gay history thread

[freelandia]

The Jaundiced Eye

http://www.thejaundicedeye.com/
Watch out for coaxed brats!

[CellarDweller]

http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.a...4294978688


Fairyland
A Memoir of My Father
Alysia Abbott

After his wife dies in a car accident, bisexual writer and activist Steve Abbott moves with his two-year-old daughter to San Francisco. There they discover a city in the midst of revolution, bustling with gay men in search of liberation—few of whom are raising a child.

Steve throws himself into San Francisco’s vibrant cultural scene. He takes Alysia to raucous parties, pushes her in front of the microphone at poetry readings, and introduces her to a world of artists, thinkers, and writers. But the pair live like nomads, moving from apartment to apartment, with a revolving cast of roommates and little structure. As a child Alysia views her father as a loving playmate who can transform the ordinary into magic, but as she gets older Alysia wants more than anything to fit in. The world, she learns, is hostile to difference.

In Alysia’s teens, Steve’s friends—several of whom she has befriended—fall ill as AIDS starts its rampage through their community. While Alysia is studying in New York and then in France, her father tells her it’s time to come home; he’s sick with AIDS. Alysia must choose whether to take on the responsibility of caring for her father or continue the independent life she has worked so hard to create.

Reconstructing their life together from a remarkable cache of her father’s journals, letters, and writings, Alysia Abbott gives us an unforgettable portrait of a tumultuous, historic time in San Francisco as well as an exquisitely moving account of a father’s legacy and a daughter’s love.

[Chris]

Guys, maybe you don't know but the whole antiquity is gay! See my video that Julius Caesar was bottom

[ChadCoxRox]

thought I'd share this link to a nice gay history themed site...

http://www.homohistory.com/

enjoy!

[CellarDweller]

Join Wendel Trupstock and his significant other, Ollie Chalmers, as they navigate gay life in the '80s. Howard Cruse's Wendel ran in The Advocate during one of the most tumultuous periods in gay history, and the lives of his characters are a snapshot of the era-from the bar scene to long term commitments, from AIDS to activism, from Reagan to right-wing homophobia. Big issues and everyday life mingle in this strip with hilarious results. And Cruse is a master with pen and ink! Wendel All Together brings readers this classic comic strip complete in one volume for the first time ever!

[CellarDweller]

"Stuck Rubber Baby"

The groundbreaking, award-winning semi-autobiographical graphic novel returns in a new edition featuring an introduction by Alison Bechdel, awardwinning author of Fun Home.

In the 1960s American South, a young gas-station attendant named Toland Polk is rejected from the Army draft for admitting “homosexual tendencies,” and falls in with a close-knit group of young locals yearning to break from the conformity of their hometown through civil rights activism, folk music and upstart communality of race-mixing, gay-friendly nightclubs. Toland’s story is both deeply personal and epic in scope, as his search for identity plays out against the brutal fight over segregation, an unplanned pregnancy and small-town bigotry, aided by an unforgettable supporting cast.

[gilhooly]

The entire history of the world includes men having sex with other men. Alexander the Great had wonderful sex when he conquered the world. Americans talk like some strange guys who called themselves gays started a movement. I was 30 when I first heard the the word gay. The men who raised me, Hoover and Tolsen, had sex by 1920. I lost my virginity in 1956.

I was a boy. I became a man. If I don't want to be called gay you have no right to call me gay. I am a man and I will put my fist down your throat. I got used to the word gay because it was short and had 3 letters. If I want to be called a practitioner of homosensuality. I like that better than gay.

Gay is an adjective. I am a man. I am definitely a noun. I am a librarian. I am an expert with words.

[ChadCoxRox]

That's some gay shit right there man. mmmmm

I'd buy this thread as a book.

[Iceblink]

Gay history in the UK

----
1980"s ,LGBT people started to express themselves more,mainly in popular culture such as pop stars such as Boy George,but in comedy on TV the portrayal of gay men was damm right offensive.

AIDS had a damming effect on gay men,seen as a gay man's disease.I at this time became a teenage,so not a good time to come to release i was gay ( so in the closet i went ).

1990's Things began to improve and up to the present day has seen more tolerance,with people deciding everyone has the right to love and be loved.

present day LGBT people have now got all virtual rites such as child adoption and marriage,more protection in the work place and less discrimination.
We have come a long way but things are still not perfect,acceptance is not all the way there and you will still rarely see two gay men showing affection towards each other in public.

This is fairly close to the the history in the U.S. as well, but I wanted to point out a kind of disturbing trend in present day and recent history as compared to the 80's and 90's. Back in the 80's when I first came out, we had almost no glbt rights, but I can say that almost every gay friend I had in the 80's and into at least the middle 90's has been in some kind of relationship that, at the very minimum, could be measured in terms of months and I would say most were in a relationship measured in years. Many of them are not partnered today, but they at least experienced it sometime in their life. We worked hard to get to this point where we can marry, adopt, and have families and I see so many younger gay men in their 20's and even in their 30's that have never experienced a significant relationship beyond just a date or two and sometimes not even that. I think it might be that using the internet to meet guys might give too much opportunity to flake out and not go through with meeting in person. Back in the 80's, even if you were shy, if you were going to meet other gay people, you had to put yourself out there, leave the house and go see people. You had no other choice and it seems we were just more successful at it back then. We've come too far in our history to achieve the equality we have today to not have the opportunity to use it.