#history of homosexuality in canada

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

On November 14, 1929, a serious prison strike nearly broke out at the Saskatchewan Penitentiary in Prince Albert. Only by the narrowest of chances was the plot discovered by staff and the strike averted. The strike leaders were two convicts, Ashton and Jones, who referred to themselves in furtive notes as “sweethearts” and “lovers” - they dreamed of escaping to be together. Two hatchet-men from Ottawa were sent to clean up, senior officers of the penitentiary were dismissed, and the whole affair hushed up, save for a few stories in the newspapers. This is part of my rambling, fully informal, draft attempts to understand the origins and course and impact of the 1930s ‘convict revolt’ in Canada, and other issues related to criminality and incarceration Canadian history. (More here.)

Saskatchewan Penitentiary was, at the time, the newest federal penitentiary in Canada. Opened in 1911, to replace the territorial jail at Regina, parts of it were still under construction in 1929. UBC penologist C. W. Topping praised Sask. Pen as “the finest in the Dominion,” with supposedly ‘modern’ features in the cell-block and workshops, including an up-to-date brick factory that produced for federal buildings in the Prairies. Discipline and the organization of staff and inmates was functionally the same as everywhere else in Canada, however: forced labour, the silence system, limited privileges and entertainments, a semi-military staff force, and an isolated location far from major population centres.

The majority of inmates were sentenced from Saskatchewan and Alberta, but throughout the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, Saskatchewan Penitentiary was used as an overflow facility from overcrowded Eastern prisons. In April 1929, dozens of mostly malcontent prisoners were transferred from Kingston Penitentiary. A “row” was expected with these men, but they were not closely watched or segregated from the main population. In November 1929, there were 430 prisoners at Saskatchewan Penitentiary – almost 60 were from Kingston.

The staff at Saskatchewan Penitentiary were warned on the morning of November 14, 1929, by a ‘stool pigeon’ that all work crews (called gangs) would refuse to leave their places of work “until all their demands were met with.” The stool pigeon had no idea who the ringleaders were or the demands, but the Deputy Warden, Robert Wyllie, ordered his officers to keep “a sharp lookout” for suspicious actions. Over 70 prisoners were working outside the walls in two large groups - building a road and laying sewage pipe - and they were supposed to be the epicentre of the strike. Indeed, the whole day of the 14th staff had observed them talking and passing hand gestures. Other warnings came in throughout the day, so Wyllie ordered the penitentiary locked down and the next day interviewed several inmates at random who confessed they had no idea how word about the strike leaked out. For reasons we’ll get into, they were "amazed at being locked in their cells" and surprised by the swift reaction from the Deputy Warden. During the morning of the 15th, one man named Ford was strapped 24 times for attempting to incite a disturbance in his cell block. Noise and shouting echoed throughout the ranges.

Prisoners working on a building foundation at Saskatchewan Penitentiary, c. 1927 In a state of growing panic, Wyllie first phoned Warden W. J. McLeod, on medical leave since September and so sick he could barely answer the phone. Wyllie then telegraphed Ottawa in a vague way, indicating a “serious situation” and asking for someone to come and take charge. Unsure of what was going on, the Superintendent of Penitentiaries, W. St. Pierre Hughes, dispatched five trusted officers from Manitoba Penitentiary, summoned the nearest RCMP detachment, and ordered his personal hatchet-man, Inspector of Penitentiaries E. R. Jackson, to proceed to Prince Albert and take charge. Jackson would be accompanied by R. M. Allan, Structural Engineer, who had worked at Saskatchewan Penitentiary for a decade in the 1910s and "who knew the prison from long experience."

Almost everything in the historical record about this episode comes from Jackson and Allan’s investigation. Their personalities and prerogatives colour completely the available accounts. They were not great record keepers. They were, like many civil servants of the era, bitchy gossips. Both men were known as severe disciplinarians. Jackson, though only appointed as an Inspector in 1924, had become an indispensable figure to Superintendent Hughes. Jackson would be sent to institutions that Hughes viewed as insufficiently following his regulations, or where inmate unrest posed a problem. Jackson was sent to handle a riot at St. Vincent de Paul Penitentiary in December 1925, ordering a brutal round of lashings against accused agitators. He headed the British Columbia Penitentiary for a year and a half when Hughes fired the warden on spurious ground.

It was at B.C. Pen that Jackson met Allan, then the Chief Industrial Officer, and the two would work together closely not just at Prince Albert but also in the construction and opening of Collin’s Bay Penitentiary in Kingston. Jackson also was acting warden at Kingston Penitentiary in summer 1930. One KP lifer testified in 1932 that Jackson was “a mean son of a bitch” who ordered draconian punishments for relatively minor offences. Allan would himself become warden of Kingston Penitentiary in mid-1934, and held that position until 1954.

In short, these were not men sympathetic to prison officers they viewed as incompetent or remotely curious about inmate complaints. Their investigation was about establishing blame and getting things back to ‘normal.’ They concurred with Hughes that "men never rebel where there is a tight grip retained of them by management." There is some truth to this, as sociologist Bert Useem has repeatedly argued in his work on American prison riots: a ruthless but effective and well organized prison staff is likely to stop even the best organized prisoner protest.

In a strictly hierarchical, patrimonial system like an early 20th century penitentiary, where all authority rests with a few men at the top, failures of leadership are often critical. This is a factor often overlooked in popular and academic histories of prisoner resistance and riots (rightly so, perhaps, as we should focus on the actions of the incarcerated, nor their jailers). Of course, strikes and riots in prisons, as elsewhere, never just happen – as Hughes himself noted, this “must have been developing for sometime - [revolts] never occur in a day or two."

This photo shows the chief officers involved in this event. From left to right: Saskatchewan Penitentiary Deputy Warden R. Wyllie and Warden W. J. Macleod, Superintendent of Penitentiaries W. S. Hughes, Accountant G. Dillon, Inspector of Penitentiaries E. R. Jackson.

Jackson quickly fixed blamed on Deputy Warden Wyllie. They were "very much surprised by the lack of initiative" of Wyllie, who seemed to have been cowed by the fifty men working on the outside that had tried to strike. This despite the presence of almost a dozen armed officers nearby! Wyllie had had a nervous breakdown from stress, and had allowed, in Jackson’s eyes, a “lack of efficiency and discipline” to pervade the prison. He was "indecisive" in giving punishments at Warden’s Court, causing “the inmates to gloat over and ridicule the officers…" Inmates charged with fighting, insolence, or swearing at officers were warned or reprimanded, the least severe punishment for such severe infractions of the rules. Several officers felt that “there was no use of reporting the inmates” and so they "closed their eyes to a lot of infractions." Another officer thought that since September 1929 "inmates had became cocky … would laugh in the my face and...tell me to report him when he liked...for it would do no good." This situation was very similar to Kingston Penitentiary before the riot in October 1932, and, indeed, typified the crisis of the 1970s in federal prisons as well.

The November 14-15 disturbance was actually not the first strike episode at Saskatchewan Penitentiary that year. There had been unrest or talk of strikes among the prisoners since early September, with a general atmosphere of defiance and mockery of authorities. Many inmates resisted by going “through the motion of working" but not actually completing tasks. There had been a work refusal in late September, and two other strikes or work refusals in the middle of October. In these cases Wyllie intervened personally, but did not investigate, punish the strikers, or rectify the situation. There are not even reports on file about these events, and the record of reports against inmates for violating rules bears out this feeling that prisoners would “have their own way” and no ‘effective’ action would be taken against their rebellions. That is, effective by the standards of guards, who expected their commands to be obeyed absolutely.

Few demands were discovered – or least Jackson did not think the ones he turned up were worth elaborating on. There seemed to have been general opposition to the Steward's department – the “grub” was satisfactory, but apparently not distributed fairly, according to the inmates. The Steward and Deputy Warden had allowed inmates to place “special instructions” for their meals, and they would shout out their orders like they were at a diner, or exchanged their tickets to swap meals. The queued, single file, food line, with no talking and the same meal for everyone, had disappeared, and restoring this system was Jackson’s first act when he took over. Of course, food in prisoner protests stands in for more than just a meal, while also representing a very basic need that is one of the few things to look forward to during days of monotonous labour.

Much of the unrest centred on certain work crews, whose officers were resented, and communication with family, better work arrangements, socializing, access to newspapers, all are mentioned in passing in the investigation files. The “Kingston boys” were also the loudest supporters or organizers of the strikes, and they apparently resented being exiled to Saskatchewan. At least one inmate, Radke, told other inmates he wanted the strike to force a Royal Commission to investigate the prison. This kind of demand would be repeated again and again in 1932 and 1933 during prison riots across Canada.

Cell block in 1930 at Saskatchewan Penitentiary. The beds in the corridors are due to severe overcrowding.

George Ashton was singled out as one of the organizers of the abortive strike. Serving a term for armed robbery, he was one of the Kingston transfers. On November 15, 1929, he was caught trying to throw a letter away. This letter is addressed to another inmate who he had hoped to escape with. Ashton, "a troublesome, Smart Alec kid,” was sentenced to be shackled for ten days to his cell bars and to spend sixty days in isolation. Typical of Jackson’s more ‘effective’ regime.

Ashton’s note was addressed to his 'Pal', Allen, alias Bertram Allen Jones. Both worked in different work crews labouring outside the walls. Ashton’s letter to Jones identifies him as his sweetheart and lover, and promised that "he'll not get into trouble again because of these screws...I will sincerely try to refrain from letting my emotions run riot....My nature is not one which will allow me to lay down and be trodden upon forever without making some squawk." Ashton indicated he wanted to "make the time elapsing between your release and our reunion as sort as possible." He asked how Jones’ time was going, and ended by expressing his longing and desire to be with Jones:

"OH hawt dawg mamma won't we make up for the time of our separation??? Sweetheart I'll be loving you..." Say what's the answer to that companionate [sic] marriage idea? Thinking of accepting or am I such a damn bothersome person that your going to turn me down?.....there'll be a time when we're happy and gay (in each other arms).”

This was apparently one of many letters the two had exchanged, and contrary to the usual arrangements of wolves and punks in early 20th century prisons, where older men ‘protect’ younger inmates, often to extract sexual favours, this was apparently a consensual and sincere relationship. Not as uncommon as might be expected, of course, but it’s unusual to find such boldly expressed desire and love in this period of the archival record. Of course, Hughes thought this letter confirmed that Ashton was "a low bestial sort." Jones was identified as one of the other ringleaders, and he and Ashton had been seen talking to each other and making hand gestures several times in the months leading up to their strike attempt.

Who these men were and what happened to them after their time in prison I don’t know, yet.

Transcript of Ashton's letter to Jones, the only part of their correspondence that survives today

Inspector Jackson stayed in charge for another two months at Saskatchewan Penitentiary. An attempt to start on insurrection on November 20, 1929, was broken by strapping four of the leaders: “since then the Prison is absolutely quiet." Always full of himself, Jackson included letters of thanks from officers who praised his leadership, including the prison doctor: "We were drifting badly, discipline had practically ceased...now we are back and a Prison once more." He felt satisfied that retiring Wyllie and Warden Macleod had solved the problem, and left Allan in charge starting in mid-December 1929.

While I have no doubt that Deputy Warden Wyllie was responsible for the growth of an inmate strike movement, I don’t believe it is purely a case of his incompetence allowing inmates to organize. Rather, he proved himself to be an open door to prisoners already planning protests, and his inability to act with the severity expected by prisoners and staff alike encouraged further protests. Like a lot of federal civil servants, Wyllie was likely promoted above his abilities, with his loyalty to Hughes, seniority, indispensability to superior officers, and local influence helping to further his career. This was Jackson’s trajectory as well, ironically – once Hughes retired in early 1932, Jackson was on the outs, transferred to clerical duties in Ottawa, and he was dismissed in December 1932 as part of the purge initiated of penitentiary officers by the new Superintendent.

Additionally, it is clear to me that the issues at Saskatchewan Penitentiary extended beyond one officer – and indeed blaming Wyllie absolved a bunch of other officers of corruption and incompetence. Serious issues in the Hospital, Kitchen, School, and Workshops, were identified by Allan when he took over, with trafficking and contraband in cigarette papers, pipes, lighters, smuggled cigarettes, photographs and letters widespread. The Boiler House, where “considerable contraband has been located,” had seven inmate workers, who laboured "without direct supervision...” These men resented the crackdown and refused to work in February 1930 – which revealed to Allan the danger of allowing inmates to have full control of the power plant of the penitentiary.

Allan fired the officer in charge of the boiler house, the hospital overseer, the storekeeper, and reprimanded other officers for failing to confiscate contraband items. Fake keys were found throughout the prison, likely to be used in escapes or smuggling. Inmates had been allowed for years to order magazines direct from the publisher – and did not have them passed through the censor. Another mass strike was attempted in January 1930, apparently to protest Allan cracking down on these deviations from the regulations. As always, it should be recalled that what the officers saw as corruption or smuggling against regulations were all activities that made 'doing time' easier.

Why care about this episode, beyond some of the points I’ve already raised? One aspect of historical study I am most interested in are the precursors to a major event - the struggles, organizing, movements, victories and defeats that (sometimes with hindsight, sometimes without) shape a more influential and decisive event. This is especially difficult when writing the history of prisoner resistance, which often appears a discontinuous history, full of gaps and seemingly sudden flare-ups. The 1930s were a decade of prison riots, strikes, escapes and protests in federal and provincial prisons, but obviously these did not arise from nothing. The 1929 strike attempt at Saskatchewan Penitentiary is a transitional event – similar to earlier strikes and protests going back to the late 19th century, but occurring at the very start of the Great Depression, a premonition of things to come.

[laurenfoxmakesthings]

Me: Hmmm...maybe what I come up with for the very queer spy-fi world of Agents of C.A.M.P. is a bit too far fetched.

Reality: In the 1950s/60s, Canada developed the 'Fruit Machine' to detect homosexuals in order to kick out gay men from the mounties and other civil services.

[memoriae-lectoris]

There are West African societies in which a woman may be married to another woman as a “female husband.” In these cultures, if the wife brings children with her to the marriage or subsequently bears children by a lover, those children are counted as the descendants and heirs of the female “husband” and her extended family. And numerous African and Native American societies recognize male-male marriages.

[just-a-little-bit-of-sugar]

The Canadian military. Tried to built a gaydar. So they could find gay people in the public service and either force them to resign, or out and then fire them. 60 years ago. 60 years ago they tried to make a gaydar and it got colloquially named the Fruit Machine. The RCMP had a faulty gaydar named the fruit machine.

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids,

Here are some good things that happened in 2022!

January:

Canada bans conversion therapy

Greece allows gay men to donate blood (for the first time in 45 years!)

Israel legalizes surrogacy for gay couples

People in Switzerland are now able to legally change their gender without having to undergo surgery first

February:

New Zealand bans conversion therapy

Nonbinary people in Columbia are now entitled to a birth certificate with a "nonbinary" sex marker

Nayarit (Mexico) allows same-sex couples to adopt

Kuwait overrules a law that has been used to criminalize transgender people

Jowelle de Souza makes history as the first openly transgender parliamentarian in the Caribbean (Trinidad and Tobago)

March:

Chile legalizes same-sex marriage

 France removes the deferral period for gay men donating blood

The United States announces an overhaul of TSA protocols to implement gender-neutral screening at checkpoints

Wales (United Kingdom) bans conversion therapy

Kristin Crowley makes history as the first openly gay (and the first female) chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department (United States)

Diana Zurco makes history as Argentina’s first openly transgender newscaster

April:

Santa Catarina (Brazil) now allows nonbinary people to change their gender marker without having to file a lawsuit

Jalisco (Mexico) bans conversion therapy

The United States issues the first passport with a nonbinary gender 'X' option

May:

Greece bans conversion therapy

Lithuania allows gay men to donate blood

Croatia allows same-sex couples to adopt

Austria removes the deferral period for gay men donating blood

June:

Hidalgo (Mexico) now punishes people offering conversion therapy with up to 3 years in prison

Quebec (Canada) allows people to be classified as a parent (rather than a mother or father) on their child's birth certificate

North Carolina (United States) no longer demands proof of surgery from people who wish to change their gender marker

Spain prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or HIV status

Kamala Harris made history by hosting the first Pride Month reception by a sitting vice president at their residence (United States)

July:

Switzerland legalizes same-sex marriage

Antigua and Barbuda legalize "same-sex behavior"

Andorra decides to legalize same-sex marriage (the law will come into effect in 2023)

Slovenia legalizes both same-sex marriage and adoption

Ariana DeBose makes history as the first queer woman of color (and the first Afro-Latina) to win an Oscar for acting (United States)

August:

India expands the definition of family to include "queer relationships"

Chile equalizes the age of consent

In Saint Kitts and Nevis, same-sex activity is no longer illegal.

Vietnam declares that homosexuality is not a disease and bans conversion therapy

Ellia Green makes history as the first Olympian to come out as a trans man (Australia)

September:

In India, the State Medical Councils can now take disciplinary action against doctors who provide conversion therapy

Cuba legalizes both same-sex marriage and adoption

 Durango (Mexico) legalize same-sex marriage

Canada removes the deferral period for gay men donating blood

Kim Petras and Sam Smith make history as the first openly transgender woman and the first openly nonbinary person to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 (United States)

October:

Latvia allows civil unions for same-sex couples 

Paraguay bans conversion therapy

Byron Perkins makes history as the first out football player at HBCU (United States)

Duda Salabert and Erika Hilton make history as the first two openly transgender people elected to the National Congress of Brazil

November:

Singapore decriminalizes gay sex

Singapore also lifts censorship of lgbt+ media

Hidalgo becomes the first state in Mexico to recognize nonbinary people

Ireland removes the deferral period for gay men donating blood

December:

 Barbados legalizes "same-sex acts"

Here is to more good news in 2023!

With all my love,

Your Tumblr Dad

[actualmermaid]

Today is All Saints Day, and I'm observing it in a somewhat unconventional manner: cyberbullying the Anglican Church in North America

The ACNA, if you're not familiar, is a group that splintered off from the Episcopal Church in 2009. The reason for the schism was that they believed TEC had "gone astray" by ordaining women priests and affirming LGBTQ people, so a bunch of conservative Episcopalians and clergy split off into their own group: the ACNA. They claim to be "continuing" Anglicans, representing the "real" Anglican tradition in the US and Canada.

The reason I'm cyberbullying them on All Saints Day is because they are conspicuously missing a lovely, pious, respectable, and orthodox Anglican saint: Saint Aelred of Rievaulx (1110-1167 CE)

St. Aelred was a monk, abbot, historian, and spiritual writer from Northumbria. During his lifetime, the abbey boasted hundreds of monks and lay brothers, because Aelred was known for his friendly and gentle demeanor, wise leadership, and healthy community. He had the ear of kings and bishops all over northern Europe. He preached charity, humility, chastity, and all kinds of other Christian virtues. In short, he was the very model of a respectable medieval churchman.

He was also Very Much In Love With Men, and he wrote a treatise called "Spiritual Friendship," which might be nicknamed "How To Be In Love With Men In A God-Honoring Way." I've read it. It's wonderful and timeless and also very, very gay. He was in love with men. In a gay way.

Fast forward to the year 1980. Up until this point, St. Aelred had been a somewhat obscure local English saint. And then a groundbreaking new book was published which challenged all conventional narratives surrounding the Church and queer people in the Middle Ages: Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality by John Boswell. Boswell wrote at some length about Aelred and his love for men, drawing on his other work besides "Spiritual Friendship" and situating him into what was actually something of a "golden age" of gay culture in western Europe. Yes, really.

Fast forward again to the year 1985. At the Episcopal Church's general convention that year, members of Integrity USA (the original LGBTQ advocacy org in TEC) campaigned to have St. Aelred added to the calendar of saints. The House of Bishops agreed, and they added him to the church calendar with full knowledge that Aelred was gay.

Aelred was also physically disabled, and he wrote about his Spiritual Friend becoming "my hand, my eye, the staff of my old age": in other words, his Spiritual Friend was his caretaker as his health declined near the end of his life (which was still quite short even for a medieval person). He also describes the pain of his Spiritual Friend's early death in a way that remains tender 800 years later. I will leave you to imagine why that might be spiritually relevant to a bunch of nice church gays in 1985.

Fast forward again to 2009. The conservative wing of the Church has had enough of TEC's bleeding-heart liberal reforms, so they secede from the union leave and establish their own church without any icky queers or women priests. St. Aelred had been an official Episcopal saint for 25 years at that point, and the newly-formed ACNA had to consciously, deliberately choose to remove him from their calendar of saints.

Fast forward again to earlier this summer. I start doing research into queer Christian history and queer saints. I realize that Aelred is conspicuously missing from the ACNA's calendar, so I look into the background and decide to get obnoxious about it on Instagram. Because this is VERY embarrassing for a church that claims to be the "real" Anglican Church in North America.

A selection of memes for your enjoyment:

[llyfrenfys]

On Cadi as the Welsh equivalent of Queer

(image: screenshot of the entry for Cadi in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru)

Some of you may already know this, but for those who don't, Cadi is a Welsh word which is analogous to the word Queer in English. I say analogous, since their meanings aren't quite a 1:1 match. But for shorthand, Welsh equivalent of Queer sums 90% of it up.

It has been suggested tentatively by some to use Cadi as the Welsh translation of Queer. I'm going to explore arguments for and against, but ultimately the choice to use/not use Cadi as a 1:1 with Queer is entirely up to you. Warning that this post is quite long, but I do hope you'll stick with it- please let me know what you think in the notes!

Without further ado, let's get into it:

Definition of Cadi:

Cadi is a term which has existed in Welsh since the 17th Century (roughly) and generally refers to effeminacy in men (real or perceived). Over time, the meaning of the term has expanded to refer to other (Queer) things as well. But the term itself largely has been applied to Queer men and queer masculinities through time.

The term itself derives from the girl's name Catrin and you will come across women who call themselves Cadi as a shortening of their name (like Liz from Elizabeth and so on). In this way, there is a strong point of comparison to be had with the English queer pejorative Nancy, which also derives from a girl's name.

Can Cadi be considered the Welsh equivalent of Queer?

So now to the real meat of the post. Can Cadi be considered the Welsh equivalent of Queer? The answer to that is, unsurprisingly, complicated.

As described above, Cadi is a term which has had strong associations with male effeminacy (real or perceived) and has close parallels to the English term Nancy, which is also nearly exclusively applied to Queer men and masculinities. What this presents is a quandary and I'll explain what I mean by that. But first, we need to outline the history of LGBTQIA+ terminology in general (in the West).

LGBTQIA+ Terminology and the inclination towards cis gay language:

This is a huge huge topic which I cannot possibly do justice to here alone, so I'd highly recommend reading up on these topics when you have time, but for the sake of brevity, here is a tldr on the history of LGBTQIA+ terminology (slightly UK-centric but similar events also happened in the US and Canada, as well as other parts of Europe).

Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) is a British Lesbian and Gay rights organisation founded in the 1960s, during a time of great social and political change. The organisation's membership grew and grew well into the 70s before declining in the 80s. It was during this time that some lesbian members of the organisation left citing erasure of lesbian issues and misogyny in the movement. CHE and similar gay and lesbian rights movements in this period had been inclined to centre gay men's issues in their activism, which understandably led to many lesbians feeling alienated. Some lesbians left in the late 70s and early 80s and began to form their own advocacy groups. This indirectly fed into a wider feminist upheaval at the time and led to the rise of lesbian feminism, which aimed to centre lesbian issues within feminism, but unfortunately (for complex historical reasons) did then contribute to the proliferation of rad\ical femi\nism within the Queer community, which then unfortunately contributed to the rise of tra\ns exclu\sionary rad\ical fem\inism. Regardless of the unfortunate rise of transphobia within the lesbian feminist movement, the original catalyst for the formation of these groups was a sense of alienation from the rest of the Queer community because gay men's issues had been prioritised over lesbian issues, when both could have been tackled together, with each other. This alienation was echoed in the names of organisations and events- many early homosexual rights groups only had homosexual or gay in their group names. It took many years before advocacy groups started adding 'and lesbian' to their names and events.

(For further reading, I would suggest watching this video by Verilybitchie about the history of lesbian erasure in homosexual advocacy and how that led to (some) lesbian groups excluding bi and trans people in the same way they were excluded by gay men)

What does that history mean for Cadi?:

Because of a history of lesbian (and by extension, women's) exclusion from homosexual advocacy groups, is Cadi the best term to use as a catch-all given its strong associations with men's expressions of Queerness? (namely, that as a pejorative it is largely aimed at femininity in men and subsequent assumed homosexuality). It is important to consider if using Cadi as an equivalent of Queer would centre a (typically cis) gay experience/expression of Queerness and if that would alienate other members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

However, a counterpoint to this would be that there are variations of the term Cadi which do include other experiences of Queerness:

Cadi ffan (similar to just 'Cadi')- typically used to describe femininity in men and boys [N. Wales]

Cadi genod/ Cadi merched (similar to above) - effeminate man/boy [N. Wales]

Cadi bechgyn - Romping girl, tomboy [N. Wales]

Cati fachgen - (similar to above)- Romping girl, tomboy [S. Wales]

Cadi Haf - Male maypole dancer dressed as a girl

They are, however, somewhat limited for use in reclamation and have to be qualified by another noun to indicate diversion from the original term's meaning.

But when talking about the term Cadi, we often speak in the abstract- without the context in which the term is used. So here are a few extracts from texts which use the term Cadi (or variants). Since this is a mostly spoken slang term, it doesn't turn up in print often, but there are a few examples to draw on.

Examples of Cadi in texts:

Page 164- Cwm Eithin by Hugh Evans (1931):

"DAWNSIO HAF Ceir darnodiad o'r ddefod hynafol dawnsio haf yn Y Gwyl- fedydd, 1823, tudal. 306, gan un a'i geilw ei hun “ Callestrwr,” fel yr arferid hi yn Callestr (Fflint, mae'n debyg). Ym mis Ebrill arferai o ddwsin i ugain o bobl ieuainc ymuno i baratoi ar gyfer y ddawns. Gwisgai'r dawnswyr eu crysau yn uchaf wedi eu haddurno ag ysnodennau a blodau. Cariai'r arweinydd fforch bren ar lun y llythyren Y. Gwnïid lliain o'r naill fraich i'r llall, ac addurnid y fforch ag amryw lestri arian, tebotiau, llwyau, cigweiniau, efc. Byddai gyda hwy grythor yn ei ddillad ei hun, “cadi” mewn gwisg merch, ac ynfytyn mewn gwisg ryfedd â phlu yn ei ben"

[emphasis mine]

This extract is the author's account of Dawnsio Haf- a Summer dance held on May Day and his investigations into it. At his time of writing (1931) the practice has died out, but later in this chapter he interviews an old woman from the Conwy Valley who participated in the dances as a child. Evans draws upon a source from 1823 for his description of Dawnsio Haf. In it, he mentions that 20 young dancers meet up for the dance wearing shirts decorated with ribbons and flowers. A leader carries a fork in the shape of the letter "Y"- between each point on the "Y" a cloth was strung with silverware dangling from it to make noise. With the 20 dancers would be a crwth-player (crythor), a Cadi in women's clothes and a fool with a feather on his cap and odd clothes.

This usage is quite archaic and refers to a folk dance- much like mumming or morris-dancing. There is however, a picture in the People's Collection Wales titled 'Cadi'r Big' taken by the prolific photographer John Tomas c. 1875, near Y Ro-wen:

Which is very interesting as Cadi'r Big has dried flowers and ribbons attached to their clothes, much like in the description in Cwm Eithin. This is very likely a picture of a "Cadi" from a Dawnsio Haf.

Page 4- Y Ddraig Binc Issue 4 (1994):

Y Ddraig Binc was a Welsh-language Queer magazine published by CYLCH, a gay and lesbian rights organisation based in Aberystwyth. The term Cadi-ffan is included in an article about the commercialisation of Queer identity in the magazine's fourth edition.

"...Nawr te, medd wrtho’i hun, be’ gymera’ i’r mis hwn, copi o GQ ynte Arena neu ydw i, efallai, yn teimlo’n ddigon ifanc a trendi am Sky? Ond aros funud, beth yw hyn? Dau gylchgrawn steil newydd a gwynt digamsyniol cadi-ffan arnyn nhw?

Ydy, mae’r hyn a oedd y tu hwnt i ddychymyg wedi digwydd. Mae grymoedd y farchnad rydd a chystadleuaeth wedi cyrraedd y byd cyhoeddi hoyw - rhaid bod Lêdi T wrth ei bodd. Nawr fe gaiff llanc hoyw ddewis o ddeunydd darllen sgleiniog, llawn erthyglau a hysbysebion yn arbennig ar ei gyfer ef a’i rywioldeb. Hwrê! Fedr hynny ddim bod yn beth drwg. Neu a fedr o?..."

[emphasis mine]

This humorous article (dealing with an important topic, mind) pokes fun at the arrival of Queer commercialisation. The article opens by explaining that there's a ruckus in the gay world (and not two old queens getting into fisticuffs)- but that this ruckus is taking place at WHSmith (UK stationery shop and newsagents)- apparent winner of this year's most vulgar uniform award. The author goes on to describe a hypothetical situation in which a gay man walks into a WHSmith to buy a magazine. He wonders whether to get a copy of GQ or Arena (men's style magazines- remember this was published in Section 28 Era so explicitly gay magazines were not common) or is he trendy enough to read Sky? (film and tv magazine). But wait- what's this? Two new style magazines with a whiff of Cadi-ffan about them? The author explains that yes, the unimaginable has happened. The forces of the free market and competition have reached the world of gay publishing.

Now a gay youth has the choice of glossy reading material, full of articles and advertisements especially for him and his sexuality. Hooray! That can't be a bad thing. Or can it? Writes the author. The article is very witty and I recommend a read (find a pdf copy here). But the usage of Cadi-ffan here is very much in a reclaimed sense. Though it must be noted that the story is told through a stereotypical cis gay lens.

Conclusions:

As I said at the start of this post, you are free to claim or not claim Cadi as you wish. However, as awareness of Welsh LGBTQIA+ terminology increases, I wanted to raise important questions and start a conversation about the words we have, what we want them to be and how they have been used against us. I hope in any case that this post has been interesting to you. If it has, please reblog this or add any comments/thoughts in the notes, tags or in my asks.

Beth yw eich barn chi? I'd love to hear other's thoughts on this and start a conversation about it! Diolch am ddarllen

[anarcho-smarmyism]

"Two research papers on this topic with depressing but catchy titles found that 'Bisexual people need not apply' and they belong 'Neither here nor there'.

The first, a study published in 2009 which analyzed refugee claims on the grounds of bisexuality in the US, Canada, and Australia, concluded that bisexual people are significantly less likely to obtain refugee status than other sexual minority groups. The author, Sean Rehaag at York University, found that bi-invisibility and negative stereotypes held by decision-makers in these cases play an important role. He also found that people who were reluctant to give refugee status to sexual minorities who didn't have traditional gay and lesbian identities. The strong undercurrent to this is the assumption that bisexual people can just choose to live heterosexual lives, choose to only be romantically involved with the 'opposite' sex, so they aren't actually in danger. Just blend in, just make you sexual identity invisible, is the message. You aren't queer enough to deserve our protection.

It's not just me who hears the message loud and clear. The second paper, by Jaclyn Gross of the University of California found that those seeking asylum on the basis of their bisexuality (as opposed to being homosexual or trans) face the most difficultly attaining asylum in the US. One reason for this is that decision-makers don't understand bisexuality or have negative biases towards people. . .

These are cases where bi-invisibility and biphobia can be the equivalent of a death sentence. Stereotypes are contaminating the ability of decision-makers and judges to provide crucial support to people who are persecuted because they are bisexual."

-Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality by Julia Shaw

[twig-tea]

Canadian LGBTQ+ rights; a whirlwind summary

Back in August of 2023 @wen-kexing-apologist wrote an absolutely stellar piece here, and I didn't want to co-opt it (especially because it was already written with an American gaze and I don't want to pile on/distract from the fact that we're talking about Thai BL) so I decided to make this a separate post. And then it lingered in the sad pile of my drafts. But, I'm gonna post it anyway, and take this as an excuse to talk about Canadian history of LGBTQ+ rights apropos of absolutely nothing except the most recent move of the provinces (specifically Saskatchewan) to use the notwithstanding clause to force through legislation that the courts have said goes against our charter of rights and freedoms--specifically legislation that says a teacher cannot respect a child's pronouns without permission of the parent. This is being taken to court (latest as of this writing is that in Feb 2024 the group fighting the law was granted the right to be heard by the court in spite of the notwithstanding clause being invoked, so there is still a chance of it getting revoked via the courts).

WKA talks about what the conversation was like in the US around queer rights in the 20th century; highly recommend reading the linked post first. In Canada the conversation was a little different though with very similar themes; we had the shift to a focus on "privacy" as the driver of our rights long before the HIV/AIDS epidemic, in the 1960s. So much of the push and pull of our laws around homosexuality and gender identity and expression have had to do with the public vs private.

Sodomy has been illegal in Canada since colonization (earliest known conviction: 1648) but laws against gross indecency, which included dancing, kissing, or touching between two men, didn't get codified in Canada until 1892 (and not extended to apply to women until 1953 (thanks)). While these laws essentially outlawed any physical public affection between men from the turn of the century, the fervor to root out and eliminate gayness from society didn't really reach its pitch until mid-century.

I need you all to know about the Fruit Machine, which was an ostensibly "scientific" detection device to identify and purge gay and lesbian civil servants from the military and public service in Canada. While the machine was built in the 1950s and used through the 1950s and 1960s, the practice of using psychology, polygraphs, and interrogation to force military and public servants to come out and take a voluntary discharge existed through to the 1990s.

Our former Prime Minister PE Trudeau made famous the line "there is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation" as part of his so-called decriminalization of homosexuality 1967; this is of course a joke because "buggery" and "gross indecency" stayed on the books for another 20 years, the only difference being they were only punishable if the people involved were under 21, there were 3 or more people present, or the participants were performing these acts outside of their home. You may notice that this meant the policing of public space was where and how homophobia continued to be perpetuated by the state via police.

Highlighting the importance of privacy as a framework for gay rights at this time, The Right to Privacy movement was the name for one of the forerunners of modern Canadian LGBTQ+ rights groups through the 1970s--though worth noting that this group in particular was criticized for its exclusion of WLW and our trans siblings (some of whom of course overlap). The infamous bathhouse raids of 1981 ("Operation Soap"), leading to at the time the largest arrest in Toronto's history, were one of the precipitating factors in the recognizable start of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. In 1986, five years after the raids and thanks to massive effort by LGBTQ+ organizing, sexual orientation was added to the protected list of attributes that it is illegal to discriminate against under the Canadian Human Rights Act (gender identity and expression was added in 2012), and in 1987 "anal intercourse" was made legal for those over 18 (the legal age of consent was made the same for everyone--16--in 2019), and "gross indecency" as a law was finally repealed. The fight for marriage equality was the next step after achieving real decriminalization, and was strongly based on the right to freedom from discrimination as protected by the Human Rights Act.

[Just going to take this moment to note that for some reason they never struck off the law criminalizing sodomy when more than two people are present; this is still an inequality on the books now and people do (rarely) still get charged with it.]

In the late 1980s and 1990s, the censorship fight was most famously held in the written sphere--if you've seen the movie Better than Chocolate, you might already be familiar what I'm talking about. From approximately 1986 through to 2000, Canada Border Services targeted shipments to queer bookstores, holding them up, sometimes destroying the content, putting those businesses at risk, and preventing queer content that passed through border control to be stocked in physical stores. It took the Supreme Court of Canada's ruling in 2000 to shut down that practice as an illegal suppression of a bookstore (Little Sisters in Vancouver, BC, shout-out!)'s right to freedom of expression.

Raids on safe spaces for sexual activity continued to be a driver for action through to the 21st century. The WLW bathhouse the Pleasure Palace (changed from "Pussy Palace" in the late 90s to be more inclusive of our sisters without that particular body part) was raided in the year 2000; 19 years after Operation Soap, and notably the first and last raid on a queer woman's bathhouse in Canadian history. What followed was a massive public coal-raking of police, including the very telling call to action: "out of the bars! Into the streets!" I don't think this was necessarily the intended implication at the time, but looking back the threat was that if we were not given our rights, we would be in everyone's faces (and conversely if we were given our rights, we'd be quiet). The legalization of marriage between any two consenting persons of legal age came five years later in 2005 (I don't mean to imply this effort was the only reason--the fight for marriage equality was active all the way through the 90s and early 2000s; it's just an interesting parallel that two of the biggest wins for equality for queer people in Canada came 5 years after a historic police raid).

One of the factors in gaining acceptance of LGBTQ+ people in Canada was the fight for marriage equality; as it focused the conversation on sameness rather than difference. The queer activism movement here pivoting from messaging around bathhouses and being left alone to marriage equality was an intentional, strategic attempt to be accepted as the same rather than being honoured for our differences. And that fight coming after the HIV/AIDS epidemic and bathhouse raids is no accident as it framed queer people directly in opposition to the stigma of promiscuity that surrounded assumptions about gay people which fed into the lack of support for medical intervention, research, and treatment for HIV/AIDS (here in Canada too, our history is just as gross on that front, people just don't talk about it as much. But Canada followed the US government's example, and so people were left without medical resources for at least eight years in Canada (since the first cases were identified here in 1982) and THREE YEARS after they had been approved by the US--AZT wasn't available in Canada until 1990. Three years in which people died unnecessarily. We similarly approved PrEP four years after the FDA, in 2016. Today, despite "universal health care", if you want access to PrEP, it will depend on the province you're in as to whether you can get it at all for free or whether you need to pay--in my province, it takes 2 months to get free PrEP).

Today, just over 50% of the people with HIV/AIDS in Canada are men who have sex with men; it's estimated 80% of people infected with HIV know their status, of those 75% are being treated, and of those 89% are effectively unable to transmit the virus. In that context, the ongoing fight re: HIV/AIDS in Canada today is around decriminalization, specifically decriminalization of drugs (since ~20% of HIV infections are from IV drug use--one of the many reasons I support harm reduction strategies), and the decriminalization of non-disclosure (since Canada is one of the few places where you can be charged for not sharing your HIV status with a sexual partner). Until very recently, we were also fighting to be able to give blood--it was only in 2022 that men who have sex with men were allowed to donate blood in Canada, which meant every visit to a blood donation clinic involved questions about the gender of your sexual partner(s). And, as mentioned at the top, one of the rights we are fighting to retain right now, is the right to have our gender expression respected without forced outing to a parent or guardian; Once again, the fight in Canada has become centered around the right to privacy.

Slightly tangential to the topic at hand, but I would be remiss in talking about moments in recent history when the law did not prosecute us, but it failed to protect us. In the 2010s, a serial killer was targeting men who he thought he could get away with making disappear; and he was right. The police ignored calls from the community to treat the case as a serial killer for years. Bruce McArthur killed 8 men who had gone missing from Toronto's Gay Village between 2010 and 2017, several who were vulnerable because they were distant from their families (because they were gay and closeted), homeless, and/or in immigration limbo (waiting for status), so it took longer for them to be reported missing. During this time, through to just weeks before the arrest, the Toronto Police insisted in public statements that there was no serial killer.

Black and Indigenous queer people have regularly died as a result of the police being called while they were in crisis. An unnamed trans woman (who was midgendered by the SIU after her death); Regis Korchinksy-Paquet, both in 2020. In 2022, Dani Cooper, queer activist who advocated against police-run wellness checks, was shot and killed by police during a wellness check called for them.

As a positive step, in 2016, Black Lives Matter Toronto staged a protest as part of the annual Pride Parade, making a list of demands, but the one that got the most coverage was the demand to ban police at Pride. This was taken up by the Pride Toronto committee, and since 2017 police have been banned from having an official float or presence at the parade. This has been taken up by several Canadian cities including Vancouver and Hamilton and inspired action in other cities globally.

With that context, in which queer people are rightfully distrustful of police, it is alarming that police-reported hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people (one of the only ways we have of tracking hate crime consistently) had a record-breaking increase in 2023.

In 2017, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (the son of PM Trudeau quoted above) gave a public apology to LGBTQ+ Canadians. Here's just a brief excerpt:

"To the kids who are listening at home and who fear rejection because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity and expression; And to those who are nervous and scared, but also excited at what their future might hold; We are all worthy of love, and deserving of respect. And whether you discover your truth at 6 or 16 or 60, who you are is valid. To members of the LGBTQ2 communities, young and old, here in Canada and around the world: You are loved. And we support you."

The important part about this apology was twofold; one, it explicitly named many of the specific instances of oppression I mentioned above, and two, it listed the things the government was doing to make reparations. This included the repeal of the law that equalized the age of consent (which went through two years later, as mentioned above), the pardoning of people who had a criminal record due to unjust laws based on LGBTQ+ discrimination, settlement of a class action lawsuit for victims of The Purge, and a commitment to work towards better resources for mental health and housing for LGBTQ+ people, as well as a committment to continue working to remove the barriers for gay men to donate blood (which went through in 2022). One of the other important achievements was the change to allow an "X" option under gender on Canadian Passports (so the three available options are M/F/X) in 2019 [some provincial gender opt-out options have existed since 2017].

The current government is by no stretch perfect, but it has been good to see some of these moments of our history acknowledged and corrected for. As the global pressure towards fascism continues, it's critical that we remember these changes are the result of hard work, not inevitable "progress", that these fights are ongoing and require our energy, and that change, using a variety of tactics, is possible.

Quick hit facts if you prefer a list to a narrative:

In Canada, it was illegal for men to hold hands with men or women to hold hands with women in public until the 1960s;

The government tried to expunge us from public service in the 60s and 70s;

it was illegal for men to have threesomes until the 1990s;

bathhouse raids were made possible due to legislative inequalities through the 2000s;

Canada took three years longer than the US to approve treatments for HIV/AIDS, four years longer to approve PrEP, and still today access can be complicated/expensive;

it was possible to be of legal age to have sex but not anal sex until 2019;

Gay men were barred from donating blood until 2022;

Canada remains one of the few countries in the world where you can be prosecuted for not disclosing your HIV status (though does not apply if you retain a minimal viral load);

In 2023 some provincial governments tried to make kids choose between gender expression and their privacy (and potentially safety) from their parents; as of March 2024 that fight is still actively being fought.

The take-aways I hope people get from this post:

This history is more recent than we pretend, and is ongoing

Framing gay rights as right to privacy vs right to being not prosecuted for being in public is nuanced and intertwined

Transphobes need to fuck off

Some references/further reading/watching:

Brief history of LGBTQ+ laws in Canada at the Canadian Encyclopedia

The Fruit Machine documentary made by TVO

Article on HIV/AIDS in Canada policy written by one of the policymakers

Timeline of HIV/AIDS Developments (only goes to 2010 so does not include PreP, which was approved in Canada in 2016, four years after its availability in the US)

Article on The Pleasure Palace raid by one of the organizers

Article on the Bathhouse Raids 40 years after Operation Soap

Article on Bruce McArthur's crimes and the review of how police handled the case by former judge Gloria Epstein

Regis Korchinksy-Paquet and the unnamed trans woman dead after interactions with police

Dani Cooper's death

Article about the Supreme Court case brought by Little Sisters bookshop

HIV Non-Disclosure Law Fact Sheet

Article about the end of the blood ban for men who have sex with men

Black Lives Matter Toronto on their 2016 action at Toronto Pride

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's apology

Gender "X" Options on Passports

Stream Better Than Chocolate (you may need to look up where it's available in your region)

Little Sisters Book & Art Emporium

Glad Day Bookshop (Makes a claim for being the oldest queer bookshop in the world; one of the few queer public spaces being maintained/actively protected as more and more of our spaces are eroded, and also just a personal fave so I'm taking the excuse to shout it out too)

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Malcolm Clark

Published: Jul 18, 2023

The LGBT movement is beginning to behave more like a religious cult than a human-rights lobby. It’s not just the Salem-like witch hunts it pursues against its critics. It’s also its flight from reason and its embrace of magical thinking.

This irrationalism is best illustrated by its recent embrace of the term ‘two-spirit’ (often shortened to ‘2S’), which in North America has been added to the lobby’s ever-growing acronym, meaning we are now expected to refer to – take a deep breath – the ‘2SLGBTQQIA+ community’.

The term two-spirit was first formally endorsed at a conference of Native American gay activists in 1990 in Winnipeg in Canada. It is a catch-all term to cover over 150 different words used by the various Indian tribes to describe what we think of today as gay, trans or various forms of gender-bending, such as cross-dressing. Two-spirit people, the conference declared, combine the masculine and the feminine spirits in one.

From the start, the whole exercise reeked of mystical hooey. Myra Laramee, the woman who proposed the term in 1990, said it had been given to her by ancestor spirits who appeared to her in a dream. The spirits, she said, had both male and female faces.

Incredibly, three decades on, there are now celebrities and politicians who endorse the concept or even identify as two-spirit. The term has found its way into one of Joe Biden’s presidential proclamations and is a constant feature of Canadian premier Justin Trudeau’s doe-eyed bleating about ‘2SLGBTQQIA+ rights’.

The term’s success is no doubt due in part to white guilt. There is a tendency to associate anything Native American with a lost wisdom that is beyond whitey’s comprehension. Ever since Marlon Brando sent ‘Apache’ activist Sacheen Littlefeather to collect his Oscar in 1973, nothing has signalled ethical superiority as much as someone wearing a feather headdress.

The problem is that too many will believe almost any old guff they are told about Native Americans. This is an open invitation to fakery. Ms Littlefeather, for example, may have built a career as a symbol of Native American womanhood. But after her death last year, she was exposed as a member of one of the fastest growing tribes in North America: the Pretendians. Her real name was Marie Louise Cruz. She was born to a white mother and a Mexican father, and her supposed Indian heritage had just been made up.

Much of the fashionable two-spirit shtick is just as fake. For one thing, it’s presented as an acknowledgment of the respect Indian tribes allegedly showed individuals who were gender non-conforming. Yet many of the words that two-spirit effectively replaces are derogatory terms.

In truth, there was a startling range of attitudes to the ‘two-spirited’ among the more than 500 separate indigenous Native American tribes. Certain tribes may have been relaxed about, say, effeminate men. Others were not. In his history of homosexuality, The Construction of Homosexuality (1998), David Greenberg points out that those who are now being called ‘two spirit’ were ridiculed by the Papago, held in contempt by the Choctaws, disliked by the Cocopa, treated by the Seven Nations with ‘the most sovereign contempt’ and “derided” by the Sioux. In the case of the Yuma, who lived in what is now Colorado, the two-spirited were sometimes treated as rape objects for the young men of the tribe.

The contradictions and incoherence of the two-spirit label may be explained by an uncomfortable fact. The two-spirit project was shaped from day one by complete mumbo-jumbo. The 1990 conference that adopted the term was inspired by a seminal book, Living the Spirit: A Gay Indian Anthology, published two years earlier. Its essays were compiled and edited by a young white academic called Will Roscoe. He was the historical adviser to the conference. And his work on gay people in Indian cultural history – a niche genre in the 1980s – had become the received wisdom on the subject.

Roscoe’s work had an unlikely origin story of its own. In 1979, he joined over 200 other naked gay men in the Arizona desert for an event dubbed the ‘Spiritual Conference for Radical Faeries’. It was here where he met Harry Hay, the man who would become his spiritual mentor and whose biography he would go on to write. The event was Hay’s brainchild and was driven by his conviction that gay men’s lives had become spiritually empty and dominated by shallow consumerism. For three days, Roscoe and the other men sought spiritual renewal in meditation, singing and classes in Native American dancing. There were also classes in auto-fellatio, lest anyone doubt this was a gay men’s event.

To say Hay, who died in 2002, was eccentric is to radically understate his weirdness. For one thing, he was a vocal supporter of paedophilia. As such, he once took a sandwich board to a Pride march proclaiming ‘NAMBLA walks with me’, in reference to the paedophilia-advocacy group, the North American Man / Boy Love Association. Hay also believed that gay men were a distinct third gender who had been gifted shamanic powers. According to Hay, these powers were recognised and revered by pre-Christian peoples, from Ancient Greece to, you guessed it, the indigenous tribes of North America.

For years, Hay had been experimenting with sweat lodges and dressing up in Indian garb in ways that would now be criticised as cultural appropriation. Despite this, Roscoe took Hay’s incoherent thesis – that gender-bending and spiritual enlightenment go hand in hand – and turned it into a piece of Native American history.

Unsurprisingly, given its provenance, Roscoe’s work is full of holes and lazy assumptions. To prove that two-spirit people combine the feminine and masculine spirits, Roscoe searched for evidence of gender non-conforming behaviour among the Indian tribes. The problem was that he had to mainly rely on the accounts of white settlers who had little understanding of Native cultures. And even when he didn’t rely on those sources, Roscoe still jumped to the wrong conclusions.

Take, for example, the case of Running Eagle, ‘the virgin woman warrior’ of the Blackfeet tribe, whom Roscoe was the first to label as two-spirit. As a girl, she rebelled against the usual girl chores and insisted on being taught how to hunt and fight. She became a noted warrior and declared she would never marry a man or submit to one.

Of course, none of this really means that Running Eagle was two-spirit, or that the tribe she hailed from was made up of LGBT pioneers. It merely shows that the Blackfeet were smart and adaptable enough to recognise martial talent in a girl and were able to make good use of a remarkable individual. Nevertheless, Roscoe’s description of her has become gospel and Running Eagle is now endlessly cited as an example of a two-spirit.

This is a mind-numbingly reductive approach. It’s based on the presumption that what we think of as feminine and masculine traits are fixed and stable across time and cultures. It dictates that no Native American man or woman who ever breaks a gender taboo or fails to conform to expectations can be anything but two-spirit. This is gender policing on steroids.

The two-spirit term also does Native American cultures a deep disservice. It assumes that 500 different tribes were both homogenous and static. As journalist Mary Annette Pember, herself Ojibwe, argues, it also erases ‘distinct cultural and language differences that Native peoples hold crucial to their identity’.

In some ways, it is entirely unsurprising that the wayward ‘2SLGBTQQIA+’ movement has fastened on to two-spirit, an invented term with a bogus pedigree. Far from paying tribute to Native American cultures in all their richness, it exploits them to make a cheap political point. Harry Hay and his fellow auto-fellators would be proud.

==

"Two spirit" is a great way of fabricating an interesting identity when you don't have one. And you can scream at people as "bigots," but without the guilt of lying about your great-grandparents being descendants of Sacagawea.

The fake mysticism goes along neatly with the notion of disembodied sexed thetans ("gender identity") which become trapped between worlds in the wrong meat bodies.

[r0semirages]

So. I made an RTC swap au!!

It started just with an idea of John Doe!Ricky that I had for a pretty long time, but recently I decided to turn it into something cooler, so I made this whole thing. Maybe I'll sketch their designs later (or at least make picrews of them), but idk how much time it will take. I haven't change some things, like the relationships between some characters, because I thought it wouldn't work very well. But, this isn't fully finished yet, so there's some moments that may be changed in the future.

I imagine this AU more like a play, than a musical and honestly I really don't think that it'll become something serious, cause I'm not that good at writing and creating full stories, so, at least at the moment, it's just for fun. Also, the designs are based on the 2016 cast, but feel free to make your own interpretations with your favorite cast. And maybe someday I'll make them too, we'll see. Anyway, hope y'all enjoy it!! (Pls excuse me if there are any mistakes, english isn't my first language, blah blah blah. Also there are a lot of spoilers for rtc, so if you plan to watch it — don't read further!)

So, first is Penny — the most imaginative girl in town. She's super silly, sometimes awkward and doesn't really have any friends because most people think she's weird. Penny often gets left out or bullied, and she uses escapism to cope with this + all the stuff with her parents, who she didn't get enough love from. Her fantasies is a bit different from the original Ricky's: they don't have a lore, she just makes up random stories to escape from reality and writes them out sometimes. She *definetely* writes fanfiction and probably posts it online. For some reason people find it cool, but no one in the choir knows about it. She's still a Seven-Up fan and she plays the ukulele (that will be used in the new birthday song for Ricky)

I changed her design just a bit, now she wears a lot of accessories, mostly pins (bc I headcanon the og Ricky having them) and it's mostly based on Emily Rohm's Penny, while her personality is more like legoland Penny's.

The next is Ocean — the angriest girl in town. Like the og Mischa, she hates her parents (but in this case they aren't adoptive) and their lifestyle, but instead of becoming the most succesful to prove that she's different from them, this Ocean just becomes a total mess and starts hating everyone. Idk if I will make her like shitty rap about money in autotune, but she definetely has a history of stealing stuff from stores, lol.

Design changes: messy hair; she doesn't have a headband and a tie, her shirt isn't fully buttoned up. She wears a sweater vest over it with a short skirt (a dress, actually).

Then we have Constance — the most succesful girl in town. She's a big nerd and spends a lot of her time studying because she wants to be the best. In general she behaves just like original Ocean and treats Noel like Ocean would treat her in the og musical (they're besties, but not really). She's pretty mean and very ambitious. This Constance doesn't have as much love for her town as the og one and she plans to move out (and become a premier minister of Canada, maybe :p) She's the one to make the final vote in this AU and of course she will choose John Doe/Ricky.

I haven't change a lot of things in the design, but her hair isn't dyed anymore, buns are down, she has a tie and maybe some hairpins. In general she looks a bit more tidy

Next one: Noel — the nicest boy in town. A complete opposite to the og Noel, he doesn't want to change anything in his life and enjoys living in Uranium. He's still super homosexual and has a big crush on Mischa, and, as I've said before he's "best friends" with Constance who treats him like shit and makes jokes about how he's never gonna breed👍🏻 /ref

He's really insecure about himself, but very friendly with everyone else (especially Mischa). He still enjoys all the french stuff, but you know, in a less... horny... way. And his mother is a baker and Noel often helps her in their cafe

He now has a short-sleeved shirt, round glasses and half of his hair is purple (it's also a bit more messy). In general I didn't change a lot in his design, but I made him such an UwU softie boy /j

Then, Mischa — the most romantic boy in town (ah yes, this one is for you, Mischa simps). He's still in love with Talia and his backstory is the same, but instead of becoming an angry rapper, he became a sad romantic guy, who dreams about moving to Ukraine with his (probably non-existing) internet fiancé. He just wants to be happy :(

Design changes: his clothes and hair aren't that messy anymore and he has a black jacket (like the one chance theatre Noel had). Also his nails are usually black or any other dark shade!!

And! Finally! My best creation yet — John Doe!Ricky. Perhaps, the rest of the choir doesn't remember him (well, in fact they do remember him, but it's a different theory and I don't want to bring it here) because he couldn't talk and no one really noticed him. The only person he was pretty close with was Penny, but still, they weren't even friends, they just standed close to each other while the choir was performing and both sat in the back of a rollercoaster when the accident happened. There will be a role-swapped version of the Savannah scene, but I don't know what name should I use instead of Savannah yet (if you have any ideas, please drop them in the comments!! I'll be very grateful)

When he gets choosen by Constance he'll came back to life as Ricky and yes, he WILL remain disabled because I'm a very big Ricky fan + a very big ableism hater, don't expect that shit from me👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻 Also he will still have 14 cats because. Why not. I love cats.

The only thing that will change is the fact that he's a little happier now?? People around him treat him better and he doesn't have to fantasize about fucking cat-people from Zolar to be happy lol. Oh man I'm writing a bit too much about him sorry I just love this guy a lot. Bless his little heart

Finally, about his design: honestly he's just a yassified version of this picture /hj

↓

Okay, so he has a head stolen from some super swag dressed in a Bowie-like style doll that for some reason was in the warehouse. He has a big purple star around one of his eyes and some parts of his hair are also colorful (purple/blue/pink). His clothes isn't very different, but maybe I'll add some more accesories

Well, that's all atm. I will try my best to make some content for this and keep developing this idea and I really really hope you will like it!

Reblogs/comments/likes are VERY appreciated and again, if you have any recommendations for improving this au I'll be really glad to hear them or just any of your thoughts!!!

Ty for reading (⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)⁠✧⁠*⁠。

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“Girl 'Husband' Admits Guilt,” Montreal Star. March 14, 1942. Page 3. --- Antoinette Arsenault Pleads Guilty to Fraud Counts on Arraignment --- Dressed in the men's clothes in which she married another girl here two weeks ago, Antoinette Arsenault, 22, formerly of Ottawa, appeared before Judge Marin in arraignment court today and pleaded guilty to charges of falsifying a birth certificate and of using it to commit a fraudulent act. She will be sentenced March 18.

According to police, the girl posed as Andre Arsenault, the name she used on her registration card. She and the girl she married worked in the Bouchard munitions plant at Ste. Therese for two years. Her "wife" is Rita Ouellette, 19-year-old New Brunswick girl.

The case has been turned over to the Quebec Attorney-General and other charges may be laid depending on his decision.

[hellomynameisbisexual]

Abstract

The question whether some men have a bisexual orientation—that is, whether they are substantially sexually aroused and attracted to both sexes—has remained controversial among both scientists and laypersons. Skeptics believe that male sexual orientation can only be homosexual or heterosexual, and that bisexual identification reflects nonsexual concerns, such as a desire to deemphasize homosexuality. Although most bisexual-identified men report that they are attracted to both men and women, self-report data cannot refute these claims. Patterns of physiological (genital) arousal to male and female erotic stimuli can provide compelling evidence for male sexual orientation. (In contrast, most women provide similar physiological responses to male and female stimuli.) We investigated whether men who self-report bisexual feelings tend to produce bisexual arousal patterns. Prior studies of this issue have been small, used potentially invalid statistical tests, and produced inconsistent findings. We combined nearly all previously published data (from eight previous studies in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada), yielding a sample of 474 to 588 men (depending on analysis). All participants were cisgender males. Highly robust results showed that bisexual-identified men’s genital and subjective arousal patterns were more bisexual than were those who identified as exclusively heterosexual or homosexual. These findings support the view that male sexual orientation contains a range, from heterosexuality, to bisexuality, to homosexuality.

The status of male bisexuality as a sexual orientation—that is, the idea that some men are sexually aroused and attracted to both sexes—has a controversial history (1). Although some men identify as bisexual and have sexual experiences with men and women, the extent to which this reflects an underlying bisexual orientation has been questioned. Early sex researchers Krafft-Ebing (2) and Hirschfeld (3) believed that bisexual behavior and identification occurred primarily among monosexual (i.e., either heterosexual or homosexual) men for reasons other than a bisexual orientation. For example, some homosexual men identify as bisexual, or engage in sex with women, due to social pressures that favor heterosexuality. In response to those who doubted the existence of a bisexual orientation, Kinsey proposed a quasi-continuous scale of sexual orientation, proclaiming: “Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. Not all things are black nor all things white” (ref. 4, pp. 638–639). With his scale, Kinsey demonstrated that self-reported bisexual attraction and behavior are not rare. However, because the scale relied on self-reports, results could not provide definitive evidence for bisexual orientation. For example, surveys have shown that a large proportion of men who identify as gay or homosexual had gone through a previous and transient phase of bisexual identification (5, 6).

Other reasons why bisexual men’s self-reported sexual feelings have sometimes been questioned likely include cognitive and emotional biases of the questioners. Some heterosexual and homosexual men may find it relatively easy to understand each other’s monosexuality because both have strong sexual attraction to one sex and virtually none to the other. For this reason, these men may have more difficulty accepting bisexuality as it challenges their binary conceptualizations of sexual orientation (7). Furthermore, bisexual individuals may be mistrusted and stigmatized by both heterosexual and homosexual people, and perceived as untrustworthy, promiscuous, and unable to commit (8–10).

Self-reported measures of sexual attraction, interest, and arousal are useful and ubiquitous in sex research. When self-reports are questioned, however, other valid measures are desirable. One promising approach to empirical verification of self-reported male bisexuality as an orientation uses penile plethysmography (i.e., a strain gauge around the penis) to study genital sexual arousal patterns to erotic stimuli featuring men or women (but not both). Examples of stimuli used in these studies include videos of sexual interactions between actors or of solitary actors masturbating (11, 12). Such an approach has several advantages: It relies on physiological processes rather than self-report; it is difficult to consciously manipulate (13); and, for men, sexual arousal to attractive women or men is arguably equivalent to sexual orientation (1). This approach has been used in a handful of studies focusing on male bisexuality with mixed results. Some studies failed to provide evidence that bisexual-identified men had bisexual arousal patterns (11, 14). One other study with stringent recruitment criteria (i.e., minimum criteria for both sexual and romantic experience across sexes) found evidence for bisexual arousal (12). A recent study using less stringent recruitment criteria also found evidence that bisexual-identified men had bisexual physiological arousal patterns (15). All existing studies have been of small to modest size; the largest had 114 participants. Notably, across these studies, bisexual-identified men self-reported subjective arousal to both male and female stimuli, even in samples where their genital arousal did not reflect such a pattern.

Previous research may have not employed sufficiently rigorous statistical tests, further complicating the question of whether bisexual-identified men show bisexual physiological arousal patterns. Crucial predictions regarding bisexual orientation concern U-shaped (or inverted U-shaped) distributions, which previous studies tested via quadratic regression. However, this test may be insufficient to reliably detect U-shaped distributions (16). This is because significant quadratic regressions can occur if a linear regression changes slope over the range of the predictor, even if the sign of the slope does not change. Demonstrating U-shaped distributions without the threat of incorrect interpretation requires showing slope sign reversal from low to high values of the predictor. For example, if the left arm of the estimated regression slope is significantly positive, then the other arm needs to be significantly negative in order to result in a valid, inverse U-shaped estimate.

With the limitations of previous work in mind, the aim of this study was to examine the extent to which men who self-report bisexual orientation exhibit bisexual genital and self-reported arousal patterns. Our study is unique with respect to its large sample and its employment of a version of Simonsohn’s (16) “two-lines” test of U-shaped (or inverted U-shaped) distributions. Data included 606 male participants (with 474 remaining for genital analyses and 588 remaining for self-reported analyses following exclusions) (Materials and Methods) from American, Canadian, and British studies that collected data on men’s self-reported Kinsey scores and their genital and self-reported arousal to male and female erotic stimuli and to neutral stimuli (e.g., footage of landscapes and wildlife). These studies were conducted over the course of approximately two decades, from the years 2000 to 2019. Kinsey scores range from 0 (exclusively heterosexual) to 3 (equal attraction to both sexes) to 6 (exclusively homosexual). Scores of 0 and 6 are usually considered monosexual, and 1 to 5 nonmonosexual. Scores of 2 to 4 are generally accepted to comprise the bisexual range of the Kinsey scale (17).

This study focuses only on male sexual orientation, despite the equal scientific importance of understanding female sexual orientation, for several related reasons. The question of whether bisexual arousal patterns exist has been less controversial about women than men (1). Historically, there was no parallel debate about female sexual orientation to that between skeptics [e.g., Krafft-Ebing (2) and Hirschfeld (3)] and proponents (e.g., Kinsey) (4) of the validity of male bisexuality. Recent scientific developments have supported important and potentially relevant differences in the expression of male and female sexual orientation. In laboratory research, the large majority of women exhibit similar subjective and physiological sexual arousal to both male and female stimuli, despite heterosexual identification (18, 19). Furthermore, the idea that female sexuality is especially “fluid” with respect to gender, with some women situationally attracted to men or women depending on circumstances, has been well-established (20). Male, but not female, self-reported sexual orientation shows a bimodal distribution (21), supporting the idea that male bisexuality is relatively uncommon whereas female bisexuality is less so. Thus, converging lines of evidence suggest that there are important differences in the expression of male and female sexual orientation, perhaps especially bisexuality. Consequently, research exploring the validity of bisexual identification–and especially research comparing the genital response of bisexual and monosexual persons–has been pursued more vigorously for male than for female sexual orientation. The men cumulatively studied in the research on male sexual orientation have been aggregated to comprise the large sample used in the present study.

Results

Fig. 1 presents participants’ ipsatized (i.e., standardized within subjects across erotic and neutral stimuli) genital and self-reported arousal to female and male stimuli across the Kinsey scale, in within-subject SDs. Only participants who produced adequate arousal for our main analyses were included. The figure shows that the relative response to female and male stimuli closely tracked the Kinsey scale, on the whole. The difference in genital arousal to females minus males correlated strongly with the Kinsey scale (r[472] = 0.838, 95% CI [0.809, 0.863], P < 0.0001). The analogous correlation of self-reported arousal with the Kinsey scale was also strong (r[586] = 0.916, 95% CI [0.902, 0.928], P < 0.0001).

Exclusively heterosexual and homosexual men (who have Kinsey scores of 0 and 6, respectively) showed larger mean differences in their arousal to male and female stimuli compared with men who have intermediate Kinsey scores (i.e., scores of 1 to 5). Although this pattern is consistent with the possibility that intermediate Kinsey scores are associated with relatively bisexual arousal patterns, it is also consistent with an alternative explanation. It would be possible to create the mean arousal scores of men with Kinsey scores 1 to 5 (which appear relatively bisexual) by mixing men with arousal patterns similar to the means for Kinsey 0 (exclusively heterosexual) with those similar to Kinsey 6 (exclusively homosexual). Therefore, simply averaging each Kinsey group’s responses to male and to female stimuli can in principle produce misleading results. Thus, results depicted in Fig. 1 by themselves cannot provide conclusive evidence that men who report bisexual attractions have a more bisexual arousal pattern than monosexual men.

Two alternative analyses can provide more definitive evidence (11, 12). Both rely on variables depicted or derived from those in Fig. 2: responses to the more-arousing sex and responses to the less-arousing sex. These variables were determined empirically for each individual. Men have relatively bisexual arousal patterns if 1) their responses to their less arousing sex exceeds that of other men, and 2) the difference between their responses to their more and to their less arousing sex is less than that of other men.

The first criterion for bisexual arousal patterns is demonstrated by considering that men with a bisexual arousal pattern should show more arousal to male stimuli compared with heterosexual men and more arousal to female stimuli compared with homosexual men. Heterosexual men’s less-arousing sex will usually be “male” and homosexual men’s “female.” (Measurement error may prevent this generalization from always being true.) Thus, the first criterion is that bisexual men should show more arousal to erotic stimuli depicting their (empirically defined) less-arousing sex, compared with homosexual and heterosexual men. The second criterion is demonstrated by considering that men with a bisexual arousal pattern should show an especially small unsigned difference between their arousal to male and female stimuli, compared with heterosexual and homosexual men. This difference is equivalent to that between responses to the more arousing sex minus responses to the less arousing sex.

We henceforth refer to the two key dependent variables as Minimum Arousal (i.e., responses to the less arousing sex) and Absolute Arousal Difference (i.e., the unsigned value of the difference between arousal to female stimuli and arousal to male stimuli). The two dependent variables derived from Fig. 2 were almost perfectly negatively correlated with each other: for genital arousal, r = −0.976 and for self-reported arousal, r = −0.944. This strong correspondence is partly an artifact of standardizing within participants using only three scores (i.e., average arousal to male, to female, and to neutral stimuli), especially when two of the scores tend to be similar to each other and different from the third score. Because Minimum Arousal and the Absolute Arousal Difference are not generally so highly correlated (for example, for the unstandardized data we analyzed subsequently, their correlation for genital arousal was r[474] = −0.028), and because they are conceptually distinct, we have retained both variables in our main analyses.

In addition, we created a composite variable using Minimum Arousal and Absolute Arousal Difference, by standardizing both across participants, changing the sign of the Absolute Arousal Difference and then taking their average. We refer to this variable as the Bisexual Arousal Composite, and men with a relatively bisexual arousal pattern should have high scores on it. Although the composite was almost entirely redundant with Minimum Arousal and Absolute Arousal Difference—as the latter are with each other—for the ipsatized data, we retained all three variables because in some subsequent analyses using untransformed data, they were much less highly correlated.

If men who self-report Kinsey scores in the bisexual range indeed have relatively bisexual arousal patterns, then both Minimum Arousal and the Bisexual Arousal Composite should show an inverted U-shaped distribution across the Kinsey range (i.e., men who self-identify as 0 [exclusively heterosexual] and 6 [exclusively homosexual] should have the lowest scores for these variables; men in intermediate groups should have greater values, with the peak resting at a Kinsey score of 3); the Absolute Arousal Difference should show a U-shaped distribution (i.e., exclusively heterosexual and exclusively homosexual men should have lower values than bisexual-identified men). Conversely, if men who indicate that they are relatively bisexual have monosexual arousal patterns in actuality, then the values for these three variables should be evenly distributed across the Kinsey scale, and we should have a flat, horizontal line, rather than a U-shaped distribution. A rigorous demonstration that bisexual men have relatively bisexual arousal patterns requires a change of sign of regression slopes across the Kinsey scale. The method proposed by Simonsohn (16), the two-lines test, requires establishing that, for some break point on the predictor variable, if one conducts separate regression analyses using data on either side of the point, both regression slopes are statistically significant but of opposite sign.

We modified this method as follows. Instead of using Simonsohn’s algorithm for locating one optimal break point, we conducted two sets of analyses using two different break points: 2.5 and 3.5. Our modification was motivated by both necessity and a desire to explore robustness. The middle of the Kinsey distribution is 3, and a Kinsey score of 3 signifies the greatest degree of bisexuality. As such, that score is the best guess for the inversion point of the hypothesized U-shaped and inverted U-shaped distributions. However, the Kinsey score 3 is unavailable as a break point because the break point should not include scores that actually exist in the data. The analysis with 2.5 as the break point compares the correlations between the Kinsey scores and the dependent variables in the range of Kinsey 0 to 2 with the respective correlations in the range of Kinsey 3 to 6. (Note that, because our Kinsey score variable includes only whole numbers, any break point between 2 and 3 is equivalent to a break point of 2.5; all provide exactly the same separation of points.) The analysis using the break point 3.5 compares the correlations in the Kinsey range 0 to 3 with those in the Kinsey range of 4 to 6. Examining results using two different break points in separate analyses allowed us to examine the robustness of results across them. Fig. 3 presents the regression lines comprising the two lines tests for both sets of break points, for both Standardized Minimum Genital Arousal (Fig. 3, Left) and Standardized Absolute Genital Arousal Difference (Fig. 3, Right).

Table 1 includes results of the two-lines analyses for both break points. For analyses of genital arousal, we included data from 474 men with sufficient genital responses. For analyses of self-reported arousal, we included data from 588 men who provided adequate self-reported arousal data. We present standardized correlations because the scale of the variables is more intuitively interpretable than unstandardized coefficients. All correlations were in directions consistent with more bisexual arousal tending to occur toward the middle of the Kinsey scale. The 95% CIs for all correlations excluded zero, usually by a large margin.

We conducted additional analyses to examine the degree to which our results depended on data analytic decisions. At least two such decisions for Table 1 could have influenced our results even though we had scientific justification for making those decisions and have consistently made them in past research: analyzing standardized rather than unstandardized arousal data and excluding participants with low genital responses. Neither of these decisions was required to test our hypotheses, however, and some other researchers have not made them (e.g., ref. 22). Seemingly innocuous decisions such as these can hide a lack of robustness of results had other analytic paths been taken (23).

One way to explore the robustness of results across different data analytic decisions is to conduct “multiverse analyses” in which data are analyzed with respect to all combinations of relevant decisions (24). In our case, this required three additional sets of analyses. Each used the two-lines approach, but each used different data: unstandardized arousal data for men who met our inclusion criteria for sexual response; standardized arousal data for all men regardless of degree of response; or unstandardized arousal data for all men regardless of degree of response. Each set of analyses was conducted for each of the dependent variables: Minimum Arousal, Absolute Arousal Difference, and Bisexual Arousal Composite. Furthermore, each analysis was conducted for both break points (i.e., 2.5 and 3.5), and tests with unstandardized data were repeated for the analyses of self-reported arousal. Because each analysis yielded two separate tests (for points left of the break point and for points right of it), this resulted in a total of 48 tests.

SI Appendix, Table S1 provides the results for these multiverse analyses. All results were in the direction consistent with increased bisexual arousal for more bisexual Kinsey scores. SI Appendix, Fig. S1 also presents the frequency distribution of the 36 exact probabilities for the additional analyses of genital data. Only one P value, 0.0503, exceeded the conventional statistical significance threshold, and most of the other 35 P values were much smaller. Results for the analyses of self-reported arousal were also consistent, with all P values less than 10−8. Thus, our general findings persisted regardless of the data analytic decisions we reconsidered.

Which Kinsey score was associated with the greatest degree of bisexual arousal? To answer this question, we focused on the standardized genital and self-report arousal composites, which correlated r(470) = 0.507, 95% CI (0.437, 0.572), P < 0.0001. Fig. 4 shows the mean genital and self-report bisexual composites for all Kinsey scores. Higher scores represent greater bisexuality. With respect to the genital composite, Kinsey 2’s showed the strongest evidence for bisexual arousal patterns. With respect to the self-report composite, Kinsey 3′s provided the most bisexual responses. Notably, both contrasts increased steadily to the maximum and then decreased steadily, consistent with a gradation model of sexual orientation.

How bisexual were the arousal patterns of men with bisexual Kinsey scores, compared with other men? It is possible, for example, that bisexual men’s sexual responses are only slightly (albeit statistically significantly) more bisexual than the responses of monosexual men. Or alternatively, the two groups could differ substantially. Answering this question requires a direct comparison of magnitudes of indicators of bisexual response. Two of the main dependent variables we have examined—Minimum Arousal and Absolute Arousal Difference—could be especially informative. Ratios of their means comparing men with bisexual Kinsey scores to men with monosexual scores could helpfully express the answer. To be meaningfully interpreted, ratios require ratio-level measurement, with a true value of zero and interval scaling (25). For example, six inches is twice the length of three inches, but a rating of six on a seven-point Likert scale of current happiness is not meaningfully interpreted as twice a rating of three. Because the data we have primarily focused on so far have been standardized within subjects, it is unsuited to provide meaningful ratios for two reasons. First, the standardized data do not have true zeros, with zero indicating an absence of a quantity. More importantly, standardizing within subjects induces a nonlinear between-subjects transformation of the raw scores, and so the ipsatized data do not have interval-level measurement.

Fortunately, the raw genital arousal data have a ratio scale, and so we focus on these data for our final analyses. Fig. 5 presents men’s raw genital responses to their more and to their less arousing sex, by Kinsey score. The figure demonstrates that increased bisexuality toward the middle of the Kinsey range is primarily due to increased responding to the less arousing sex. (Neither a two-lines analysis nor a quadratic regression reveals significant evidence for an inverted U effect for the more arousing sex.) Kinsey scores of 0 and 6 were associated with especially low (though not zero) responding to the less arousing sex, which was one of our main indicators of bisexual response. Men with Kinsey scores in the bisexual range (i.e., 2 to 4) produced 3.30 times more response to their less arousing sex compared with the (unweighted) average of men with monosexual Kinsey scores (i.e., 0 and 6). The difference between responses to the more and less arousing sex should be smaller for men with more bisexual Kinsey scores if those scores reflect men’s sexual orientations. Consistent with this prediction, men with Kinsey scores in the bisexual range produced an average difference that was 0.59 times the difference of men with monosexual scores. Both ratios were markedly different from 1. Still, men with Kinsey scores in the bisexual range produced, on average, penile circumference changes that were notably larger to one sex than to the other. The ratio of bisexual men’s genital arousal to their more arousing sex to genital arousal to their less arousing sex averaged 2.62; for monosexual men, it was 10.13. Note that these numbers comprise the ratio of each group’s mean arousal to the more arousing sex divided by their mean arousal to the less arousing sex. They are not the averages of each individual men’s ratios. Some individual ratios are extreme because the denominator is near zero.

In general, results suggested that bisexual men’s arousal patterns were markedly more bisexual than monosexual men’s, and that bisexual men were typically more aroused by one sex than by the other. The combination of our results and the fact that male sexual orientation is bimodally distributed (21) suggests that men with similar high degrees of sexual arousal to both men and women may be especially uncommon.

Discussion

The primary question motivating this research is whether men who identify as bisexual have sexual arousal patterns that are also relatively bisexual. Results strongly confirmed that men who report attraction to both sexes are more genitally and subjectively aroused by both sexes compared with men who report that they are attracted only to one sex.

The highly consistent evidence for bisexual arousal and orientation from the present study contrasts with inconsistent findings of the past (e.g., ref. 11 [not finding bisexual arousal] and ref. 12 [finding bisexual arousal]). For example, applying the two-lines methodology to the eight individual studies and focusing on the ipsatized genital Bisexual Arousal Composite yielded 29 relevant correlations (i.e., correlations for values on one side of either a 2.5 or 3.5 Kinsey break point, which should be statistically significant for a successful test). Only 12 of these were statistically significant, the median probability equal to 0.073. (SI Appendix, Table S2). The comparison of the inconsistent study-level results with the robust results using combined data from all studies demonstrates the increased statistical power of the latter approach.

A second factor that may have contributed to inconsistent results across individual studies is systematic differences between samples of bisexual men. Men who describe themselves as bisexual likely comprise a diverse set of men, some of whom have a bisexual arousal pattern and others who do not. Examples of the latter likely include transitional bisexual men (5, 6) and some paraphilic men who have sexual fantasies involving men but who are not sexually attracted to them (26). Past studies that did not show correspondence between bisexual self-report and bisexual genital arousal had far fewer subjects than the present analyses, and some may have included a higher proportion of men whose bisexual identification was due to reasons other than bisexual arousal. For example, it is possible that the sample of Rieger et al. (11) contained a higher proportion of transitional bisexual men than other samples. Recruitment of participants for that study included advertisements in both alternative and gay-oriented publications, and the bisexual-identified participants may have responded to the advertisement in the gay-oriented publications.

The present research represents the most systematic and extensive assessment of bisexual men’s arousal patterns to date. The data we analyzed comprise all relevant data that the coauthors had collected as of January 2019, and nearly all relevant data of which we are aware. Although we were unable to obtain data from two other studies with relevant data, their inclusion would not have altered our general conclusions even if we assume that those subsamples would not have shown significant bisexual arousal patterns (SI Appendix, Supplementary Text).

The primary limitation of this study is that participants were necessarily volunteers. Thus, the degree to which they are representative of men across the Kinsey scale is unknown. This limits confident generalization about the magnitude of our results. However, it is unclear how the basic pattern of results—greater bisexual response for men with more bisexual Kinsey scores—could be entirely an artifact of volunteer bias. Additionally, the fact that participants were volunteers sampled exclusively from a few Western countries prevents us from knowing how general the patterns we have observed are. However, we are unaware of promising theories specifying how these patterns might vary cross-culturally.

In a recent highly publicized article on genetic determinants of same-sex versus opposite-sex sex partners, there was no clear genetic gradient distinguishing persons with a high proportion of same-sex partners from those with opposite-sex partners (27). The authors asserted that, because of their negative findings, the validity of the Kinsey scale should be reconsidered. Our findings support the opposite conclusion, and we believe they are more relevant with respect to the validity of self-reported sexual orientations. When we ask men to assess themselves on the Kinsey scale, we do not mean for them to guess their underlying genotypes. Rather, we are asking them about their relative sexual feelings for women and men. Sexual arousal patterns are closely related to these feelings in men; indeed, they are detectable and likely lead to the subjective experience of attraction and desire (1). We have demonstrated that both genital and self-reported sexual arousal to male and female erotic stimuli form a gradient over the Kinsey scale, regardless of their underlying causes.

Materials and Methods

Participants.

Participants comprised those of available studies known to us that included genital measures of sexual arousal in men who also reported their Kinsey scores, with four exceptions. Two studies focused on men with paraphilias (26, 28), and those data were intentionally excluded. Two other studies containing relevant data could not be included because the authors did not respond to our requests for data (14, 23). The unavailable studies comprised genital assessment data of a total of 89 men, including 23 who identified as bisexual.

Participants for the constituent studies were recruited by researchers at four sites: Northwestern University in Evanston, IL (6, 11, 12, 29), the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (18), the University of Essex in Colchester, UK (15, 30), and Cornell University in Ithaca, NY (17). Individual sample sizes and methodological differences between the studies are reported in Table 2.

Across the constituent studies, data for 606 participants were available. All participants were cisgender (i.e., no participants were transgender). Of these, 474 participants were included in our main genital arousal analyses. Of the 132 excluded participants, 96 participants were excluded for exhibiting insufficient genital arousal for meaningful analysis. In any given study of male sexual arousal, there is a proportion of low-responding participants who do not become substantially aroused to any of the stimuli (among the constituent studies, this proportion ranges between 4.95% and 26.73%): Typical self-reported reasons for low response include discomfort and disinterest in the actors or actions featured in the stimuli. We counted as low responders (and excluded from initial analyses) participants who either 1) did not exhibit an average change of at least 2 mm in penile circumference to male or female stimuli compared to a baseline value; or 2) did not produce standardized mean genital arousal to at least one erotic stimulus category that exceeded that to neutral stimuli by more than half of an SD. These criteria have been used in most of the studies included herein (6, 11, 12, 15, 17, 29). Another 36 participants were excluded from genital analyses because their data were incomplete or of poor quality (e.g., impossible values because of technical difficulties when running those participants). Regarding the self-report analyses, 12 participants were excluded from self-reported arousal analyses due to not providing self-reported data, and an additional six participants were excluded for reporting arousal scores of 0 for all stimuli. This resulted in a sample size of 588 men for self-report analyses.

Within the total sample of 606 men, 178 participants self-identified as exclusively heterosexual, 102 identified as mostly heterosexual, 46 as bisexual leaning heterosexual, 34 as bisexual, 37 as bisexual leaning homosexual, 70 as mostly homosexual, and 139 as exclusively homosexual. Note that this distribution of sexual identities is not representative of the overall population. Homosexual- and bisexual-identified men were over-sampled because the focus of the component studies was typically on sexual orientation variation. This nonrepresentative sampling increased statistical power to detect differences in arousal patterns in different regions of the Kinsey scale. The average age was 28.63 y (SD = 9.03). Data for educational attainment were available for 359 participants and were coded as 1 (no high school), 2 (some high school), 3 (high school diploma), 4 (some college), 5 (college graduate), and 6 (postgraduate student or degree). The average level of educational attainment was 4.76 (SD = 0.85), and the most common response was “college graduate” (n = 133). Data for ethnicity were available for 502 participants. Of these, 326 (64.94%) were White/Caucasian, 60 (11.95%) were Black, 42 (8.37%) were Asian, 29 (5.78%) were Hispanic/Latino, and 45 (8.96%) reported other. Distributions of age, ethnicity, and educational attainment by sexual orientation are reported in Table 3.

Measures.

Sexual orientation.

Participants reported their sexual orientation using the seven-point Kinsey scale (4) ranging from 0 (exclusive heterosexual orientation) to 6 (exclusive homosexual orientation), with 3 representing bisexual orientation with equal attraction to men and women. In most studies, the prompt for the scale was worded such that it framed sexual orientation as one’s relative attraction to men versus women. However, two of the included studies (11, 12) (n = 203, or 33% of the overall sample) framed sexual orientation as one’s relative frequency of sexually fantasizing about men versus women.

Genital arousal.

Each study assessed changes in the penile circumference of participants when viewing erotic stimuli, with increases in circumference denoting increased genital arousal (31). The majority of the data were collected using an indium/gallium strain gauge connected to either an MP150 or an MP100 data acquisition unit alongside AcqKnowledge software. Data from Rieger et al. (11) were collected using a mercury-in-rubber strain gauge. Chivers et al. (18) used the Limestone hardware and software and a mercury-in-rubber strain gauge.

Subjective arousal.

Participants subjectively reported their arousal to male and female erotic stimuli and to neutral stimuli following each stimulus. The particular range of each study’s subjective arousal measure varied (e.g., an 11-point scale was used in Jabbour et al. (29) whereas a seven-point scale was used in Rieger et al. (11)). Thus, all subjective ratings for arousal to male stimuli and arousal to female stimuli were rescaled as proportions of the maximum possible response.

Procedure.

In each constituent study, participants privately viewed various erotic video clips while a penile strain gauge was used to measure changes in the circumference of the penis. Most of the studies utilized 3-min clips; Rieger et al. (11) used 2-min clips, and Chivers et al. (18) used 90-s clips. Neutral stimuli (e.g., footage of landscapes and wildlife) were included in each paradigm to assess a baseline level of arousal. Erotic stimuli were presented in random order; these included either a male stimulus (depending on the study, either male–male sexual acts or one male masturbating) or female stimulus (female–female sexual acts or one female masturbating). During or after each stimulus, participants provided a subjective arousal rating. If participants were still aroused before the presentation of the next sexual stimulus (e.g., if their penile circumference exceeded the previously assessed baseline by 2 mm), they were instructed via intercom to perform a distracting task (e.g., “in your head, count all of the multiples of 9”) until they returned to their baseline level and the next stimulus began. After each session, participants were debriefed and compensated for their time.

Data Analysis.

Each individual’s raw genital responses to appropriate stimuli were averaged to provide three values: average arousal (i.e., penile circumference) to neutral stimuli, to male stimuli, and to female stimuli. Raw genital measures were in units of millimeters. Analogously, self-reported ratings were averaged to provide the same three values, in units of proportion of maximum possible ratings. These values were used to produce all subsequent metrics.

For the main analyses, genital and self-reported arousal scores were standardized within participants, using each participant’s average arousal scores for male, female, and neutral erotic stimuli. This practice, also called ipsatizing, is useful to remove unwanted sources of variation, including those attributable to penis size and general responsiveness (32). Each man’s standardized arousal to male and to female stimuli was then transformed by subtracting arousal to neutral stimuli.

The primary analyses in Table 1 comprised a version of the two-lines test (16). The rationale of the test is that, if the relation between two variables is U-shaped (or inverted U-shaped), there must be a point on the predictor range, xC, such that the regression line using values below xC has an opposite sign of the regression line using values above xC. Our analysis diverged from that outlined by Simonsohn in two ways. First, we presented Pearson correlations rather than unstandardized regression coefficients to make it easier for the reader to assess the magnitude of line slopes. Second, instead of allowing Simonsohn’s algorithm to find the ideal break point, xC, we present results for two different break points, one on either side of the midpoint of the Kinsey scale. (One must not use a value for xC that exists in the data, and thus 3 could not be used.) This meant that, for both tests, the middle of the Kinsey scale provided the most bisexual scores on the dependent variables as well as an examination of the robustness of results.

[transsexual-menace]

hello! there has once again been another update to my queer/gender studies folder!

new additions

1. the ladder by the daughters of bilitis (the ladder was the first nationally distributed magazine in the united states. it ran from 1956 - 1972). (this can be found in the magazines/periodicals folder)

2. anything that moves by the bay area bisexual network (the aim of the magazine was to combat stereotypes of bisexuals and to combat biphobia). (this can be found in the magazine/periodicals folder)

3. dykes, disability, & stuff by catherine odette and sara karon (dd&s was available in six different formats so disabled people could read the magazine. this included large print, braille versions transcribed by ruth lehrer, and cassette tapes read by laura yados). (this can be found in the magazines/periodicals folder)

4. after stonewall: a critical journal of gay liberation (this periodical was published in winnipeg but was for gay men and lesbians in canada and the united states) (this can be found in the magazines/periodicals folder)

5. one magazine by one, inc. (this magazine was part of a landmark supreme court case in 1957 that ruled that homosexual writing was not obscene just because it dealt with homosexuality) (this can be found in magazines/periodicals folder. however, there are some missing issues i could not find)

i got a request from a user to add french queer history which i am planning on doing. however, i do not speak french so if anyone who speaks french would be able to recommend some good french queer history books that are in french, i would be forever grateful. i will be adding books in english because i have found a few good ones. in the future, i am planning on adding books about queer history in germany because it's a huge interest of mine and i think german queer history is so rich and interesting. if anyone has any suggestions for other countries for me to add, feel free to send a dm/ask!

[olympic-paris]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more …

August 6

1637 – The Plymouth, Massachusetts court finds John Alexander and Thomas Roberts guilty of "often spending their seed one upon the other" though they are not charged with sodomy. Both were severely whipped, and Alexander was branded on the shoulder and banished from the colony. Although the colony had made sodomy punishable by death the previous year, it required penetration that was not proven in this case.

1784 – Nineteenth-century Swiss milliner and anthologist Heinrich Hössli (d.1864) was a passionate defender of homosexuality, but his work exerted almost no influence. Hössli was born in Glarus, Switzerland, on August 6, 1784. He received no formal education, but learned the trade of hat-making in Berne. He returned to Glarus, where he became known as the town's leading milliner and interior decorator.

At age 26 Hössli married the 25-year-old Elisabeth Grebel in Zurich. The couple did not live together: his wife remained in Zurich and he returned to Glarus. But he visited her often and they had two sons, both of whom later emigrated to the United States. One son disappeared; the other son, who had corresponded with his father about his own homosexuality, died in a shipwreck while returning to Switzerland. (There are indications in his writings that Hössli himself was also homosexual.)

A successful businessman, Hössli was able to live a comfortable, if restless life, moving his residence many times. He died in Winterthur, Switzerland, on December 24, 1864.

A turning point came in Hössli's life in 1817 when he learned of the execution of Franz Desgouttes for murdering the man he loved, and it was then that he conceived what he afterwards referred to as his "idea," namely, that the understanding of male love of the archaic Greeks had been replaced through the centuries by such strong denial, repression, and condemnation, that even those men who by nature felt such a passion were unable to accept it as genuine and, as a consequence, saw themselves as evil and acted as such.

This revelation, that Greek love was an eternal part of human nature, and the dreadful consequences of the suppression of this knowledge, gave Hössli his lifelong mission.

He then spent the next years studying the subject and struggling to express himself, publishing the first volume of Eros in 1836. A second volume followed in 1838, but a planned third volume remained unpublished and has apparently been lost.Volume One of Eros established two themes that Hössli continued to elaborate: (1) that society treats homosexuals in the way that previous centuries treated witches and heretics , and (2) that homosexuals are not necessarily effeminate.

In Volume 2 of Eros Hössli reformulates and elaborates his theme in two parts: an anthology of male love, and a defense of "Greek love" against what modern critics have made of it. The anthology mainly includes examples from Greek, Roman, and Persian writings. He does not include Plato in his anthology, but he avers that "the dialogues of Plato witness higher and deeper than all these voices of earlier times for my idea." In the second part of volume 2, Hössli refutes nine false statements about the male love of the Greeks, including the accusation that it is child abuse.

Hössli's writing can still inspire us with its strong feeling for justice. As Warren Johannson observed, "Eros ranks as the first sustained protest against the intolerance that homosexual love had suffered for centuries in Christian Europe."

1845 - John Campbell, 9th Duke of Argyll, Marquis of Lorne (d.1914) was a British nobleman and was the fourth Governor General of Canada from 1878 to 1883. He is now remembered primarily for the place names bestowed on Canadian geography in honour of his wife, Princess Louise.

For ten years before coming to Canada, Campbell travelled throughout North and Central America, writing travel literature and poetry. In the UK, he represented, since 1868, the constituency of Argyllshire as a Liberal Member of Parliament in the House of Commons. He made little impression there, however; the London World referred to Campbell as "a non-entity in the House of Commons, and a non-entity without."

Campbell married Queen Victoria's fourth daughter, Princess Louise in 1871. This was the first time a Princess had married a commoner since 1515. The pair shared a common love of the arts, but tended to live apart and never had children. Further, Campbell formed close friendships with men who were rumoured to be homosexually inclined, which raised questions about Campbell's marriage and fuelled rumours around London that Campbell was bisexual, if not largely homosexual in predisposition.

Queen Victoria thought her son-in-law could use some toughening up, and arranged for his post in the wilds of her Domain as the 4th Governor General of Canada. He was appointed on October 7, 1878 and sworn in on November 25, 1878, in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

At age 33, Lord Lorne became Canada's youngest Governor General, but he was not too young to handle the marginal demands of his post. He and Princess Louise made many lasting contributions to Canadian society especially in the arts and sciences. They encouraged the establishment of the Royal Society of Canada, the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and the National Gallery of Canada, even selecting some of its first paintings. Campbell was also involved in the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway and other projects, such as a hospital for British Columbia. In addition to acting as a patron of arts and letters in Canada, Lorne was the author of many books of prose and poetry. His writings show a deep appreciation of Canada's physical beauty.

Throughout his term of office, Lorne was intensely interested in Canada and Canadians. He travelled throughout the country encouraging the establishment of numerous institutions, and met with members of Canada's First Nations and with other Canadians from all walks of life. At Rideau Hall, he and Princess Louise hosted many social functions, including numerous ice skating and tobogganing parties as well as balls, dinners and State occasions.

One winter day in 1881, Princess Louise rode her sleigh on the Rideau Canal. The sleigh tipped, she fell out and cut her ear. That was the last straw and she promptly returned to England. The Duke remained in Canada ... to do still more "exploring" of this wild frontier. He eventually followed her in 1883.The marriage was not a happy one. Lorne is rumored to have been bisexual, and certainly he had close friendships with several known homosexuals such as the author Horatio Brown and artist Lord Ronald Gower. Legend has it that Princess Louise bricked up a window in Kensington Palace to stop Lorne's nighttime 'cruising' for soldiers in the park. More importantly, Lorne was an associate and confidant of the handsome but dissolute homosexual Frank Shackleton, (brother of the explorer Sir Ernest), who was a key suspect in the theft of the Irish Crown Jewels. Shackleton was to defraud Lord Ronald Gower of money, and there is clear evidence that official investigation of the theft of the Crown Jewels was suppressed. It has been suggested that this is because authorities became aware of the Lorne connection to Shackleton.

1857 – (Christian Wilhelm) C.W. Allers (d.1915) was a German painter and printmaker. Allers, the son of a merchant, was born 1857 in Hamburg. He first worked as a lithographer, and in 1877 he moved to Karlsruhe where he continued to work as a lithographer. In 1880/1881 he served in the German navy in Kiel where the German painter Anton Alexander von Werner supported him. In Kiel he got to know the poet Klaus Groth, who became a friend of his.

Allers became well-known when he published his collection of prints Club Eintracht in 1888. Several other books and maps (collections of prints) followed, e.g. about Bismarck, so at the beginning of the 1890s he was able to build a villa on Capri. He lived there for many years, also spending some time in Hamburg, Karlsruhe and travelling around the world.

His drawings are rich in detail and are of realistic style, so they often seem clinical. Although the drawings look realistic, Allers sometimes added persons to scenes who were never at that location. In this respect, he was not a realist. Technically, Allers often used pencil and drew scenes of everyday life, travelogue and portraits.

In autumn 1902, there was a scandal. Friedrich Alfred Krupp, a member of the famous industrial dynasty, another well-known German living in Capri, was accused by some italian newspapers of homosexuality and pederasty. It is uncertain how much truth there was in the accusations or if it was part of an extortion attempt by a journalist.

Some weeks later, Allers was also accused, in court. (Krupp died some weeks later, possibly a suicide.) Allers managed to escape before the trial began, which led to a sentence of 4½ years imprisonment, pronounced in absentia. According to Tito Fiorani, 'Allers had distinctly homosexual tendencies, and liked to surround himself with boys, whom he often used as models.'

"Junge"

Allers left Capri and began travelling around the world for more than 10 years, staying some time in New Zealand, Samoa, and Australia. During this time, he often used the pseudonym W. Andresen, and earned money by making portraits of wealthy people. He died in 1915 in Karlsruhe some months after returning to Germany.

1862 – A transgender soldier, Albert Cashier (1843 – 1915), enlists in the 95th Illinois Infantry and is assigned to Company G of the Union Army. Cashier adopted the identity of a man before enlisting, and maintained it for most of the remainder of his life. He became famous as one of a number of women soldiers who served as men during the Civil War, although the consistent and long-term commitment to the male identity has prompted some contemporary scholars to suggest that Cashier was a trans man.

In 1911, Cashier was hit by a car that broke his leg. A physician discovered his secret in the hospital, but did not disclose the information. On May 5, 1911, because he was no longer able to work, Cashier was moved to the Soldiers and Sailors home in Quincy, Illinois. During this stay, Albert was visited by many of his fellow soldiers from Ninety-fifth Regiment. He lived there until his mental state deteriorated. He was moved to the Watertown State Hospital for the Insane in March 1914.

Attendants at the Watertown State Hospital discovered that Albert was female when giving him a bath, at which point – and at age 70 –  he was made to wear women’s clothes again after fifty years. His tombstone reads "Albert D. J. Cashier, Co. G, 95 Ill. Inf." His birth name of Jennie Hodgers was discovered nine years later so a second tombstone with both names was placed beside the original.

1862 – Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (d.1932), a Cambridge classicist, is significant for the glbtq legacy as the author of the immensely popular The Greek Way of Life (1896), in which he delicately discusses homoeroticism; as the creator of a frank account of homosexuality in his posthumously published autobiography; as the subject of a biography written by his friend E. M. Forster; and as an important disseminator of Plato and his idealization of male friendship.

Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson was born in London on August 6, 1862. His parents were artists and early Christian socialists. Educated at Charterhouse School and King's College, Cambridge, he graduated in 1884, as an outstanding scholar. That same year, he was also inducted into the Cambridge Conversazione Society, the Apostles or fratres, a club that once included Alfred Lord Tennyson and Arthur Hallam and that became the progenitor of the Bloomsbury group.

He immersed himself in classical and modern civilization, avidly reading Plato, Shelley, and Goethe. In 1887, he was named fellow of his old college which provided a more stable professional environment. In 1892, however, his fellowship was not renewed. He then became a librarian, but was appointed college lecturer in political science in 1896. In 1920, he was given a pension fellowship, tenable for life. He worked also as a lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

When World War I broke out, Dickinson was deeply shocked. He founded the pacifist Bryce Group, became president of the Union of Democratic Control, joined Bertrand Russell in his stance against the war, advocated the establishment of the League of Nations (a phrase he possibly coined), and was instrumental in its conception. He hoped that his work on behalf of the League would help end future warfare. He died on August 3, 1932.

Dickinson's most popular text, The Greek View of Life (1896), illustrates his fascination with Plato and with ancient Greece, often seen as a golden age of homoeroticism. Due to its popularity (it is still being used in college classrooms), the book exposed, probably for the first time, a large audience of non-specialists to, among other topics, Platonic love.

Dickinson alludes to Socrates's homoerotic attraction and allure:

"Young men and boys followed and hung on his lips wherever he went . . . . His relation to his young disciples was that of a lover and a friend; and the stimulus given by his dialectics to their keen and eager minds was supplemented and reinforced by the appeal to their admiration and love of his sweet and virile personality."

Dickinson notes that "romance" took the form of "passionate friendship between men," which he illustrates by citing the Theban Sacred Band, an army of male lovers; several legendary homoerotic couples: Achilles and Patroclus, Pylades and Orestes, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, Solon and Peisistratus, Socrates and Alcibiades, Epaminondas and Pelopidas; and the entire speech of Diotima in the Symposium, the source par excellence for Platonic love.

Dickinson reaches a remarkably candid conclusion about Platonic love and homoerotic desire: "That there was another side to the matter goes without saying. This passion, like any other, has its depths, as well as its heights." Dickinson's candor here is especially noteworthy considering that he published The Greek Way of Life only one year after Oscar Wilde had been sent to prison for homosexual liaisons or "gross indecency."

Composed in middle age, but not published until some forty years after his death, Dickinson's Autobiography remains our most valuable source of information on Dickinson's (sex) life. Dickinson describes how he had numerable crushes on attractive students and how he fell in love with several men, including the Bloomsbury art critic Roger Fry, the undergraduates Ferdinand Schiller and Oscar Eckhard, and the much younger Peter Savary. Judging from pictures, all these men were extremely good-looking. In most (if not all) cases, however, it seems that Dickinson never consummated his love affairs. Paul Robinson summarizes Dickinson's adult sexual life as "an intensely romantic attachment, passionate kisses and warm embraces (with a hint of fetishism), followed by relief through masturbation."

Another complication, of course, arose from the increasing difference in age between him and his objects of affection, who were also often mostly heterosexual. Some passages of the Autobiography verge on the pornographic. Dickinson admits to a fetish for shiny leather boots and for sado-masochistic pleasure:

"My earliest remembrance of sexual feeling was connected with boots . . . . At night, when I had gone to bed, I used to steal out to my father's dressing room, and excite myself over his boots." He found being trodden on especially arousing.

E. M. Forster's biography of his friend, whom he also affectionately called Goldie, is reticent as to the details of its subject's sex life. Much of this reticence is indubitably due to the fact that the book was published in 1934, when homosexuality was illegal and when more candid revelations could have had dire consequences for surviving members of Dickinson's circle. Still, careful readers of the biography would have had no trouble discerning Dickinson's homosexuality. Vague references such as "he was never drawn to women in the passionate sense, all his deepest emotions being towards men" abound.

His legacy to us is that in The Greek Way of Life, Dickinson opened a fascinating window to Greek homoeroticism.

1928 – Andrew Warhola, known as Andy Warhol (d.1987), was an American artist of Slovak origin and a central figure in the movement known as pop art. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became famous worldwide for his work as a painter, an avant-garde film-maker, a record producer, an author, and a public figure known for his membership in wildly diverse social circles that included bohemian street people, distinguished intellectuals, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy aristocrats.

A controversial figure during his lifetime (his work was often derided by critics as a hoax, or 'put-on'), Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, feature and documentary films since his death in 1987.

Born Andrew Warhola, Jr. on August 6, 1928 into a working-class family in Forest City, Pennsylvania, Warhol attended art school at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. He moved to New York in 1949, where he changed his named to Andy Warhol and made friendships with Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg.

Warhol coined the phrase 15 minutes of fame, which refers to the fleeting condition of celebrity that attaches to an object of media attention, then passes to some new object as soon as the public's attention span is exhausted.

Warhol is best known for his extremely simple, larger-than-life, high-contrast colour paintings, silk-screen prints of packaged consumer products, everyday objects - such as Campbell's Soup cans, poppies and the banana appearing on the cover of the album The Velvet Underground and Nico (1967) - and for his stylised - and much pastiched - portraits of twentieth century celebrity icons - such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Elizabeth Taylor.

He was also a highly influential and innovative film-maker, although his work, largely controlled by his estate and commercially unavailable, has been little seen in recent years.

Warhol and other pop-artists helped redefine the artist's position as professional, commercial, popular; a logical and valuable part of society. He did this using methods, imagery and talents that were (or at least seemed to be) available to everyone. Perhaps that has been the most meaningful result of (his) Pop Art: a philosophical and practical incorporation of art into society, art as a product of society.

Warhol was one of the first major homosexual American artists to be open about his sexuality. Many people think of Warhol as 'asexual' and merely a 'voyeur', but these notions have been debunked by biographers, explored by other members of the factory scene such as Bob Colacello (in his book Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Up Close), and by scholars. The question of how his sexuality informed Warhol's work and shaped his relationship to the art world is a major subject of scholarship on the artist, and is an issue that Warhol himself addressed in interviews, in conversation with his contemporaries, and in his publications.

Indeed, the gayness that Warhol projected in both his art and his public persona contrasted sharply with the macho posturing that had dominated the art world in the 1950s. But such openness carried a price. When Warhol asked why his idols, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, avoided him, a mutual friend, filmmaker Emil de Antonio, answered, "Okay, Andy, if you really want to hear it straight, I'll lay it out for you. You're too swish, and that upsets them." In defiance, Warhol emphasized his effeminacy even more.

From childhood Warhol embraced the myth of stardom. His attraction to the young and famous motivated some of his first silkscreen paintings, which were based on images of Troy Donahue and Elvis Presley and date from 1962. Warhol's identification with these celebrities is two-fold, both as objects of desire and as role models. But he also screened images of death and disasters taken from the tabloids. When the theme of tragedy coincided with his fascination with stardom, Warhol found the subject of his best-known group of celebrity portraits: Marilyn Monroe. In his "gold Marilyn" series, initiated shortly after her suicide in August 1962, Warhol contrived the effect of a gilded Byzantine icon, but substituted for the Virgin Mary an image whose face is suffused with eroticism. It stunningly evokes the need to love and to be loved.

Throughout his career, Warhol produced erotic photography and drawings of male nudes. Many of his most famous works (portraits of Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, Elizabeth Taylor, and films like My Hustler, Blow Job, and Lonesome Cowboys) draw from gay underground culture and/or openly explore the complexity of sexuality and desire. Many of his films premiered in gay porn theatres. That said, some stories about Warhol's development as an artist revolve around the obstacle his sexuality initially presented as he tried to launch his career. The first works that he submitted to a gallery in the pursuit of a career as an artist were homoerotic drawings of male nudes. They were rejected for being too openly gay.

He was never political, and more a voyeuristic dandy than an involved homosexual. Nevertheless he supported the careers of gay artists such as Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Warhol died in New York City from a routine gallbladder surgery at the age of 58. Warhol was afraid to enter hospitals and see doctors, so he had delayed having his recurring gallbladder problems checked. His will established a foundation to help young artists. Today Warhol has entered the canon of significant American artists, his importance signaled by the fact that Pittsburgh has named a museum in his honor and retrospectives of his career attract large crowds. As Robert Summers points out, however, even supposedly comprehensive exhibits distort his achievement by white-washing him as "asexual" and divesting his work of its queer content and connections.

However, to an extent, the evolution of his now accepted Pop style can be traced to the years when Warhol was first dismissed by the inner circles of the New York art world and thus created his own.

1938 – The career of filmmaker Paul Bartel (d. 2000) is in many respects typical of the modern independent director/producer. His filmography as a director is slight (ten features and a couple of television shows between 1969 and 1993). He tended to work when and where he could, with very low budgets, in disreputable genres, often writing and acting in his films and in those of others and calling on friends such as actress Mary Woronov to bring what star power they could to his work.

That Bartel was openly gay was not the issue in the independent film world that it would have been in mainstream film, which has so much more invested culturally and economically in the heterosexuality of its interpreters. In a 1998 interview in The Advocate, Bartel said "I go to commercial Hollywood films and often think how glad I am that I didn't pursue a career in that kind of filmmaking"--a statement that may say as much about the opportunities available to openly queer filmmakers in Hollywood during his heyday as about where his own interests lay.

Born in Brooklyn on August 6, 1938, Bartel was the classic future filmmaker, creating marionette shows at the age of five, discovering movies and directors as a teenager, and by sixteen shooting his own animated shorts. Early on he evinced a talent for obtaining resources for little or no money--persuading his father to buy him a 16mm camera and conning a high school teacher into excusing him from a semester to work on an elaborate animated project (a 3,000-cel undertaking that Bartel convinced the whole class to work on). This talent would serve him well throughout a flashy but far from lucrative career outside the mainstream.

After high school, Bartel worked in the Army Signal Corps Pictorial Center in Queens as a script clerk and assistant director on training films and documentaries. Fluent in French and Italian, he studied theater and film at UCLA and won a Fulbright scholarship that brought him to work at Rome's Cinecitta Studios. Bartel moved to New York City in the early 1960s, where he met future collaborator Mary Woronov and by the end of the decade had made his first feature, The Secret Cinema (1969), a black-comic tale of a woman whose fears that her life is being filmed for the entertainment of her friends turn out to be true.

Three years later the director made Private Parts (1972), another black comedy whose title was sometimes printed as Private Arts or Private Party by skittish newspapers. Private Parts introduces a typical Bartel tableau, a depraved San Francisco hotel riddled with leather queens, transvestites, runaways, and other social deviates, all treated as amusing denizens of the demimonde.

Bartel's career was kick-started the following year by his association with exploitation maestro Roger Corman, for whom he made Death Race 2000 (1973). Bartel's vision of a future world in which drivers get points for running down pedestrians became a cult favorite and triggered a sequel, Cannonball (1976).

Six years later came Eating Raoul, the 1982 film that remains, to most Bartel watchers, his best. This edgy comedy features Paul and Mary Bland (played by Bartel and Mary Woronov), a nerdish, sex-hating couple who realize their dream of opening a restaurant by murdering and robbing swingers. Eating Raoul's satirical take on marriage, adultery, cannibalism, the cult of "good taste," entrepreneurship, and swinging won it more critical and commercial success than any of his other films. It was chosen for such prestigious venues as Cannes and the New York Film Festival. Eating Raoul did not catapult Bartel out of the minor leagues, however, perhaps because he had no more interest in the mainstream than the mainstream had in him.

He made a few more films, some of them, such as The Longshot (1986) and his last effort, Shelf Life (1993), barely released. Fans of Divine gave Lust in the Dust (1985), a comic western promoted as a kind of queer Blazing Saddles, a modicum of notoriety. In addition, Bartel gained some cachet from The Class Struggle in Beverly Hills (1989), where he had a larger (but not large) budget and better-known actors such as Jacqueline Bisset. The film was not successful, but it was hailed in some quarters for its caustic humor, political savvy, and casual introduction of a heated sex scene between Robert Beltran and Ray Sharkey.

Bartel's ultimate importance may lie less in his directorial efforts, which are variable in quality, than in his unwavering presence as an inspiring figure in the independent film world, particularly to queer filmmakers, an image reinforced by his genial, bear-like demeanor and eagerness to help struggling young beginners. He probably survived as much through his acting in both mainstream and independent films — Heart Like a Wheel, National Lampoon's European Vacation, Rock and Roll High School, Basquiat, and Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss are among his 77 acting credits — as through his own films.

Bartel died on May 13, 2000 of a heart attack two weeks after undergoing surgery for liver cancer. At the time of his death, he was preparing a sequel to Eating Raoul, set twenty years after the original.

1945 - Any search of August 6, 1945, for "gay" history, is most likely to bring up the above image of Enola Gay, of a similar picture and accompanying story. This bomber dropped the first atomic bomb used in warfare on Hiroshima, Japan, on this date.

1975 – (James Campbell) Jamie McGonnigal, born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, is a voice actor, actor, producer, activist and director, who has worked for various companies such as 4Kids Entertainment, Central Park Media, NYAV Post, DuArt Film and Video and Funimation.

As the founding Artistic Producer of The World AIDS Day Concerts and as a Founding Producer of the New York Musical Theatre Festival, McGonnigal presented the New York Premiere of Stephen Schwartz' Children of Eden, the first major NY revisitation of Pippin , Snoopy The Musical , The Secret Garden, Rags, and the first major revival of the cult hit Runaways . His FLOPZ n' CUTZ series benefiting the Joey DiPaolo AIDS Foundation was declared a “smash” by New York's NEXT Magazine. Named a "musical theatre impresario" by Time Out New York, he has produced and/or directed more than 100 events for The Matthew Shepard Foundation, God's Love We Deliver, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, Parkinson's Resource Organization, The National AIDS Fund, Opening Act, The Pied Piper Children's Theatre, Victims of Hurricane Katrina, Free Arts NYC, The United Nations Association HERO Campaign and Victims of the 2008 Midwest Flooding. His work has earned him National recognition as well as a special award from The 2006 New England Theatre Conference.

In 2007, McGonnigal traveled to South Africa and Namibia as an ambassador for the United Nations' HERO campaign assisting remote AIDS-affected communities. He also served on the Board of Directors for the Joey DiPaolo AIDS Foundation and acted as camp director for Camp TLC, a summer camp for inner city teens living with HIV/AIDS from 2005-2008.

In 2010, McGonnigal founded Take Back Pride, a campaign to put the elements of activism back in Pride Marches around the country. The movement has now swept 17 cities and 4 countries thus far.

McGonnigal lives in Washington, D.C. with his husband Sean Carlson.

[thedjpositive-blog]

Capital Pride & the Gay Purge in Canada

Capital Pride wrapped up with the Pride Parade just yesterday in Ottawa. It was a great turn-out, however a number of companies, public institutions, and the current governing political party dropped from participating in Pride over a statement released by the organizers condemning the 'Pink-washing' of the war in Gaza and expressing solidarity with Palestinians. In this context I thought it would be worth sharing a bit of history on Capital Pride and its connection to the Gay Purge.

In the 17the century, European colonists brought with them to Turtle Island a view of same-sex relations as "sinful" and an idealization of chastity based on certain Biblical interpretations. This view remained fairly consistent in European ontology until the 19th century, when sexuality began to be studied from the perspective of medical science. Rather than being viewed as a sin, same-sex attraction began to be treated as a "mental disorder," and would be classified as such in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders until 1973. This idea of same-sex attraction as a "mental disorder" also took root in Canada, and it became further stigmatized as a "security concern" in the context of the Cold War.

The Canadian federal government authorized in 1948 the investigative powers of a Security Panel that would report directly to Cabinet. The Security Panel deliberately targeted "homosexuals" as a "national security threat" because this "character weakness" supposedly left same-sex attracted persons open to blackmail by Soviet agents—this laid the groundwork for what would become known as 'the Gay Purge.' More than 9,000 Canadians were spied on, interrogated, and ultimately purged from the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), the RCMP federal police, and the federal public service between the 1950s to the mid 1990s.

The Security Panel also mandated research on "the detection of homosexuals" that relied on the same assumption of same-sex attraction as a mental disorder. This directly led to the Security Panel approving in 1961 Professor F.R. Wake of Carleton University's development of the infamous 'Fruit Machine.' For four years Wake's team of psychiatrists and psychologists, and the departments of National Defence and Health & Welfare, used the machine to intrusively interrogate suspected queer members of the CAF , but were ultimately unable to make the machine reliably work (due in part to a lack of queer persons volunteering to act as control subjects. Also because it was based on faulty pseudo-science).

At the same time as the Purge was being carried out, there was a greater effort by the Canadian government to criminalize same-sex attraction and identity. Legislative changes in 1952 prevented "homosexuals" from immigrating to Canada due to "security concerns." The following year "buggery" and "gross indecency" were added as triggering offenses to the Canadian Criminal Code. In 1961 the Dangerous Sexual Offender legislation made consensual same-sex relations grounds for indefinite detention by the police. However, the Canadian queer community pushed back.

It began with the 1971 'We Demand' rally in Ottawa—the first large scale gay rights demonstration in the country—which included amongst their demands: that the RCMP disclose whether that had been spying on queer people working in the government, and to allow same-sex attracted persons to work in the military. The 'We Demand' rally is the reason why Pride is celebrated in August in Ottawa, rather than June. In 1985, Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into effect, which provided protection from discrimination on various grounds—including sexual orientation. In 1990, Military Police Officer Michelle Douglas, released from the CAF the year prior as a result of the Purge, took the federal government to court on the grounds of breaching her Charter rights under Sec(15). She won a settlement that saw the policy of discrimination against same-sex attracted persons in the CAF revoked.

By 2003 most Canadian provinces and territories had legalized same-sex marriage, and in June 2005 the Civil Marriage Act extended this right to all Canadians. Despite these accomplishments the work of the 2SLGBTQIA+ movement in Canada is not done. For example, the legal protection of transgender persons continues to be inadequate—see for instance the Alberta government's recent "Parental Rights" bill which has been criticized for endangering trans youth. Pride, including Capital Pride in Ottawa, has always been about solidarity and resistance to authorities that would suppress it. This is what enabled the movement to push back and ultimately overcome the Purge; it did not need the companies, the public institutions, nor the political parties 53 years ago—it does not need them now.

The Security Panel may be disbanded, the Fruit Machine dismantled, and the legal grounds for discrimination dismissed, but the struggle for equality continues until everyone is safe to freely live and express their identities as they are.

Sources:

Introduction to the History of the Queer Movement. Cyndia Cole, Val Innes, & Ellen Woodsworth. https://www.jstor.org/stable/45136196

"Character Weakness" and "Fruit Machines": Towards an Analysis of the Anti-Homosexual Security Campaign in the Canadian Civil Service. Gary Kinsman. (Note: a major scholar in this field, see also his book with Patrizia Gentile from UBC press: The Canadian War on Queers: National Security as Sexual Regulation).

For more info on the Gay Purge in Canada, highly recommend Sarah Fodey's Canadian Screen Awards nominated documentary, The Fruit Machine, available on YouTube (TW: addresses experiences of homophobia, biphobia, SA.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dLEn0h4hJI