[Main Index] | [Halsall - Political/Religion Pages] | [Halsall - Academic Pages]

People with a History

An Online Guide to
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans* History

Site Maintainer: Paul Halsall
©1997


Contents:
Section V: North America

[Note: Although North Americaincludes Mexico, Mexican LGBT history will be treated along with the other countries of Latin America]

Go to the following pages for other parts of People with a History

Chapter 17: Native American Societies

There are modern "Gay American Indians" whose self-definition seems pretty much the same as other gay and lesbian Americans. What is of interest in this section is the tradition in many different Native American societies of socially validated gender-divergent roles. Some groups essentially allowed children to choose their gender. A male child who chose female clothes, for instance, would be raised as a female, and would marry man. In some societies analogous roles were open to female children. The general term for these individuals is "berdache" - a colonialist French word, derived from Persian, - but which has retained its utility give the great variety of Native American terms for the practice.

Some writers have objected to what they see as the appropriation of the "berdache" by modern gay people, and by writers such as Will Roscoe (whose books are probably the most widely read on the subject). While this complaint has some justification, it could be made about any past group seen as relevant to the history of "homosexuality" but where the societal definition was in terms of gender-identity rather than sexual orientation.

Discussions:

Texts:

Websites:

Back to Contents

Chapter 18: The United States and Canada to c.1900

Discussions: Whole Period

Discussions: Colonial Era

Discussions: Ante-Bellum American [1776-1865]

Discussions: Late Nineteenth Century

Texts: Historical

Texts: Literary

Websites:

Back to Contents

Chapter 19: Before Stonewall [US and Canada]

With the advent of the twentieth century the nature of LGBT history changes. As well as literature and court records, we now begin to have access to considerable oral history and recollection. Moreover the period since the late 19th century does indeed seem to have been marked by an increased interest in homosexuality by various elites - lawyers, doctors and a new arrival - "sexologists". The current job of North American LGBT history involves, for a great part, securing and writing down the oral histories before the bearers disappear.

Discussions: Entire Period

Discussions: Pre WW II

Discussions: Whole Post War Period

Discussions: 1940s

Discussions: 1950s

Discussions: 1960s

Texts

Texts: Literary

Websites:

Back to Contents

Chapter 20: Stonewall and All That

Discussions:

Texts:

Websites:

Back to Contents

Chapter 21: Stonewall to Today [US and Canada]

Discussions: Entire Post Stonewall Period

Discussions: 1970s

Discussions: 1980s

Discussions: 1990s

Regional/Local Development

Organizational Development

The development of a huge array of diverse LGBT organizations - student, religious, social, cultural, political - is of prime importance in understanding the creation and strengthening of the LGBT movement since 1969. This has hardly been touched on as an area of research. Often the groups are not long lived, or not spectacular, nor even very radical. But their continued proliferation and creation of social and communal threads is impressive. Many of them have taken to documenting their own history on the web - sometimes via time lines, other times via narratives.

Cultural Tropes

Texts:

Texts: Literary

With the rise of the modern LGBT movement literature by and about LGBT's has flourished as never before. Gay bookstores now carry thousands of titles. But at the same time literature has become less central to analyzing historical issues, since so much other data is available. The texts below are ones texts [and links to reviews] which have had an especially important effect on the development of LGB culture.

Websites:

Back to Contents

Chapter 22: AIDS and History

Discussions:

Texts:

Websites:

Back to Contents

Chapter 23: ACT UP

ACT UP, which began in New York in Spring1987 is important as part of AIDS history, lesbian and gay history, and the history of medicine. For the first time the "victims: of a disease, met with condescension and disdain by governmental and medical establishment successfully organized a political and investigative revolution. In the process ACT UP spun off chapters of its original NY parent all around the globe, a whole series of radical practical help organizations, and revitalized the radicalism of lesbian and gay politics [even as, annoyingly, its largely lesbian and gay members complained each time the NY Times referred to ACT UP as a "gay organization"].

ACT UP achieved its goals [and it did achieve many of them] through spectacular street theater and much hard backroom work. It was quite common in the late eighties to see members slogging away at research in the New York Public Library on a whole array of subjects. It is not often realized that ACT UP's press releases contained as much work as its graphics. Sometimes its tactics shocked: but the shock of ACT UP gave it real power. It got a voice at the table; it reduced health insurance costs; it made needle exchange a viable policy; it transformed the way drugs were assessed. In then end, ACT UP did save lives, even as thousands, including hundreds of its own members, died

The history of ACT UP is only now being written: its archives are with the NY Public Library and will be open for research. There will be debates about who was important, and what, if anything, went wrong. But it will be a shame if the sheer courage and bravery of its members is ever overlooked. For all the toughness, for all the beatings its members received from the police, no ACT UP member resorted to violence. But more, in the 1980's, an age when college kids around the United States asserted that their highest goal was "to join a financial planning corporation", ACT UP members demonstrated again and again that there is meaning in human lives.

Discussions:

Texts:

Websites:

Back to Contents

Chapter 24: The Queer Moment

Discussions:

Texts:

Websites:

Back to Contents

Chapter 25: North America: Current Politics and Strategies

Discussions:

Texts: LGB History

Texts: Modern Homophobia

Websites:

Back to Contents

Special Themes 4: Anti-Gay: Gay Criticism of Gay Culture

There has been a persistant willingness by gay writers to criticise aspects of gay culture, and of lesbian writers to criticise lesbian culture.

Some of the criticism is probably justified, but elements of sheer intellectual and class-based snobbery towards the lumpen-schwulen play an important part.

In general these writers live in comparatively safe urban gay environments (London, New York, San Francisco. West Hollywood), have come to terms with their homosexuality long ago, and feel free to offer critiques. Their targets usually (repeatedly in fact), include gay activists, gay commercial culture, gay entertainment, Pride events and so forth. Despite protestations to the contrary, they tend to obliterate the very real struggles still going on for most gays and lesbians (violence, discrimination, religious intolerance), and ignore the benefits of a commercial culture. Above all they create tendentious constructions of gay culture in order to attack.

Back to Contents

© 1997, Paul Halsall, halsall@fordham.edu [a picture!]
Note: I read all mail, and keep much of it, but I will not be able to reply to all notes.

Last updated April 10, 2007