Introduction to LGBTQ+ Studies Module 5 Notes: Israel Avila

“Toward Liberation”: Chapter 3

- Lesbian-baiting​ is the sexist and homophobic practice of labeling women (especially

feminists and women whose behavior doesn't reinforce traditional gender stereotypes) as
lesbian in an effort to slur or diminish them. pg.55
- “For many women, choosing college was tantamount to refusing heterosexual marriage”
meaning it was frowned upon especially since women durin the late 1800’s were
restricted to a strict household lifestyle. pg.56
- During the Mid-1800’s, male doctors were reprimanding women for wanting an
education rather than fulfilling their “gender roles” such as reproduction and as I
mentioned earlier what men expected of a “woman” which was house work, not an
occupation nor an education. Pg.56
- Comparative to the 1900’s where Women were seen as degenerates in a single lifestyle
but can have same-sex desires. pg.56
- “Sigmund Freud believed that homosexuality resulted from arrested sexual development,
though he refused to go as far as to characterize it as an illness and did not believe that
homosexual activity should be criminalized.” pg. 56
- Freud, Ellis and Hirschfieldsay homosexuality as a natural variation of the human
species. Pg. 57
- Records show that there were 20 sodoomy prosecutions and 4 executions in the colonial
era. pg.57
- India and Singapore are two countries in the modern world that if found people
committing homosexual acts they would be sentenced to life in prison. Pg.57
- “The notion that homosexuality results from biological factors out of the control of
individuals is called ​essentialism​.” Pg. 58
- “Gay activists employ ​strategic essentialism​ as a method whereby homosexuals’
presumably fixed identity is deployed as an argument against discrimination.” pg.58
- “In the 20th Century, Psychiatrists around the world treated homosexuality as an illness
primarily caused by poor parenting-domineering mothers and passive or inadequate
fathers.” pg.58
- In Shirley A, Mason’s article, “Clinical Aspects of Female Hemosexuality” majority of
the studies portrayed homosexual men as “predatory, effeminate, and emotionally
unstable”. Pg.58
- The Standards of Care that Harry Benjamin set was an excessive amount of
Psychotherapy and a letter of support from the therapist to approve of the reassignment
surgery. Pg.59
- Although the LGBTQ+ community was going through an uneasy time with the medical
field, during the 1920’s-1930’s the Harlem Renaissance started, promoting areas for
creativity and sexual outlets. Pg.59
- Coming out of the closet was significantly more dangerous and life threatening because it
could affect your living situations, relationships and even your occupation/livelihood.
Pg.60
- Like many times where most were accepting and endearing of people and who they truly
are, it would be upset by a social crisis, a chain reaction of sorts. Pg.60
- Once Germany Unified in 1871, a new legal code (paragraph 175) outlawed Sodomy.
From 1933 to 1945 over 100,000 men who identified as homosexual were arrested due to
this new la​w. Pg.61
- For the U.S, there was no policy against Homosexuals and Women were called into the
workforce and even into the military to keep the nation afloat. pg.61
- A ​blue discharge​ (also known as a "blue ticket") was a form of administrative military
discharge formerly issued by the United States beginning in 1916. It was neither
honorable nor dishonorable. The blue ticket became the discharge of choice for
commanders seeking to remove homosexual service members from the ranks. Pg.62
- “The prohibition of gay servicemen was based solely on “military objectives: unit
cohesion, military discipline, order and morale”. Pg. 62
- After WWII in 1950 Joseph McCarthy had begun to dig out Communists within the U.S
Government, which was America’s biggest threat. Although, McCarthy also targeted
homosexuals in America because they were categorized as “perverts” and “perhaps as
dangerous as the actual communists.” pg.63
- “Ironically, the period of the McCarthy witch hunts was also the time when much of the
work took place that finally led o the declassification of homosexuality as a mental
illness.” Evelyn Hooker began her study during the witch hunts and studied homosexuals
not incarcerated in mental hospitals or prisons, discovering that psychological diversity
was similar between heterosexuals and homosexuals. Pg.64
- In an effort to address the discrimination they faced by authorities, gays and lesbians
started organizing formally in the early 1950s. Called “homophile organizations” in order
to emphasize their sense of community and deemphasize the sexual aspect of their
identity that so concerned the public, these pioneering groups worked to provide
awareness, education, and unification of this oppressed minority. Pg.65
- Harry Hay founded “The Mattachine Society” which was the most well known
homophile organization and rivaled Anti-communist and Anti-homosexual
movements/hunts that was lead by McCarthy and his followers. Pg.66
- “Many LGBTQ people identify the beginning of a highly visibly gay rights movement in
the United States with the Stonewall riots, which occurred on June 27th and 28th 1969 in
New York City. The Riots erupted in response to police harassment of patrons of the
Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar. Haing experienced decades of consistent raids on gay
 bars by police, customers who had been in the Stonewwall Inn when the police shut it
down that night gathered outside the building, cheering whenever another person was
released by police and emerged.” pg.67
- “A number of these counter cultural movements began in grassroots working-class
rebellion and subsequently morphed into rights organizations with middle-class
leadership and gradually less radical goals,” pg.68
- Lesbian feminists considered antiwar movements sexist and the women’s movement
homophobic, which prompted them to advocate for social and political speratism. pg.69
- Two not necessarily opposed sides came out of the political divide between the LGBTQ+
community; people more invested in the politics and people who were still living for the
bar scene. Pg.70
- After the White Night Riots SFPD invaded the castro district as a way to retaliate for the
gay outcry against the murder of Harvey Milk(​a visionary civil and human rights leader
who became one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States when he
won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977)​. Pg.70-71
- In October 1979 over 75,000 to 100,000 people marched into Washington D.C for
Lesbian and Gay rights. While bringing together a multitude of featured speakers, they
were able to unite with, to some degree, the communist party saying, “A move that
indicated that issues of race and social class were on the minds of at least some of the
leaders at the time.” Seeing how this is one of the biggest steps receiving support from an
already small minority, benefitting and supporting one another. Pg.71-72

“Queer Normalization and Beyond”: Chapter 4

- In the 80’s a syndrome appeared predominantly among gay men, known as ​Gay-related
Immune Deficiency(​ GRID)​ o​ r ​gay cancer. ​Pg.93
- Syndrome was then relabeled AIDS- ​acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Early cases
of the disease resulting from blood transfusions and people living with HIV (​Human
Immunodeficiency Virus)​ can later be adapted into AIDS. pg. 94
- The Ryan White CARE Act helped spread publicity of the virus and it also provided
services for people that had HIV or AIDS. pg.94
- Under President Reagan’s power, the AIDS epidemic wasn’t see as a public health
concern and pretty much left the gay community to “deal with it” rather than help the
situation, quarenting gay men and not funding any research towards the Virus. Pg.94
- The one tipping point to reveal how dangerous AIDS was and was in the case of Rock
Hudson, and at that point over 12,000 people had already passed and hundreds of
thousands more were infected. Pg.95
- UNAIDS estimates that 17.4 million women were living with HIV/AIDS worldwide in
2014, accounting for about ½ of the 34.3 million adults living with HIV/AIDS who
 became infected through sex between men and women continues to grow(“AIDS Info”).
Pg.96
- Colorado and Ohio tried to enact laws to segregate LGBTQ Folks that would make them
“unequal to everyone else” and a state shouldn’t be allowed or able to deem someone
lesser than. Pg.97
- Matthew Shepard and Billy Jack Gaither were killed for being gya or having same sex
desires towards other men and they reacted with aggression and hostility, bringing
awareness to hate crimes against lesbian and gay folks. Pg 98
- “While DADT was in force, approximately 14,000 people were discharged from the
military; the minimum estimated cost of the policy was $288 million.” pg.100
- “DADT had stipulated that military personnel must not marry a person of the same sex.
Absent DADT, a major prop of ‘traditional’ marriage disappeared.” pg.101
- Similar to the SafeZone packet, we did in class with the privilege exercise where we were
given an allotted money and had to pick and choose the privileges we wanted. I feel it’s a
positive thing for people to reflect on what they have and using said privilege to benefit
someone who doesn’t have said advantage that you do, bringing unity and humility.
Pg.103
- “Spurred by the devastation of AIDS, Schulman argues, American cities lost their most
creative LGBTQ activists, whose deaths opened up physical space for gentrifiers. But
these new arrivals were hardly revolutionaries; they were assimilationists who repurposed
the once-radical gay organizations toward realization of a homogeneous society in which
queer people adopted the values, and enjoyed the civil rights of the larger culture”, rather
than in a sense pushing themselves out, is it trying to say they had accepted heterosexual
ideals while embracing and bringing their own to the table, having both perspectives and
orientations coexisting and having it unified? Pg.104
- The many times that EDNA (Employment Non-Discrimination Act) wasn’t passed was
due to how uncomfortable americans felt towards binary gender markers being blended
in. pg.105
- R. Florida noted that gay subcultures enrich cities with “creative and intellectual
stimulation”,we can look on America’s history and can see the progress and regression
that comes from how we as a nation treat the LGBTQ Community. Pg.105
- What Ted Cruz said in 2016 is disrespectful and oxymoronic as well as problematic. He
was quoted saying, “if a man wants to dress as a woman, and live as a woman he should
only use a bathroom at home”, which is oxymoronic because that doesn’t fix the problem
of binary bathrooms and the judgement and harassment they receive. Pg.105
- South Africa was the first country in the world to write LGBTQ equality into its
constitution, under the leadership of Nelson Mandela and others attempting to create a
post-Apartheid liberal government, South Africa aadopted a constitution that protects its
people from discrimination based on “race,gender,sex,pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or
social oirgin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief,
 culture, language and birth” I never knew Nelson Mandela was pivotal in making Soth
Africa a state of inclusion for the LGBTQ+ community and although I know some of his
civil rights work, it’s good to also know the extended truth and what he did for truly
everyone before his passing. Pg.108
- In sub-Saharan countries they started to de-gay AIDS, in the sense of revealing its
problem within heterosexuals as well and removing the homosexual stigma that it carried.
pg.109
- While combating AIDS and their own civil rights movement, the LGBTQ+ community
found a way to work within the system and worked on assimilating into the larger culture
and society while gaining access to more privileges slowly. Pg.110

United in Anger Video:

- Ann Northrop said it perfectly that the people in power would let the people at the bottom
stay down.
- Kramer would ignite people and call upon them to make the change they wanted.
- March 19, 1987: FDA approves AZT, first AIDS drug
- ACT UP”s first attack was towards AZT’s $10,000 pricetag
- “Within 2 years after diagnosis, 80% have died” quote fromm Sydney H. Schamberg's
article, “A Baffling Epidemic”.
- ACT UP was a haven for people that cared for their community and gave energy to each
other to fire up people to care for not only other’s lives but more importantly their own.
- May 7, 1988: Day 9, over 600 protestors demonstrate at the state capitol in Albany,NY
and hear VIto Russo’s historic AIDS Speech
- ACT UP’S first demonstration causes the FDA to approve the release of drugs faster.
- FDA’s process would take years whereas all the virus needed was a few months before
the host would die.
- Victims of AIDS should've had every right to be involved in the research and yet FDA
singled out the little people as ANn had said earlier
- AIDS Community Television was a way to document early activism and were for the
people rather than having the mainstream media twist their words.
- Diva T.V.: “WE ARE COMMITTED TO MAKING MEDIA WHICH DIRECTLY
COUNTERS AND INTERFERES WITH DOMINANT MEDIA ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT
AIDS & GOVERNMENTAL NEGLIGENCE IN DEALING WITH THE AIDS CRISIS”.
- March 1989: ACT UP demands benefits and housing for people with AIDS
- SEPTEMBER 14,1989: ACT Up protests at the NYSE insisting traders sell their shares
of Burroughs Wellcome, the manufacturer of AZT
- SEPTEMBER 18,1989: Wellcome lowers the price of AZT by 20%
- NOVEMBER1989: Planning protest at St. Patrick's Cathedral
- DECEMBER 10, 1989: ACTUAL PROTEST @ ST PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL
- MAY 21, 1990: STORM THE NIC
- ACR UP brought a sense of entitlement and empowerment to be in the margin and
having this disease.
- HHS protest and CDC protests were done to change the definition of AIDS due to it
holding a stigma to gay men, but not just gay men were capable of transmitting it since
women and heterosexual men and couples were able to as well.
- The Ashes Action was a protest that had ACT UP Activists dumped ashes of loved ones
and people who didn’t survive their fight with AIDS on the president’s doorstep.
- ACT UP showed the flaws and what is wrong not in the Medicinal industry but society
and the government.
- HAART coming out in 1996 that extends the lives of people with AIDS and who still have
access to drugs
- MARCH 24, 1997: 10th anniversary; ACT UP celebrates by demanding lower prices for
the AIDS cocktail
- MARCH 29, 2007: ACT UP demands Healthcare for All