Professor John D'Emilio credits govt. with improving gay rights
Governmental change, rather than grassroots activism, was primarily responsible for the improvement of relations between police and gay and lesbian individuals in Chicago during the early 1970s, according to University of Illinois history and gender and women’s studies professor John D’Emilio, who delivered the College’s 10th annual Stonewall Lecture on Thursday.
D’Emilio discussed his research on the gay rights movement in his address, “Queering the Past, or: Richard Nixon: Gay Liberationist?,” held in Filene Auditorium.
D’Emilio’s research focuses on gay and lesbian communities in urban centers, including San Francisco, Harlem and Buffalo, N.Y., during the mid-20th century.
“It was the worst time to be queer,” D’Emilio said of the period. “Women who wore pants with the zippers in the front could be arrested for impersonating men.”
D’Emilio said he focused on Chicago because of the city’s relatively unrecorded gay and lesbian history.
He said he found instances of significant discrimination based on sexual orientation in the Midwest, including Chicago Tribune articles that referred to homosexual individuals as “moral degenerates,” “unmentionables” and “nest of perverts.”
Police officers also regularly harassed gays and lesbians and raided gay bars at will, he said.
Gay and lesbian activists responded with demonstrations against police harassment in the late 1960s, D’Emilio said. Soon afterwards, police treatment of LGBT individuals improved, he said.
“After these militant protests started to occur, the harassment of gay bars in Chicago almost becomes history,” D’Emilio said.
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D’Emilio discussed his research on the gay rights movement in his address, “Queering the Past, or: Richard Nixon: Gay Liberationist?,” held in Filene Auditorium.
D’Emilio’s research focuses on gay and lesbian communities in urban centers, including San Francisco, Harlem and Buffalo, N.Y., during the mid-20th century.
“It was the worst time to be queer,” D’Emilio said of the period. “Women who wore pants with the zippers in the front could be arrested for impersonating men.”
D’Emilio said he focused on Chicago because of the city’s relatively unrecorded gay and lesbian history.
He said he found instances of significant discrimination based on sexual orientation in the Midwest, including Chicago Tribune articles that referred to homosexual individuals as “moral degenerates,” “unmentionables” and “nest of perverts.”
Police officers also regularly harassed gays and lesbians and raided gay bars at will, he said.
Gay and lesbian activists responded with demonstrations against police harassment in the late 1960s, D’Emilio said. Soon afterwards, police treatment of LGBT individuals improved, he said.
“After these militant protests started to occur, the harassment of gay bars in Chicago almost becomes history,” D’Emilio said.