The Fall of '55 (2006) is a Documentary film about the Boise homosexuality scandal, a witch-hunt targeted at homosexuals in 1955 that resulted in a number of arrests and prison terms ranging anywhere from six months to life in prison.
The scandal began October 31, 1955 when a number of prominent Boise men were persecuted for alleged homosexual acts. The film covers the same subject matter as John Gerassi's book The Boys of Boise (1966), although Seth Randal, the film's writer, director, and producer, says he completed five years of independent research on the topic.
Some accounts of the incident claim that nearly 1,000 boys were seduced by a "ring" of men. A 1955 TIME magazine article said "Boiseans were shocked to learn that their city had sheltered a widespread homosexual underworld that involved some of Boise's most prominent men and had preyed on hundreds of teen-age boys for the past decade".[2]
Idaho is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the United States. It shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border to the north, with the province of British Columbia. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington and Oregon to the west. The state's capital and largest city is Boise. With an area of 83,570 square miles (216,400 km2), Idaho is the 14th largest state by land area. With a population of approximately 1.8 million, it ranks as the 13th least populous and the 6th least densely populated of the 50 U.S. states.
Outing is the act of disclosing an LGBT person's sexual orientation or gender identity without that person's consent. It is often done for political reasons, either to instrumentalize homophobia in order to discredit political opponents or to combat homophobia and heterosexism by revealing that a prominent or respected individual is homosexual. Historical examples of outing include the Krupp affair, Eulenburg affair, and Röhm scandal.
Boise is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. As of the 2020 census, there were 235,684 people residing in the city. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is 41 miles (66 km) east of the Oregon border and 110 miles (177 km) north of the Nevada border. The downtown area's elevation is 2,704 feet (824 m) above sea level.
Before 1933, male homosexual acts were illegal in Germany under Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code. The law was not consistently enforced, however, and a thriving gay culture existed in major German cities. After the Nazi takeover in 1933, the first homosexual movement's infrastructure of clubs, organizations, and publications was shut down. After the Röhm purge in 1934, persecuting homosexuals became a priority of the Nazi police state. A 1935 revision of Paragraph 175 made it easier to bring criminal charges for homosexual acts, leading to a large increase in arrests and convictions. Persecution peaked in the years prior to World War II and was extended to areas annexed by Germany, including Austria, the Czech lands, and Alsace–Lorraine.
Helen Margaret Palmer Chenoweth-Hage was an American Republican politician from the U.S. state of Idaho, serving three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2001. She remains the only Republican woman to ever represent Idaho in the United States Congress.
The Cleveland Street scandal occurred in 1889, when a homosexual male brothel and house of assignation on Cleveland Street, London, was discovered by police. The government was accused of covering up the scandal to protect the names of aristocratic and other prominent patrons.
Boise High School is a public secondary school in Boise, Idaho, one of five traditional high schools within the city limits, four of which are in the Boise School District. A three-year comprehensive high school, Boise High is located on the outlying edge of the city's downtown business core. The enrollment for the 2014–15 school year was approximately 1,538.
Gay pulp fiction, or gay pulps, refers to printed works, primarily fiction, that include references to male homosexuality, specifically male gay sex, and that are cheaply produced, typically in paperback books made of wood pulp paper; lesbian pulp fiction is similar work about women. Michael Bronski, the editor of an anthology of gay pulp writing, notes in his introduction, "Gay pulp is not an exact term, and it is used somewhat loosely to refer to a variety of books that had very different origins and markets". People often use the term to refer to the "classic" gay pulps that were produced before about 1970, but it may also be used to refer to the gay erotica or pornography in paperback book or digest magazine form produced since that date.
This is a list of notable events in the history of LGBT rights that took place worldwide in the 1950s.
Southwestern Idaho is a geographical term for the area along the U.S. state of Idaho's borders with Oregon and Nevada. It includes the populous areas of the Boise metropolitan area and the Treasure Valley.
The Dance of the Forty-One or the Ball of the Forty-One was a society scandal in early 20th-century Mexico, during the presidency of Porfirio Díaz. The incident revolved around an illegal police raid carried out on 17 November 1901 against a private home on Calle de la Paz in Colonia Tabacalera of Mexico City, the site of a dance attended by a group of men, of whom 19 were dressed in women's clothing.
Peter Wildeblood was an Anglo-Canadian journalist, novelist, playwright and gay rights campaigner. He was one of the first men in the UK publicly to declare his homosexuality.
The study of homosexuality in Mexico can be divided into three separate periods, coinciding with the three main periods of Mexican history: pre-Columbian, colonial, and post-independence, in spite of the fact that the rejection of homosexuality forms a connecting thread that crosses the three periods.
Although life in modern Russia allows many more liberties for gay men and lesbians than it did before the fall of communism, unofficial discrimination and fear are still rampant. "It would be foolish to interpret some new freedoms as tolerance," said Igor Kon, a sociologist who is Russia's best-known expert on sexual practices, and author of The Sexual Revolution in Russia. Gay life in Russia is less open than in Western countries. With more quickly growing acceptance, major cities like Moscow and St Petersburg now have LGBT clubs and venues.
The Boise homosexuality scandal refers to a sweeping investigation of a supposed "homosexual underground" in Boise, Idaho that started in 1955. Beginning with the arrest of three men in October 1955, the investigation broadened to encompass allegations that more than 100 young men and teenage boys had been involved in sexual acts with a ring of adult homosexual men. By the time the investigation wound down in January 1957, some 1,500 people had been questioned, sixteen men faced charges, and fifteen of them were sentenced to terms ranging from probation to life in prison.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in the U.S. state of Idaho face some legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT people. Same-sex sexual activity is legal in Idaho, and same-sex marriage has been legal in the state since October 2014. State statutes do not address discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity; however, the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County established that employment discrimination against LGBT people is illegal under federal law. A number of cities and counties provide further protections, namely in housing and public accommodations. A 2019 Public Religion Research Institute opinion poll showed that 71% of Idahoans supported anti-discrimination legislation protecting LGBT people, and a 2016 survey by the same pollster found majority support for same-sex marriage.
Anthony Thomas Trusky was an American professor, writer, editor, film historian, and book artist. He was known for promoting poetry of the American West, recovering the films of Nell Shipman, and rediscovering and promoting the work of Idaho outsider artist James Castle. Trusky was a Professor of English at Boise State University (1970–2009) and Director of the Hemingway Western Studies Center (1991–2009).
John Saul, also known as Jack Saul, and Dublin Jack, was an Irish prostitute. He featured in two major homosexual scandals, and as a character in two works of pornographic literature of the period. Considered "notorious in Dublin and London" and "made infamous by the sensational testimony he gave in the Cleveland Street scandal", which was published in newspapers around the world, he has recently been the subject of scholarly analysis and speculation. One reason is the paucity of information on the lives and outlook of individual male prostitutes of the period. Saul has also come to be seen by some as a defiant individual in a society that sought to repress him: "a figure of abjection who refuses his status".
John Mitzel was a Boston writer, publisher, bookseller, and gay community and cultural activist.
This is a timeline of LGBT Mormon history in the 1950s, part of a series of timelines consisting of events, publications, and speeches about LGBTQ+ individuals, topics around sexual orientation and gender minorities, and the community of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Although the historical record is often scarce, evidence points to queer individuals having existed in the Mormon community since its beginnings. However, top LDS leaders only started regularly addressing queer topics in public in the late 1950s. Since 1970, the LDS Church has had at least one official publication or speech from a high-ranking leader referencing LGBT topics every year, and a greater number of LGBT Mormon and former Mormon individuals have received media coverage.
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