Continuing the Narrative

The in between time from 19th century France to our modern queer movement is long and plagued by two world wars and various other conflicts. 1969 is often marked as a the "starting part" of this movement for queer liberation and freedom, with the Stonewall Inn riot. Only fifteen years prior, Alan Turing killed himself while choosing between punishments for being gay.¹ Ten years after Stonewall began the rapid death of an entire generation of queer people in the United States from HIV/AIDs.² Fastforward to 2015, and same-sex marriage is legal nationwide in the U.S.³  

This change in such little time seems revolutionary in many ways, but has been built on the backs of queer history and labor in the 19th century and, to extents, that history prior despite its lack of solid stigma and identity of sexuality. Much of this labor was prostitution. Much of queer labor continues to be prostitution, because of the intricate web of marginalization, poverty, and same-gender love.⁴ Though our mainstream picture of "gay" has strongly evolved (often to emulate the heterosexual ideal), the same "deviant" underclass exists. The same people who were tracked, pathologized, and imprisoned in the 19th and early 20th centuries continue to be so today, as society "fights back" against prostitution and drugs. It is undeniable that these two existences of 'sex worker' and of 'gay' are linked together, and always have been. When someone makes a living outside of society's moral boundaries, making the jump to loving outside of them is less a leap than a hop. And despite the way stigma continues to exist, and evolve in its presentation, this queerest of histories will continue to push into the future.

^{1. Biography, D. of S. (1995). Alan Turing - a short biography. Retrieved May 9, 2016, from http://www.turing.org.uk/publications/dnb.html↩}

^{2. What we do. (2016, January 26). Retrieved May 9, 2016, from http://www.avert.org/professionals/history-hiv-aids/overview↩}

^{3. BBC (2015, June 27). US supreme court rules gay marriage is legal nationwide. BBC US & Canada. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33290341↩}

^{4. Staff, P. M. (2015). Sex workers: The queer, female, & feminist. Retrieved May 9, 2016, from http://www.pqmonthly.com/sex-workers-queer-female-feminist/19271↩}