Author: Raul Ramirez

For my last post for class, I want to focus on the German Jewish physician and sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld. He is known as the “Einstein of Sex,” because of the amount of work he did to prove, scientifically, that homosexuality was rooted in biology to help liberate gay men and lesbians from oppressive German laws. He founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee (Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee) to campaign for LGBT individuals to be recognized in society and against their legal persecution and is known as the first ever LGBT organization in history. He also created and ran the Institute of Sex Research (Institut für Sexualwissenschaft), which as a non-profit foundation that served as a research library and had medical, psychological, and ethnological divisions, and a marriage and sex counseling office. The institute advocated for sex education, contraception, the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, and women’s emancipation, and was a pioneer worldwide in the call for civil rights and social acceptance for the LGBT Community. Magnus Hirschfeld started advocating for gay rights, because many of his LGBT patients started to commit suicide, because of the way that society viewed them. Sadly, most of his work was either destroyed or ended up in the wrong hands during the Hitler reign on Germany. He was a true pioneer that paved the way for others to continue advocating for the acceptance of LGBT individuals within society.
#LGBTQExperiencesUSA #LGBTQFiguresinHistory #LGBTQOrganizingwithinHistory

This week I decided to focus on the police raid that occurred in the Ariston Hotel Baths on February 21, 1903. This was the first ever recorded raid in a bathhouse that occurred in the United States. About 60 men were detained, 26 were arrested, 12 were brought to trial on sodomy laws, and 7 received sentences ranging from 4-20 years in prison. The Ariston Hotel Baths was located in the basement of the Ariston Hotel which was at the corner Broadway and 55th Street in New York City and was in operation as early as 1897. This event is important, because it was the catalyst the motivated people to start recording all of the raids that were occurring in places that were centered around LGBTQ+ people such as Stonewall. #LGBTQExperiencesUSA #LGBTQRaidsinHistory #LGBTQIssueswithPolice

I chose to focus on people who are UndocuQueer and their struggles with health care and workforce discrimination.

This week I decided to focus on the film “Prayers for Bobby” that is based on the book of the same name written by Leroy F. Aarons. The film is based on a true story about Bobby Griffith, a gay man that killed himself in 1983 because of his own mother’s homophobia. The story follows how Bobby’s mother starts to question her beliefs after Bobby commits suicide and ultimately delivers a speech that ends with “before you echo amen in your home and place of worship, think, think and remember a child is listening” as a reminder that bigotry and hate towards people can have dire consequences.
#LGBTQExperiencesUSA #LGBTQExperiencesWithFaith #LGBTQandReligion

The film was so interesting to watch. I learned so much more about how transgender people of color are so abused when they are in jail. I really enjoyed getting to see a little bit about who Mrs. Major is, because she has been doing amazing work with the Transgender, Gender Variant, and Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP). What surprised me the most were the statistics that Major talked about. She said that about 58% of people in jail are Black and Latino, but that we only make up about 25% of the population within the United States. I was really surprised by that number. I knew that many of the people in jail were people of color, but I did not know just how much suffering transgender people went through in jail either.

From that point, I am wondering why is is that more than half of the people in jail are people of color. What I want to learn more about is, out of that percentage, how many of these people are part of the LGBTQ+ community, especially how many are transgender, because of all the abuse that they receive in jail? I also want to know why there is little to no coverage of the deaths and murders of transgender people of color? I have heard about it through other LGBTQ people, but I have not heard it once from a news report or article. I hope that this starts to change with the amount of transgender activists that are standing up to these injustices.

The ad that caught my attention right away was this one. The first thing that I noticed was that the ad was in Spanish. I found that very important, because Latinos make up around 27% of all HIV infections which is really high. It is also interesting that the setting of the ad is at a gym or sauna, which are the areas that are known for having mean cruise for sex with other men. It is also good that the men in the ad all seem to be from different races and ethnicities to show that AIDS does not only affect white gay men or gay men of color. The ad also promotes rough but safe sex through the description, because it says that the man sitting down is “a good player” and that “he always uses condoms.” Another thing is that this ad has at least three other ones that are exactly the same, but they are in English and all of them have three different men on each of the covers.

• http://aep.lib.rochester.edu/node/40821
• http://www.hudsonvalleycs.org/hiv-crisis-among-hispanic-msm/

For my post this week, I decided to focus on the publication Out Magazine. Out Magazine is the highest circulating LGBT publication within the United States. It was created in 1992. I wanted to focus on the issue that came out in January 2017, which was titled “A Moonlight Revolution: The Black Queer Experience Comes of Age in America” and was about the experiences that Queer Black people face in the U.S. as well as correlating with the film Moonlight that is about a Gay Black man navigating his sexuality within the Black community. I believe that this magazine has published a lot of issues that help to show many of the topics that we have discussed in class and the many that we will discuss later on, which is why I chose it.

The object that I found very interesting was the Gay Liberation Front’s Info pamphlet that was at the table that I was it. I found it interesting, because it had a lot of valuable information about the group’s main purpose. I found the 5 Truths that were in the front page very interesting, because that is how the message of the Gay Liberation Front was made clear for people. The pamphlet also has a lot of historical context, especially in regard to the University of Rochester. My partner and I were both looking at how the campus used to look in that time period. It is interesting to get a feel for how the campus was and how it is now. That is why I think having this pamphlet as part of an exhibit would be great, because people will be able to see that history behind the Gay Liberation Front and what exactly it stood for, along with showing the structure of the campus at the time.

For me, the issue that I have seen often and still currently see is the exclusion of Queer People of Color. I have seen a lot of LGBTQ+ films and in pretty much all of them, you will only see white queer people or just one or two queer people of color. Even the television shows and movies that focus on Queer People of Color characters, still play on other various stereotypes that are associated with race. For example, we were having a discussion in the Queer Students of Color Circle meeting about the lack of Queer Characters of Color and Orange is the New Black was brought up. We discussed how the show has various Queer Characters of Color, but the main character is still a white queer woman. Another big issue was that in a way, the show was glorifying being in jail especially because of how the majority of people in jail are people of color and also how there is a mindset that everyone in jail is having sexual encounters with one another. I feel that we need to have shows that portray Queer People of Color as the main characters, but also without having to use other stereotypes associate with people of color in order to create it either. That way younger queer people of color will have more exposure to situations and character that are relatable to them to help them as they learn more about themselves.

 

Coming into class, I had already heard about the Stonewall Riots. I knew that those riots were the staple event that helped to give rise to the Gay Rights Movement and helped to make it huge. I had heard about it from my friends that told me about the drag queens and the transgender people that were at the forefront of the actual riots. I learned that they were all pretty much people of color that were the ones leading it. I also knew that after the riots, the people that started benefiting from it were white cis gay males and lesbians. I even knew that they weren’t including drag queens or transgender people into the movement, especially people of color, which is why they formed their own groups. What I did not know was that these LGB people were throwing drag queens and transgender people under the bus and were working with other groups to attack and demean drag queens and transgender people. I also did not know that the reason that Stonewall Riots were the leading act that caused the movement, because they were easy to celebrate even though there were other riots that also happened. I also did not know the extent of why the police did raids in these bars, because of the laws that were in place that targeted drag queens and transgender people. It is really sad that they had to go through so much back then, even from their own people, but at least now people are starting to recognized drag queens and transgender people. We still have a long way to go though in order to make up for everything we had to put our own people through.

I knew a little bit of Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, because many of my friends who are part of the LGBTQ+ community as well have told me some of the history regarding them. I know that they were part of the Stonewall Riots and I was told they one of them was the first one to throw the object that started the riot. They were pretty involved with the Gay Rights Movement, but after the riots, they started to focus more on bringing awareness of transgender people into the movement. I remember watching the video of Sylvia Rivera interrupting a Pride event, because she was denied the possibility to speak at the event and she wanted people to know transgender people have been in the forefront of the movement but continued to not be recognized. I also went to the Stonewall Inn in NYC and I saw pictures of both Marsha and Sylvia that were hung to be recognized for their work.