What are the "Days of Hope"... In 2018 I started a series of portraits about a time when the civil rights journey for LGBTQ+ was gathering momentum. The time period I reference for the series was from the end of World War 2 until the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the early 80's.
You may be wondering why not just start with the Stonewall riots in 1969, but the momentum of the civil rights movement in the U.S. really started to take off after the war.
There are many reasons for this: WWII was the biggest mass migration event in U.S. history. People of all races, but especially African Americans from the South moved or were deployed to other places in the country and the world for the war effort.
Prior to the war most Americans lived in relatively isolated rural areas and had little contact with people from outside, the war brought people from all walks of life and all parts of the country into contact for the first time... This was especially important for LGBTQ+ people who were suddenly realizing that there were many more people like them.
These movements and interactions allowed new groups and networks of likeminded people to form, working together in service to their country.
For LGBTQ+ people this was something of a double edged sword... Early in the war effort there was a push for enlistment that focused on bringing in as many young, able bodied men and women as possible, regardless of their sexual orientation. Which for many of these individuals put them in a largely same sex environment with other LGBTQ people for the first time in their lives. As the ranks filled and the war progressed the military began to take action to crack down and weed out people with same sex attraction. Those suspected of or who admitted to same sex attraction began to be discharged from the military. Most of these discharged people were processed through the military psych facility at Treasure Island in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is one of the reasons why a smallish city like San Francisco had such a large LGBTQ community. After the war, rather than return to rural life, many Americans... but especially LGBTQ Americans opted to move to cities. Many of these cities began to host larger and larger LGBTQ enclaves.
The post war years were also very repressive. In some ways the greater awareness of the ubiquity of same sex attraction led to a backlash... and that backlash got rolled into cold war paranoia and McCarthyism. This demonization only led to greater visibility however and as police raids increased LGBTQ people started to resist and fight back. There were also Homophile organizations being formed all over the country to lobby for inclusiveness and equality for Homosexuals as well as periodicals and homoerotic publications that began to allow LGBTQ people to find each other and forge a nationwide identity of sorts.
By the time Stonewall rolled around similar revolts had already happened in Los Angeles and San Francisco, just not to the same magnitude. "The love that dare not speak its name" had spoken its name, and was going to keep on speaking its name.
In the 1970's the momentum had sort of reached an apex. Homosexuality was removed as a psychological disorder from the DSM in 1973. Laws against same sex relations between consenting adults were being overturned and anti discrimination laws were starting to be passed. LGBTQ+ people could start to live open lives and even run for office. Queer people who I have talked to about this time period talk about this incredible optimism that really propelled people... and that optimism is why I call the series "Days of Hope".
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