Contesting Homosexuality’s Imagination, 1945–2015

Abstract

This chapter describes how homosexuality in the American imagination changed during the lifetimes of contemporary Americans. It traces the history of political battles over gay rights and the evolution of media representations of lesbians and gays from the end of World War II until the legalization of gay marriage in all fifty states. The interactions among lesbian and gay activists, opponents, members of prominent epistemic communities (psychiatrists and journalists), and producers in the culture industries caused the social imagination of homosexuality to shift twice. Americans growing up during different historical periods therefore came of age imagining homosexuality to mean different things.