

• this is when emperor Constantine christianized the roman empire in the fourth century CE

• made punishment for same sex sexual behavior punishable by death, whereas before this change it was just considered a “crime against nature”

• the book is the story of the attempted (and finally successful) seduction of a youth boy by his teacher Filotimo

• it is considered the first gay novel because Filotimo describes himself as a man who loves other men rather than women. He does more than perform homosexual acts; he identifies himself as a homosexual

-primary goal: gain acceptance for gay men and lesbians by hetersexuals

• challenge the idea that homosexuality was a sickness or perversion

• the movement was spearheaded by homosexuals; the idea was that homosexuals themselves could challenge these notions, not just physicians and psychologists

• founder of the Mattachine Society (early 1950s), a homophile organization

• founded Mattachine Society in response to McCarthy’s anti-communism/anti-homosexuality

• Mattachine Society worked toward assimilation of gays and lesbians

Harvey Milk and Dan White served on San Francisco Board of Supervisors together

-Harvey Milk was first openly gay member of SF Board of Supervisors

-White was the only actively antigay board supervisor; said he wanted to rid city of “radicals, social deviates, and incorigibles”

-White shot and killed Milk (and SF mayor George Moscone) Nov. 27, 1978

-jury (mostly white, working class conservatives) found White guilty of voluntary manslaughter, NOT first-degree murder… was only sentenced to 7 years in prison

-public reacted with fury at verdict: vandalizing, burning police cars… became known as “White Night Riots”

Human Riots Ordinance included lesbians and gays among people protected from discrimination

-Anita Bryant’s “Save Our Children” campaign sought a repeal of the ordinance… their slogan was, “Homosexuals cannot reproduce, so they must recruit”

-Harvey Milk’s statement was a sarcastic response to Anita Bryant’s campaign slogan

-the “Save Our Children” campaign was able to overturn the Human Rights Ordinance

-rioting was a response to police harassment of customers of Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar

-most customers released, but bar staff, three drag queens, and two MtF transgendered people were going to be taken in

-the crowd that formed outside (made of customers) protested by throwing bricks, trashcans, and began a series of several riots for days in area

• Human rights are those rights that individuals enjoy because they are human. No government body, group or person can deprive human rights to an individual. Some of the basic human rights are the right to life, education, fair trail, protection from torture and freedom of expression.
• Civil rights are rights that an individual enjoys by virtue of citizenship. Civil rights have the protection of the constitution. Civil rights protect the individual from discrimination and unjustifiable action by others, government or any organization. Having a philosophical and legal basis, civil rights is an agreement between thenationand the individual.

52. Thomas Eakins created, “The Swimming Hole,” and intended much of his art of the 1890s to convey the ideas of Whitman (p. 213) “The Swimming Hole” is a painting of what?

-highly coded literature (prison cell to represent the closeted lesbian life)

-reflects the forced exile of many gay men to more accepting locations

-an intersectional  approach that buries LGBT plotlines within discussions of social or political struggles

68. Deepa Mehta’s 1996 film, Fire (film followed that lives of two sister-in-laws living in India that were unhappy in their marriages and began to fall in love with each other. When the film was released in India, protesters argued that the film violated their religion and their countries morals as a whole, claiming that the movie was actually “un-Indian” and was thought to “spoil their women”)

• encoding refers to messages deliberately included in cultural products by their makers

• decoding refers to the messages cultural consumers glean from these products (not necessarily encoded)

the episode on the episode on the Ellen show where she “came out’ and professed her love for a woman

1. same sex practices were criminalized ;criminalized sexual touching between men, anal intercourse punishable by death

2. Public discourse of homoeroticism and homosexuality existed; western media discussed LGBT issues and european  was considered an illness

3. The term homosexual was just made;

• An innate theory of sexuality that had to be shaped by social forces to achieve reproductive sexuality
• Sexologists defined sexual instinct as reproductive and naturally hetero while Freud argued that sexual instinct is oriented to pleasure & that the body has many erotic areas that can be satisfied in many different ways.