The Struggle for Equality

In class on Tuesday and Thursday we watched a movie titled Before Stonewall. It talked about the history of the LGBT community and all the struggles they had to overcome through the 1950’s and 1960’s. In one section of the movie it described how in the 1959 race for Mayor for San Francisco, the one candidate criticized the current mayor for letting the town turn in to a ‘Gay Safe Haven.’ This really bothered me because a political figure was publically criticizing the gay community and trying to get people to support him. Granted this was many years ago, when people weren’t that educated about it since it was kept so quiet from the public. Although, I don’t understand how people can instantly get such a negative perspective about this topic when they don’t even know what these people have to go through to just be accepted and not have to hide from the rest of the world or even just their family.

Another section of the movie that was interesting to me was when a gay woman said, “Nothing is wrong with being gay. Getting caught is where you pay the price.” The reason why I thought this was interesting is because even if someone accepted the fact that someone is gay, it doesn’t matter because back then if you were to get caught you could be seriously reprimanded. I think it is extremely unfair that the gay and bisexual community had to suppress this part of them and try so hard for other people not to know because they could have gotten into a lot of trouble with the police officials and also possibly be rejected by the rest of their community.

In 1965 it was a big year for people picketing trying to defend gay rights. In an interview on camera, a man of high power of a company that was being picketed in front of was asked some questions. The man replied, “We are being picketed by homosexuals,” then there was a pause and in the crowd arouse laughter. He went on to say, “We specifically do not hire homosexuals within the company.” I am so thankful that I live in a different time and don’t have to listen to such ignorant people make such awful comments. High public officials are not as comfortable with making such comments anymore. The reason why they probably wouldn’t be as open about their thoughts is because the PR could be very harmful to the company.
Another quote from this movie that really disturbed me was when Richard Nixon was quoted to say that being gay, “It is tragic illness.” How anyone could honestly believe that being gay or bisexual is ‘an illness’ is beyond me. There has not been one day in my life where I ever once debated in my head if it was a choice they had to make, and maybe one morning they wake up and just decide ‘hey, from now on I want to have to fight for all of my rights and for people to judge me just because of this small aspect of my life.”

After the movie we discussed about Butch and Lesbian Identity as a class. We first had to jot down some ideas of what we thought butch was and how a butch person would dress. I didn’t have many ideas really other than a women trying to be more masculine. After sharing our thoughts amongst the class we learned some new terms and what they meant, such as; femme, passing, stone butch, dyke, bulldagger/bulldyke, top, and bottom.