Steve Bull once raced agast time to try to save the memoirs of one of Mae's gay rights pneers. His trip led him down memory lane.
Contents:
- ABOUT THE CENTERSCE 1983 THE CENTER HAS BEEN SUPPORTG, FOSTERG AND CELEBRATG THE LGBT MUNY OF NEW YORK CY. FD MORE RMATN ON AND OUR WORK ABOUT THE CENTER. VIS ABOUT THE CENTEROUR MISSNCYBER CENTERCENTER HISTORYRACE EQUYMEDIA CENTERLEARSHIP & STAFFEMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNICORPORATE PARTNERSHIPSANNUAL REPORTS & FANCIAL INFORMATNCONTACT USHOURS & LOTNSEMAPSUPPORT THE CENTER
- A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
- RACG TO PRERVE THE HISTORY OF MAE’S 1ST GAY RIGHTS ANIZATN
- YOU'VE PROBABLY HEARD OF THE RED SRE, BUT THE LSER-KNOWN, ANTI-GAY 'LAVENR SRE' IS RARELY TGHT SCHOOLS
ABOUT THE CENTERSCE 1983 THE CENTER HAS BEEN SUPPORTG, FOSTERG AND CELEBRATG THE LGBT MUNY OF NEW YORK CY. FD MORE RMATN ON AND OUR WORK ABOUT THE CENTER. VIS ABOUT THE CENTEROUR MISSNCYBER CENTERCENTER HISTORYRACE EQUYMEDIA CENTERLEARSHIP & STAFFEMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNICORPORATE PARTNERSHIPSANNUAL REPORTS & FANCIAL INFORMATNCONTACT USHOURS & LOTNSEMAPSUPPORT THE CENTER
Christa B. Hanhardt Among the first lsons stctors teach lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr (LGBT) history class is about the changg fns and of the word queer. Up through the neteenth century the word was primarily ed to mark dividuals nsired odd or outsi social norms. Queer rried particular currency sndal om the * queer history jobs *
Some of was jt the sense that I wasn’t alone, that there were hundreds of years of history of people who were sexually different and had activist there was also somethg about how Katz wrote the book that ma me realize that he was part of a work and a muny of gay tellectuals.
He said that there were almost no gay men dog this work PhD-grantg programs and that my bt bet would be to look for women’s historians who worked on sexualy.
I knew enough about amic polics to know that jt bee Carroll Smh-Rosenberg was the Penn History Department did not mean she was surround by historians open to queer I was fortunate sce there was a clter of : my graduate hort clud another person who had worked at Gay Communy News. I did while chairg the Commtee on LGBT History ((at the time, the Commtee on Lbian and Gay History), an affiliated society of the Amerin Historil Associatn wh several hundred members.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
* queer history jobs *
Immigratn and Naturalizatn Service (1967), an all-but-fotten Supreme Court cisn that upheld the portatn of a Canadian gay man bee immigrants wh “psychopathic personali” were excludable and portable. And maybe that progrs has produced a backlash, like “Don’t say gay” Florida and other laws rtrictg teachg genr, race, and sexualy K-12 public ’s important and effective to refer to the Florida law as “Don’t say gay, ” but homophobia is only one argument agast bee they n’t legally target LGBT topics.
Although velopments Florida and Texas are givg me pse, to the extent that my own state laws ban someone like me om gog and dog gay affirmative rearch or gay-affirmative public prentatns on the state’s dime, I thk they’re unterproductive and If you look at the “Don’t say gay” bill, the homophobia is the leadg edge of a larger plan to strip speech rights om teachers and stunts: that’s an old Right. Where homosexual activy or viance om tablished genr rol/drs was banned by law or tradnal ctom, such nmnatn might be munited through sensatnal public trials, exile, medil warngs, and language om the pulp. However, throughout 150 years of homosexual social movements (roughly om the 1870s to today), lears and anizers stggled to addrs the very different ncerns and inty issu of gay men, women intifyg as lbians, and others intifyg as genr variant or nonbary.
Whe, male, and Wtern activists whose groups and theori gaed leverage agast homophobia did not necsarily reprent the range of racial, class, and natnal inti plitg a broar LGBT agenda.
RACG TO PRERVE THE HISTORY OF MAE’S 1ST GAY RIGHTS ANIZATN
Most historians agree that there is evince of homosexual activy and same-sex love, whether such relatnships were accepted or persecuted, every documented culture. We know that homosexualy existed ancient Israel simply bee is prohibed the Bible, whereas flourished between both men and women Ancient Greece. Such eyewns acunts the era before other media were of urse riddled wh the bias of the (often) Wtern or Whe observer, and add to beliefs that homosexual practic were other, foreign, savage, a medil issue, or evince of a lower racial hierarchy.
The European powers enforced their own crimal s agast what was lled sodomy the New World: the first known se of homosexual activy receivg a ath sentence North Ameri occurred 1566, when the Spanish executed a Frenchman Florida. Biblil terpretatn ma illegal for a woman to wear pants or a man to adopt female drs, and sensatnalized public trials warned agast “viants” but also ma such martyrs and hero popular: Joan of Arc is one example, and the chillg origs of the word “faggot” clu a stick of wood ed public burngs of gay men. ” In Wtern history, we fd ltle formal study of what was later lled homosexualy before the 19th century, beyond medil texts intifyg women wh large cloris as “tribas” and severe punishment s for male homosexual acts.
YOU'VE PROBABLY HEARD OF THE RED SRE, BUT THE LSER-KNOWN, ANTI-GAY 'LAVENR SRE' IS RARELY TGHT SCHOOLS
Their wrgs were sympathetic to the ncept of a homosexual or bisexual orientatn occurrg naturally an intifiable segment of humankd, but the wrgs of Krafft-Ebg and Ellis also labeled a “third sex” generate and abnormal. Sigmund Frd, wrg the same era, did not nsir homosexualy an illns or a crime and believed bisexualy to be an nate aspect begng wh untermed genr velopment the womb. ” German rearcher Magn Hirschfeld went on to gather a broar range of rmatn by foundg Berl’s Instute for Sexual Science, Europe’s bt library archive of materials on gay cultural history.
His efforts, and Germany’s more liberal laws and thrivg gay bar scene between the two World Wars, ntrasted wh the backlash, England, agast gay and lbian wrers such as Osr Wil and Radclyffe Hall. The blu mic of Ain-Amerin women showsed varieti of lbian sire, stggle, and humor; the performanc, along wh male and female drag stars, troduced a gay unrworld to straight patrons durg Prohibn’s fiance of race and sex s speakeasy clubs. The disptns of World War II allowed formerly isolated gay men and women to meet as soldiers and war workers; and other volunteers were uprooted om small towns and posted worldwi.
This creasg awarens of an existg and vulnerable populatn, upled wh Senator Joseph McCarthy’s vtigatn of homosexuals holdg ernment jobs durg the early 1950s outraged wrers and feral employe whose own liv were shown to be send-class unr the law, cludg Frank Kameny, Barbara Gtgs, Allen Gsberg, and Harry Hay.