World War II & LGBTQI
The effects of World War II on the latter half of the twentieth-century LGBTQ history cannot be overstated. The war years were crucial for thousands of LGBTQ to understand who they were and to be more certain than ever in their identities and collective interests, erotic or otherwise.
The United States’ involvement in World War II provided an unprecedented opportunity for LGBTQ people to begin to imagine themselves as part of a community that stretched across the country’s rural and urban areas. The massive mobilization of people that was needed to conduct a total war (and WWII was indeed such) meant that Americans left their homes for new war-based jobs and found themselves in largely gender-segregated communities without the restrictions and constraints typical of their hometowns.
This provided multiple possibilities to explore their sexualities and gender identities. For men and women conscious of a strong attraction to their own sex but constrained by social norms from acting on it, the war years eased the coming out process and facilitated entry into the “gay” world.
The transformations induced by the war also created possibilities for gay men and lesbians to create institutions that bolstered and protected their identities. During the 1940s, exclusively gay bars appeared for the first time in cities as diverse as San Jose, Denver, Kansas City, Atlanta, and Cleveland. As significant, during the war the various military branches called on psychiatrists to evaluate the suitability of the male draftees and male and female volunteers for military service.
The military collaboration with psychiatric professionals meant that male and female inductees were asked directly whether or not they had thought about or engaged in homosexual encounters. While intended to eliminate those soldiers, sailors, marines, and officers who might be homosexual or present stereotypical homosexual tendencies, this policy instead introduced the concept of same-sex sexuality to many of these enlistees and draftees for the first time and for some of them gave, finally, a definition that seemed consistent with how they understood themselves.
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