Coomer 1 Katharine Coomer Instructor: Malcolm Campbell Honors English 1103 (Mon/Wed) 2 October 2013 Media: Is it Helping or Hindering

the LGBT Community? The first major impact that media had on the LGBT community occurred in the 1869 because before that year there were no word(s) that would translate to homosexual. There was no word in the Ancient Greek and Latin languages because back then, people did not feel the inherent need to categorize sexuality. In 1869, a letter was written to the German minister of justice concerning the new penal code for the North German Federation that was being drafted. Questions were being raised about whether or not the sexual contact between persons of the same gender should still be considered a crime as the Prussian criminal code had deemed it (Mondimore 3). Almost one hundred years later media had another significant impact on the LGBT community. In the year 1973 scientists and psychologists believed that there was only one possible cause for mental illnesses: a damaged, deteriorated or constitutionally defective nervous system (Mondimore 69). Since the nervous system controls physiological arousal, to be aroused by one of the same sex meant that one had a defective nervous system and therefore had a mental illness. Until the year 1973 homosexuality was listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as a mental disorder. It was removed in 1973 because the culture and social norms were shifting, the gay population in the United States was growing larger and the accumulation of empirical data that proved homosexuality was not a mental disorder lead the Board of Directors of the American Psychological Association to remove homosexuality from the DSM. Of course this was very controversial in the realm

Coomer 2 of psychology. Many psychologists and psychiatrists vehemently opposed disregarding homosexuality as a mental disorder. To appease those psychiatrist, in 1974 the Board added ego- dystonic homosexuality to the DSM. An Ego- dystonic homosexual would exhibit the two following symptoms: the persistent lack of heterosexual arousal which the patient experienced as interfering with initiation or maintenance of wanted heterosexual relationships and the persistent distress from a sustained pattern of unwanted sexual arousal (Herek 30). The only problem with using these symptoms to identify someone as an ego-dystonic homosexual was that during that time those that identified as gay were exposed to such widespread prejudice that many homosexuals went through phases that would have allowed for their homosexuality to be considered ego-dystonic. However, the Board of the APA eventually removed ego-dystonic homosexuality from the DSM altogether in 1986 but it was too late. Homosexuality had become stigmatized and that is why some people today still refer to homosexuality as a disease. I have interviewed people within the LGBT community about their experiences with prejudice, discrimination and the formation of their sexual identities. One of the most common things that I heard from those that are in their sixties and seventies is that they did not initially identify as being gay or as being a lesbian. Around the time that they would have been forming their sexual identities, the United States was debating on how to properly classify homosexuality as a mental disorder. Jeanne was one of the women that I interviewed and she told me that when she was twenty she did not know she was a lesbian- all she knew was that she did not want to get married to a man. So Jeanne went a joined a convent. She was a nun for forty years and then she fell in love with a woman and they left the convent and they are still together today. Jeanne could not identify as a lesbian because there was not enough information available to her. Today, the Internet offers teenagers instantaneous access to a limitless amount of information. Many of the teenagers that I interviewed told me that they had trouble finding the right label for their sexuality so they turned to the Internet. A girl named Brittany told me that she

Coomer 3 knew she was not bisexual, a lesbian or heterosexual but since she did not fit into any of those categories, she did not know what her sexuality was. After doing some research she determined that she was a pansexual. The best way to describe pansexuality is that it is an attraction to all genders across the gender spectrum. This includes transgendered people and hermaphrodites. The Internet is a helpful and destructive vessel for information about the LGBT community to be released. Media sources use the Internet as their primary portal to reach as many people as possible. In the past few years the field of media studies has grown and a major area of research is the representation of the LGBT community in the news media. Before, the field of media studies focused on criticizing media invisibility and homophobic representations to a concern about the nature and significance of the seemingly affirmative LGBT media images (Stein 241). Again though the damage has been done and it may be too late to change the way that the general public perceives the LGBT community. The media is largely responsible for the way that the LGBT community is perceived. Prior to the 1960s, LGBT people were typically shaped by narratives of crime and perversion (Stein 242). A man that I spoke with named Tom said that he initially did not identify as gay because he did not have a lisp, he did not like to wear dresses and he was not a pedophile- those were the traits that the media had portrayed to him of homosexuals. It was not until the late 70s that things began to change. Before the late 70s there were few if any positive depictions of the LGBT community in broadcasting entertainment. Activists worked to change this and entertainment professionals began to listen. Shows like Will and Grace was what the professionals considered a positive depiction. Although the show does not necessarily cast a negative light upon homosexuals it certainly does not challenge the assumptions and stereotypes that people have about them because it presents a very narrow image of LGBT sexuality and community (Stein 242). Since then more shows have been created that aim to present a broader image of the LGBT sexuality and community but as LGBT media grows in popularity, advertisers gain interest and the initial purpose is lost. As a result of the growing popularity, LGBT community

Coomer 4 media are functioning less as a minority media by providing representation of the broad community and more as a lifestyle/ market niche media, assembling primarily one segment of the LGBT community as its audience. As a result, other members of the community are becoming marginalized (Stein 242). LGBT related media and press have a crucial role in the formation of LGBT identity and community. If major news organizations had not responded to the growing LGBT political activity or the activists then the LGBT community would never have been framed as a minority that was simply seeking out equality and inclusion into the social mainstream (Stein 242). Major news organizations such as the New York Times are responsible for portraying the LGBT community as a minority group but they have yet to give the LGBT concerns the same legitimacy and status as the issues and concerns of other minority groups (Stein 243). Media is not the only place in which LGBT persons are marginalized- they are also marginalized by peers, friends, family members and the general public. The Internet is so appealing to the LGBT community, especially the youth, because it offers them a worldwide community of people that they can relate to, a community of people that will accept them and acknowledge them. The youth of the LGBT community were among the earliest adopters of first generation social networking sites (Palmer 13). The most popular social networking sites for community outreach are Facebook and YouTube. Dan Savage and Terry Miller founded the It Gets Better Project that utilizes YouTube to convey their message. In response to the flood of teen suicides due to bullying in 2011, they posted a YouTube video to simply let teens and LGBT youth know that despite how difficult things are now it does get better. Now more than fifty thousand videos have been created in response to Terry and Dans video and the project has gained the support of many influential people including Barack Obama, Anne Hathaway, Ellen DeGeneres, Suze Orman and the staff of Facebook. Facebook primarily provides a portal of communication for the LGBT youth. However, Facebook is also the primary portal that cyberbullying uses. The absence of face-to-face contact allows for some teens to become emboldened and it may be

Coomer 5 easier for them to harass someone or tease them or bully them online. This can be especially difficult for LGBT youth to deal with because they are becoming aware of their sexuality while also noticing societys often critical and disparaging attitudes (Mondimore 174). Many people use the Internet as a form of escapism or some way to form a new identity but online lives often become integrated with offline lives and for LGBT youth this is where cyberbullying becomes physical bullying and harassment. This is what leads to teen suicides- they simply dont have the emotional capacity to cope with the degree of bullying that they are exposed to. The relationship between the progress of the LGBT community and media is frustrating to follow. It seems that it is consistently a one step forward, two steps back pattern. Hopefully in the future the media will be properly utilized and will properly portray the LGBT community so that they can make some real progress.

Coomer 6 Herek, Gregory. "Facts about Homosexuality and Mental Health ." Sexual Orientation: Science, Education and Policy. N.p.. Web. 29 Sept 13. <http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_mental_health.html>. Palmer, Neal. LGBT Youth Online and in Person: Identity Development, Social Support, and Extracurricular and Civic Participation in a Positive Youth Development Framework. (2013): n. page. Web. 1 Oct. 2013. <http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-03202013174055/unrestricted/Dissertation_Palmer_FINAL.pdf>. Mondimore, Francis M. A Natural History of Homosexuality. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. Print. Stein, Marc. Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History in America. New York, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons/Thomson/Gale, 2004. Print.