By Sage Roeder
“The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats.” -Alfred Kinsey. As we ease into the year 2020, it is easier to believe that. In the age of the internet, people can be connected across the globe over a plethora of information and interests. We have the freedom to explore the new, wide world of the web, in the pocket of our jeans. We are more connected than ever before.
The internet makes me feel more welcome. As a member of the LGBTQLMNOP++ community, my identity hasn’t always been an easy thing to swallow for some people. But seeing a group of people online who faced the adversity that I faced in my daily life, gave me that little bit of hope I needed to keep climbing that mountain. On the news, it feels like steps forward are being made here in North America. While I know this isn’t the case for the unfortunate people in places of religious extremism, I want to take a moment to appreciate the freedom that I take for granted every day here in Canada. A small thank you to those who made coming out at 13 and living life as a queer person possible.
I remember the day that gay marriage was legalized in the United States: June 26th, 2015; everyone on Facebook put that weird rainbow filter over their profile pictures. I was among them, even though I was Canadian, closeted, and too young to be married. My small baby gay heart felt apart of something, a step in history.
This is an ode to the less talked about steps, and to all those who sacrificed anything so that I could live like I do.
A slightly educated gay person would know of the Stonewall Riots of 1969. It was an altercation between the patrons of the gay bar of the Stonewall Inn and the police. This instance of violent protest is seen as the origin of mass and passionate gay protest. Stonewall is the reason for the worldwide pride parades each year following 1970. Issues of the time varied from the “Lavender Scare”, a piece of the “Red Scare” of the 1950s. The Lavender Scare was the mass firing of people for their perceived sexuality. This kind of repression that the McArthy era is famous for sank deep into the lives of LGBT people, ruining them beyond repair in some cases. This treatment lead to small strikes in the United States, the largest being at the White House led by Barbara Gittings. The protestors were dressed as normal, working people, which is a stark contrast to the pride parades we are so used to now.
One of the larger fights of the last century was the removal of homosexuality from the DSM. Homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder in the first and second issue of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), and was removed from the third after mass protest following Stonewall. This fight was aided by psychologists like Evelyn Hooker and her study showing the lack of difference between gay and straight men, along with meetings held between psychiatrists and homosexual advocacy groups. The act to remove homosexuality from the DSM was a 58% majority in 1973.
The victory for the community didn’t last long. In the following decade, the AIDS crisis would strike. The so-called “gay cancer” was first recorded in 1981, and disproportionately affected gay men. From 1981 to 1991, the WHO estimates that nearly 10 million people are infected with HIV worldwide, 206,563 in the United States with 156,143 deaths. Now, in 2019, being affected with HIV isn’t a death sentence like it was in the 1980s. Some of the victims of the disease include Paul Monette, Rock Hudson, and Freddie Mercury. The long term effects of such an epidemic was the binding of a community and more shift towards loud gay outrage as opposed to small protest.
In this century, there have been many strides made for the LGBT community: the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, the ban from disclosing LGBT identity in the military; gay marriage legalized in Canada in 2005 and 2015 in the United States; gender identity being added to the Canadian Human Rights Act, and many more. From Christine Jorgensen, the first person to publicly undergo sexual reassignment surgery, to Alfred Kinsey, the designer of the “Kinsey Scale” from 1-6 (one being strictly heterosexual and 6 being strictly homosexual; suggesting sexuality is a spectrum), I am grateful every day, both for the activists and for the simple LGBT people who were proud in much scarier times. Even though my coming out experience wasn’t sublime by any standards, the fact that I can live openly as an LGBT person facing little resistance is amazing. Thank you.
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