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Juan Perez

English 102

Professor Batty

October 23, 2019

Sexuality

Gender has played a big role for our entire existence has human beings and much has

changed since the beginning for our sexuallity. I believe god created us how we sexuality

originally come out to be when we are born. Many people don't think so because of the way they

feel and think about gender roles as they get older. Nowadays people have really adjested to the

whole LGBTQ community because they see it as something normal. Many people still think its

wrong and that it isn't the right way god made us to be. In Angels In America part one really tells

us how gender role is established and let’s us know that differences don’t matter.

This play really treats issues related to gender with struggles making one couple a little

more difficult to find out who they really are. The first couple I want to talk about is Harper and

Joe. Harper has a struggle in the play where she is trying to find out something suspicious about

her husband Joe. watching the play really helps out describes Joe about his identity. Pretty

obvious hes gay because the way hes living his life. Joe finds men more easier to talk about

problems and finds himself being with them more than his wife. No true love is ever established

in the play and is more like they both just want to be away from each other. Harper ends up

descovering that she cant stand to be with her husband due to her mental illness and Joe is the

source of that problem because he is gay.

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The second couple has a really bad start to begin with. The couple is gay but luck of one

of them has ran out because his life is ending due to the fact that ge is diagnosed with HIV.

Louise is hit hard to find out that his boyfriend Prior has little time remaining because of his

illness. Lousie is hit with the death of his grandmother as well and Prior thinks its the best time

to tell him so he does. Prior ends up in the hospital and Louise decides to leave him. Now in this

timeline during the 1980s was dark for the LGBTQ community especualy gay men. Today it

shows us how much we really progressed from that time. Aids was an epidemic during that time

due to the fact that there were unhealthy interactions with different gender partners. Being gay

was really kept secret if you were politically involved in anything or was a very important person

because the people would ose respect and religoin shaped up the wolrds thought on everything.

In this timeline I saw that gay men were focused more than any other queer personality.

Louise was was the first example to show that it still wasn't accepted has much now as it is

today. During the scene where Joe and Louise meet in the restroom, they both start talking about

the trouble Louise is dealing with. Louise is surprised that a Joe stopped and asked about what

was wrong because Louise was crying. Luoise mentions that no one but him stopped to ask how

he was doing but later sensed that Joe was gay and then triggered Joe and struggled mentaly

saying he wasnt gay.

Joe is a religious man and has always fought that feeling that he was gay because he

knew it was wrong to believe or even act on it. But he did know all along since he was a little

boy even before marrying his wife Harper. That really showed me how much pressure there is on
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everyone who is born into this world to make you think and even act to what is right but some

don't fight with it because it's who they are. Political and economic stress causes for minorities to

feel the same way. Another example shows Joe when he finally decides to tell his wife and ends

in a devorse. Joe also ends up telling his mother about his sexuality and she doesn't seem to

believe him as well and tells him his crazy for even saying such a thing. I'm pretty sure that has

happened to someone when they aren't sure they should come out, share what they are.

History shows that during those times the 1970s through 1980s San Francisco was one of

the highest cities to obtain emergence of AIDS. There was also this saying going around the city

that only gya men got AIDS and no one else. Homosexuals didn't have clout. These negative

stereotypes were all considered to be apart of the LGBTQ community at the time because of how

the government saw it . Another character that stood out a lot was Roy. He was also diagnosed

with AIDS and the doctor accused him for containing the illness only by sleeping with men. Roy

being a very well known as an US attorney he uses homosexuality as a sign of having no clout.

He said he could not have AIDS because he wasnt a homosexual. To be perceived as gay would

strip him of his clout he has earned doing gay things. Cohn tells his doctor that the label

homosexual, “like all labels, they tell you one thing, one thing only”. These were the types of

stereotypes that were known and people got the wrong idea about homosexuals. I can say that the

roles of homosexual men were really affected by the way people thought of them.