Introduction
Past societies were much less tolerant of the phenomenon of social deviance. Various ‘deviant’ individuals and groups have experienced more radical and punitive treatment from the societal majority for centuries. For example, having a sexual drive towards the same sex was considered such a deviation. It was a crime for the last 2000 years in the Western Hemisphere and became the norm only historically recently.
The Big Shift
The United States (US) legislation postulated that homosexuality was a punishable crime until the 60s. As Inderbitzin et al. (2017) would formulate, being an LGBT person was against the most vital country’s norms. It was considered a victimless crime, similar to substance abuse, prostitution, and gambling (Mallicoat, 2016). Only 50 years ago, American society began to reconsider the ‘deviant’ status of LGBT people.
The Stonewall event started a chain reaction of excluding homosexuality from mental illnesses crimes; LGBT individuals were given equal rights (Milestones in the American gay rights movement, n.d.). A contemporary proof that they are no longer seen as deviants is the fact that the majority of American citizens were in favor of same-sex marriage by the end of the last decade (Hidden Brain, 2019). The LGBT community is accepted by the majority today, and even their political opponents have become perceived as deviants.
The significant shift in the US public’s viewpoint on LGBT people from ‘deviant’ to ‘normal’ was due to the efforts of the community itself. In the late 70s, they collectively decided to open up about their identities and sexual preferences with the legally and morally ‘normal’ part of American society via cultural medium and activism (Schmidt, 2019). According to Schmidt (2019), “in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the growing visibility of gay people in popular culture began to trigger a major shift in attitudes” (para. 19). Deviance always implies being a minority, so the LGBT community decided to show that they are a numerous group of ordinary humans capable of standing for themselves.
Conclusion
LGBT people were deviants and suffered from this for about two thousand years in the Western world. In the early 60s, they collectively realized that they deserved more respectful and humanistic treatment from the American social majority and began a struggle to redefine their perception. From a historical viewpoint, their socio-normative status has only recently changed. They chose the most direct strategy to become a norm and succeeded.
References
Hidden brain: America’s changing attitudes toward gay people. (2019). NPR. Web.
Inderbitzin, M., Bates, K. A., & Gainey, R. R. (2017). Deviance and social control: A sociological perspective(2nd ed.). Sage Publications.
Mallicoat, S. L. (2016). Crime and criminal justice: Concepts and controversies. Sage Publications.
Milestones in the American gay rights movement. (n.d.). PBS. Web.
Schmidt, S. (2019). Americans’ views flipped on gay rights. How did minds change so quickly?The Washington Post. Web.
Loading...
