“He has lost his bright life … for the Fatherland,” wrote S. That Fatherland had a law on the books that banned sex between men. But the sodomy law was just the tip of the iceberg: S. and men like him generally could not reveal their love relationships in public, or even to family members. Homosexuality meant the loss of one’s job, social ostracism, the risk of blackmail and perhaps criminal prosecution. [...]
Many veterans agreed with S. When the war ended, they took action. They formed new, larger groups, including one called the League for Human Rights that drew 100,000 members.
In addition, as I argue in my book, the rhetoric of gay rights changed. The prewar movement had focused on using science to prove that homosexuality was natural. But people like S., people who had made tremendous sacrifices in the name of citizenship, now insisted that their government had an obligation to them regardless of what biology might say about their sexuality. [...]
Ideas of citizenship led activists to emphasize what historians call “respectability.” Respectability consisted of one’s prestige as a correctly behaving, middle-class person, in contrast to supposedly disreputable people such as prostitutes. Throughout the 20th century, gay rights groups struggled for the right to serve openly in the military, a hallmark of respectability. With some exceptions, they shied away from radical calls to utterly remake society’s rules about sex and gender. They instead emphasized what good citizens they were.
No comments:
Post a Comment