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<\/p>\nComic Book Authority Kept Gays Out Of Comics: Historian<\/b><\/p>\n
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A nonprofit organization ominously operating under the monicker the Comics Code Authority was responsible for preventing openly LGBT characters from appearing in comic books\u00a0until the late 1980s, according to a report on History.com<\/a> by comic book historian Alan Kistler.<\/p>\n From 1954 to 1989, the Code, as Kistler calls<\/a> it, enforced\u00a0rules against portraying LGBT characters in comic books, Kistler wrote. Likened to the MPAA, the Code Authority had no governmental authority, but retailers were very hesitant to carry comics that lacked the Code\u2019s\u00a0seal of approval.<\/p>\n The Code\u00a0came about after psychiatrist Dr. Frederic Wertham published his book\u00a0\u201cSeduction of the Innocent\u201d and spoke before the\u00a0Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, testifying that comics were a leading\u00a0cause of juvenile crimes, Kistler said. It wasn\u2019t until 2013 that\u00a0Carol Tilley, a professor of library and information science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, discovered that much of\u00a0Wertham\u2019s research had been fabricated. But the damage had been done.<\/p>\n Kistler reports that the Code finally dropped its ruled against depicting LGBT characters and themes\u00a0in 1989, the\u00a0same year that DC Comics confirmed that many women<\/a> on Wonder Woman\u2019s home of Themyscira were in same-sex<\/a> romantic and sexual relationships.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n marvel comics\u2026the first gay<\/a> superhero wedding\u2026”northstar” from Alpha Flight, and his beau\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/RZgbvYPV<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 @jhreaganorg (@jhreaganorg) May 22, 2012<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Now, as online culture website Complex<\/a> reports, there are more than a handful, though still enough, of openly LGBT characters in comics.\u00a0Marvel\u2019s\u00a0Northstar came out<\/a> as gay<\/a> in 1992 and eventually married, a first for the comic giant. In 2006, DC\u2019s Batwoman was also reimagined as an openly gay<\/a> former West Point student and in 2013, Alysia Yeoh, the roommate of Batgirl, aka Barbara Gordon, came out as transgender.<\/p>\n I just wanted to share an important trans<\/a> comic book character, Alysia Yeoh, created by the great @GailSimone<\/a>. #transrightsarehumanrights<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/jyzFEH3zLU<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Katrina (@hopeimophelia) February 23, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Though that\u2019s only a handful out of\u00a0hundreds of mainstream comic, Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn recently said that there could be LGBT characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that viewers don\u2019t know about yet,\u00a0Comic Book Resources reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026there\u2019s a lot of characters in the MCU and very few of them that we\u2019ve delved into what their sexuality is. Whether it\u2019s guy<\/a> or straight or bisexual<\/a>, we don\u2019t really know. Um, so I imagine that there are probably, you know, gay<\/a> characters in the Marvel universe, you know, we just don\u2019t know who they are yet.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Comic Book Authority Kept Gays Out Of Comics: Historian<\/a> appeared first on Towleroad<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n
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