Beat Generation

So I was down the instagram rabbit hole, following tagged page after tagged page on these nature-y profiles, when I saw a beautiful picture of snowy mountains with the caption " 'I don't think there is any truth. There are only points of view.' - Allen Ginsberg" I liked the quote and kind of knew Allen Ginsberg was an author or poet or something, but didn't know what he was really known for, so I looked up his wikipedia page out of curiosity. In the first sentence it described him as a leading figure of the Beat Generation, which I had never heard of, which of course was linked to its own Wikipedia page, to which I then went. I learned that the Beat Generation refers to a literary movement-turned-culture/lifestyle that came about in the 1950s that rejected materialism, embraced experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and promoted sexual liberation and exploration. Allen Ginsberg's Howl, a poem (which had its own wikipedia page that I also read) is a notable example of Beat literature. In it,   homosexual sex is described, and that resulted in the poem being considered in an obscenity trial. Between these three Wikipedia pages, I learned that Allen Ginsberg, and the Beat Generation more broadly, were part of the same post-WWII era of the 50s and 60s that experienced the Lavender Scare. Learning about how two different cultural attitudes towards the LGBTQ community could exist at the same time was really interesting to me. Furthermore, it was a good reminder that LGBTQ history did not happen in a vacuum; it is part of a broader history of the United States, and gay rights and liberation efforts intersect and overlap with other movements.