Sexuality: Facilitation Plan

Icebreaker (everyone): most surprising/interesting finding from your chosen chapter Small groups by chapters: ● Argument/thesis of the chapter in less than 10 words ● Historiography/historiographical intervention ● 3-5 main takeaways from the chapter ● Write all of this on the board Chapter 4: Welfare ● What is the GI Bill of 1944? What did it change de situ and de jure? (137-138) ○ What were the impacts of the GI bill on queer populations? (138) ● Excerpt from pg. 138 ● What role did executive frustration/annoyance with VA overreach lead Congress to create federal policy to disallow queer veterans from benefits under the GI Bill? (139) ● In what ways did the GI Bill uphold heterosexual norms, or create the normal in order for individuals to receive welfare benefits? (139-140) ○ How did the state establishment and values imposed on marriage shape this? (140) ● “Casting a light on those shadows reveals that soldiers discharged for homosexuality were not just inadvertently excluded from the economic benefits of the GI Bill because they did not fit into the normative heterosexual family model through which benefits were primarily channeled. Rather, homosexual exclusion was deliberate, built into the very foundation of the welfare state.” (140) ● In what ways was the celebration of the GI Bill as being legislation which “is often understood, as democratizing citizenship by opening up education and home-ownership, thereby providing ‘a modicum of economic welfare and security’, indicative of the state’s or general public’s disdain towards those who do not fit into the heterosexual family or the norm? (140) ● What was going on between Roosevelt and the American Legion/VA and Congress in the passage of the GI Bill (142-143) ● How does “honorable” and “dishonorable” discharge impact queer veterans? How do these different charges impact anyone deemed to be acting dishonorably? (145) ● What role does economic class/standing in the military play in these charges and if an individual is dishonorably charged? ● What is a “salvageable heterosexual” and how did this notion impact queer populations serving in the military? (147) ● What is an “undesirable discharge”? What were the implications of receiving one? (148) ● What is the disconnect between the VA and the GI Bill/Congress in awarding benefits to different discharges? (149) ● Why does the willingness/community of blue discharges blaming the military for them developing homosexual tendencies appeal to the VA Boards approving funds? (156) ● What did the 1957 Doyle Bill, passed in 1966, do for veterans with blue discharges? (164) ● What does hesitation on the side of DOD reflect in the punitive nature/punishment for homosexuals? (167) ● “While the military took issue with Doyle’s assertion that the undesirable discharge was often too punitive, the DOD and congressional proponents of the Doyle bill agreed about one thing: soldiers discharged for homosexuality did not deserve lenient treatment.” (167) ● How does the GI Bill and the federal closet define masculinity in the military? (170) ● What impacts do these definitions have on our understandings of women and queer individuals who serve in the military? (170) ● How did the GI Bill at this time enforce the gender binary and heterosexual normativity? What economic incentives were in place to necessitate marriage? (171-172) ● How does the GI Bill determine the importance of citizenship? How does this definition of citizenship, as the heterosexual norm, impact queer populations in the long run in terms of economic mobility? (172) ● How does our history/knowledge of the GI Bill as one providing education and funding for veterans and the unfair impacts of discharges cloud our remembrance of the GI Bill? How do we weigh the impacts of the benefits and disclusion? Chapter 5: Military ● What is Kinsey’s assertion regarding government indifference to lesbianism, and what impacts or validity does this have on this military period from 1947 to 1959? (174-175) ○ Does Kinsey’s assertion hold true for the early cold war military? (175) ● What was different about the discovery/tracing of female homosexual relationships as opposed to men? Why were they more difficult to pin point in the military? (177) ○ What does this assumption reveal about differences in gender perception and perception of same sex relationships? ● Canaday writes “it [the military] more than any other institution of state power identified the attributes of lesbianism and brought that assemblage into homosexuality.” (178) ○ Why was the military able to define lesbianism and its attributes and have a sizeable impact on views of lesbians? ● According to Canaday, why were women interested in serving in the military in WAVES, WAF, WASP, SPARS or with other groups? (179) ● What was the Women’s Army Corps (WAC)? ● What role does the Crittenden Board and the military more broadly play in developing the norms of female same-sex relationships and following gender norms? How does the normally more intimate nature of women make lesbian relationships more palatable initially? (185) ● What role does DOD policies play in developing more regulations regarding sexuality in the military? Why was the DOD establishing these policies? (186-187) ● How did some women in WAC or other military departments use antihomosexual policies to their advantage? What are the implications of this, and what does it say that one of the only ways for women to live these lives indefinitely is through these means? (200-201) ● How does marriage impede recruiting into WAC? What does the military and DOD do to address this challenge? (206-207) ● What are the reasons that Canaday argues lesbian women were treated differently than gay men in terms of investigation and policing in the military? (213) Chapter 6: Immigration ● What role does the law, as opposed to psychiatric definitions, play in defining homosexuals in immigration policies? (215-216) ● What was the McCarran-Walter Act, and what impacts did it have related to sexuality and immigration? (216-217) ○ How does this legislation show intersections between race and sexuality? Especially in terms of immigration policy? ● What was the “moral turpitude provision” and why was this beneficial for expelling homosexuals? (218-219) ● Without a psychiatric or scientific definition of a homosexual, how did agencies like the INS or PHS in consultation with Congress work to define homosexuals at the borders? (220-221) ○ Does the utilization of PHS in this reflect a psychiatric definition? Or relate to concerns over public safety and deviance more broadly? ○ Is public sanitation at all involved in this? ● What stories of immigration does Canaday focus on to explain the changes in legal practices and immigration law towards homosexuals during this period? ● Who was George Fleuti, and what did his case to prevent abortion in the 1960s, going to the 9th Circuit, prove in terms of immigration laws’ relation to sexuality? (235-238) ○ How did this case, in the Supreme Court, change conceptions if homosexuality was a condition/status or if it was a behavior? (235-238) ● What was the Boutilier decision of 1967, and how did this impact immigration laws and how did this decision define homosexuality? (241) ● Canaday writes, “In drafting the 1965 law, Congress responded to the potential weakness of the psychopathic personality provisions by putting more distance between psychiatry and the legal definition of homosexuality.” (247) ○ Why is Congress doing this? What do they gain in creating a difference between the legal and medical categories? ● How does citizenship and the law define normal, and normal sexuality? Concluding Questions ● How does citizenship continue to develop sexual normality/definitions under the law as opposed to other means in which it could be defined? Through immigration, the welfare state, and in the military, we see that citizenship and who is deemed to be receiving the benefits of it is contingent on sexuality. ● What drives understandings of normative and non-normative sexuality, the state and laws, psychiatry, religion, or the public? What do the intersections of impact reveal about how the state is structured and how it enforces normality for economic output in these spheres? What is the economic benefit of changing these concepts of belonging and normality during these periods and in these sectors (military, welfare state, immigration) specifically? ● “While the federal state has never acted entirely alone in shaping homosexuality, its role has been fundamental. But the historical production of homosexuality is also, conversely, a story about the state’s own development. State-building provides a way to talk about state institutions (and who do the building) and what they actually build.” (255)