Jon Henley, "‘US elects first trans state senator and first black gay congressman"
”A deeply polarised US electorate has given the country its first transgender state senator and its first black gay congressman – but also its first lawmaker to have openly supported the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory.”
Chris Johnson, "LGBTQ hopefuls await appointments amid Biden transition"
”With the current administration winding down — despite continued bluster and refusal to concede from President Trump — LGBTQ hopefuls shut out from the U.S. government for four years are eager to reemerge amid high hopes for change when President-elect Joe Biden takes office.”
Carlos Santoscoy, “81% Of LGBT voters voted for Biden, 14% for Trump"
”According to a recent poll, a large majority of LGBT voters voted for President-elect Joe Biden. The survey of 800 LGBT voters was commissioned by GLAAD and conducted November 9-14 by Pathfinder Opinion Research.”
Samantha Schmidt and Emily Wax-Thibodeaux, "How a Biden presidency could advance transgender rights — and lead to backlash"
”The incoming Biden administration has pledged to work to end what he calls an “epidemic” of violence against transgender people, particularly transgender women of color. He has committed to expanding access to health care for the LGBTQ community and ensuring their fair treatment in the criminal justice system. He plans to prioritize enacting the Equality Act, which would guarantee LGBTQ protections under civil rights laws, and to collect data on a community that advocates say has long existed in a vacuum of information.”
Marie-Amélie George, “The history behind the latest LGBTQ rights case at the Supreme Court"
”On Nov. 4., the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a case on whether private, religiously affiliated foster care agencies may refuse to work with same-sex couples. These foster care agencies have become the latest bastions of resistance to LGBTQ rights, taking up conservatives’ strident calls to defy the Supreme Court’s rulings on LGBTQ equality.”
Daniel Boffey, "EU proposes new rules to protect LGBTQ+ people amid 'worrying trends'"
”Brussels has put itself on a collision course with the Polish and Hungarian governments after proposing to criminalise hate speech against LGBTQ+ people under EU law and secure recognition of same-sex partnerships across the bloc’s borders.”
Soo Youn, "How can you be LGBTQ+ at an evangelical university? In secret"
”Students at Liberty University have to sign an honor code, which describes accepted and forbidden behavior – and LGBTQ students fear they have to remain in the shadows to graduate.”
Article Spotlight
Andrew Lester, ‘"This Was My Utopia": Sexual Experimentation and Masculinity in the 1960s Bay Area Radical Left."‘ Journal of the History of Sexuality 29, no. 3 (2020): 364-387. DOI: 10.7560/JHS29303.
When Black Panther Party cofounder Huey P. Newton argued in 1970 that in order to have a chance to be free, Black people would have to discard “all these romantic, fictional fin[a]lisms, such as they’re married and they live happily ever after with a white picket fence,” he expressed a sentiment that was shared across the movements of the day, including the sexual and gay liberation movements. Amid the political ferment of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Area in the second half of the 1960s, activists from various movements experimented with utopian alternatives to the nuclear family norm. This essay deepens our understanding of the late 1960s Bay Area Left by examining how these experiments with unconventional forms of belonging connected Newton with two lesser-known figures: Richard Thorne, who led the East Bay Sexual Freedom League chapter in 1966, and Leo Laurence, who cofounded the Committee for Homosexual Freedom in 1969. Newton and Thorne were Black activists with roots in Oakland’s early Black Power movement, while Laurence was a white gay liberation activist with experience in Thorne’s SFL. The personal and organizational links between these three leaders illuminate a shared sexual culture that bridged the Bay Area’s gay liberation and Black Power movements.
Episode Spotlight
In the 1960s and early 1970s many Americans believed that rape was a rare and violent act perpetrated by outsiders and sociopaths. Popular culture taught men that women needed to be tricked or coerced into sex, and psychiatrists accused rape victims of secretly inviting their attacks. Susan Brownmiller’s best-selling book Against Our Will shattered these myths about sexual violence. Informed by the broader feminist anti-rape movement, Against Our Will portrayed rape as a systemic, pervasive, and culturally sanctioned act of power and intimidation. Yet even as Brownmiller provided a framework for naming sexual violence as a mechanism of patriarchy, she also minimized the importance of race and denied the ways that rape accusations have long justified the criminalization and murder of men of color. At a moment when #MeToo has brought about yet another national reckoning with sexual violence and male power, Brownmiller’s book, its legacy, and the contexts that produced the anti-rape movement of the 1970s demand re-examination.
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Books
Upcoming Events
Book Launch: Paulo Drinot, "The Sexual Question: A History of Prostitution in Peru, 1850s–1950s", Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation (CEDLA), University of Amsterdam, 4 December 2020
”Exploring links between sexuality, society, and state formation, this is the first history of prostitution and its politics in Peru. The history of prostitution, Paulo Drinot (University College London) shows, sheds light on the interplay of gender and sexuality, medicine and public health, and nation-building and state formation in Peru. With its compelling historical lens, this landmark study offers readers an engaging narrative, and new perspectives on Latin American studies, social policy, and Peruvian history.”
