gay and lesbian rights easily and successfully part of '60s counter-culture?

Just the idea that it's okay to be different, even if a person is different in a way which counts. And the idea that it's a good thing for a person to be authentically himself or herself. Let's say this youth culture ideas lead to early and easy acceptance for the case that lesbian or gay persons should have the same rights as everyone else.

And for bonus points, the Soviet Union gives the U.S. and Europe a run for their money and gives some solid competition in who has the more progressive social policy and practice.

And the main obstacle may be the Freudian idea that being lesbian or gay is the result of deep-seated conflicts. And this is a type of meaning-laden explanation which seems to readily appeal to us as human beings, rather than a mere statistical argument that some people are born this way.

Maybe if there were just a couple of big blockbuster movies which present a lesbian or gay character, not as a bad guy or cardboard character, but as a full-fledged and human character. I understand that Boys in the Band(?) was gay-friendly, but I don't think it was a big blockbuster.

Alright, so how does this come about?
 
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Just the idea that it's okay to be different, even if a person is different in a way which counts. And the idea that it's a good thing for a person to be authentically himself or herself. Let's say this youth culture ideas lead to early and easy acceptance for the case that lesbian or gay persons should have the same rights as everyone else.

And for bonus points, the Soviet Union gives the U.S. and Europe a run for their money and gives some solid competition in who has the more progressive social policy and practice.

And the main obstacle may be the Freudian idea that being lesbian or gay is the result of deep-seated conflicts. And this is a type of meaning-laden explanation which seems to readily appeal to us as human beings, rather than a mere statistical argument that some people are born this way.

Maybe if there were just a couple of big blockbuster movies which present a lesbian or gay character, not as a bad guy or cardboard character, but as a full-fledged and human character. I understand that Boys in the Band(?) was gay-friendly, but I don't think it was a big blockbuster.

Alright, so how does this come about?

All of this is indeed possible, but as for the American part, it would likely need a POD before 1950 to really work as you'd posited. The sad truth is that, IOTL, during the "Red Scare" homosexuality was quite heavily connected with Communism-even after Tailgunner Joe McCarthy was discredited, this paranoia still continued as a mainstream problem until the end of the '50s, and with the right-wing for rather longer(some elements of the hard-right still haven't let it go, in fact).

There are ways to work around this, though: firstly, maybe the Nazi persecution of LGBTs is revealed right after World War II, instead waiting until the '70s as in OTL; as true as it may be that most Americans circa 1950 were rather uneasy around out-and-out gay men(and even lesbian women to some extent), I really honestly doubt that very few people(other than the most hardline right-wingers, e.g. some of the Dixiecrats) would want to suddenly become more sympathetic to the Nazis just because LGBTs were one of their targets-that wouldn't come close to putting an end to prejudice, but it would certainly be rather harder for anti-Communists like Mr. McCarthy to connect gays with Communism, (and, by implication, Stalinist tyranny), given what the Nazis did: and that will have other knock-on effects of it's own later on as well.

Also, what if some earlier psychiatric discoveries lead to a better understanding of what sexual orientation was really about? IOTL, up until the early '70s, most scientists either thought of homosexuality as an utterly strange hereditary quirk, or rather worse, a mental illness(more the former than the latter, at least later on, but still.....). But there's nothing that I can think of that would have absolutely prevented an earlier discovery, barring perhaps an active effort to suppress research, or something like that.

And the Soviet Union trying to "out-progress" America? Not at all impossible, in the post-Stalin era, but getting rid of Brezhnev would probably really help(IOTL, gays, although with mainly less severe persecution than in parts of the U.S., were still largely invisible.).
 
. . . There are ways to work around this, though: firstly, maybe the Nazi persecution of LGBTs is revealed right after World War II, instead waiting until the '70s as in OTL; . . .
And how did the Nazis decide who was gay? Probably the way we do, or the way we used to. Does the person have a speech impediment, are they slight of build, is the person socially awkward, are they nerdy with their own intense interests, etc? That is, with a bunch of stereotypes sometimes correct, and sometimes not. Now, one thing in our favor is that people generally dislike bullying. Sometimes even if a person dislikes a person or group, they dislike bullying even more.

In my twenties, I remember finding out that the Nazis also persecuted and murdered Jehovah Witnesses. It was an icing on the cake kind of feeling. What the hell problem did the Nazis have with the Jehovah Witnesses?

So maybe if it is revealed right after the war, other people will have a similar feeling and reaction to the persecution of lesbian and gay persons.
 
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Focussing on the counterculture itself, it's always struck me as interesting that gay-rights didn't become a bigger aspect of the movement, given the prominence of the Beats as mentors. At least Ginsberg, anyway; Burroughs treatment of homosexuality in Naked Lunch may very well convince some people that it is indeed a pathology.

Anyway, here's an idea. Move the feminist revolt against countercultural misogyny(see link below) back in time a bit, maybe to about 1966, instead of the early 70s. This might establish a less macho ethos than the one that prevailed, and maybe make the counterculture as a whole more open to a less heterosexist attitude.

Of course, IOTL, feminist and gay sensibilites, especially gay MALE sensibilites, did clash a bit in the mid-70s, over issues like pornography and the sex-trade(feminists didn't like these things, gays tended to think they were okay). But this tension seems to have more-or-less resolved itself since then, with the emergence of so-called "pro-sex feminism" and pole-dancing as empowerment.

Goodbye to all that
 
I think any such movement has a cap on how much it can take on and push for. With minorities, women, anti-war and sort of economy I think adding one more would be too uch.
 
Geo Dude wrote:

In my twenties, I remember finding out that the Nazis also persecuted and murdered Jehovah Witnesses. It was an icing on the cake kind of feeling. What the hell problem did the Nazis have with the Jehovah Witnesses?

The same problem that any hyper-patriotic organization has with Jehovah's Witnesses: they refuse to participate in mandatory expressions of national loyalty. In the US, for example, it was JWs who launched the court cases against the pledge-of-allegiance in schools. Move that back in time to 1930s Germany, and imagine what the Nazis are gonna think about a group going around preachng on the street-corners about how the Hitler salute is idolatrous.
 
Focussing on the counterculture itself, it's always struck me as interesting that gay-rights didn't become a bigger aspect of the movement, given the prominence of the Beats as mentors. At least Ginsberg, anyway; Burroughs treatment of homosexuality in Naked Lunch may very well convince some people that it is indeed a pathology.

Anyway, here's an idea. Move the feminist revolt against countercultural misogyny(see link below) back in time a bit, maybe to about 1966, instead of the early 70s. This might establish a less macho ethos than the one that prevailed, and maybe make the counterculture as a whole more open to a less heterosexist attitude.

Of course, IOTL, feminist and gay sensibilites, especially gay MALE sensibilites, did clash a bit in the mid-70s, over issues like pornography and the sex-trade(feminists didn't like these things, gays tended to think they were okay). But this tension seems to have more-or-less resolved itself since then, with the emergence of so-called "pro-sex feminism" and pole-dancing as empowerment.

Goodbye to all that

Just one correction: Sexism, not misogyny-actual misogyny was rare in OTL's counter-cultural movement, even if sexism wasn't quite so(though it wasn't terribly widespread, either).

And from what I've read, the large majority of the problems between gay men and the second-wave feminist movement in the '70s had very much to do with certain of the *radical* feminists, sections of whom tended to be fairly nasty to gays, as they accused gay men of being part of the "patriarchy" problem, etc.

If one can find a way to put the kibosh on that, so the radicals are rather more out of the way and don't gain nearly as much acceptance, then the chances of an earlier solid feminist-gay alliance are rather higher.

Well, they did decriminalise homosexuality in 1917.
And recriminalise male homosexuality in 1933...

And why is that? Stalin. And because of that, it wouldn't have been terribly difficult to add decriminalizing homosexuality to the agenda of de-Stalinization.
 
Just one correction: Sexism, not misogyny-actual misogyny was rare in OTL's counter-cultural movement, even if sexism wasn't quite so(though it wasn't terribly widespread, either).

And from what I've read, the large majority of the problems between gay men and the second-wave feminist movement in the '70s had very much to do with certain of the *radical* feminists, sections of whom tended to be fairly nasty to gays, as they accused gay men of being part of the "patriarchy" problem, etc.

If one can find a way to put the kibosh on that, so the radicals are rather more out of the way and don't gain nearly as much acceptance, then the chances of an earlier solid feminist-gay alliance are rather higher.

Point taken about sexism/misogyny. Perhaps influenced by the feminist writers I was citing, I was using the two terms kind of interchangably.

Goodbye To All That makes it sound as if sexism and misogyny were all over the place in the counterculture. Robin Morgan wrote a sequel in 2008, bewailing liberals for supporting Obama over Hillary Clinton, which might go to show just how "radical" her politics really were.

I'm not sure how you go about reducing the influence of radical feminists(assuming I know what is meant by the term). As I wrote earlier, things pretty much worked themselves out between gays and feminists by the 1990s anyway.
 
WI toleration of gays and lesbians became part of a hippie protest against NATO and North American military oppression of gays?
Military fear of homosexuals has 3 or 4 roots: rape, blackmail, non conformity and limp-wristedness.

First, young male soldiers tend to be arrogant, believe that they are attractive to all women and assume that all gays want to have sex with them, ergo young heterosexual males fear that all gays want have sex with them. The only thing they fear more is homosexual rape, homosexual rape is more like " prison sex" in that it is more about power and social hierarchy than sexual satisfaction. Love and mutual respect are priority last in most prison sex rapes.
I suspect that Kim Philby was bullied or raped into turning gay while he was a boy at boarding school. People who been traumatized that badly can never be trusted with state secrets.

A second reason that NATO feared gays was the (homosexual) British spy Kim Phil y defecting to the Russians. NATO feared that homosexuals were too easy to black-mail into revealing state secrets. During the 1980s, Canadian Armed Forces routinely persecuted homosexuals and discharged them dishonourably.

Non-conformity scares a lot of soldiers. They know that non-conformity attracts bullets on the battle-field ... as in "We are low on ammunition, so only shoot people who look important (signallers, officers, specialists, etc.)" Many soldiers take it as a personal criticism if the soldier beside them does smoke the same brand of cigarettes, drink the same brand of beer or worship the same god.

Finally, scared young heterosexual soldiers fear that limp-wristedness faggots will pack courage and not do their duty in battle. Arrogant, inexperienced soldiers fear that gays will let them down in battle. In truth, it is difficult to predict who will fight, who will freeze and who will flee.
While I have little patience for limp-wrists in any sporting endeavour, not all homosexuals are limp-wristed or lacking on courage.

If hippies asked "what's the fuss about gays?" eventually the general public would ask "what's the fuss about gay?" Eventually politicians would be forced to stop persecuting gays in uniform, then old soldiers would be ordered to quit persecuting gays or retire.
 
Perhaps instead of going through the counterculture movement, a more libertarian minded gay rights movement could approach the matter from the other direction and by pointing out the prosecution of homosexuals in the USSR make gay rights into a matter of "collectivism vs live-and-let-live-individualism".
 
Point taken about sexism/misogyny. Perhaps influenced by the feminist writers I was citing, I was using the two terms kind of interchangably.

Well, okay, and that's alright. It happens.

Goodbye To All That makes it sound as if sexism and misogyny were all over the place in the counterculture. Robin Morgan wrote a sequel in 2008, bewailing liberals for supporting Obama over Hillary Clinton, which might go to show just how "radical" her politics really were.

I'm not sure how you go about reducing the influence of radical feminists(assuming I know what is meant by the term). As I wrote earlier, things pretty much worked themselves out between gays and feminists by the 1990s anyway.

That's true, but all I'm saying is, I don't think it would be that difficult to get earlier widespread consistent collaboration between LGBTs and the feminist movement.
 
Goodbye To All That makes it sound as if sexism and misogyny were all over the place in the counterculture.

I ended up looking up "Goodbye To All That" - a lot of era-specific vitriol against pornography, the obligatory reference to castration as a tool of female empowerment, some suitably provocative and irresponsible statements such as "Women are the real Left" and "kill your fathers, not your mothers", along with sentiments that are basically superstitious, like that women would be better suited to understanding ecology because women's bodies are better aware of "the earth, the tides, the atmosphere, the moon."

It's an interesting piece and I don't disagree with some of her hostility towards society, but it's clearly not a scholarly work and much of what she says is outdated, hateful and frankly delusional.
 
Focussing on the counterculture itself, it's always struck me as interesting that gay-rights didn't become a bigger aspect of the movement, given the prominence of the Beats as mentors. At least Ginsberg, anyway; Burroughs treatment of homosexuality in Naked Lunch may very well convince some people that it is indeed a pathology.

What if some top musicians came out as gay in the mid 1960s? Perhaps even a Beatle? Not sure whether that would progress gay rights or galvanize both sides of the generation gap even further, but worth chucking that into the mix... even if it's probably ASB for a lot of 1960s rock stars.
 
I ended up looking up "Goodbye To All That" - a lot of era-specific vitriol against pornography, the obligatory reference to castration as a tool of female empowerment, some suitably provocative and irresponsible statements such as "Women are the real Left" and "kill your fathers, not your mothers", along with sentiments that are basically superstitious, like that women would be better suited to understanding ecology because women's bodies are better aware of "the earth, the tides, the atmosphere, the moon."

It's an interesting piece and I don't disagree with some of her hostility towards society, but it's clearly not a scholarly work and much of what she says is outdated, hateful and frankly delusional.

Yeah, I have to chuckle at how they castigate the Weather Underground for making a hero out of Charles Manson, while demanding "Free Valerie Solanis."

That said, it is an interesting sumation of a certain internal conflict in countercultural history, one that is not often discussed in popular treatments, which tend to lump all the parts of the movement in together. I do think that, to a large extent, things like Goodbye To All That were probably an essentially conservative reaction to what was a pretty unprecedented unleashing of raunchy pop-culture in the 1960s.
 
Perhaps instead of going through the counterculture movement, a more libertarian minded gay rights movement could approach the matter from the other direction and by pointing out the prosecution of homosexuals in the USSR make gay rights into a matter of "collectivism vs live-and-let-live-individualism".

Libertarians like to brag about how Thomas Szasz, a "free-market" libertarian, was among the first prominent thinkers to criticize the disease-model of homosexuality in the 1960s, at a time when many on the left were still hedging their bets and saying stuff like "It should be treated as a mental-health problem, not a law-enforcement problem."

For whatever reason(probably ideological), Szasz's absolutism never caught on with the counterculture, though sections of it did embrace his one-time ally, R.D. Laing, who was more traditionally left-wing.

I think the biggest snag might be the lack of radical action on the part of gay activists themselves. Prior to Stonewall, gay-rights protests tended to look like this. Obviously, it was easier for the media to ignore such milquetoast activism, and hence it managed to stay off most people's radars, including the counterculture's.
 
I like radical feminists. For example, where they point out about modern medicine. Not only did the profession unnecessarily exclude women for decades and decades, not only did the profession treat nurses as second-class citizens for an awfully long time and keep nursing primarily a female occupation, but these same patriarchal and authoritarian attitudes directly affected patient care.

And as far as some protest movements turning to violence. This is almost always counterproductive on tactical considerations alone, but it does seem fairly widespread human tendency. People get frustrated, think other people are intentionally not listening, etc. When in fact, they might be making progress, just slow progress.

==========

So yes, I think radical feminists could have been allies to members of the LGBTQ community, under the general rubric that people should be free to live their lives, without so much deference to arbitrary societal rules which we have never really even thought about all that much or considered better alternatives. As well as interesting differences and competitions like reform movements typically have!

And/or centrist feminists become a bigger political force earlier.
 
And as far as some protest movements turning to violence. This is almost always counterproductive on tactical considerations alone, but it does seem fairly widespread human tendency. People get frustrated, think other people are intentionally not listening, etc. When in fact, they might be making progress, just slow progress.

Violence(or at least, forceful confrontation) can work as an attention-grabber, IF you have a cause with which the general public(maybe starting with media and academic elites) can sympathize on its own terms.

Stonewall might have put gay-rights in the news, but the next stage in progress was for people to say "Hey, you know, they've got a point. The cops shouldn't be harassing people who are just minding their own business in a bar."

Contrast that to the late 90s anti-globalization movement, where the response was more like "Okay, you smashed a bunch of windows in Seattle because....you don't like Starbucks?! Sheesh, dude, if that's how you feel, just don't GO there!"

I think Occupy had a bit more success at getting a hearing, because they were addressing a tangible issue, ie. corporate misbehaviour and governmental collusion, that people could readily understand, as a result of the recent financial collapse.
 
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