America: The Home of Gay Rights?

[fredv3b]

I noticed something today which I hadn't actually quite realised before. I instinctively tend think of America/Americans as leading the gay rights movement, in as much as any one group leads it. However thinking objectively about it I don't think it is justified. Denmark decriminalised gay sex in 1933, that didn't happen in several US states until the Supreme Court running in Lawrence vs. Texas in 2003, Denmark has had gay marriage since 1989, a handful of US states have gay marriage, starting with Massachusetts in 2003, but those marriages aren't recognised by the Federal Government. In many US states it is, at least in theory, legal to fire someone simply because they are gay.

Is it just me or does anyone else instinctively think of the US as the home of the gay rights movement? Anyone know why I think like that, is it just the default Anglo-Saxon assumption that if its a new international phenomenon then it started in the US? Did Americans make particular great strides in advancing gay rights theory or ideology even if it fell on deaf ears at home? I'm genuinely curious.

[albabonzai]

I think like that as America publicizes Gays more. As in films etc. Most things we watch like series or films are american and i tend to think of them as leading.

[marshlander]

One word, "Hollywood" ...!!!

We all re-write our own histories. Some are just noisier about it than others.

[peterinmalaga]

I think it is because of the Stonewall riots that we have this perception but as you say, Fred, the Danish achieved this much and more in a more peaceful way.

[fredv3b]

I think it is because of the Stonewall riots that we have this perception

That brings out another question. Why has everyone heard of the Stonewall riots but not the Black Cat riots two years earlier in L.A?

[Wintereis]

I think that is a very interesting question. I don't know if it is because I am an American or because I have always been fond of studying GLBT history, but my perspective is different from yours. The birth of the American Gay Rights movement was born out of the civil rights movement and the women's liberation movement, but it is not the first place that a gay right movement began nor has the U.S. progressed the most when it comes to gay rights. The contemporary movement began with, as was cited, Stone Wall and the various organizations that were born from it. Yet, before this Germany was the first to have a gay rights movement of any substance. It began with Karl Ulrichs and his writing on "Uranian Love" in the mid-nineteenth century. Later, during the Weimar Republic, a man by the name of Magnus Hirschfield led a very strong movement in Germany. Unfortunately, part of the movement included, as a way of being open about sexuality, submitting one's name into a list. The list was later used by Nazis in the extermination of Homosexuals. This fairly destroyed the German gay rights movement.


"Clubs and informal groupings of gays and lesbian have a long history. Even organized groups out in the public agitating for change appeared in the late nineteenth century in Europe as did journals and magazines aimed at gays and lesbians. In the United States, however, gays and lesbians had difficulty going public and agitating for a change."

There are a couple of things, however, that should be noted about the contributions of the American gay rights movement. As you stated, the U.S. media has a way of really shedding light on an issue. American T.V., news, and cinema has certainly brought glbt issues to the world attention. And I don't think that it is some grand conspiracy to rewrite history that Hollywood focused on the American Gay Rights Movement. Hollywood is an American institution that naturally considers American culture, history, and perspectives first, just as the U.K.'s cinema does.

The other major contribution from the American Gay Rights Movement is that it was the first to formalize an academic study to GLBT issues beyond having it as a subset of Freudian psychology. My university was one of the first to do so under Dr. Crompton, "Homosexuality and Society", Harvard University Press. Indeed, Dr. Crompton discovered a previously unknown argument advocating gay rights from one of your fellow countrymen, Germy Bentham.

Today, the U.S. largely leads Queer Theory after its "founding" by French philosopher, Michele Foucault. The two greatest theorists after Foucault are the American's Judith Butler and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick:

[Wintereis]

""That brings out another question. Why has everyone heard of the Stonewall riots but not the Black Cat riots two years earlier in L.A?"

The Black Cat riots did not have a way of galvanizing the gay community in America the way that the Stonewall riots did.

[fredv3b]

Thanks Wintereis for your thoughts.

Hollywood is an American institution that naturally considers American culture, history, and perspectives first, just as the U.K.'s cinema does.

The difference is that Hollywood then successfully exports that culture, history and perspective all over the world.

Indeed, Dr. Crompton discovered a previously unknown argument advocating gay rights from one of your fellow countrymen, Germy Bentham.

I apologise for being pernickety (sp?) but its actually Jeremy Bentham. I had actually read that essay before but forgotten about it, thanks for reminding me. For the benefit of everyone else reading this thread Jeremy Bentham the 18th century social/penal reformer and exponent of utilitarianism wrote an essay regarding homosexuality in 1785, but never published it. I particularly remember this quote.

If then merely out of regard to population it were right that paederasts should be burnt alive monks ought to be roasted alive by a slow fire. If a paederast, according to the monkish canonist Bermondus, destroys the whole human race Bermondus destroyed it I don't know how many thousand times over. The crime of Bermondus is I don't know how many times worse than paederasty.

Today, the U.S. largely leads Queer Theory after its "founding" by French philosopher, Michele Foucault. The two greatest theorists after Foucault are the American's Judith Butler and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick:

I've never really understood what 'Queer Theory' was. But then I have never really understood any sociology.

The Black Cat riots did not have a way of galvanizing the gay community in America the way that the Stonewall riots did.

Yes, but with the greatest respect, why?

[Wintereis]

Sorry, I haven't figured out the quote thing yet so I will just have to do it the old fashioned way.


"The difference is that Hollywood then successfully exports that culture, history and perspective all over the world."


So, we are to be blamed for our success? We are great at exporting our culture and our culture is generally well received, but historically, so are the British. The U.S. is certainly a product of British cultural exportation along with an amalgam of other immigrant cultures. And thank goodness that these international transactions occur; otherwise the world would be much diminished without American influenced artists like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and David Bowie. But, I suppose it becomes incumbent upon the individual to explore such histories and cultures further, as I have done, and/or for that nation to explore its history and culture in its media. Why should it be up to American cultural institutions like Hollywood to give you access to your own culture? As it is, Hollywood does make films on Shakespeare and Jane Austin's work. Spielberg directed "Schindler's List", which had nothing to do with the United States or its culture and recent Oscar winning films like "Hotel Ruanda" and "Blood Diamond" focused exclusively on social issues in Africa. So, Hollywood does pay attention to the art and issues outside of the United States.


"I apologise for being pernickety (sp?) but its actually Jeremy Bentham. I had actually read that essay before but forgotten about it, thanks for reminding me. For the benefit of everyone else reading this thread Jeremy Bentham the 18th century social/penal reformer and exponent of utilitarianism wrote..."

Sorry, should have checked it first. Yep, they had some odd ideas back then, but ours will be odd in two-hundred years too.

"I've never really understood what 'Queer Theory' was. But then I have never really understood any sociology.”


Queer Theory” is actually a branch of philosophy, but as will all philosophy it has everything to do with society. Queer Theory attempts to map out the social conjunctions between sex, gender, and sexuality and the ways in which societies model and impose these categories in a largely inactualizable way. I would suggest reading Foucault first. His “History of Sexuality” is quite interesting. To clarify . . . or confuse you about Queer Theory, I think this quote from Sedgwick’s essay “Proust and the Spectacle of the Closet” in her book “Epistemology of the Closet” is best:


With this possibility of transposition a lot of other contradictions also rise to the surface. For instance, if Albertine and the narrator are of the same gender, should the supposed outside loves of Albertine, which the narrator obsessively imagines as imaginatively inaccessible to himself, then, maintaining the female gender of their love object, be transposed in orientation into heterosexual desires? Or, maintaining the transgressive same-sex orientation, would they have to change the gender of their love object and be transposed into male homosexual desires? Or, in a homosexual framework, would the heterosexual orientation after all be more transgressive? Or—as the Valley folk say—what?" --Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

“Yes, but with the greatest respect, why?"


I have no clue, but if I were to venture a guess, it would be this:

[fredv3b]

Wandering off topic, but its my thread, so I don't care

So, we are to be blamed for our success? We are great at exporting our culture and our culture is generally well received, but historically, so are the British.

Relax, I am blaming the rest of the world (Britain very much included) for being so good at importing American culture. You certainly are successful at exporting, but reception can be mixed, have you ever seen a French demonstration against McDonald's?

Why should it be up to American cultural institutions like Hollywood to give you access to your own culture?

It certainly should not be, we ought to be more inclined to watch our own films. In any case I am not quite sure what sort of job Hollywood would do of British culture, I fear irony might be a casualty.

Although Hollywood has, inded, made a number of films looking outside of America they are inevitably made from an American perspective, Hollywood is looking in the first instance to make films that will show well at home.

Thanks for the explanation of Queer Theory, I also read the wikipedia page on it (interestingly that classes Queer Theory as part of sociology). It seems (at least to my scientific biases) as a discipline that has far more to do with the analysis of academic discourse than the analysis of real life as lived by actual real people.

I must show my utter ignorance for the subtleties of American culture. How does Judy Garland explain why the Stonewall riots took on the meaning that they did and not the Blackcat riots.