#a queer history of the united states

[grison-in-space]

On American soldiers serving during WWII:

“Sensitive” men often found one another while working on the extraordinarily popular “soldier shows” for which the USO provided the know-how and the materials. These shows were written, directed, and performed by men in the armed forces. Since there were no women in outlying camps, enlisted men would perform female roles in drag. Performances ranged from comic portrayals of burly men in dresses to realistic female impersonation. For actors and audiences, these performances were a needed relief from the stress of war. For men who identified as homosexual, these shows were a place where they could, in coded terms, express their sexual desires, be visible, and build a community. These lyrics for a “female” trio in a soldier show demonstrate how homosexual enlistees introduced their own humor into skits: Here you see three lovely "girls" With their plastic shapes and curls. Isn't it campy? Isn't it campy? We've got glamor and that's no lie; Can't you tell when we swish by? Isn't it campy? Isn't it campy?16 Later in the war, when WACs were available to perform with men, their involvement was limited; usually they worked backstage to help the men be made up as women. An indication of the popularity of female impersonation in soldier shows is evident in Irving Berlin’s This Is the Army. Written for an all-soldier cast, it premiered on Broadway in 1942 and a year later became a hit Hollywood film with Ronald Reagan. Both the Broadway and film versions featured soldiers dressed as women.

--A Queer History of the United States (2011), Michael Bronski; Chapter Eight: Sex in the Trenches

Fascists rely on a sanitized homogenized understanding of a hazily golden national history to hawk their wares to their recruits and dehumanize their enemies. Moral panics, too, rely on inaccurate popular understandings of history to promote attacks on their victims. Like every other human endeavor, these things spread themselves through stories.

WWII looms large in the American memory; we remember it as the last "innocent" conflict on our world stage, inaccurate as that is. (There is no such thing as an innocent player in a world war.) The military preoccupation with fascism and gender looms large, and WWII offers that for far-right ideologues searching for conformity, too: the masculinity of combat, the catharsis of the foxhole, the rigid conformity of the decades that follow. In the memory of such stand-up paragons of masculinity, the fascists will bellow, how can you permit the degenerate decadence of the modern drag queen, the obscenity of a trans woman being so much as permitted to exist? Surely the rejection of that masculinity would have disgusted and upset these fine soldiers, and how could you insult such icons?

But it isn't true. Drag, genderbending, and queerness were entertainments our grandfathers and great-grandfathers sought out, participated in, and shared with one another. Some of the queer ones fucked about it, and so did some of the straight ones, but not everyone. Some of the soldiers were playing, and some weren't. Either way, "female impersonation" was a staple of entertainment, both in the form of soldier-entertainers and for audiences back home. It continues to be a form of popular mainstream entertainment today, of course: only consider Mrs Doubtfire and Monty Python and RuPaul's Drag Race and Blackadder and MASH and Tyler Perry's Madea and Hairspray, to name only a few of many.

There's more than one way to knock down an image and an idol cherished by bigots, my friends. Don't forget that the stories the lazy fascists tell about how it was long ago and far away aren't the only stories left to tell. It turns out that the past wasn't any less full of degenerates and queers than the present is--or than the future will be.

[pythiaswine]

so i didn't know this was a general thought. i thought it was just a sometimes meme on amrev tumblr. guess it makes sense. too pretty for life or whatever. this implies people at the time of his life and death thought he was a lover of men? very interesting. i always write him bisexual for the plot anyway hahaha

[dragonbadgerbooks]

September Fun Day Book Photo Challenge September 2, 2024: Coconut Day

"You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live, and what came before you."

[enbycrip]

A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronnski:

I'm…conflicted on my feelings about this book.

On one hand, it had some excellent stuff in it; some that I had heard before and some that I hadn't. It was excellent on context about purity politics in the US, their active and ongoing impact on US culture, and how the gay rights movement interacted with that; that was very clearly the main thrust of the narrative the writer wanted to tell.

On the other hand, for something calling itself a *queer* history, it was almost entirely focused on gay and lesbian culture and politics, and how this affected "mainstream" culture.

Not only did it have minimal focus on actual *people*and their lives, particularly working class ones who did not have the money and status to affect the larger culture, but trans, gnc and intersex people were basically erased from the narrative, plus, frankly, the author calling everyone queer “homosexuals" even while talking about the complex and difficult history of medicalisation, and dismissing even openly bi celebrities such as David Bowie as "claiming they slept with both men and women" was a bizarre and concerning choice.

Primarily a missed opportunity here, I feel. While noting how gay culture affected menswear trends in the mid-twentieth century is interesting, it doesn’t replace a huge swath of missing information about trans, gnc and intersex folk, and, honestly, the fact that Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Riviera were mentioned *once* and Marsha’s transness was not mentioned at *all* while there was swathes of information on the cis respectability politics clubs of the period cannot but feel like erasure.

[thosemotivationalquotes]

I saw something in the news today that truly took my breath away. If you have been paying attention to U.S. politics over the past few days, you’ve most likely seen this woman:

This is Bishop Mariann Budde, and on Monday (Trump’s inauguration) she led an interfaith prayer for Trump and the incoming administration. During the service she asked him to have mercy for LGBTQ+ Americans and undocumented immigrants. This was badly received by the Trump administration (as expected).

After seeing headlines about this woman, I read something that I wanted to share. In 1998 a man named Matthew Shepard was murdered for being gay. I’m not going to get into the details of his death on this post, but please be warned it is extremely triggering if you do choose to read more on your own. Matthew Shepard’s death caused a lot of change in the U.S. regarding how LGBTQ hate crimes are handled, and laws that were passed to protect LGBTQ+ people.

Now you’re probably wondering what Matthew Shepard has to do with an Episcopal bishop. For years after Matthew Shepard’s murder, his family had held onto his remains, too scared to lay him to rest in fear of his final resting place being vandalized. In 2018, Budde had his remains interred at the National Cathedral, which is also the place where the interfaith prayer for Trump and his administration took place. The impact of this really had an effect on me. Budde could have led a non confrontational prayer service, and chosen not to mention the harm that will come to the people Trump and his administration are going after. Instead she chose to call out hate and fear in front of some of the most powerful people on the planet, and at a place that has such a large historic meaning to the LGBTQ community.

In the next few years there will be many challenges in protecting free speech, standing up against hate, and protecting those in our communities. But I would like to believe that for every Donald Trump and Elon Musk, there are people like Marianne Budde. There are those of us who can’t speak up for themselves, so it’s important for those of us who can to amplify our voices, even if it’s not the ‘popular’ thing to do.

“And he said you should apologize. Will you apologize?

I am not going to apologize for asking for mercy for others.” - Mariann Budde’s response in a Time interview

Link to articles: x x x

Link to the Matthew Shepard Foundation if you would like to donate

[crackletack]

[short-wooloo]

Gotta say, I really do get pissed off when people's response to being reminded of the very real threat trump/republicans pose to Queer rights is to say "the first pride was a riot"

Yes it was

Because it had to be

The first pride didn't have the option of being a peaceful fun celebration of being queer, things were so much worse for us back then, we had no choice but to riot, to risk everything in order to express who we are

The fact that pride doesn't have to be like that anymore is a hard earned privilege and victory, things got better, safer, free-er, we worked hard to get where we are now

So why are you okay with losing all that? Why are you okay with setting all our progress back? Why do you want us to be less safe?

I don't want pride to have to be a riot, I don't want us to be in danger

And under trump and the republicans, that is exactly what will happen

Why go back? Why not continue to move forward

[beggars-opera]

I feel like a lot of internet folk would have a stroke if they saw colleges with queer studies courses and professors. Because that’s the accepted academic term. But those people also don’t trust academia even when it’s full of queer people, so they probably don’t know nor care that colleges even have those programs.

[gabe-pilgrim-vs-the-world]

ALL of us need to educate ourselves...fast

Trump won. As much as I would like to say we will all get through this, not all of us will. As a matter of fact, the Trever Project has reported a 700% increase in suicide (calls) since the election. I'm scared, yes, but right now we have an opportunity to set up protections(VPNs, grassroots organizations, learning what we need to do to keep ourselves and others safe) that will be harder to access under Trump. I'm going to leave some videos/websites/books that I can think of off the top of my head. I don't agree with everything said,far from it actually, so put your critical thinking cap on ;). If ya'll have anything like this send it to me, please. I'm deleting this on December 31 (I realized I will sooner watch Pregar U for fun than bend a knee to Trump and his buddies). Good luck to everyone.

(I originally wrote this statement in a mad haze and didn't check my sources, Rookie mistake I know, and ended up getting it very wrong that the suicide rate increased by 700%, when it was just calls. I sincerely apologize.)

!!GET A FRICKING VPN THAT IS NOT INSIDE THE 14 EYES & DOES NOT LOG!!

Websites:

ACLU // Amnesty International // CODEPINK // EFF // The Trever Project // justicemap.org

Video Essays:

What Did We Learn? by Signified B Sides // Solidarity is Supposed to be Hard. by Elliot Sang // The Alt-Right Playbook by Innuendo Studios(series) // Andrewism // First Thought // Second Thought // What is Project 2025 What is Project 2025? | what you should probably know about it by Dasia Sade // Mutual Aid is Radical! by COLORMIND. // Media Literacy Can't Save Us by Dummy // How Mutual Aid Works (and Why You Should Care) by Lucretia McEvil // Donald Trump is Not A Fascist Pt. 2 by The Morbid Zoo // Shanspeare // Hamilton and the Death of the Obama Era by Alexander Avila

Read:

The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice Hardcover by Shon Faye // Searching for Savanna: The Murder of One Native American Woman and the Violence Against the Many Hardcover by Mona Gable // The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government by David Talbot // To Banish Forever: A Secret Society, the Ho-Chunk, and Ethnic Cleansing in Minnesota by Cathy Coats // The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins // Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man by Emmanuel Acho // Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer //

Socialism & Communism:

I beg you to learn what both are because we are going to hear a lot about them in the next 4 years. Learn from sites like socialism101, NPR, or hell even Reddit. Just learn a bit more so the term "Marxist" doesn't catch you off guard when arguing with your MAGA grandpop.

This is all I have on hand right now. Stay safe loves <3

[grison-in-space]

reading queer history is always fun because it'll be three paragraphs of extremely clearly worded warnings about assuming that queerness is easily transferred among societies and expecting it to look exactly like queer identities and expected life trajectories today. and I will nod in agreement because it is important to know cultural context when one is reading about, say, Deborah Sampson Gannett's very public quest to receive a pension, or about the reason that Merrymount's maypole might have merited murdering in 1627.

and then you get to the Public Universal Friend and immediately think of three different small-f friends who fit that description to a tee and would have done exactly the same thing in that context if the autism aligned strongly enough. the Public Universal Friend is a timeless archetype transcending four hundred years of cultural and religious change. instantly recognizable. icon

[oddwomen]

Rolling Stone (November 11, 1982)

[schlock-luster-video]

On October 29, 1970, Funeral Parade of Roses debuted in the United States.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"SHE POSED AS MAN EVEN TO DRAFT CARD," Toronto Star. January 5, 1943. Page 2. ---- Mildred Allen, 29. is shown as she was arrested in Chicago. Police said she admitted having posed as a man for 15 years. Detectives said she was carrying a draft card bearing the name of Thomas Vernon. She was held without a formal charge.

[onyxthelion]

If there are any American archives now at risk due to new federal policies, the Invisible Histories Project is offering support. This includes LGBTQ orgs, feminist groups, multicultural centers, etc. They are also able to take physical materials from archives located in the Southern US. They are on Instagram and BlueSky.

[the-sweetest-pastry-of-all]

Returning to tumblr as a queer disabled leftist and budding and attempting activist.

I need community.

I am:

Anti-racist

Anti-fascist

Pro-trans

Pro-black

Pro-immigrant

Actively fighting for women’s rights, trans rights and the rights of my POC friends and neighbors.

I believe all people deserve basic human rights such as shelter, food and healthcare. I don’t think this is radical. I support so many other causes but this is where I will leave it at today.

If you are with me, shoot me a follow so we can be mutuals 💕✨

[angelfacemjj]

Y'all. Just watch.