Episode 13: Gays In The Military - Part 1

They paid sailors to entrap gay men, called it “investigation”, and spent a million dollars doing it. That is not a metaphor, it is US Navy history, and it sits right in the middle of a much longer story about how queer people have always served while the rules keep changing around them.

We start with the language shift that changes everything: early American law mostly targets sex acts under “sodomy” and “buggery”, but the 1800s and early 1900s bring a new framework where medicine, psychiatry, and sexology try to define “homosexuality” itself. We talk through the rise of terms like homosexual and homosexuality, the impact of researchers like Magnus Hirschfeld, and why the Nazi destruction of sex research still echoes today when information gets removed, buried, or “goes missing” from public record.

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Transcript

Cold Open And New Video Setup

SPEAKER_04 0:00

I knew that that was gonna work. It scared the shit out of me. I texted you and I was like, are you awake? And I didn't hear back. So I was like, hey kid, call your aunt. It's like, why? I was like, tell her to wake up. We got shit to do today.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

No, he scared me. I was like, what's happening? Is something bad happening? Why is he calling me? He never calls me. Well. Rise and shine. No.

SPEAKER_04 0:34

Hey my doodle dandies, this is Kelsey, and I'm Sarah. And we're that so macaroni. Yeah. You good?

SPEAKER_00 0:51

I think so. Um Hello. I'm Sarah. I'm Kelsey. This is our first recording with uh with a camera. Video. It's um intimidating. Yeah. I don't want to look over there. Yeah. Hey. Um, yeah, it is. It's quite intimidating. Um at least I showered. That's the important part. I didn't. At least no one can smell me. Okay. You're wearing makeup though. So like you look good though. Thank you. He was a gay oh by the way, this is Tim. Oh shit, I forgot. Tim!

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Oh, um, so for those of you that are new, uh Tim is um my dad. He is dead. Has been for almost 20 years. Um, he said loss.

SPEAKER_04 1:57

Okay, well and stay with me.

SPEAKER_03 2:00

I don't know if I don't know if it's picking up in the camera.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Try to turn it up a little bit. Um so anyway, he is dead, but he's not gone. He's he's definitely here. Uh he lives in my basement, which is where we are. We have our little 70s-esque wood paneling and 70-esque chairs. Yeah, our grandma chairs.

SPEAKER_04 2:23

I'm pretty sure this one is from the 70s.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

This one might be. I don't know. Either way, this is our vibe. Vintage weird 70s bullshit. Um, but yeah, so like Kelsey said, uh, today's topic is gays in the military. Um, ca we're doing this for Pride Month. Um and one of the reasons that we pointed at uh my dad's picture is because he was a gay in the military. Um, he just never really talked about it because it's traumatizing. You'll and we'll tell you why.

SPEAKER_04 2:56

Yeah. I know that he met his best friend. I don't know if we're allowed to say his name on air, so I won't. But he met his best friend '75.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

75, yeah, because he graduated high school in 76, and then he just went straight to the Air Force. And then he was stationed in Germany, and that is where he met it from the mid-70s then. Yeah. So he yeah, it was literally mid to late 70s. He was not in the Air Force during the 80s. I know that. He's already out.

SPEAKER_04 3:25

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

So for some reason I thought that maybe it was the two nose jobs that he invested in that Yeah. He did. He he was able to uh to con the government into giving him a nose job.

SPEAKER_04 3:38

It's okay, I understand. I tried to con the government into giving me LASIKs. I was like, can I be a pilot? And they're like, you sure can. And I was like, but no, I don't have good vision. I heard you guys fix it. They're like, oh not anymore. And I was like, eh.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

It's not the 70s. How dare you? I was like, no, I don't want to do more. I changed my mind. Um, so my dad didn't really talk much about his time um in the military. It was not necessarily a good time for him. So I don't know a whole lot, but um, I mean, if you have questions along the way with your your stuff, I will do my best to answer them.

SPEAKER_04 4:16

Sounds good. And I will do my best to do this, do some justice to this. There was so much information. Um there was so much information and so much that I could talk about. I tried to get like a really good overview of everything and not leave anything out. I definitely did though. And there's some things that I just kind of like they hide after that.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Yeah they have to, because you know, because don't ask, don't tell.

SPEAKER_04 4:49

And before. So I really, really wanted to do a good job and cover everything. I hope I mean Tim has been uh helpful just being like, you go. Um, but I hope that everyone else's good about it. Um if you don't, just say it nicely. Um or I'll cry.

unknown 5:08

Open it.

SPEAKER_04 5:09

Okay, all right. Um what did he say? Open it. Oh, he's like just shut up. Can you just get started? Okay, so I'll get started. Um one last thing. If you want to hear any like more detail about anything, just let me know in the comments. Send us an email. Um, our email is that's so mac macaroni podcast. That's a macaroni podcast. Yeah, that's a macro. That's a macaroni podcast at gmail.com. Um and just say, hey, tell me more about whatever. And I'll be like, okay, and I'll work on that. Um also we have an Instagram, that's so mac underscore podcast. Yep. Um please go.

unknown 5:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Thank you. Yeah, please go. He's telling all of you to look at those failure. Oh. Well, okay. I think you should just start talking now. I'm gonna turn. Okay, all

Why This History Matters Now

SPEAKER_01 5:58

right, all right.

SPEAKER_03 5:58

So feisty today.

SPEAKER_04 6:00

As we all know, uh LGBTQ plus people have existed everywhere throughout time, filling a multitude of different roles in society, including the military. Um, that being said, I will be focusing on the United States military because I live here and it is one set of military laws, and that is enough for me as somebody who doesn't know much. So, um, aw, I'm so cute. I said, plus, I'm trying to make this one single episode. So one military should keep me in the right amount of time. No. Incorrect. Incorrect indeed. Incorrect. All right. Um this is probably it's either going to be an extra long one as a special or help. Um, or it's going to be assuredly two parts. Um, so the way in which we understand homosexuality as we do today, as in relationships. Do you like me? Yeah, you're great. Shush.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Um you wanted me to do this episode, and you won't shut the fuck up and let me do it. Yes, you were young. Okay. Just ignore him.

SPEAKER_04 7:04

I was gonna say, De Pet, if he keeps up with this just like self-aggrandizement, we're just gonna have to turn him off.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Well, he is a Gemini, and it is Gemini season, so. And he's weak to the pressures of beauty. Jesus fucking. Alright, go ahead, go, just ignore him.

SPEAKER_04 7:20

His bitchin' looks.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Um, I mean, look at him.

SPEAKER_04 7:23

Is that Patrick Spacey? Is that Patrick Spacey? Okay, so, anyways, prior to the time, um hang on.

Early America And Sodomy Laws

SPEAKER_04 7:32

Prior to um the early 20th century, we had like a different understanding um of what same-sex same-sex couples were. So prior to that time, we didn't have um, they didn't say that their problem was homosexuality or that their problem was um same-sex couples. It was specific sex laws that happened to encompass same-sex couples. So, like it was definit it's definitely still targeted them, but they weren't like, hey, you as a person are a problem.

SPEAKER_02 8:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:04

Um for example, in 1636, the Plymouth colony wrote a simple list of crimes punishable by death. You wanna guess some? Sodomy. Yeah. Hey, okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Wanna guess another?

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Uh I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 8:19

Okay. Willful murder, forming a solemn company with the devil via witchcraft, willful burning of ships or houses, arson, sodomy, rape, or buggery, and that's the sexy stuff. What is buggery? Same thing, sodomy. Butt stuff. Butt stuff. Butt stuff.

unknown 8:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 8:37

And adultery. You could be moited for adultery. Mda. Although no one was put no one was actually put to death for adultery. Um, a woman named Miss Mary Mendame was convicted of uncleanliness with a Native American named Tinson and was sentenced to be whipped at a cart's tail through town and to wear a D.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

And it's uncleanly because he's a Native American.

SPEAKER_04 9:03

I yeah. Way to go. She had to wear um a badge that said A D. Oh my god. For adulterer. And which, oh, which if she was found without it, so like if she like forgot her little neck tag at home, they would brand it on her forehead. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

It's kind of like um, well, yeah, because this is the 1600s with the the scarlet letter. Uh-huh. Yeah, okay, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 9:25

Alrighty, back to the sex stuff. Sodomy and buggery are just synonyms. They mean um anal with anyone, man, woman, or beast. You don't put it in the butt.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

Yes? Nope.

SPEAKER_04 9:37

Or beast. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Okay. So you could have sex with a beast, you just can't put it in its butt, is what this law is.

SPEAKER_04 9:44

I don't know if it's like bestiality, like no sheep at all, or if it's just butt. Sheep butt. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

The way you said it makes it sound like it's just butt stuff.

SPEAKER_04 9:54

That is that is everything that I've read, is that they're like no butt stuff. I I didn't really want to look too far in. I didn't want to look too far into the other thing.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Did I ever tell you about this? Is probably gonna be so inappropriate. You can tell me. It was one of the most ridiculous and inappropriate costumes I have ever seen in my entire life.

SPEAKER_04 10:20

I need you to start telling me right now because I'm so concerned.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

It was a Halloween costume. It was Brandon. He went as a sheep fucker one year, so he was dressed up like a farmer, and then he put like a sheep mask over his area, and that was his costume, and I was like, Yes, I am frightened. I am very frightened. I'm related to that man. And I was like, Brandon, where? Where? What like why is this in your brain that this is a costume? So do with that what you will. That's Brandon.

SPEAKER_04 10:56

Brandon, I hope you like being part of every episode. Um, you better start listening so you can tell us not to do this anymore. Like he doesn't even know what Instagram is. Maybe he knows what YouTube is, though.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Hi, Brandon! Alright, continue.

SPEAKER_04 11:10

I'm just gonna go hide in a hole after this. No butt stuff, no butt stuff. So, when William Penn founded Pennsylvania in 1682, um, he came up with this thing called the Great Law, which limited the death penalty to murder cases only and saw for the first time prison sentences for separate crimes. So we're not just gonna murder you for doing something wrong, only if you murder someone else, and then we'll murder you.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 11:32

Um, and it's here that sodomy was reduced from a death sentence to six months in prison. He's like, excuse me? Yeah, I know. That's so you only six months in prison. Um, not that prisons were great back then. In 1700, the Pennsylvania Assembly passed, quote, an act against incest, sodomy, and bestiality, which required a white man convicted of sodomy or bestiality to be imprisoned and whipped at a magistrate's discretion. Um you're also talking. Um and if he was married, the man would be castrated. But only white men That's correct. If the black men um committed the crime, they would just die. And if it was against a white woman, it was still punishable if they die.

unknown 12:13

Okay. Right.

SPEAKER_04 12:14

Got it. Okay. Yes. Many other states followed sorry, not states, colonies, many other colonies.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Yeah, we're in the 1700s, still, right?

SPEAKER_04 12:23

Uh early 1700s, yeah. Yeah, okay. Um, retained the death penalty um for treason and murder only in lesser offenses, like sodomy received solitary confinement, hard labor, and prison sentences up to 21 years. Um, the harshest remaining sodomy law was Rhode Island, in which um they would still sentence a man to death for his second sexual offense. Okay. So you have one time you have to experiment and then you're done. Um You do the shit again, and then you're done. So um, are you recording? Now we're recording. God, Tim, catch up. So um, it just occurred to me reading back over this, because I just kind of like frantically write my notes, um, that this whole solitary confinement, hard labor, and prison sentences up to 21 years, you will see that continue for way too long.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 13:17

Um, so when do you think the first NAND was discharged from the military for engaging in sodomy in America?

SPEAKER_01 13:24

In the 1980s.

SPEAKER_04 13:26

That's right, the Revolutionary War. Oh. 1778, Lieutenant Gotthold Frederick Enslin was drummed out after he was found guilty of attempting to commit sodys sodomy with another soldier.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

At least I got the 80s right. You did.

SPEAKER_04 13:40

Well, actually, you didn't. It's 78. 1778.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

I'm gonna throw what's left of this coffee in your general direction.

SPEAKER_04 13:48

Don't get my microphone. Um my only question is like, was this a wanted advance or an unwanted advance? Because like, I feel like that those are two different things. It's that he's attempting to. Are they attempting to, or is he attempting to?

SPEAKER_01 14:02

I feel like it's also like the 1700s, like no, because it's the Puritan times. Because I was thinking, like, you know, like Romanesque, like they were all gay all the time, every day.

SPEAKER_04 14:14

Yeah, it was anyway. It was not a problem. It was actually um I didn't I didn't write a lot about this, so uh don't well because don't ask me a whole bunch of questions, but but Romans only had sex with women to procreate. Right. Yeah. Um, and same with the ancient Greeks. There was the sacred sacred tribe of Thebes or something like that, or um, they were all gay men, or at least they all um participated in homosexuality. I don't know if they were yeah, who cares?

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Um but in the 1700s, I'm guessing, um, because it is like the Puritan times and it's the Revolutionary War. So I would say maybe it was unwanted advances. Maybe, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 14:58

Maybe but he was okay but he was drummed out, so he was kicked out.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:02

Okay. Um we go from the 1600s to the 1800s, we like jump, jump,

Science Rebrands Homosexuality

SPEAKER_04 15:07

jump. Um, and something changes, which is religion and superstitions were being replaced by science, um, as like how we kind of determine what is happening around us in the world. And um the vocabulary that we use and the laws were changing to reflect that.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 15:26

Um, quote, as 19th century Western culture shifted power from religious to secular authority, same-sex behaviors like other sins, quote unquote, received increased scrutiny from the law, medicine, psychiatry, sexology, and human rights activism. Eventually, religious categories like demonic possession, drunkenness, and sodomy were transformed into the scientific categories of insanity, alcoholism, and homosexuality.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Okay. Got it.

SPEAKER_04 15:59

As science takes its place as the explanatory belief system, um, people start trying to figure out if there's a scientific explanation for homosexuality, and many people take a crack at it through the mid-1800s to the early 1900s. Let me tell you about some of them. Okay. Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, educated in law, theology, and history, struck out against German laws that criminalized same-sex relations between men, stating that some men were born with a women's spirit trapped in their bodies, and that these men constituted a third sex he named earnings. Lesbians were the opposite, and he called them Erningen. Interesting. So you're like haunted by a woman. If you're a gay man, you're like haunted by like Do you remember that episode of um Friends where Phoebe's possessed by that little lady?

unknown 16:44

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:45

The one where um Carol gets married.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Yes. Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:50

Well, now I've seen everything. Yeah. They're just haunted by a they're haunted by a woman.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Okay, so that's um, first of all, his name sounds very familiar. I'm sure he's done other research that I have learned about, yeah. But it also makes me think of like Native American, two-spirited people as well. So I I I like his his thought on that.

SPEAKER_04 17:13

A lot of these have like, you're like, I feel like we're some of them. Okay, I say a lot. Let me say some of them. It's like, yeah, maybe. Um, maybe. Um in 1869, Hungarian journalist uh Kiroly Maria Kurtventi coins the term homosexual, um, oh, terms, sorry, homosexual and homosexuality in a treatise against the Prussian law that criminalized male homosexual behavior. He stated that homosexuality was inborn and unchangeable and and a normal human variation.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:47

Yep, sounds good. Um, and everyone loves these new words that Kurt Benty came up with and decide to start using them in their own theorizing about homosexuality. So he came up with homosexuality. Oh, okay. And homosexuals. Okay. So that's and now look it. We still use it today. We're like, that sounds good.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

And it's also like just thinking about like my job. Um, like in the blood bank world, it's the same thing. Like you have homozygous and heterozygous. Yeah. Like it's very like scientifically named. And I feel like some people just take the word homo and just automatically just assume that it's like for gay people specifically. And I'm like, no, no, because we use it for so many other reasons to like it's just a scientific term for the same. Yeah, exactly. Your dad said it's stupid. I agree.

SPEAKER_04 18:39

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

I'm glad we're on the same.

SPEAKER_04 18:41

You're finally saying some things that make sense. I'm like reading some of it, and I'm like, okay, you know what?

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Just shut the sky.

SPEAKER_04 18:46

Ignore you.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Just shut the fuck up.

SPEAKER_04 18:48

Um so yeah, it was really good. And then we have this guy named Richard von Kraft Ebbing, a German psychiatrist who describes homeless. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

They're all like German and Hungarian and like European.

SPEAKER_04 19:03

Yeah. Um, a lot of it started in Germany, from what I've from what I've seen. A lot of these people were like German or Austrian, like around that area.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

You know what? Good for them.

SPEAKER_04 19:16

Yeah. Um, even into like modern time, and I'll talk about another guy, um, Mangus Hirschfield. Yep. He's super well known. Also German. Um, yeah, lots of it started over there. Um, and then we kind of took some things. Oh, look, he's not too far uh down there. So Richard von Kraft Ebbing, the German psychiatrist, described homosexuality as a degenerative disorder. So in his 1886 Psychopathia sexualis, he stated, quote, non-procreative sexual behaviors, masturbation included, were regarded as a form of um psychopathology. You're fucked in the head, man. If you jerk it, something fucking wrong with you.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

You're either, yeah, there's something wrong with you, and you're either gonna go blind or your palms are gonna get super hairy. So oh, I heard God kills kittens. Oh yeah, that one too. I totally forgot about that one. You are correct. We're annoying.

SPEAKER_04 20:12

I guess I'm ignoring him. Okay, but then now we get to Magnus Hirschfield, who is also a German psychiatrist, and he was like, um, incorrect. I'm gonna kind of piggyback off of that third sex theory instead of a disease. Um, so fun fact Magnus um was openly gay and he studied psychology and human sexuality. He was um a pioneer of the science sexology.

SPEAKER_03 20:37

Is this the 1800s or the 1900s? Early 19 early 1900s. Okay. Oh wow, and he's openly gay. Good for him.

SPEAKER_04 20:44

Okay, yeah. All right, um, and he was so he was an LGBTQ advocate in the early 1900s in Germany, where he had a sexology lab and a human rights advocacy group. Oh, I can't remember what it's called, I say it later. Um but here's a not fun fact. His German citizenship was revoked by the Nazi government in 1933.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Because he was gay.

SPEAKER_04 21:05

It makes no sense.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:07

That's correct.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Um sounds like something a Nazi would do. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_04 21:11

Yeah, I go, I go into what happened a little bit further down the line. Cool. Um, there was an idea that homosexuality was some sort of disease that could also be caused by pathogens such as intrauterine hormonal exposure, um, excessive mothering, inadequate or hostile fathering, sexual abuse, etc. So it was a deficit of some sort. So if your mom is too clingy and your dad hits you too much.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

One of the last conversations that I had with Sharon was literally that. She was like, Your dad's gay because I used to dress him up and he was really close with our mom. And I was like, No, ma'am, he was gay because he was born that way. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:53

You you may have like shown him dresses, and he was like, This is actually kind of nice. Am I slaying it?

SPEAKER_01 22:00

This outfit right now, like is this awesome?

SPEAKER_04 22:03

Yeah, but he was just born that way, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

So, yeah, okay. As soon as you said that, I was like, that is exactly what Sharon said. She's like, We did this to him, and I'm like, No, no, you didn't. No, um, no, but you were certainly assholes about it.

SPEAKER_04 22:19

Um, which brings me to another huge asshole, but like when I read this, I was like, Okay, so one psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Edmund Burglar. Um I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

His last name is Burglar.

SPEAKER_04 22:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

I feel like I'm gonna hate this guy, but I love his last name.

SPEAKER_04 22:34

It's B-E-R-G-L-E-R. Burglar. The hamburglar. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

Oh, I love it. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 22:41

Picture that guy as this because he's a fucking joke.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

I'm picturing him as the hamburglar.

SPEAKER_04 22:46

That's what I need you to do. Okay. Because he's a joke. So he infamously wrote this in a book for just general audiences. I have no bias against homosexuals. For me, they're once.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

First of all, yes, you do. If you have to say it, yes, you do.

SPEAKER_04 23:03

But for me, they are sick people requiring medical help. Still, although I have no bias, I would say homosexuals are essentially disagreeable people, regardless of their pleasant or unpleasant outward manner. Their shell is a mixture of superfluousness, fake aggression, and whimpering. Like all psychic masochists, they are subservient when confronted with a stronger person, merciless when in power, unscrupulous about trampling on a weaker person.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

So he's gay, first of all. But he's not biased. So he's gay, first of all. And I would never associate the hamburglar with this man. So he is no longer the hamburglar. Yeah, so it's also like wildly incorrect. Like he is so fucking gay that he hates himself so much.

SPEAKER_04 23:57

That was another thing that kept coming up in this research, which I didn't write down enough because I feel like we would just naturally come to this conversation, which is if you are so vehemently against this, like maybe you're hiding something, hon.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

What have I been saying? You can't pray the gay away.

unknown 24:13

Nope.

SPEAKER_04 24:13

Okay. And now we finally come to the man we all know who is connected to sex death and psychology. Freud. Fucking Freud.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Your favorite person in the whole world. I that man has mommy issues.

SPEAKER_04 24:26

No kidding. Um he's like, and so does everyone else.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Anyways, um just do some cocaine about it. It's the 1800s.

SPEAKER_04 24:35

So, in this instance, he says some things um that were like, oh, okay, um, before he's before we go fucking Freud. So everyone is born, he says, everyone is born bisexual. We figure it out along the way, with expressions of homosexuality as a part of normal heterosexual development. Okay. Um, this refutes the third sex theory Hirschfield put out there by saying, quote, psychoanalytic research is most decidedly opposed to any attempt at separating off homosexuals from the rest of mankind as a group of special character. Which is like correct. They're not different, but I don't think that it refutes the third sex theory theory, because I mean, unless part of that theory was they are other than regular people. Um, so I don't think it like anyways, but he said that um you shouldn't consider them a third sex, it's just normal part of normal heterosexual development. Um he also says that homosexuality c homosexuality cannot be a degenerative c condition, as Kraft Ebbing claimed, because it could be, quote, found in people whose efficiency is unimpaired and who are indeed distinguished by uh especially high intellectual development and ethical character. So it's not akin to like Alzheimer's. Okay. It's not something that um continues to like get worse over time, like also like because they are perfectly fucking fine. Um, but what he said was adult homosexual behavior was um an arrested psychosexual development so that they were immature, they didn't develop fully into their heterosexuality.

unknown 26:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 26:19

Got it, okay. Because you pass through homosexuality on your way to heterosexuality. He said pathetic truth.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

Um, I think it's the other way around. I think you pass through hetero.

SPEAKER_04 26:34

He agrees. Um, so wrong. But what he did say was um to undertake to convert a fully developed homosexual into a heterosexual does not offer much more prospect of success than the reverse. You cannot change a regular, a fully developed homosexual into heterosexual, just like you can't do it the opposite way. But this is fully developed, as opposed to um a gay in their larval or pupil stage. Once they have their wings, it's impossible.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

I know you want me to like be funny, but I'm just like, you know.

SPEAKER_04 27:13

Okay, so that's how it all changed. Um, which brings us into the early part of the 20th century, as we talked about. Um, Freud is around, Magnus Hirschfield is around, um, and there's some scientific exploration of human sexuality. Now let's look at some of the wars and what the mil because that's what the military does, and that's what we're technically here for.

War Service And Identity Policing

SPEAKER_04 27:34

Um, and then I'm also gonna connect it to some changes in civilian life and politics, okay, just so we get some context as to why this is going on. I mean, there's not like a good why, but it's a why. Does that make sense? Okay. So there were, of course, uh LGBTQ folks who have served in every war. Um, and one thing that I didn't write down because it just didn't track that way, um, was the Civil War. I didn't write much about the Civil War, but there was one Union soldier who was um a trans man whose um chosen name was Albert Something. They didn't write it down. Um, so I just wanted to put that out there that he served in the Union Army. When they found out they continued to dead name him. Um I don't know what the dead name is. Um because it doesn't matter. Both are written on his gravestone. Oh. So they did put his chosen name there too. They're like, this is Albert Soandso, aka. I don't know the dead name either. Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

Well, that's nice that they did that at least, but it was forward thinking for the mid-1800s. Yeah. Yeah. Could you imagine if he tried to join the Confederate army?

SPEAKER_03 28:43

No.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

No. Yeah, me either. Um, but you know what? I think that's great. Cause like, I like even today, like, there's so much controversy with okay, good. Cause like, if they're just like, you know what, that's the thing too. Cause they're like, this person wants to fight for our cause, let's fucking let them. And it's the 16 or 16, sorry, the 1860s, and they're like, Yeah, come on, help us. Yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_04 29:10

And they do that, it is suspicious because they do it intermittently when bodies are needed. So that's yeah, that I mean, like, that's kind of a thing that they practice intermittently. So there are LGBTQ folks who serve in World War One. Um, but the military and civilian laws still defined sodomy, not homosexuality, as a felony. Are you afraid? No. Um solid. Yeah. Um, so there's a lot more secrecy around it. Um because it's a fucking felony. Um around the turn of the century.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

So hold on, like so. It's like you can be gay, you just can't put anything in anybody's butt.

SPEAKER_04 29:48

Kinda.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Yeah, okay, got it.

SPEAKER_04 29:50

Kinda. It's it is the sexual act that is criminalized um at this point in time. Yeah. Because that's what they have connected. But then, like I said, as they start to change the language into homosexuality, meaning same-sex couples, right? That's when the act of being a same-sex couple as a person becomes criminalized. So they kind of start switching from just doing dirty sex things.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

And this is, I'm guessing, around the time that uh, you know, religion decided to take over.

SPEAKER_04 30:24

Re So what I think what I think is that the religion part has always been there, but then we just changed which. Okay. So it's kind of like um we're just calling it something now. New now. Like there's a a different euphemism for it. So it was sodomy, which targeted same-sex couples, but we were specifically like it you had to be caught in the act of doing something, a sexual act. Right. It wasn't necessarily like, you know, yeah, my my uncle and his roommate. It was like they you had to catch them doing something.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

My aunt and her best friend of 40 years. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 30:59

So, uh doo doo doo doo. And at the turn of this uh the century, sodomy stopped qualifying for the death sent uh death penalty and was but was targeted only at men. Lesbians could continue on their merry way because only men involved in sodomy.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

I was about to say, only men can put things in other people's butts. Yep. I mean, technically, if you think about it, technically we have fingers.

SPEAKER_04 31:21

There, I was gonna say technically they're wrong. But uh I guess they just didn't want to think about that. Women don't do that. No. Um, so I had a hard time finding things specifically about their time during the war, but I have two tales to

The Navy Entrapment Sting

SPEAKER_04 31:37

tell. Okay. The first is Are You a Friend? Yes, I think I think so. Um the first is about the American Navy, and the second is a love story. The first one you kind of know, but let me go into a little bit more detail. So the American Navy during World War I ran this bananas expensive and ridiculous undercover sting operation against gay sailors.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

In the spring of wait, hold on, you're saying I know about this? Yes.

SPEAKER_04 32:01

You sent me a reel on it.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

Oh, did it?

SPEAKER_04 32:03

And I said, I already know about this, and I can't wait to tell you more.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

Oh, that's fun. Okay. Um sorry, I just bumped the mic.

SPEAKER_04 32:09

Sorry, sorry, everyone. Damn it. So, uh, spring of 1919, the assistant secretary of the Navy and his fellow officers in Newport, Rhode Island recruit enlisted sailors to investigate immoral conditions for homosexual activity through entrap entrapment. Entrapment. Entrapment. Aw, did you hear that?

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Entrapment. Oh no.

SPEAKER_04 32:32

Um, this operation costs about one million dollars. Essentially, these soldiers were told that they should go out and have sex with these quote-unquote perverts in the community. In the end, about 20 sailors and 16 civilians were caught up in this sting operation. Entrapment's nothing new. Yeah. But this isn't this is interesting for a couple of reasons. The first one being that the assistant secretary to the Navy at this time was the future president. The other one.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

Franklin.

SPEAKER_04 32:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

Okay, I knew it was Roosevelt. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 33:02

Franklin D. Roosevelt. Yes. He did a lot of good for our country. Um, and this doesn't take away from that, but I think that people leave this out so they don't, you know, tarnish his reputation. Yeah. Um, but all it does is like polarize a person, and then that's kind of silly. Nobody is wholly good or bad. And he done fucked up. He did. Except for maybe, because here's another part. Um, they got in trouble because um it's revolting. Uh my favorite part of this is they got in trouble because they asked innocent straight sailors to go undercover. Yeah, that's weird. But here's the funny, here's what I use my question about that. How straight are these sailors if they're agreeing to go out and bang a bunch of dudes?

SPEAKER_01 33:43

Okay, that's true. Also, how much were they paying them?

SPEAKER_04 33:46

I I don't know. So basically, this is a naval run prostitution ring. Um good for you, FDR. They sound it sounds kind of like the work detail that would really appeal to a gay guy in the military. He's like, no, I'm totally straight. You want me to go big? I guess for my country, I will. Um the operation lasted from March 1919 to sometime in the fall that year is like the main time that they were um like arresting people. And they only caught 36 people total. So they're out there day and night getting it on, and they only catch 36 people. That's so funny. Not to mention they would have to go back, these secret agents, secret sex agents would have to go back and have sex with the same person multiple times before they had enough evidence.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

You know, I just like I think it's just so interesting. They're so concerned with finding these gays in the military. And I'm like, okay, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 34:42

The US government used US tax dollars to pay sailors to have gay sex to gay sex.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

These like fucking like crazy evangelicals, if they found this shit out, how pissed they would be. You would think so.

SPEAKER_04 34:58

It is amazing how much taxpayer money is wasted on you know ferreting out these gay um soldiers and sailors and stuff. Like, that's so much m like. Why was it just the navy? Um there was just the navy, but there is a lot of the navy, and I think it's because you are so very isolated.

SPEAKER_01 35:17

Yeah, you are. Okay, I was gonna say you're like literally in a submarine, like out in the ocean.

SPEAKER_04 35:23

Yeah. Yep. Okay. Um, okay, and here's the love story. It's from an article on SmithsonianMag.com. Um, it's about love lost and fighting for equal rights. So here we go. Okay. A German soldier lies in a field hospital in Russia, dying from a shrapnel wound to his lower body. Well, obviously the pain is excruciating. He hasn't heard from his boyfriend in a long time, and that is harder for him to bear. He had kept his relationship secret, and we only know his boyfriend as S. S wrote his story to ah, here it is, the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, which was Hirschfield's um pro-gay uh association organization. Okay. He wrote that he grieved his letters, S grieved his letters didn't um had been lost in the chaos of the war, and that his partner hadn't received them before he died. He wrote that his partner had, quote, lost his bright life for the fatherland. Despite their love being so criminalized they couldn't even tell their families about the love that they shared. The story ends with S saying it was deplorable that good citizens would go and die for a country that considered them pariahs. People who are by nature oriented toward the same sex do their duty. It is finally time that the state treat them like they treat the state.

unknown 36:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:38

And World War I sparks what is considered the first gay rights movement, and and it's called the homosexual emancipation. Okay. Um, several things happen that would be important for what comes next, both in and out of the military.

A WWI Love Story Sparks Activism

SPEAKER_04 36:52

So, right after World War I in the United States, there was a veteran named Henry Gerber. Fresh out of his military service for the United States, he opens the first documented gay rights organization in the United States. Cool. He was inspired by Magnus Hirschfield's Scientific Humanitarian Committee, um, which was the LGBTQ rights group in Germany. Magnus Hirschfield was the guy who says gay is normal, by the way, um, in case we forgot. Okay. And he has copious amount, like a ton of research that says that. Um, although multiple police raids caused Gerber's small group to close up shop in 1925, it was the first openly supportive society for LGBTQ people, and it was started by United States veterans. So it wasn't long, but he gave it a good run. Okay. Um in civilian life during the 1920s, there is an economic and urban population boom. More money means more freedom. Um, that's we s we see flappers at this time, those sexually free women with the cute bobs and short dresses. Urban industry grew. Um, and many of these women are now able to live alone or in boarding houses. They have their own money, and there were new entertainments such as like movies and shit, carnivals. I don't know. Um Bodbell. Hoop and stick. Uh, they were they were going nuts. I don't know what they were doing at the time. There was a bunch of fun shit. Yes. Uh then there is this quote from the Atlantic Monthly from 1913. Um, they had announced in 1913 that the clock had told sex o'clock in America, indicating the repeal of reticence about issues that had once been considered taboo. Everyone's just getting it on, and that is oh. Yep. So these trends accelerate after World War I. Um, a survey suggested that 14% of women born before 1900 engaged in premarital sex by the age of 25. Uh, while as many as 39% of women who came of age in the 1910s and 1920s lost their virginity before marriage. Oh no. Oh no. Um, and sex is for fun now. It's not just for babies, and people are free, feeling freer to explore the fun side of getting it on, including with same-sex partners. Um, and they now have something of like a disposable income, so they get to go out to movies, dances, public entertainment venues, blah, blah, blah, blah. And everyone is getting more exposure to the wide world. Yeah. Getting off the farm. Yeah. And so they might like have had more of an opportunity in this urban setting to explore, like I said, um, same-sex partnering, because, you know, the farm in Kansas doesn't really provide that, but a huge city with a bunch of people would. Yeah. Um at this time we see uh LGBTQ representation in the picture shows. In the picture shows. Prior to the Hayes Code, which was from 1934 to 1968, um, which banned mentions of sexuality or sex at all, um, among other things they deemed incorrect, there was a rise of queer identities in film. Even if it wasn't always kind. Um, one source says the uh quote, the effeminate man was used for laughs and the butch woman for snickers. Queer people were still attracted to cinema because there was representation at all, and they could actually be themselves openly.

SPEAKER_00 40:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:04

Even if they were like, ha ha ha, look how look how flouncy this guy is. He could still be flouncy if he wanted to and be himself. Um, so it was good. And they could see themselves do that wherever they lived. Yeah. Um, and now we get to the vibrant nightlife scene, which people can explore their sexuality anywhere they fall in the spectrum. And none of this nightlife, um, and especially queer nightlife, would have been possible without the Harlem Renaissance and Prohibition to get. Oh, okay. The Harlem Renaissance, um, briefly, is a time of flourishing black culture and a significant moment in queer history as well. So artists such as James Vanderzee, um, who was who photographs challenge pervasive stereotypes and racial attitudes um by documenting black excellence. So he took lots of like people would say really racist stereotypical things, and he was like, not really and took better pictures and was like, this is what we're like. Fuck you guys. Um and then there are the writers, which you'll know, Langston Hughes, um, who's a poet, and the novelist Zora Neil Hurston, um, were both commentators on black experiences whose writing allowed themselves and others the courage to quote express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. Both of them were rumored to be homosexual themselves. Okay. There's, I think Langston Hughes may be confirmed, but Sora Neil Hurston was just kind of like, they're like, I think so.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:28

Um, and then there are um, then there are the musicians, which obviously, because the Harlem Renaissance brings jazz, and what brings people out more than jazz? Um, musicians like Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Adelaide Hall, and many, many, many, many, many others um are just blowing up the scene.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

Yeah. Uh you know what's crazy about this time too? Because I like the little I do know about it is like these artists are allowed to like play in these places, but they're not allowed there. I know this is totally off topic and like whole like whole different things.

SPEAKER_04 42:06

I know this is what I this is what I was saying. I was like, can I tell you more? And I'm like, no, no, hang on. We have to focus, woman.

SPEAKER_01 42:13

Yeah, focus. I I get it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

It's it's just crazy to think that. Like these people are just like taking over the whole world and yet they can't. Mm-hmm.

unknown 42:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

Anyway, okay, sorry, gays, gays.

SPEAKER_04 42:26

No, no, no, I know. I know. It's so, it's so frustrating. Um, yeah, okay, yeah, okay.

The Roaring Twenties And Queer Life

SPEAKER_04 42:32

So, Gertrude Ma Rainey, who was another jazz musician, she was married to a man, but she wrote the song Prove It On Me to discuss her bisexuality, challenging the audience to prove it. What's she gonna do about it?

SPEAKER_01 42:43

You know what is also crazy? There are some like songs from like the the 20s and the 30s that are so fucking raunchy, and I'm like, oh my god, like even I'm like, oh there is one hang on, let me see.

SPEAKER_04 42:59

I have I have it in my music. Let me see if I can find it, the name of it, because I have to tell you, it is when I heard it, I was like just like kind of like listening to it in the background, and then I was like, what in the world? This is crazy. It's called Bumblebee, and it is by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Mini, and it's about his stinger. Okay. Jesus Christ. Okay. All right, now, the prohibition and how this partners up. Uh, there is Prohibition is the Volsted Act or the 18th Amendment, and it went into effect nationally on Jan in January of 1920. So alcohol and venues in which you could consume it all went underground. This is the prohibition or whatever, um, in case there's any confusion, the Volstead Act, 18th Amendment prohibition synonyms. So, but making things illegal doesn't make them go away, it makes them dangerous. Another appeal of Roe V. Wade. Just saying. So, mobsters and all that, but speakeasies pop up, and so. Do gay bars. Here's another fun fact. The phrase speak softly shop was synonymous with a smuggler's house in British slang in the early 1800s. And similarly, a speakeasy shop was a place that sold unlicensed liquor in the mid-1800s British slang. During the prohibitions, Americans co-opted this and called these hideaways speakeasies because of the practice of speaking quietly about such places in public when inside, and when inside to not alert police or neighbors. So the government says no booze, and the American people say we are very uninterested in that option. And have booze anyways. Yep. Places uh to be boozy little bitches need to be secret. And nothing brings people together like a shared secret.

SPEAKER_01 44:44

It's true. Um alcohol, secret alcohol and uh gay affairs.

SPEAKER_04 44:49

Yeah, so to sum it up, the roaring twenties environment helps queer life flourish. There's a sexual liberation, everyone's getting freaky just for kicks with whoever they want to. Um, queer representation in media, and representation matters. We know it matters because a major part of the Harlem Renaissance was the inclusion of queer folk, and finally, prohibition. Everyone who is at a bar is at a secret bar, whether or not you're gay. So what are you gonna do? Tell the cops that you saw me with my girlfriend at a bar. No, I don't fucking think so. You're not saying shit, bitch. How do you know? Hmm?

SPEAKER_01 45:20

Where was I? Where was I? You know, it could be like it could be like the Salem Witch trial, though. I was sleeping and it just like came to me in a dream. I saw these two fornicating. In a dream. I saw this happening. A ghost came to me.

SPEAKER_04 45:37

Sounds like you need God. Um and but but of course, bubbling in the background of all this wild fun are people who are less enthused um with minding their own business and living their lives, and psychologists. And I feel like there's a joke to be made about that.

SPEAKER_01 45:53

You're supposed to mind your own business. Other people's lives don't affect yours.

SPEAKER_04 46:01

What? Not when not when they are both consenting adults. Um so uh quote, many Americans were looking boldly ahead, but just as many were gazing backwards to cherished memories of a fabled national innocence. Does this sound familiar? Mm-hmm. So at the same time that there's this wonderful explosion of self-exploration and expression, um, a teacher goes on trial for teaching evolution, and the KKK comes back in full violent force.

SPEAKER_01 46:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 46:30

Um, quote, is it is a familiar pattern of progress in civil rights giving rise to a reactionary response. Um, which is from an article called The Rise and Fall of the Pansy Craze. The Pansy Craze is another nutty thing where people were like, we love gays, and then they were like, aha.

SPEAKER_01 46:47

I figured the word pansy craze Pansy Craze, yeah. I was like, mmm, that's not PC anymore.

SPEAKER_04 46:52

You know, yeah. Um yeah, there's there were a lot of things that I was like, I don't think we could say that. Um so uh I think I mentioned it before, but I talk a lot, so I might have forgotten, and you probably did too. Um it's not until after the depression hits that the tightening of the screws happens, and it happens in response to how normalized Grenosa

Backlash After The Depression

SPEAKER_04 47:12

has become. Quickly. Where are we at time-wise?

SPEAKER_01 47:14

You know, I have glasses, but I still can't see anything. Uh, we're at 56 minutes.

unknown 47:20

Shit.

SPEAKER_04 47:21

Okay. Um let me wrap this. Oh shit. Oh my god. Okay. These are just gonna be longer. And they're gonna be two parts.

SPEAKER_01 47:30

I mean, you already told Connor this, so well now I'm telling all of you. Um see, um, if you guys are new here, she doesn't know how to like consolidate her research.

SPEAKER_04 47:43

I find context very important, thank you. And I think that the context helps understand things. So the wild ride of the 1920s and the connection of sexual exploration and LGBTQ visibility, um, and that freedom was scapegoated as the cause of depression that that followed the nice it started in 1929. Um, and it gave language uh our their ability to identify this gave language for an us versus them mentality. Because if they weren't so wild and free, the stock market wouldn't have crashed. Yes. So we have a concept of homosexuality, heterosexuality, gender fluidity, and this destabilizes uh binary power structures in which people who hold the power in that structure are comfortable and they don't want it to change. So it is it is easy to go, bah, look at look at that.

SPEAKER_01 48:37

You're doing something different. I don't like it. Eek, everyone freak out. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 48:42

So things are shaky in our social sphere, and um, you can kind of see where the military starts to get its silly ideas about homosexuality not being acceptable for service. It's a loud airplane.

SPEAKER_01 48:52

That's the helicopter. That's a helicopter? Yeah. Someone's either being flown out or they're coming to pick someone up from the hospital.

SPEAKER_04 49:01

It's probably because of the gays. Um damn gays. Why would they do this?

SPEAKER_00 49:06

God.

SPEAKER_04 49:07

Uh so for this part, I read this lovely book here. It's called Coming Out Under Fire by Alan Boo Rub. Um, it's well researched and detailed, which is a credit to the author because there's not a whole lot of crossover between gay history and military history because they're literally fucking couldn't be. Yeah. So it's not an easy thing to um to research. Uh so good on him. Um it goes over a lot of World War II because it's a lot this is where World War II is where a lot of the language changes because of where it sits in time. Yeah. Um, and a lot of these policies just kind of carry through with like minor edits sometimes. So a lot there's it's a really um dense dense book. It's also a really, really good book. Um, also, I just wanted to say, so let's see, where am I gonna end today? Hang on, let me pick a let me pick a point. Um, when would you like me to shut up and stop talking?

SPEAKER_03 50:05

Are you excited to hear about it? I'm always excited.

SPEAKER_04 50:09

Boop, boop, boop. Okay, so also, which is upsetting, some of the pages for resources are no longer available on the Library of Congress website. Ooh, I wonder why. Oh, it was I was like, what? What do you mean this? I was like, oh, this web page is down, and then I was like, wait, this is the Library of Congress. It shouldn't be down. Um, because this is supposed to be a fast and public library for our nation. Mm-mm. Nope. Um, and they have been removed by the current administration. Yes. So um I just want to tell you a story. Do you remember Magnus Hurtsfield? I talked about 10 minutes ago. Uh-huh. Interestingly. While he was away on a lecture tour in the United States, the Institute for Sex Research, which was his research lab, uh in Berlin, was raided on May 6th, 1933. A majority of his work was burned in the public book burnings by the SA, um, which were the Brownshirts, the paramilitary Nazi group, um, in Openplatz on the 10th of May, in which just his stuff, 20,000 books and journals were burned, as well as 5,000 digits, all destroyed. Uh quote, it would be decades before the resources could be found again, but by then the damage to the emerging understanding of sexual minorities among mental health professionals was done. So it's too late. Um, and what I'm trying to say here is that it's not without significant consequences that information is removed, and it's not by accident that those consequences will come to pass.

WWII Screening And Missing Records

SPEAKER_01 51:36

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 51:36

Draw your own connections. Um before World War II, there was no official procedure for excluding LGBTQ folks from joining the military. Um, gay men could be arrested and court-martialed if caught doing the dirty or trying to do the dirty. Um, but there wasn't like a system to prevent them from joining altogether. But after the catastrophe of World War I, with over a billion dollars of federal funds spent on psychiatric care for casualties and over half of the VA hospital beds still filled with those casualties, yeah, um, from what we now know as shell shock. Shell shock, yeah. Yeah, um, the military hoped to reduce that cost by requiring a psychiatric screening as well as a physical one.

SPEAKER_05 52:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:16

Not a bad idea. Uh, two of the most influential psychiatrists promoting the what is called selective service psychiatry were Henry Stack Sullivan and Winifred Overholzer. Sullivan pioneered the interpersonal relationship theory in psychology, psychiatry, nope, psychology, uh, which states that all psychological disorders have an interpersonal origin and can be understood only within reference to the patient's social environment.

SPEAKER_02 52:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 52:44

So um, it's based on your relationships with other people. And it's still a really popular theory. Um, don't go super far into it, but it's basically like when you're a baby, they did those. I'm sure you've seen that study where they did like these babies are responded to when they cry and these ones aren't. That's part of that interpersonal theory.

SPEAKER_02 53:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 53:02

Like how you are reacted to will change how your brain functions. Right. Um, Olverholser has a long and distinguished career as a psychiatrist and eventually was the president of the American Psychiatric Association. He campaigned for alcoholism to be recognized as a mental disease and for the study of deterioration of mental health and old folks. Um these guys are working together. They claimed, quote, screening could reduce these costs um by weeding out potential psychiatric casualties before they became military responsibilities. Um, according to the two founders, this was not meant to include LGBTQ people. Okay. Might say, yeah, right, but it's true. They were actually very big proponents.

SPEAKER_01 53:45

Um that it's not that mental.

SPEAKER_04 53:47

That it's not a mental well, it is a mental It's not an illness. They thought it was a mental illness and that they needed psychiatric care, but that it wasn't something that could prevent you from being in the military. Like it wasn't stunted in that way. Okay. Um, they did they did their best. Um, so one reason is that Harry Sullivan lived in Bethesda with his devoted male companion, Uncle Harry and his roommate Bob. So it would be interesting for him to think that gays couldn't serve. And he he was like, literally leave leave homosexuals alone.

SPEAKER_01 54:22

Like see, that's the thing. Like, all these like homophobes are just like, no, we can't have gays in the military because they're just gonna want to have sex with everyone all the time. And I'm like, first of all, have you seen yourself? Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_03 54:36

Take a step back.

SPEAKER_01 54:37

Do you just think that if you're gay, you just want to fuck every man or woman that you see? No, that's not how that works. It's the same how like heterosexuality works. You have to be attracted to that person.

SPEAKER_00 54:49

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:50

Ugh, okay. Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 54:53

So, um, Sullivan said that adult homosexuals should be accepted and left alone, as sexuality does not play a major role in mental disorders. So it's not a disorder, it is is a mental thing, but it's not a mental disorder. They still should seek psychiatric care. I don't know. Um, I did my best here. Um, Overholzer is even more actively campaign campaigned against sending gay men to prison. Um, he claimed that neither the public nor the military could think rationally about homosexuality because a subject was so overlaid with emotional coloring that the processes of reason are often obscured. Okay. He's like, you guys are freaking the fuck out and you can't think clearly right now. So maybe you shouldn't be making this call. Let the psychiat like let the mental health professionals help you because we can think rationally and logically about these things.

SPEAKER_01 55:41

Fear is clouding your judgment. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 55:43

Yeah. Um, so it didn't have a single mention of homosexuality. Homosexuality makes it back on the list because it was a part of the old rules with the sodomy thing, and it just kind of like bled through. Um, it was there before, and someone in the army and navy thought it ought to stay, even though it was well proven that gay people could indeed be very good soldiers. Um they want to serve the country, fucking let them. And they do. Um, because in the interwar years, they would kick people out and prevent people from entering if they were gay. But then we were like, uh We need people. I think we're gonna go to war, so we should probably get people in here. Um There were too many registrants and not enough time to devote a thorough mental checkup. So many psychiatrists reverted to relying on old stereotypes, hunches, and best guesses, aka no actual science. Um I'm here to serve. Exactly. They're like, wait a second. Although even sometimes they're like, okay, you know what? Uh doesn't really matter. Gay or straight, you'll die all the same. Yeah. Um so um do do do. So all of this, like, are they a threat or not? Are they a good soldier or not? All this discrimination is just like thrown out the window, like we just said, whenever it's convenient. Um, which is probably not gonna shock anybody who's part of the disenfranchised majority, but just want to throw it out there. So the first time it's decided that it's not really a big deal if someone's gay is almost immediately. The military needs men, and damn it, gay ones can shoot a gun just as well as straight ones.

SPEAKER_01 57:14

We yeah, it's like they would rather have um gay men than women. So yeah. Yeah, well, you can't put women on the front. No, that's silly. We're just gonna period all over everyone. Honestly, I mean that would scare us. I was like, actually, it's not just game and rub their bloody bits all over me, and I'd be like, you should see the fucking like I don't know what they used back in World War One, but I'm sure like it was just the bloody rag just like launched in your face.

SPEAKER_04 57:47

It's a whole different kind of biological warfare. Snakes in baskets, bloody rags, just like okay.

SPEAKER_01 57:55

Have you seen that video? I know you're like worried about time, but my ADHD doesn't give a fuck.

unknown 58:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 58:01

Hey, that makes me feel a lot better. You know, I don't care. Because I did extensive notes on this and I took a lot of time.

SPEAKER_01 58:07

I mean, I figured this was gonna be multiple parts anyway, so like it doesn't really bother me. But um as long as I get to talk about who I get who I want to talk about.

SPEAKER_04 58:16

Shut up, let me talk.

SPEAKER_01 58:17

Um, anyway, um, no, have you seen that video? They're like in New York or something, and this girl is just like walking by, and like these people are pretending to do like an interview, and as she walks past them, they turn around and throw eggs at her, and then they turn around again really quick, like they didn't do it. And then this girl just takes her bloody ass pad out of her pants and rubs it on this dude's face, and I'm like, that's a queen right there.

SPEAKER_04 58:44

Yeah, mortifying. I don't I think I would just like keel over, I'd just lay down on the sidewalk and die for a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 58:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 58:52

Yep. But good for her, good for her. Fuck you guys during eggs me. So, um, before I get too far into this lol, um, I want to make sure that I mentioned that I have loved ones who have been in the military in multiple branches, and it's not to shit on the military um like as a whole or like say the military, people in the military, nothing like that. It this is just like the few shitheads uh in the military who made these gay men and women scared who hurt them and humiliated them for being gay. So only bigots, um, not the general military. Although I do say military because it's easier that way. Yeah. Um, yeah, but I'm only talking about bigots. So if you're upset by what I'm saying, ask yourself why. Look inside. Uh you might be a bigot if if you don't like my if you don't like my podcast, you're probably a shithead.

SPEAKER_01 59:47

No, you're definitely a shithead. Anyway.

Draft Boards And Sexual Psychopath Labels

SPEAKER_04 59:50

Think about that. So uh the first problem shows up right away because um selective service stations are turning away gay men. If you outed yourself, so if you were a uh self-described gay man, you could get out of service. But wouldn't you know if by mid-1941, about half of all the men rejected for homosexuality were self-declared? They're like, I'm gay, and they're like, can't send you. Um and then they're like, wait a minute. Actually, these people are just saying they're gay because they don't want to go to war. But we need men to fight in war. So uh let's figure out what to do next. So if you were a self-declared gay man, they'd be like, what? And they would send you back to the local draft board for a social investigation. So they would look into your background. Um, tax dollars went to funding some dude to check into the dating history of enlisted men.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:35

I want that job, and I don't know why. I feel like you would be good at it. I'm just so nosy.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:40

Yeah, I feel like you'd be really good at it. Like I'm nosy, but I'm also just like, God, I talk to people. I'll do it. Which is why I need you because I want the tea, but I don't want to go get it because that means I have to communicate with others. Um I have lots of tea, and that's hard for me. So I want that job. Does that still exist? Probably now it does. Yeah, probably now it does. Don't be that guy. Um, so because they don't want Tom Dick, every Tom Dick and Harry just claiming to be gay to get out of military uh service, they also do something else. They put on their record that they are a sexual psychopath.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:14

That's a that escalated quickly. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:17

Well, because they considered homosexuality to be a deviant sexual behavior, so they put it as a psychopathy, and they just lumped them in together with like actual psychopaths.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:31

That literally escalated so quickly.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:33

It does. Um Okay. Yep. So the draft and draft information is available to employers if they request it. So how come you've been rejected by the military? They want to see your draft papers and it will say, oop, sexual psychopath. And um, they're banking on the fact that um people will see this and be like, ah, gross. And that's fucking crazy. And that they were, and if they're like, no, no, no, I'm not a sexual psychopath, I just like guys that they're like, ew, we hate gay people, and that it will literally ruin their fucking lives. So um they're hoping that by not being able to get jobs, housing, loans, etc., um, because they're listed as homosexual, that they just won't do it. Um, so part of so they have these psychological tests, right? Right. And I want to share with you just how intense this test is. Um, by sharing a joke from the San Francisco Chronicle. A young man had just been drafted and was being examined at Grand Central Palace. The psychiatrist's assistant asked the routine question, Do you go out with girls? No. Yes. The draftee shook his head and answered firmly, no. The assistant called on the psychiatrist who repeated the question. Again, the draftee firmly answered, no. Why don't you go out with girls? The doctor asked. Because the draftee said, My wife won't let me. Okay, that's funny. Kind of is. Um, but that was like literally, so how do you get through this rigorous test? The questions were like essentially the same. Do you have any examples of it? One draftee, Robert Fleescher, was asked only, Do you like girls? And he said yes, because girls are cool, right? Like girls are fucking awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:09

I would say no because they're underage.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:11

Uh well, they just said girls and boys at the time. Um, and he said, but he said that he was astounded that they didn't realize he was gay despite him saying that he liked girls. Like he was like, I was I was very flamboyant. And he was, they're like, Do you like girls? And he's like, Yes. And they were like, Who else am I gonna go shopping with? Uh yeah, he's like, I do like girls. Girls are awesome, yeah. And they're like, good. And then he was like, Okay. Um, that and some of the men, these men and women were hiding their sexuality already. They couldn't just what keep doing that during your hard line questioning. Yeah. Do you like girls? Yes. Yes. Whoa.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:47

Yes, I do.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:49

So if they wanted to serve, they just said, Yes, I like girls. I'm super heterosexual, and they're like, nice. And sometimes they were very clearly not, and they were just like interesting. Okay. Today I'm not gonna question it. It was really all very arbitrary as to when it would or wouldn't happen. Yeah. Um, here's a fun fact. Let me tell you a story about this a-hole. His name is attorney Robert Cohn, and he was a closeted gay man who pulled strings to get himself nominated and rejected for West Point in order to stall his number being called until the draft ended in World War II. Who is Robert Cohn, you ask? Oh, a real piece of work who helped McCarthy uh perpetrate the lavender scare, which we'll talk to you about later. Um, he brought didn't he just die? Uh Roy. Oh, okay. I think this is like dead. I don't know. I see. Okay. He died in the 80s. Um, he bribed a political party um to in order to get Reagan into office by like shooting down their guy. Uh, and then he convinced Reagan to further the interests of Rupert Murdoch, and he defended Trump when he violated the Fair Housing Act in 1971 and Morv's bullshit. I just really wanted to call him out on his bullshit. So he's a draft dodger like they all are. Um, what if not let's see, what is it? Not all draft dodgers are assholes, but all assholes are draft dodgers. I have to look at this guy. Continue. Um, what is it that Morvet says? Rest rest in distress. Yes. Yes. Anyways, I just I just wanted to shit on this guy. So um, right off the jump, gay men mostly, uh lesbians kinda, but they were less hunted down than gay men. Um, are caught in this bind where sexuality doesn't matter and everything's okay and accepted, and then the opposite where their entire life could be ruined. So the screening test, um uh where men could self-declare themselves. Um, oh, I don't like that. That's redundant. Um, anyways, um the military doesn't want to lose them, and some psychiatrists are total fucking assholes. One of them breached confidentiality and reported the man um and said that he is it this guy? No, Roy. And the last name is C O H N. Oh sorry, continue. No problem. Um so Yeah, I know. Okay. Some psychiatrist respected patient after confidentiality and wouldn't publicly out the guy.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:13

Do you know how this guy died?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:14

Yes. He died of AIDS. He sure did.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:18

Okay, sorry.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:19

I know. That was a fun fact I didn't I didn't mention. Um you just can't keep the gaze away because after Pearl Harbor, um, men and women all across the country, regardless of you know who they love, were like, we want to serve our country in the armed forces. Um, and Overholzer and his psychiatrist colleagues are forced to admit that gay men had become final members of the armed forces. I guess they're okay, but they can't have the real man jobs. Um, nurses are I mean, they would, because you literally can't tell that all these people are gay, and some of them are really good at guns and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:57

Um true.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:59

Yeah, but they were like, you can be a chaplain. Um, so despite the hardship and hyper-masculine mystique of combat training, most healthy, able-bodied young men of average intelligence and strength, including those who were homosexual and even effeminate, could pass that test. So the psychological test. Do you like girls? Yes. Great, you're in. Then they're like, ah, but you'll a gay man could never pass the monkey bars. And then they're like, I'm really good at the monkey bars. And they're like, shucks. They did it again.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:27

Gay men? They're the most fit. Men okay. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:32

Yeah. So, as it turns out, as it turns out, heterosexuality does not improve your ability to make it through basic training. No. Um, so what are we getting at

Basic Training Bonding And Anxiety

SPEAKER_04 1:07:41

here? Um, what also happens in basic training, even beyond, is that there's a lot of erasure of individuality, high emotional and physical stress, and repetitive drills. So everybody is starting to look the same. Uh, you have the same haircut, except for women. Uh you could have short hair or have it in a bun. You get two choices, um, as opposed to one. You have a rigid schedule of exercise, inspection, roll call, drills, marches, and group punishment for individual infractions. Um, not that that's bad for the military. It shows you how to obey orders like quickly and that you need to work as a team. You need the discipline, yeah. Yeah. Um, but there's a problem with that because people aren't made to live without some sort of intimacy. And what does that look like in a hyper toxic masculine environment? Um and then this is and it's also because of this toxic masculinity, you're supposed to be macho and hyper sexual. Um, and what are they gonna do? Well, they have to make a connection with someone. You have a buddy. It wasn't uncommon for men to buddy up just as friends or more, depending on the way you sway, um, and form intimate bonds. Quote, buddies have openly expressed for each other other sentiments that would be considered modeling or uh sentimental in other circumstances. Basically, they could combine it in each other to a point of closeness that was not usually accepted between men, but it was here.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:02

Oh yeah, you're trauma bonding.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:05

Yeah. And like, uh, so it it made it easier for gay men to like hide in plain sight because everyone has a special buddy. Yeah. And as long as you aren't like just doing it right out in the open, there's really no way to tell the difference. Right. Um, and uh they're not expected to show, like men are expected to not show like affection for one another, which is silly. Um, but emotional demonstrativeness was acceptable among women. Um, so lesbians weren't really like picked out as much. Like women, like people thought nothing of um kissing or embracing female friends, walking arm in arm, holding hands, like that was all like accepted. But if that were like that would be even too far for buddies, yeah. Male buddies. Okay. Um, but like I said, they they were there was a lot of like social bonding that happened. And I also think that part of their difficulty um is just that like men have been expected, and I couldn't really figure out when this started, but men are now expected to like not show affection towards each other. So if you were like, like this is a one instance which like it's okay to like kind of have more affection, which I think is bad that it has to be this. So but they have to find some way to justify or write off their their feelings. Um, and I had to read this page too because I read it and I was like, friend. Um because they're like, well, I don't want to be considered gay, but I'm feeling a lot of things because I'm having emotions, and you know, the only thing I can look at is men's butts now. Um, so they all share barracks. So you sleep together, you shower together, there's absolutely zero privacy. Um, so I want to read this part to you because I thought it was really funny.

Barracks Humor And Hidden Intimacy

SPEAKER_04 1:10:53

So um, to cope with sexual anxieties during basic training, male recruits pieced together their own sexual culture. They posted pinups of women, told sex stories, and used sexual slang to adapt to what Meninger, a psychiatrist, called a very abnormal life and living arrangement. Um, so much of the male sexual culture of basic training revolved around joking and teasing. Officers knew that humor was a quote, catharsis and saving grace that could function as a safety valve for recruits' pent-up feelings. Wartime observers found continual jokes about homosexual practices in the barracks. Joking diffused secret fears through laughter, and it reassured the men that their uncomfortable feelings were common rather than queer. In the barracks, joking became ritualized as homosexual buffoonery, a spontaneous game in which recruits took turns pretending to be the company queer. An army psychologist described how men kiddly played this strip tease game with each other when they were getting undressed. One soldier, he observed, would return from the shower in the nude and would be greeted with cat calls, salacious whispering, and comments like, Hey Joe, you shouldn't go around like that. You don't know what that does to me. Joe would respond by wiggling his hips in a feminine fashion after coily draping the towel around himself. Some of the men will join the buffoonery by playing the role of the appreciative spectator. Ain't he hat stuff though? Come on, take it off. Others act the part of active solicitors for sexual favors. How much do you want for sleeping with me tonight? Come on, come on into my bed and I'll give you the time of your life. The army psychologist described this buffoonery as um definite behavior pattern uh clinically normal or among clinically normal people that defended themselves against homosexual anxieties simulated by Baric's life.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:47

We're just joking. We're not gay, but we're gonna do some gay shit.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:51

I'm gonna say this as a joke, unless you're into it. In which case, nice wiener. I'll see you later. If you don't like this, it's a joke. And if you do, call. My bed's right here. I'm right here. Literally. Just saying. Um I couldn't type that all up, but I was like, I just have to like I have to tell you about this.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:13

I mean, it makes sense. Like, you're surrounded by only men. Like everybody has, you know, their sexual desires and needs. Like, it's only natural for them to start being like, got a nice ass. Not bad.

unknown 1:13:27

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:27

I'm gonna let him know that he has a nice ass, and what he does with that is on him.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:33

That I think that, like, like I said, they have to be hypersexual in this sort of like macho thing. And if you don't have any women to be hypersexual with, where are you gonna go? Where are you gonna go? But like you have to perform this way.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:45

Or it could be like American Pie. Anyways.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:49

The search for why the military is so gay goes on and on with conflicting arguments as to what to do about it. Um, there's also so there's a back and forth argument about if trainees should be lectured on homosexuality or not. Um, military psychiatrists propose new measures for managing homosexuality of trainees, including educational lectures, guidance, supervision, and reassignments of personnel, with only the court martial and discharge in extreme cases. But the military says, no way, Jose, tell them to suck it up, just like regular sex ed. Um, though it's like it's better to know than to not know. Um, but the military goes, eek sex, don't do it! And some soldiers, um, so because regular sex ed, like, they left out this part. And they just had these really weirdly heterosexual like STI ads and stuff like that. So some soldiers would have sex with the same gender because they thought it could prevent venereal diseases.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:48

Like only women had these diseases.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:51

Yes, only sex workers and um and women could spread these diseases because it's literally all they told them. So they would have sex with male prostitutes or their fellow soldier sailors because they couldn't get diseases from them.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:06

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:07

Um but what the doctors could do, so they can't tell them about homosexuality, but what doctors can do um is give educational lectures about mental hygiene. So recruits were told to blow off steam by joking with each other about, you know, like what we just talked about, um, and to be tough and push those gloomy blue feelings, just down, rush it down, smash it like a hammer. I don't know what that's like. Um so sometimes the advice could be helpful or harmful depending on the person. They were told that if they couldn't handle themselves, that they should go to um a chaplain or an officer. Like pressure relief valve by letting the words out, the feelings would dissipate.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:52

You're like, I'm feeling gay, and you're like, whew, not anymore. Thank god I got that off my chest. Um Okay. But there were times that being openly gay wasn't a problem.

When Skill Overrides Prejudice

SPEAKER_04 1:16:03

Like it's war. I don't care who you're fucking, please just help me.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:08

In this foxhole. Okay. Um, so one torpedo officer was described as a quote, Nelly Queen, which was a LBGTQ slang term that refers to an outwardly and effeminate gay man. Uh, I don't really know if it's an acceptable term these days. Probably. It kind of like, yeah. It was like, it's fine. No, it's not, it's okay. Um, but anyways, that's how they talked about him. Um, he quote, walked around the ship in a bathrobe, hairnet, and slippers, but he was the best torpedo officer in the Seventh Fleet. I love him already. I know. I'm just like picturing him, just like sacheting in and being like boop, boop, boop, boop. He's like, there, problem solved. I'm going back to bed. Um, our captain put the word out that if he heard any gossip about his torpedo officer, they would be hearing from him.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:57

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:58

So the captain's like, he gets the fucking job done.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:01

I don't care if he has fucking bunny slippers, leave him the fuck alone. Um, and then later the torpedo officer was decorated with a silver star, or um, which was for valor in combat. So everyone had to stand at attention and be like, we honor you. Yeah. Or something. Um, so yeah. And and he was just like, that's who I am. And they were like, that's fine with us. Thanks for taking down that boat.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:23

And it was great. Yeah, I'm gay as fuck, but I'm gonna get this shit done.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:26

Um, then there was a Marine Corporal, Tom Reddy, who regularly performed in drag for his fellow Marines in the Pacific. I love it. He was often actually parachuted in to perform. This is World War I. Two. Two, okay. He was prof um parachuted in to perform um after a part of an island was secure enough to allow some RR. They would like dig a foxhole and they would sit in it, and he would like perform at the edge of the foxhole. Love it. Um, he stated, I'm I think I'm probably the only drag star in the world that went on stage with a gun sitting right there alongside him. Reddy received a letter of commendation from the commanding general of the third amphibious corps for his service. Quote, your ambitious and successful venture in the field of stage entertainment is an example of what may be accomplished even in adversity. I hope it will inspire others to follow your fine leadership. So these are two um men who were like openly openly gay and flaunting it. Yeah, and like yeah, and they were very proud and um obviously honored, yeah. Um, but the pendulum always swings the other way too, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:32

Yes. So yeah. You're also gonna have to shut the fuck up here pretty soon.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:37

Okay.

Queer Stockades And Part Two Tease

SPEAKER_04 1:18:38

Okay, well I'm gonna leave you on a cliffhanger then.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:40

So I like cliffhangers.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:42

But the pendulum always swings the other way too, doesn't it? While some personnel were open accepted, there was always the possibility of the opposite being true. Uh, some got swept up in these witch hunts that happened overseas and at home, much like the one we talked about in World War I. Yes. Um, and ended up having to defend themselves in doctors' offices, discharge hearings, and hospital wards, and they went to something called queer stockades. That's where I will leave you at queer stockades. Um, so we got through, you know, 1600s to 1940s. To the 1940s. Yeah. Um we'll we'll pick up at queer stockades. We're not quite done with the 1940s yet. Um, but I hope that this has given some good background as to how things have changed. Sodomy becomes homosexuality and they still make it a problem, but because it's not just sex stuff anymore, it's relationship things and who you are as a person. That's kind of where it gets even worse for people. Right. And we will go into how bad it can be uh in a couple weeks. We'll see you

Where To Find Us Online

SPEAKER_04 1:19:51

next time. Yeah. I hope you enjoyed this video.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:53

Um I hope we're not too weird. Well, I know we're weird, but like just okay, what?

unknown 1:19:58

I don't know, I know I forgot.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:00

Um I was gonna say, I was so so excited. Uh uh Oh, find us on social media. Yeah. Instagram, that's on Mac underscore podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:10

We also do have a Facebook. Um I know we we had mentioned in the beginning that we weren't really all about Facebook, but that one seems to kind of be blown up a little bit. Really? A little bit, yeah. Oh nice. So if you want to like comment on our Facebook and like start like, you know, group chats about you know the topics that we're covering, we would love to also talk to you guys about stuff like that as well. So um yeah, our Instagram, um, the Facebook, and now we will start with our YouTube.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:42

Yeah, please leave a comment, like us, subscribe, whatever the platform that you are viewing us or listening to us on allows you to do. Yeah. Um, we're really super excited to have you guys here. And thanks for listening. I will see you in a couple weeks.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:57

Yeah.