if I told you the military helped make
gay pride crates possible you’d probably
think that I’m crazy but as it turns out
what was once thought to be one of gay
people’s biggest enemies was in fact one
of its biggest allies during World War
two
the military created a nationwide
coming-out experience bringing more
visibility to the gay community than any
organization in the country you heard me
right throughout American history the
military and gay people have been
strange bedfellows I’m a journalist and
I’ve written a book about all the
strange and surprising ways that sex
shapes our world ranging from
pornographers driving technology
developments to Christian pastors
inventing cereal because they wanted to
stop people from masturbating I’m really
fascinated by paradoxes and what stood
out to me the most with my research is
how the military unwittingly
strengthened gay identity in America now
before the 1940s any soldier caught
having gay sex would be court-martialed
discharged and ultimately sent to
military prison but that lengthy process
created an economic drain with the
massive mobilization that was occurring
during World War two so to speed things
up the military began discharging people
who they suspected were gay even before
they served and by forcing these
soldiers to confront their sexuality and
ask questions of themselves that they
had never asked before the military
encouraged them to discover their sexual
orientation and then after doing so it
shipped them off to a foreign land where
they were exclusively surrounded by
and it was in this environment that many
soldiers have their first gay sexual
experience and they witness their peers
have gay sex too which led them to
conclude that their desires weren’t that
unusual they were even seeing straight
guys like me going down in the trenches
and it wasn’t just gay men who were
affected by these policies lesbians were
too because of strict rules that limited
the number of pregnant and married women
who could serve there were a
disproportionate number of lesbians in
the military during World War two
what many years after the war veterans
told researchers that there were
lesbians joining the service because
they were hoping to find other lesbians
there it became a self-fulfilling
prophecy and in some ways a gay meet up
now the discrimination that these
soldiers faced emboldened them and when
they came back to the states they began
to fight for political change
it was veterans who founded several of
America’s first gay rights organizations
including groups like the Society for
Human Rights and the veterans benevolent
association and from the ashes of their
discharges gay neighborhoods arose and
that’s because the military was publicly
outing people at a time when there
wasn’t much tolerance so instead of
going home to fearful family members and
friends those who were discharged for
their sexuality just stayed put in the
city where they got kicked out of the
service in they eventually formed
communities banded together and what
resulted was large visible gay districts
and port cities like Los Angeles New
York City in San Francisco it’s entirely
possible that if the military wasn’t
drumming gay people out of the service
areas like the San Francisco Castro
would not have become gay mecca’s now
the military’s become a lot more
accepting of who can serve even in just
the last seven or eight years what I
find more fascinating than this newfound
acceptance is how it did a lot to bring
visibility to gay culture and let’s go
over how it did that the military
encouraged many individuals to discover
theirs
actual orientation it provided an
environment where many individuals had
their first gay sexual experience it
brought together individuals who went on
to found the first gay rights advocacy
groups in this country and it
contributed to the creation of large gay
neighborhoods and meanwhile it was given
straight people another way to avoid
service because during the Vietnam War
straight folks pretended they were gay
so that they could get kicked out of the
service and not have to go to war that’s
a lot of things that have happened after
the military decided that gay people
just couldn’t join its organization it
makes me think about all the things that
may be going on in our society right now
because we implemented some sort of
hasty social policy that we didn’t
really fully understand what the
military’s complex history with gay
rights shows us is how some of the most
restrictive parts of our lives are a
redraw our greatest strength
you know those prohibitive rules proved
to be fertile ground for creativity
allowing gay soldiers to turn the
homophobia back against their oppressors
which they then use to empower
themselves as an emerging group in
American culture and this makes me
wonder how many of our own perceived
enemies are actually our biggest
advocates thank you
[Applause] [Music]
gay pride crates possible you’d probably
think that I’m crazy but as it turns out
what was once thought to be one of gay
people’s biggest enemies was in fact one
of its biggest allies during World War
two
the military created a nationwide
coming-out experience bringing more
visibility to the gay community than any
organization in the country you heard me
right throughout American history the
military and gay people have been
strange bedfellows I’m a journalist and
I’ve written a book about all the
strange and surprising ways that sex
shapes our world ranging from
pornographers driving technology
developments to Christian pastors
inventing cereal because they wanted to
stop people from masturbating I’m really
fascinated by paradoxes and what stood
out to me the most with my research is
how the military unwittingly
strengthened gay identity in America now
before the 1940s any soldier caught
having gay sex would be court-martialed
discharged and ultimately sent to
military prison but that lengthy process
created an economic drain with the
massive mobilization that was occurring
during World War two so to speed things
up the military began discharging people
who they suspected were gay even before
they served and by forcing these
soldiers to confront their sexuality and
ask questions of themselves that they
had never asked before the military
encouraged them to discover their sexual
orientation and then after doing so it
shipped them off to a foreign land where
they were exclusively surrounded by
and it was in this environment that many
soldiers have their first gay sexual
experience and they witness their peers
have gay sex too which led them to
conclude that their desires weren’t that
unusual they were even seeing straight
guys like me going down in the trenches
and it wasn’t just gay men who were
affected by these policies lesbians were
too because of strict rules that limited
the number of pregnant and married women
who could serve there were a
disproportionate number of lesbians in
the military during World War two
what many years after the war veterans
told researchers that there were
lesbians joining the service because
they were hoping to find other lesbians
there it became a self-fulfilling
prophecy and in some ways a gay meet up
now the discrimination that these
soldiers faced emboldened them and when
they came back to the states they began
to fight for political change
it was veterans who founded several of
America’s first gay rights organizations
including groups like the Society for
Human Rights and the veterans benevolent
association and from the ashes of their
discharges gay neighborhoods arose and
that’s because the military was publicly
outing people at a time when there
wasn’t much tolerance so instead of
going home to fearful family members and
friends those who were discharged for
their sexuality just stayed put in the
city where they got kicked out of the
service in they eventually formed
communities banded together and what
resulted was large visible gay districts
and port cities like Los Angeles New
York City in San Francisco it’s entirely
possible that if the military wasn’t
drumming gay people out of the service
areas like the San Francisco Castro
would not have become gay mecca’s now
the military’s become a lot more
accepting of who can serve even in just
the last seven or eight years what I
find more fascinating than this newfound
acceptance is how it did a lot to bring
visibility to gay culture and let’s go
over how it did that the military
encouraged many individuals to discover
theirs
actual orientation it provided an
environment where many individuals had
their first gay sexual experience it
brought together individuals who went on
to found the first gay rights advocacy
groups in this country and it
contributed to the creation of large gay
neighborhoods and meanwhile it was given
straight people another way to avoid
service because during the Vietnam War
straight folks pretended they were gay
so that they could get kicked out of the
service and not have to go to war that’s
a lot of things that have happened after
the military decided that gay people
just couldn’t join its organization it
makes me think about all the things that
may be going on in our society right now
because we implemented some sort of
hasty social policy that we didn’t
really fully understand what the
military’s complex history with gay
rights shows us is how some of the most
restrictive parts of our lives are a
redraw our greatest strength
you know those prohibitive rules proved
to be fertile ground for creativity
allowing gay soldiers to turn the
homophobia back against their oppressors
which they then use to empower
themselves as an emerging group in
American culture and this makes me
wonder how many of our own perceived
enemies are actually our biggest
advocates thank you
[Applause] [Music]
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