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(ME IN 1969)
Background--Continued from
yesterday's part 1--What lead up to the Stonewall Inn riot--a brief
history
Homosexuality
in 20th century America
Following the social upheaval of World War II, many
people in the United States
felt a fervent desire to "restore the prewar social order and hold off
the
forces of change", according to historian Barry Adam.
Spurred by the national emphasis on anti-communism,
Senator Joseph McCarthyAnarchists, communists,
and other people deemed
un-American and subversive were considered security risks. Homosexuals
were
included in this list by the U.S.
State Department in 1950, on the
theory that they were prone to blackmail. Under
Secretary of State James E. Webb noted in a
report, "It is generally believed that those who engage in overt acts of
perversion lack the emotional stability of normal persons.Between 1947
and 1950, 1,700Â federal job applications were denied, 4,380Â people
were discharged from the military, and 420 were fired from their
government jobs
for being suspected homosexuals. conducted hearings searching for communists in the U.S. government, the
U.S.
Army, and other government-funded agencies and institutions, leading to a
national paranoia.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the Federal
Bureau of InvestigationU.S.
Post
Office kept track of addresses where material pertaining to homosexuality was mailed. State and local
governments followed suit: bars catering to homosexuals were shut down,
and
their customers were arrested and exposed in newspapers. Cities
performed
"sweeps" to rid neighborhoods, parks, bars, and beaches of gays. They
outlawed
the wearing of opposite gender clothes, and universities expelled
instructors
suspected of being homosexual. Thousands of gay
men and women were publicly humiliated, physically harassed, fired,
jailed, or
institutionalized in mental hospitals. Many lived double lives, keeping
their
private lives secret from their professional ones. (FBI) and police departments kept lists of known homosexuals, their
favored
establishments, and friends; the
In 1952, the American
Psychiatric
Association listed homosexuality in the Diagnostic
and Statistical
Manual (DSM) as a sociopathic personality disturbance. A
comprehensive
study of homosexuality in 1962 justified inclusion of the disorder as a
pathological hidden fear of the opposite sex that was caused by
traumatic
parent-child relationships. This view was widely influential in the
medical
profession. In 1956, however,
Evelyn Hooker performed
a study that compared the happiness and well-adjusted nature of
self-identified
homosexual men with heterosexual men and found no difference. Her study stunned the medical community and made her a hero to many gay
men and
lesbians,DSM until 1973. but homosexuality
remained in the
Homophile activism and the Compton's Cafeteria
riots
In response to this trend, two organizations formed independently of
each
other to advance the cause of homosexuals and provide social
opportunities where
gays and lesbians could socialize without fear of being arrested. Los
Angeles area homosexuals
created the Mattachine
Society in 1950, in the home of
communist activist Harry
Hay.Â
Their objectives
were to unify homosexuals, educate them, provide leadership, and assist
"sexual
deviants" with legal troubles. Facing enormous
opposition to its radical approach, in 1953 the Mattachine shifted their
focus
to assimilation and respectability. They reasoned that they would change
more
minds about homosexuality by proving that gays and lesbians were normal
people,
no different from heterosexuals. Soon after, several women in San Francisco met
in their living rooms to form
the Daughters
of Bilitis (DOB) for lesbians. Although the eight
women who created the DOB initially came together to be able to have a
safe
place to dance, as the DOB grew they developed similar goals to the
Mattachine,
and urged their members to assimilate into general society.[19]
One of the first challenges to government repression came in 1953. An
organization named ONE published a magazine called ONE, Inc.,
that the Post Office refused to mail.
The magazine issue, mailed out in plain brown wrappers, concerned
homosexuals in
heterosexual marriages; the Post Office claimed it was obscene. The case
eventually went
to the Supreme Court, which in 1958 ruled that One, Inc. could mail
its materials through the U.S. Postal Service
Homophile organizations—as gay
groups were called—grew in number and spread to the East Coast.
Gradually,
members of these organizations grew bolder. Frank Kameny founded the Mattachine of Washington, D.C. He
had been fired from the U.S. Army Map Service for being a homosexual,
and sued
unsuccessfully to be reinstated. Kameny wrote that homosexuals were no
different
from heterosexuals, often aiming his efforts at mental health
professionals,
some of whom attended Mattachine and DOB meetings telling members they
were
abnormal. In 1965, Kameny,
inspired by the Civil
Rights Movement,picket of the
White
House and other
government buildings to protest employment discrimination. The pickets
shocked
many gay people, and upset some of the leadership of Mattachine and the
DOB.At
the same
time, demonstrations by the Civil Rights and feministopposition
to the Vietnam War all
grew in prominence, frequency, and severity throughout the 1960s, as did
their
confrontations with police forces. organized a
movements and
On the outer fringes of the few small gay communities were people who
challenged gender expectations. They were effeminate men and masculine
women, or
biological men who dressed and lived as women and biological women who
dressed
as men, either part or full-time. Contemporary nomenclature classified
them as
transvestites, and they were the most visible representatives of sexual
minorities. They belied the carefully crafted image portrayed by the
Mattachine
Society and DOB that asserted homosexuals were respectable, normal
people.The
Mattachine and DOB considered the trials of being arrested for wearing
clothing
of the opposite gender as a parallel to the struggles of homophile
organizations: similar but distinctly separate. Gay and transgender
people
staged a small riot in Los Angeles in 1959 in response to police
harassment. In 1966, drag
queens, hustlers, and transvestites were sitting in Compton's
Cafeteria in San Francisco
when the police arrived to arrest men dressed as women. A riot ensued,
with the
patrons of the cafeteria slinging cups, plates, and saucers, and
breaking the
plate glass windows in the front of the restaurant, and returning
several days
later to smash the windows again after they were replaced. Professor
Susan Stryker classifies the Compton's Cafeteria riot as an "act of
antitransgender discrimination, rather than an act of discrimination
against
sexual orientation" and connects the uprising to the issues of gender,
race, and
class that were being downplayed by homophile organizations. It marked
the beginning of transgender activism in San Francisco.