Oregon
Ignoring the will of the voters in the sterilization referendum of 1913, the Oregon legislature passes a new sterilization law covering “sexual perverts” and “moral degenerates.” Oregon, more than any other state in the nation, tends to use castration on male prisoners and ovariotomy on female prisoners.
Washington D.C.
Immigration Act of 1917 U.S. Department of Labor. Bureau of Immigration. Immigration Laws (Act of February 5, 1917): Rules of May 1, 1917. Washington: Government Printing Office. Exclude homosexuals from immigration to U.S. based on their status as “persons of constitutional psychopathic inferiority”
State equality and discrimination bills
President Woodrow Wilson
United States LGBT History for 1917
Oregon
The US Department of Justice raids the offices of Dr. Marie Equi – and many other radicals across the country – seeking evidence of anti-war espionage. Equi regularly mounts soapboxes in Portland’s Park Blocks downtown and castigated the government’s Liberty Loan campaigns, believing working class people should not be expected to buy war bonds they could not afford.
Washington D.C.
The Articles of War of 1916 are implemented. A revision of the Articles of War of 1806, the new regulations detail statutes governing U.S. military discipline and justice. Under the category Miscellaneous Crimes and Offences, Article 93 states that any person subject to military law who commits “assault with intent to commit sodomy” shall be punished as a court-martial.
National
J. Warren Kerrigan who was a popular actor made a comment to a reporter for The Denver Times about joining the war. Kerrigan replied:
“I am not going to war. I will go, of course, if my country needs me, but I think that first they should take the great mass of men who aren't good for anything else or are only good for the lower grades of work. Actors, musicians, great writers, artists of every kind—isn't it a pity when people are sacrificed who are capable of such things—of adding to the beauty of the world.”
The comment was reprinted across the country and stunned his fans and his popularity plummeted, never to fully recover. Family members later reported in “Behind the Screen” by William J. Mann that his slump in popularity was more due to his living with his mother and partner James Vincent in the same house.
Oregon
Alberta Lucille Hart graduates from the University of Oregon Medical School. After graduation, Hart undergoes a hysterectomy and lives the rest of her life as a man, Dr. Alan L. Hart, marrying twice. Hart is among the first female-to-male transsexuals to undergo surgery in transition. Dr. Alan L. Hart dies in 1962.
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