Before this seminal event, gays were known, but their lives operated in the back streets and alleyways of urban life. They were invisible to mainstream North Americans and expected to stay in the shadows where their deviant bodies belonged. The patrons of the Stonewall bar lived at the precipice of gay life. Their adoption of cross dressing was an affront to prevailing sexual norms. Women in suits and men in scarves and chiffon were the most identifiable of deviants and they

constitute themselves, the invisible queers, internalized disgust and spent their lives under constant self-surveillance.

To produce new subjects every possible sexual variation was catalogued: homosexual, fag, dyke, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transexual, transvestite, trisexual and intra-gendered. A hierarchy of acceptable identities began to emerge. A gay norm was espoused through magazines, television, movies and popular culture that was palatable to heterosexuals. To don the makeup of the lipstick or chic lesbian, master the macho stance of the butch fag or buy penny loafers and live in suburbia. These were the accoutrements of the new normal, non-threatening gay.

This judgement has gays internalizing their own surveillance and placing others of similar orientation under a watchful eye. Pressure to homogenize the homosexual is borne from within the ranks. The character of these gay deviates is suspect and normalized gays display a pseudo sense of shock and disgust. They supervise themselves and others for deviation. The state no longer requires harsh laws and punitive punishments to control the behavior of the gay subject, they do the deed themselves.

culture. In return they have been forced into renewed self surveillance and exposed to private

But, external surveillance is limited in scope and an inefficient way for bio power to exercise itself on subjects. The concessions won by gays were hard fought and many are afraid of a reversal of their social fortunes. Much of the battles won have worked through the presentation of gays as normal, desexualized, non-threatening, socially responsible and conforming adults. The stereotypes of leather wearers, S/M perverts, drag queens and diesel dykes are the gay community's dirty little secret. They are the focus of the proper gays 'normalizing judgement'. Too much

Some common words found in the essay are:
North America, North Americans, , Michel Foucault's, North America's, bio power, gay subject, heterosexual world, discourse biology, relation power, bars clubs, drag queens, external surveillance, private lives,
Approximate Word count = 1231
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)