"Biden Reverses Trump’s Transgender Military Ban"
”On Monday 25 January, President Biden overturned a Trump administration policy banning transgender individuals from serving in the military.”
Chris Johnson, “Biden signs Executive Order to undo Trump’s transgender military ban"
”President Biden has signed an executive order that reverses the Trump administration’s policy against transgender military service but stops short of explicitly stating that transgender people will be allowed to enlist in the armed forces.”
Samantha Schmidt, John Wagner and Teo Armus, "Biden selects transgender doctor Rachel Levine as assistant health secretary"
”President Joe Biden has announced that he will nominate Rachel Levine, Pennsylvania’s top health official, as his assistant secretary of health. Levine, a pediatrician, would become the first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.”
Josh Gerstein, "Biden DOJ nixes last-minute Trump administration memo on LGBTQ rights"
”The Justice Department has taken its first major step under President Joe Biden to reverse the Trump administration’s resistance to expansion of rights accorded to LGBTQ Americans.”
"Group of US Catholic bishops urges support for LGBT youth"
”Declaring “God is on your side,” a Roman Catholic cardinal, an archbishop and six other U.S. bishops are declaring their support for LGBT youth and denouncing the bullying often directed at them.”
Andrew Kreighbaum, "Biden Moves to Reverse DeVos on Transgender Students’ Treatment"
”President Joe Biden took the first steps this week to reverse Trump administration policies on the rights of transgender students.”
Sian Cain, "Hungary orders LGBT publisher to print disclaimers on children's book"
”Hungary’s government, which has made hostility to LGBT people a central part of its rightwing agenda, has ordered a publisher to print disclaimers identifying books containing “behaviour inconsistent with traditional gender roles.””
Article Spotlight
Lauren Jae Gutterman; “Caring for Our Own”: The Founding of Senior Action in a Gay Environment, 1977–1985. Radical History Review , 2021 (139): 178–199. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/01636545-8822675.
This article traces the founding of Senior Action in a Gay Environment (SAGE), the nation’s oldest and largest social service organization for LGBT elders. Drawing on archival documentation as well as interviews with SAGE founders and early members, the article shows how SAGE was born of two largely disconnected social transformations: the gay and lesbian movement and the national expansion of services and programs for the elderly that was enabled by the Older Americans Act of 1965. SAGE’s institutionalization and its relationship with the state allowed it to grow in an increasingly conservative political context while ensuring that the organization would not take a broadly intersectional approach to the challenges gay and lesbian elders faced. Despite its political limitations, however, SAGE provided a setting in which some white gay and lesbian elders began to see themselves as agents of social change.
To read more, click here.
Episode Spotlight
Chances are you’ve never heard of Ruth Wallis, one of the greatest singers, comedians, and performers of sexually suggestive lyrics in the postwar United States. Most of her catalogue remains on vinyl and historians have forgotten her. But from the 1940s until the early 1970s, Ruth Wallis was a bestselling performer and a mainstay at supper clubs and hotels. At a time when it was legally risky for entertainers to sing about sexuality for profit and pleasure, Ruth sold millions of records that used innuendo to playfully hint at a variety of straight and queer sexual pleasures.
For more, listen here.
Books
Congratulations to Lauren Gutterman for an honourable mention in this year’s John Boswell Prize from the Committee of LGBT History. Use discount code NEIGHBOR40-FM for a 40% discount off Her Neighbor’s Wife’s on the University of Pennsylvania Press website, plus free shipping.
