Tag: homophobia

Straight After Death: Misremembering the Queer Life and Times of Rod McKuen

Gillian Frank When the singer and poet Rod McKuen died on January 29th at the age of 81, major publications including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post paid tribute to his numerous accomplishments. For many readers, these obituaries functioned as the final word on McKuen’s legacy; so what does it mean that the mainstream press […]

Sexual Politics in the Era of Reagan and Thatcher: Marc Stein in Conversation with Jeffrey Weeks

By Marc Stein February 10, 2015 LGBTQ, United Kingdom 0 comments

Interview by Marc Stein In May 1988, when I was working as the coordinating editor of Gay Community News in Boston, Massachusetts, I interviewed Jeffrey Weeks, the influential British sociologist and historian who had written Coming Out: Homosexual Politics in Britain from the Nineteenth Century to the Present (1977), Sex, Politics, […]

Sex, race and censorship in Cuba: Historicising the P.M. affair

By Carrie Hamilton November 4, 2014 Latin American Sexualities, Sexual Labour Comments are Disabled

Carrie Hamilton In late 1960, not quite two years after the revolutionary victory of 1959, two young Cuban filmmakers, Sabá Cabrera Infante and Orlando Jiménez Leal, set out with a handheld camera, a small recording device and a limited supply of film to record shots of Havana nightlife. The result was P.M., […]

Before Grindr, or, The Dangers of the "Gay Bachelor"

By Justin Bengry October 7, 2014 LGBTQ, United Kingdom 0 comments

Justin Bengry In June 1967, opposition Conservative UK parliamentarians encountered a new and threatening queer danger. They feared that the Sexual Offences Bill then before them — a measure that would partially decriminalize male homosexual acts — might appear to sanction, and even promote, homosexual activity. Conservative MP Sir Cyril Osborne therefore proposed an amendment […]

Blood Ties: Queer Blood, Donations, and Citizenship

By T.J. Tallie September 23, 2014 LGBTQ, Post-1945 United States 3 comments

T.J. Tallie Can queer blood be less American than straight blood? In the United States, blood donations are automatically refused if the donor is a man who has had sex with another man at any point since 1977. Los Angeles-based filmmaker and activist Ryan James Yezak began the National Gay […]

Ian Paisley (1926-2014) and the ‘Save Ulster From Sodomy!’ Campaign

By Sean Brady September 16, 2014 LGBTQ, United Kingdom 3 comments

Sean Brady The death of Rev. Ian Paisley has been occasion for reflection upon the United Kingdom’s most firebrand, and certainly one of the most memorable and divisive, political figures in modern times. Paisley rightly will be remembered for his hardline and extreme unionist stance throughout his political and religious […]

The Yellow Star and the Pink Triangle: Judaism and Gay Rights in the 1970s

By Gillian Frank August 19, 2014 Childhood and Youth, Post-1945 United States, Religion and Sexuality 3 comments

Gillian Frank Homosexuals cannot reproduce—so they must recruit, and to freshen their ranks, they must recruit the youth of America. – Anita Bryant In 1977, Anita Bryant became the face of a right wing religious coalition, Save Our Children (SOC). SOC, which was based in Dade County Florida, enshrined into national conservative politics […]