Authenticity, Respectability, and the Desire for Marriage

With marriage equality victorious, chapter 15 delves into the question of why so many on the political Left, in the gay rights movement and in academia, failed to appreciate how practical and radical marriage equality would be. Many social movement scholars and gay rights activists had claimed that same-sex couples did not really want to marry. Yet once same-sex couples had the option to marry, they voted with their feet and their hearts to get married by the hundreds of thousands. California same-sex couples chose marriage over domestic partnership by a 20-to-1 margin once they had the choice. Some critics from the Left had argued that marriage equality was not radical enough. The success of marriage equality suggests that there may be nothing as radical as a social change that is also practical and rooted in tradition.

The 1950s and 1960s

Chapter 2 explores the early gay rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s during the Red Scare, which was also the period of greatest repression of gay people in U.S. history. The struggles of the tiny homophile movements such as the Daughters of Bilitis and the Mattachine Society are described. U.S. popular culture was relentlessly hostile to homosexuality during this period. Hollywood had an official code requiring that gay characters be shown only in a negative light. At the same time, the American Law Institute published a model penal code that recommended the decriminalization of sodomy.

The gay rights backlash: Contrasting views from the United States and Latin America

This essay examines the conditions that enable a ‘gay rights backlash’ through a comparison of the United States and Latin America. The United States, the cradle of the contemporary gay rights movement, is the paradigmatic example of a gay rights backlash. By contrast, Latin America, the most Catholic of regions, introduced gay rights at a faster pace than the United States without much in the way of a backlash. Collectively, this analysis demonstrates that a gay rights backlash hinges upon organisationally-rich ‘backlashers’ and an environment that is receptive to homophobic messages, a point underscored by the American experience. But the Latin American experience shows that the counter-framing to the backlash can minimise and even blunt the effects of the backlash.

The Political Economy of LGBT Rights

Equal treatment for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community has improved at a rapid pace around the world since the gay rights movement first rose up to become a salient global force for change. With important regional exceptions, laws criminalizing same-sex sexual relations have not only come down in multiple countries, but same-sex couples can now also construct families in many advanced industrialized countries. Public acceptance of homosexuality, even in some non-Western countries, has increased dramatically. Yet, within those general trends hides the remarkable unevenness in the spread and adoption of policies fostering legal, social, and economic equality for LGBTQ communities around the world. Policy change toward more equal treatment for sexual minorities is concentrated in the developed world and within the cisgender gay and lesbian communities in particular. The existing literature in policy change shows the importance of transnational activists, changing international norms, and increasing levels of secularization have made this possible. But the effectiveness of these factors rests on an underlying foundation of socioeconomic factors based on economic and social development that characterizes advanced industrialized states. There is an uneven distribution of resources and interests among pro and anti-LGBT activist groups alike, and the differing levels of economic development in which they operate that explains the decidedly uneven nature of how LGBTQ human rights have advanced in the past 50 years. In addition, new political parties and activist organizations have emerged to lead the backlash against LGBTQ rights, showing progress is neither inevitable nor linear. In addition, serious gaps in what we know about LGBT politics remain because of the overwhelming scholarly focus on advanced industrialized states and policies that benefit the cisgender, gay and lesbian middle class in primarily Western societies. The study of LGBT politics in non-Western and developing countries is woefully neglected, for reasons attributed to the nature of the research community and the subject area. In the developed world, greater attention is needed to inequality within the LGBTQ community and issues beyond same-sex marriage. Finally, issues of intersectionality and how different groups within the LGBT community have enjoyed most of the benefits of the gay rights movement since its takeoff more than 50 years ago.

Jacob’s Pillar

This chapter focuses on Ted Shawn’s role in the development of Jacob’s Pillow from a summer dance training camp into an internationally renowned dance school and festival. Through Shawn’s wartime letters to his lover Barton Mumaw, the chapter relays an insider’s view into the early years of the festival, including the building of the first theater dedicated to presenting dance in 1942. It then focuses on Shawn’s later choreographic output as well as his many programmatic achievements at the Pillow. And finally, it looks at Shawn’s twilight years, especially his attempts to document the story of his life in relation to the emerging gay rights movement he saw intensify around him, including the publication of the Kinsey Reports, the influential study of American sexual culture, in which Shawn participated with profound liberating results.

North American and Australian LGBT Movement and Interest Groups

A study of the LGBT movement within Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Australia reveals the movement’s youth and vitality. Only since the mid-1900s has there been what one might identify as an organized social movement within any of these four countries. A key similarity across the social movements in these four countries has been the formation of associated interest groups. These groups have transformed the LGBT movement. Scholarly research regarding the movement and its attendant interest groups reveals decades of growth and development. These changes over the years allow scholars to investigate topics such as how the LGBT movement compares to other social movements, how various sexual and gender minority communities have been incorporated into the larger movement, and how movement groups have utilized various strategies in pursuit of movement goals. In the United States, the gay rights movement was one of a few distinct movements included within a larger new social movement. These various movements shared the fact they were organized around a goal of identity expression. (The extent to which a gay rights movement morphed into a broader LGBT movement is also an important part of the U.S. story.) In Canada, the modern movement for LGBT individuals exemplified a gradual process rising out of the post–World War era; it was attached to a rise in Quebecois nationalism and the growth of First Nations peoples’ rights movements. Conversely, Australia has seen a slower progression than Canada or the United States, in part because Australia has had a relatively inactive set of social rights movements over the same period. (There is evidence that Australian social rights movements came to consciousness more from a global than a domestic narrative.) Finally, with respect to Mexico, one might assume that LGBT successes there have lagged behind those in the United States because of a more vibrant social movement community in the United States and also because Mexicans are assumed by some to be more religious than residents of the United States. However, there is evidence that the LGBT movement has had greater electoral and policy successes in Mexico. This could in part be due to a history in Mexico of LGBT activists identifying with other revolutionary agents who sought broad structural changes in that country.

Stories with Queer Identities

“Stories with Queer Identities” analyzes representations of queer characters in Bier’s films Like It Never Was Before (Pensionat Oskar, 1995), Once in a Lifetime (Livet är en schlager, 2000), and Love Is All You Need (Den skaldede frisør, 2012), and in her television series The Night Manager (2016). Anders Marklund argues that Bier’s career shift from ‘modest-sized Swedish productions to larger international ones’ parallels a movement away from nuance and toward broad stereotyping in her work’s approach to queer characters. He connects this shift to each film’s specific context and intended audience, linking, for instance, Like It Never Was Before to Sweden’s gay rights movement in the 1990s and considering The Night Manager’s Corky according to the series’ function as mainstream, heteronormative entertainment. Marklund concludes that Bier’s more recent and ‘elegant transnational productions’ re-marginalize queer characters in a manner reminiscent of earlier problematic film stereotypes.

Gay Liberation and The Spirit of ’68

This chapter considers the historical significance of 1968 for the gay rights movement in the context of the Stonewall Riots of June 1969. The gay rights movement of the 1970s embodied the animating spirit of late 1960s activism, with its emphasis on the revolutionary potential of personal politics; embrace of direct action and street theatre; commitment to building alternative institutions; and idealistic faith that a more equal world was possible. For a time, gay liberationists echoed the activists of 1968 by denouncing American imperialism and calling for revolution. Yet, within months of the Stonewall riots, such militancy was already on the wane, as groups like the Gay Activists Alliance emerged to lead the fight for full equality and first-class citizenship rights. This more liberal, integrationist stance has, in many ways, come to define the gay rights movement in the years since Stonewall, and helped deliver some of its signature triumphs. As well as charting this post-1968 moment, the chapter also considers those who still hold true to the revolutionary values of 1968.