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SUMMARY:'VD is no camp': creating and communicating knowledge about same-s
 ex venereal disease transmission in the Anglo-American world\, c.1939–19
 84 - Richard McKay (Department of History and Philosophy of Science)
DTSTART:20131128T163000Z
DTEND:20131128T180000Z
UID:TALK47662@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Helen Curry
DESCRIPTION:In 1964\, the Mattachine Society of New York – then one of t
 he United States' largest groups advocating for the public understanding o
 f homosexuals – found itself under pressure to address the issue of vene
 real disease (VD). Amid nation-wide concern that VD rates had been increas
 ing steadily for a number of years\, several reports highlighted the seemi
 ngly new and prominent role of homosexual men in the spread of sexually tr
 ansmitted infections\, particularly syphilis. At a time when homosexual re
 lations were still penalized by law and many gay men were deeply uneasy ab
 out co-operating with public authorities\, the New York Mattachine Society
  collaborated with the city's health department to publish an informationa
 l leaflet\, entitled 'VD is no camp'\, which was aimed specifically at thi
 s group. This presentation will examine the delicate navigations undertake
 n by members of the Mattachine Society to produce and distribute its leafl
 et. It will contrast the organisation's collaboration with the city's heal
 th department\, on the one hand\, with the suspicion of public health auth
 orities advocated by its Californian contemporaries on the other. The pres
 entation's focus on these debates will highlight the need to complicate a 
 conventional historical periodization which implies that VD did not emerge
  as a serious concern for men having sex with men until the 1970s. Finally
 \, by tracing the leaflet's circulation beyond US borders\, the presentati
 on suggests that a transnational framework may be important when analyzing
  responses to VD during the middle decades of the twentieth century.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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