Gay History -- How We Got Here

[lislis]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/stonewall/player/

It's on PBS on 2012-06-28 at 8PM CT.

[janjo]

Thank you very much, Chuck for posting that link. I just watched the whole programme on my computer and it was absolutely fascinating. It is not something we get to hear too much about here in the UK.
We can get PBS here through our Virgin Media cable system but I don't know if the programming times and dates are the same as in the USA.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

This is a new article just published in Slate.
A fascinating story that I hadn't heard about.
It could be a cable series and run for years.

***

The Chickens and the Bulls
By William McGowan

The rise and incredible fall of a vicious extortion ring that preyed on prominent gay men in the 1960s.


http://www.slate.com/articles/wpisrc

In the year following the Western Union arrest, the NYPD and the FBI, working in parallel (and sometimes at odds), would uncover and break a massive gay extortion ring whose viciousness and criminal flair was without precedent. Impersonating corrupt vice-squad detectives, members of this ring, known in police parlance as bulls, had used young, often underage men known as chickens to successfully blackmail closeted pillars of the establishment, among them a navy admiral, two generals, a U.S. congressman, a prominent surgeon, an Ivy League professor, a prep school headmaster, and several well-known actors, singers, and television personalities. The ring had operated for almost a decade, had victimized thousands, and had taken in at least $2 million. When he announced in 1966 that the ring had been broken up, Manhattan DA Frank Hogan said the victims had all been shaken down “on the threat that their homosexual proclivities would be exposed unless they paid for silence.”

Though now almost forgotten, the case of “the Chickens and the Bulls” as the NYPD called it (or “Operation Homex,” to the FBI), still stands as the most far-flung, most organized, and most brazen example of homosexual extortion in the nation’s history.

A policeman in tight pants poses as a chicken in Hollywood in 1964, waiting to be solicited by male
customers cruising by in cars. It was actual law enforcement takedowns of homosexual activity,
like this, which enabled imposter police.

[fritzkep]

This is a new one for me too, Lyle.

[atruant]

Ditto.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

Hey, guys!  I guess we knew this stuff was happening on a smaller scale,
but not to this extent!  Personally, I'd love to know who all those prominent
people were that they kept out of the blackmail spotlight, wouldn't you?

I wonder if it's documented enough that the author knows these things?
When you have a sentence like this: ...among them a navy admiral, two generals,
a U.S. congressman, a prominent surgeon, an Ivy League professor, a prep school
headmaster, and several well-known actors, singers, and television personalities, it's
just too intriguing!  Although the article mentions the navy admiral and the New Jersey
Congressman.  If the FBI was involved, what did Hoover know about it?  To me, the
piece itself seemed like it was one of those articles that precedes a book that might be
published or upcoming, but there wasn't any such indication of that and yet an article like
that which seems to be the tip of an iceberg had to have a mountain of research done on
it.  Well, we shall see, I guess.

Also, did you notice that most of the story seemed to involve the Eastern U.S., but several
of the accompanying photos singled out Los Angeles activities.

Anyway, I am glad to have found it and hope you found it interesting, too.  It was pretty
accidental that I came across it -- like a lot of things on the internet!

It made me wonder -- there's always been the controversy of "outing" people.  If you were
researching someone and you discovered love letters or sexual activity among straight people,
I'm sure historians would think it a coup and jump at the chance to write about it directly, but
what if, say, you find out about a well-known "actor, singer or television personality" as mentioned
above was involved in this type of thing?  Do you just write about it or are you accused of outing
some fifty years later when more of society would find it interesting and not be bothered about it,
although there are those who wouldn't like it, as we know.  Is there a different standard--depending?
I say this because the gay people were the victims here--of an extortion ring, of a society and it's
rules that enabled something like this to happen.  It would be as though we discovered that someone
in WWII was Jewish, but we wouldn't talk about that, even though they had crimes committed against
them.  Do historians talk about/discuss such issues?  Some (a few?) of those people involved in this must
still be around--perhaps this article will lead someone to come forth and talk about it.

[AZ.bbm]

This is great. I had no idea.

-Az

[killersmom]

I wonder if the information could be found under the Freedom of Information act if some documentarian out there would be interested in researching it.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

Effort to undo California gay history law fails
Associated Press
July 19, 2012

SACRAMENTO -- Opponents of a law that requires California public schools to cover the contributions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people have again failed to qualify a ballot measure that would have overturned the requirement.

Pacific Justice Institute lawyer Kevin Snider said the Stop SB48 campaign did not gather enough signatures by Monday to put an initiative on the 2014 ballot that would exclude sexual minorities from the list of groups whose roles in history and social science schools must teach.

Snider estimates that the all-volunteer petition circulating effort, which focused largely on churches, collected about 446,000 signatures out of the 504,760 required.

The group's earlier attempt to put the gay history lesson law to a popular vote this year also did not qualify.

Senate Bill 48 took effect in January, but most school districts have not implemented it.

http://www.mercurynews.com/21093057/

[janjo]

Well Lyle...................they say history is written by the victors, so long may it continue, in this case.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

I did not know that Sally Ride was a Lesbian:

Now I do!

Article HERE

[fritzkep]

Yeah! That was a pleasant surprise!

[Ennis Del Mark]

I did not know that Sally Ride was a Lesbian:

Now I do!

Article HERE

And with a name like "Bear" I wouldn't be surprised if her sister isn't one, too!

[janjo]

She can be added to the list of famous gay people to be included in history lessons then!

[killersmom]

And with a name like "Bear" I wouldn't be surprised if her sister isn't one, too!

One of the articles I read is that Bear is a lesbian and has been out for many years.

From USA Today:

Her contributions can still be appreciated in a new context now, according to Ride's sister, Bear Ride, a lesbian who has supported gay rights causes.

"She was just a very private person who wanted to do things her way," Bear Ride told the Associated Press in an e-mail. "She didn't like labels (including hero)."