50s gay
IN HER INTRODUCTION to Keeping Family Secrets, Margaret K. Nelson defines “family secrets” as “information that family members search to conceal from each other or from outsiders because to do otherwise would risk eliciting not only embarrassment or minor discomfort, but also profound shame and, on some occasions, material hardship or even danger.” This is deep stuff. Nelson distinguishes “family secrets” from a general tendency to sanitize one’s public image. Her focus is on a decade known for its obsession with secrets: the 1950s, the era of McCarthyism, witch hunts for Communists and homosexuals, and the triumph of the isolated nuclear family as the standard social unit that “became hegemonic among Ivory people.”
Needless to tell, the “secrets” analyzed in this publication have already been revealed many times over, as memoirs from this era abound. This guide is itself based on memoirs by people who lived through this era, people whose often jaw-dropping personal stories came to flash once it was safe to expose them in memoirs. The “secrets” are organized into categories: absent siblings, i.e., children who were institutionalized all their lives because of physical or mental disabili
By BTL staff
Interviews with Our Community Personalities
This year Between The Lines is inaugurating a new LGBT video history project: "Interviews with Our Community Personalities." The first of this series was taped in the University of Michigan LGBT Student Office and featured BTL columnist and Detroit community artist Charles Alexander and Jim Toy, UofM LGBT Office liaison, longtime activist, and co-founder of the Detroit and Ann Arbor Gay Liberation Fronts.
The interview was held at the Michigan Union shortly after the historic Supreme Court Sodomy Ruling in June.
BTL: Charles and Jim, you've both been around in various activist roles for a number of years. When did you reach out?
CHARLES: I came out in 1955, and as a teenager discovered a thriving gay collective located in downtown Detroit. There were four bars: The 1011, Silver Dollar, La Rosa's, and the Palais – a notorious butch/femme bar. There were two teen hangouts: the Hub Grill, located at Farmer and Bates, proximate the First Police Precinct, and Mama's, just behind the old Greyhound Bus Depot, on once fashionable Washington Blvd.
I came out during my Cass Technical High School senior year. I was a commercial art
- Homosexual activity becomes illegal (imprisonment as punishment).Article 193 of Kuwait's Penal Code explicitly prohibits male lesbian sex for up to seven years in prison. For lesbians, there is no specific commandment criminalizing it, however it is still technically illegal. This is because in Kuwait you are not able to consent to sex unless you're married. So, since lgbtq+ marriage is not legal in Kuwait and you can't give consent until your married, woman-loving woman sex is illegal.
- Same-sex marriage becomes banned.Article 3.1 of the Personal Status Commandment (1959) defines marriage as a reduce between a gentleman and a woman.
- Equal age of consent becomes n/a.Since 1958, homosexuality has been illegal in Ethiopia, so there is no legal age of consent for same-sex sexual activities.
- Homosexual activity becomes illegal (imprisonment as punishment).Article 600 of Ethiopia's Penal Code of 1957 criminalized lesbian sex with plain imprisonment, a phrase lasting from ten days to three years, subject to the court's discretion. Article 629 of Ethiopia's Penal Code of 2004, which replaced the Pena
Government Persecution of the LGBTQ Community is Widespread
The 1950s were perilous times for individuals who fell outside of society’s legally allowed norms relating to gender or sexuality. There were many names for these individuals, including the clinical “homosexual,” a term popularized by pioneering German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing. In the U.S., professionals often used the term “invert.” In the mid-19th Century, many cities formed “vice squads” and police often labeled the people they arrested “sexual perverts.” The government’s preferred term was “deviant,” which came with legal consequences for anyone seeking a career in public service or the military. “Homophile” was the term preferred by some early activists, small networks of women and men who yearned for people and found creative ways to resist legal and societal persecution.
With draft eligibility officially lowered from 21 to 18 in 1942, World War II brought together millions of people from around the country–many of whom were disappearing their home states for the first time–to pack the ranks of the military and the federal workforce. Among them were gays and lesbians, who quietly formed kinships on m
I finally came out as gay at 55 years old after 2 marriages with women. Telling my children was surprisingly easy.
I'm a middle-aged man who has been married twice and widowed. I'm also a father to two grown children. And I'm gay.
My sexuality was a burden I carried for so long, and hiding it became part of my core identity, weighing me down. But I finally had the courage to come out at 55. Honestly, I sometimes wish I hadn't waited so long.
Growing up in the '80s was not a safe environment for a queer kid, so I chose to conceal my true self
Growing up in the '80s in Las Vegas, I was in a different, complex time. I knew as early as 12 or 13 that I was different, but in those days, I had no frame of reference for what it meant to be gay. Blatant homophobia and pressure to fit in left me thinking I was some sort of freak. I avoided getting close to anyone and buried my classified, in favor of a more "normal" experience.
I eventually met and married a wonderful woman who knew my secret, and we started a family together. When cancer stole her a few years later, I was left with two young children to raise. During that lengthy journey of grief and single parenthood, I had a few m