For centuries before the gay rights movement began in the United States of America, gay people, men especially, were imprisoned or placed into mental hospitals. The treatment in these mental hospitals for gay people included electroshock therapy. The harsh treatment that gay people experienced in these mental hospitals was often brushed off by the public or brushed under the rug by the institutions themselves.
While there was a wide-spread belief in America that being gay was simply a mental illness, gay people were often imprisoned if they were found to be gay. Not all people in America believed that being gay was a mental illness, but there was not a lot of vocal disruption for a long time. Gay people didn't wasn't to out themselves, afraid that they would be placed in mental institution, and straight people didn't want to help in many cases because they didn't want to be "accused" of being gay themselves.
The fact that there was so much fear around being seen as gay is one of the main reasons that there was such a long period of gay people not really standing up for one another. This led to a huge wave of homosexual oppression that led to the huge break during the Stone Wall Riots.
This is so interesting. I think it is so sad that gay people did not feel comfortable talking publicly about being gay, for fear of being imprisoned. Electroshock therapy sounds truly terrible as well.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to the main reason being that the gay people didn't stand up for each other for long periods of time, people were also afraid of change and what it could bring. At the time, gay people were new to the society, a change in people's behaviors, which the society wasn't used to. So in an attempt to avoid that change, they try to make that group of people convert to the society's ways instead of accepting the gay people for who they were.
ReplyDeleteGay people have always been a part of society since humans became a species. There are also gay animals in all mammal species. There is scientific evolutionary reason why gay mammals exist. We are the only species that ridicules them. Back then people were ignorant to what sexuality meant and people thought that different kinds of therapies would change how someone was born. It's like thinking using electroshock therapy could change someone's eye color or skin color. It's just how some people are born.
ReplyDeleteI find it really sad that this was the reality for gay and lesbian Americans during this time. Luckily, America has taken steps in the right direction and gay marriage is even legal now! I think that as people become more open minded in future generations, gay marriage along with other things will become more acceptable.
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