Gay Men And The Covert World Of Working Class Homosexuality

Gay men and women in the 1940s learned very early on in life just how detrimental it was to keep their homosexual identities a secret. It was not as simple as playing a fun, innocent game of secret identity, but rather a tactic employed to avoid the violence, the discrimination, and the many other ways that heterosexual Americans attacked homosexual Americans. Hiding their true selves was the only way for gay people to ensure their safety in at least one manner during the 1940s. In The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s, Ricardo Brown implicated the secretive nature of gay men in the 1940s as imperative to their survival. Brown continually acknowledged the challenges accompanying the concealment of their true identities and divulged some of the various complications that arose both within and outside of the gay community, contributing to the need for their secrecy. Ricardo Brown dove headfirst into the covert world of working class homosexuality in 1940s Minnesota, reliving his own ex periences of discrimination as well as recounting the tales of his homosexual friends and their adversities. In describing one of the ways homosexuals slid under the radar, Brown asserted, â€Å"We always had to keep our guard up. We all learned to get by on lies, deceit, illusions.† It was a constant charade and they often kept it up by pretending to date the kind of girls who would not expect or pressure them into sexual activity. Of course, this type of cover could only last for so long, subsequentlyShow MoreRelatedThe Crucible : An Allegory For The Red Scare2011 Words   |  9 Pagesthe threat of Black Americans being equal in status to White Americans during the Civil Rights movement. Although the crucible takes place in 1692, Salem, it reflects the concerns of 1950?s American life and is an allegory for the Red Scare, and Homosexuality. [2: Wall, Wendy. Anti-Communism in the 1950s. www.gilderlehrman.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2016. .] The Crucible takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, which was a puritan town.[endnoteRef:3] Reverend Parris is praying over his daughter,Read MoreHistory of Transgender9448 Words   |  38 Pagestwo-gender system evolved from a one-gender system in the late middle ages. This two-gender system started to produce â€Å"third genders† during the eighteenth century. It also discusses how current day gender transitions differ in depth and dilemma from a gay of lesbian coming out. Part I discusses how during it’s first fifty years (1860-1910) psychiatry replaced sin with diagnosis, and the multifaceted image of the 18th century sodomite, with a host of very specific inverted gender-identities. AmongRead MoreCurriculum Development10775 Words   |  44 Pagesdesigned to ensure that all students, regardless of their previous achievement are able to achieve their full potential. This section examines the diversity of students in the LLS and some of the factors that affect learning and achievement such as race, class, gender and sexuality. Section Three: Curriculum Design for Inclusive practice identifies three current approaches to curriculum design and asks a fundamental philosophical question: What counts as an educated 19 year old today? It then examinesRead MoreCalculus Oaper13589 Words   |  55 Pagess essay constitutes a powerful challenge to some of our least examined sexual assumptions. Rich turns all the familiar arguments on their heads: If the first erotic bond is to the mother, she asks, could not the natural sexual orientation of both men and women be toward women? Rich s radical questioning has been a major intellectual force in the general feminist reorientation to sexual matters in recent years, and her conception of a lesbian continuum sparked especially intense debate. DoesRead MoreThe Hours - Film Analysis12007 Words   |  49 PagesDalloway is also set on a single day (in June 1923) and weaves together several narrative perspectives, which are organised in two parallel-running stories: one of them centres on Septimus Warren Smith, a soldier suffering shell shock after the First World War, while the other -- and Cunningham mainly focuses on this strand of the dual narrative -- recounts Clarissa Dalloways preparations for a party she will give the same evening. During the day, she now and then reminisces on the time she was eighteen