OUT OF ALL the thousands of films I have watched as a student, critic, or university instructor, undoubtedly one of the strangest experiences I’ve ever had was sitting through a 25th anniversary screening of Grey Gardens at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2000.
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LESS THAN FIVE PERCENT of Allen Ginsberg’s extant correspondence makes it into a recently published volume of his letters, yet it is more than enough. The Letters will doubtless serve a purpose for the many scholars and students of the Beat generation.
MoreAS A BIOLOGIST, I have found the arguments against same-sex marriage
misguided—not because the evidence hints at homosexuality being based,
at least in part, on biological roots, but because the same arguments
that are used to keep same-sex marriage illegal could also be applied
to some ostensibly opposite-sex marriages. It may be shocking for some
people to hear that the sex and gender of every individual in our
population does not fit into a conventionally defined box that can be
labeled “male” or “female.”
MoreTHE FRAUGHT legal and social history of same-sex male relations in Britain over the last thousand years should naturally be of interest to us. Much of American law and cultural practice derive from the mother country. The Puritanism that crossed the sea from England remains a deeply embedded strain in the American psyche.
MoreAMID THE TURMOIL of the French Revolution, one of the little-noticed legal transformations was the axing of ancien régime laws criminalizing “crimes against nature.” The Constituent Assembly of 1789-1791 dropped longstanding (albeit rarely enforced) laws against “sodomy” and “pederasty” in the course of its broad modernization of the penal code in 1791.
MoreIN PURELY VISUAL TERMS, they appeared to be an odd couple. With his exceptionally handsome face etched deeply with a desirable masculine divinity, and held gracefully atop a tall, impeccably dressed build, Sam Wagstaff exuded sophistication, taste, education, old money, and confidence, while his slim younger partner, dressed rebelliously in denim and silver-studded black leather, seemed vaguely edgy and preoccupied. Robert Mapplethorpe did not appear to fit comfortably among the guests gathered at a cocktail party on Gramercy Park East that early fall evening of 1975, and gave the slightest impression that he’d rather be elsewhere.
MoreWhat has changed during glaad’s history is not its strategy but its tactics. The group has not abandoned the tactics of the late 1980’s and early 90’s but instead has added tools to its activist arsenal.
MoreON A HOT NIGHT in April 2005, I walked with Kasim Mehedi, a worker for an AIDS outreach organization, through a rusty iron gate into the darkness of Hazrat Begum Park in the center of the city of Lucknow, India. During the day, the park is a popular tourist destination where visitors view two ornate mausoleums built in honor of Nawab Sa’adat Ali Khan … At night, however, the park becomes a shadowy demimonde where drug addicts, prostitutes, homosexuals, and others rejected by polite Lucknow society congregate.
MoreFROM THE STANDPOINT of GLBT rights, it now seems likely—although by no
means certain—that 2008 will be the year in which the political system
caught up to the country. I do not always subscribe to the view that
the public is ahead of the politicians in terms of enlightenment, but
on the question of protecting people against discrimination based on
sexual orientation or gender identity, the voters have been ahead of
the politicians.
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IT HAPPENED on a typical day in sun-drenched Southern California in the
early 1950’s. Two men met on the “queer” side of Will Rogers Beach in
Santa Monica….
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