6 reasons why “don’t say gay” bills are wrong.
Contents:
- THE RADIL HISTORY OF THE FIRST GAY-STRAIGHT ALLIANCETHE RADIL HISTORY OF THE FIRST GAY-STRAIGHT ALLIANCE
- THE BT GAY-FRIENDLY SCHOOLS
THE RADIL HISTORY OF THE FIRST GAY-STRAIGHT ALLIANCETHE RADIL HISTORY OF THE FIRST GAY-STRAIGHT ALLIANCE
The Florida Don't Say Gay law shows the opposg velopments ncerng LGBTQ tn U.S. schools. While some stat have been tablishg legal foundatns for LGBTQ curriculums recently, Florida is gog the oppose directn and more stat are expected to follow s example. * the first gay school *
When history teacher and now-print of the Lower East Si Tenement Mm (a Natnal Historic Se) Kev Jenngs me out as gay, a young ally—hman Meredh Sterlg—asked to start a club to support Conrd Amy’s LGBT stunts. Throughout the s, the stunts traveled to AIDS march, hosted numero events, and talyzed a natnal movement of gay-straight allianc across Ameri’s primary and sendary schools. While Jenngs creded the stunt lears for the group’s succs, he went on to found the natnal group GLSEN (Gay, Lbian and Straight Edutn Network).
ActivismJune 24, 2022The Radil History of the First Gay-Straight AllianceIn 1972, high school stunts New York Cy formed a revolutnary group that wanted power, not jt pri. When Elie Lamadrid, 18, suggted startg an after-school gay youth club the wter of 1972, Gee Washgton High School, the Washgton Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, had been a source of trouble for school admistrators and cy officials.
The Stonewall Inn, unlike many other gay bars, also tered to a clientele of trans, genr-fluid, and unhoed teenagers who, bee of their age, were barred om other waterg hol. From s start, the gay liberatn movement was also a youth movement—and one of the primary plac om which spread was high school. By this pot, Gee Washgton had e unr Prcipal Samuel Kostman, who ate tuna fish sandwich wh stunts the feteria twice a week and approved what might have been the first public gay-straight alliance a school.
THE BT GAY-FRIENDLY SCHOOLS
* the first gay school *
And they wanted to be treated as equal human begs, which they said meant “the removal of all textbooks and other tn media that treat homosexualy as an aberratn, rather than as an tegral and important part of human sexualy. As Stephan Cohen wr The Gay Liberatn Youth Movement New York: ‘An Army of Lovers Cannot Fail’, “Gay liberatn school-based groups are an important and largely neglected phenomenon.
Though most histori trace the first gay-straight alliance to the ele private Conrd Amy Massachetts 1989, wh Phillips Amy soon followg, the Gee Washgton High School club predat this group by 17 years.
By the club’s unt, there were 20 people the group, a mix of rac, ethnici, genrs, and sexuali that clud ne lbians, six gay men, and five straight alli.
Dpe gas sce the first edn of One Teacher Ten, many gay and lbian tors lack policy protectns and the support of school lears, says Kev Jenngs. * the first gay school *
The Gee Washgton stunts the gay-straight alliance said that the terms set by the Bill of Rights allow stunts across to cy to form their own polil anizatns. Three weeks after the club was formed, the Gay Activist Alliance (GAA), which had already started recg high schools, addrsed the Gee Washgton high schoolers an open fom. Gay rights advot Manford and Jean O’Leary, om the GAA Speakers Bure, answered qutns and gave advice to the stunts, whom O’Leary scribed as “dyname people.
If early gay rights groups like the Mattache Society were aaid to anize wh young people for fear of beg labeled sexual predators by straight homophob, post-Stonewall groups saw youths as ras. In his book, Cohen scrib the work of groups like Gay Youth, a subset of the Gay Liberatn Front; and the Street Transvte Actn Revolutnari (STAR), led by Rivera and Marsha P. ) It was mored that there were gay groups anizg high schools around New York Cy, but the Gee Washgton High School was the first to e out publicly.
What happened to the Gay Internatnal Youth Society the wake of such schisms is unknown, but seems their story, too, is part of the larger fettg of radil histori, particularly the ntributns of people, as Rivera put her speech, outsi “the whe middle-class club.