Tomorrow, June 28, is the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City. While other groups seeking civil rights had been quite active across the country, the GLBT community had not. As Wiki put it: "American gays and lesbians in the 1950s and 1960s faced a legal system more anti-homosexual than those of some Warsaw Pact countries."

[interesting note: as I was reading that part and clicking back and forth, this rather excellent section disappeared from the Wiki entry--edited out. It described the rampant persecution of homosexuals in the 1950s and 1960s. Gotta love Wikipedia.]

The Wikipedia article isn't bad, all things considered. But you'll also find good stuff here, here, and a documentary here.

Use this as an open thread.

Labels: lgbt history, Open Thread, stonewall

Apparently these difficult economic times mean that we should cut back a bit on some of the luxuries we've come to take for granted: the new iPod, an iPhone, a wide-screen television, that extra night out on the town, free speech, academic freedom.

File this under the "no shame" category.

Two Cherokee County state representatives say they won’t back off their push to end state funding for university professors whose courses they consider inappropriate or wasteful, even after two of the professors whose work they criticized defended the work in a House Higher Education Committee meeting.

[...]

Hill joined Rep. Charlice Byrd, R-Woodstock, last week in criticizing state public universities for offering classes on topics such as male prostitution and oral sex after seeing a Georgia State University list of faculty research experts.

Leave aside for the moment that nobody teaches the classes that Hill claims they do. Those are areas of expertise. One person works on the spread of AIDS/HIV among male prostitutes, the other conducts research on the way that cultural factors influence kids to have more or less oral sex.

Don't let facts get in the way.

Dear God!!! Somebody Think of the Children!!!!!!

“Do you know that your tax dollars are being used at our state universities to pay professors to teach your children classes like ‘Male Prostitution’ and ‘Queer Theory’? Yes, even in tight economic times like we are facing today, our Board of Regents is wasting your tax dollars to teach these totally unnecessary and ridiculous classes.”

I understand that this sort of thing is reflexive for some people. And I'm sure that some time in the not-too-distant-future we'll see Calvin Hill embroiled in some kind of kinky sex scandal. That's sort of how these things go.

But, good grief.

As someone who teaches at least one course that could be considered "inappropriate and wasteful" ["History of Beer"] by the Calvin Hills of the world, I understand the pressure. The trouble is that these kinds of courses have a tendency to highlight how difficult it is to defend our work to the outside world.

Case in point. My Colonial America class features a great number of readings that are, to say the least, disturbing to some. Among other things we read Block's Rape and Sexual Power, Fischer's Suspect Relations, and articles ranging from Foster, “Deficient Husbands: Manhood, Sexual Incapacity, and Male Marital Sexuality in Seventeenth-Century New England” to Murrin's ", “‘Things Fearful to Name’: Bestiality in Early America,” to Godbeer, “‘The Cry of Sodom’: Discourse, Intercourse, and Desire in Colonial New England.” We read about cross-dressing colonials and homosexual Puritans.

Some students drop the course when the see the reading list. Others grumble their way through. But the vast majority get to the end of the course and see the value of what we read, and why it is important to look at colonial America from a multitude of angles. Many come away saying "I never thought colonial America was so interesting. We never learned that stuff in high school."

Outside the academy, though, it's a bit tougher to explain. The Calvin Hills of the world pine for the days when a Colonial America syllabus would move from Elizabeth to James, to Charles, Charles, to the next James, and then to the colonial leaders, to Jefferson and Washington, etc. Historians, and most students, understand that that one-dimension view makes as much sense in a history classroom as it does in the real world. The Calvin Hills don't understand that history reflects the world around us.

Except that, for people like Calvin Hill, their world still pretty much looks like their own white-washed view of history. Their view of people of color, of LGBT, or women, of anyone not looking pretty much like them is exactly like their view of those people in history--"inappropriate or wasteful."

Those people won't change, I suspect. But as Calvin Hill and his ilk know and fear, it is those very professors who he rails against who are helping shape the views of the next generation.

Labels: academic freedom, AndrewMC, history news, lgbt history

How well do you know LGBT history in the United States?

I put together a short 15 question quiz addressing different facts, figures, and facets of this long and diverse history. See how many you know, keep track of your answers along the way, then join me for a discussion in the comments section below.




Here we go! To find out the answers, highlight the black boxes underneath each of the questions. No cheating!

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1. The first same-sex couple to apply for a state marriage license, and to fight for that right in court, did so in...

a. California
b. Minnesota
c. Hawai'i
d. Massachusetts

b) That honor belongs to Richard John Baker and James Michael McConnell of Minnesota. Baker v. Nelson was heard in 1971, and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected their appeal "for want of a substantial federal question."

But if you guessed California, you're not far off: in the same year Reverend Elder Troy Perry of the Metropolitan Community Church filed suit in Los Angeles for recognition of same-sex marriages performed in his church.

2. The first riot against police brutality towards the LGBT community took place in...

a. San Francisco
b. New York City
c. New Orleans
d. Los Angeles

a) Though the 1969 riot at the Stonewall Inn captured national attention and helped galvanize the movement, it was the transgender victims in San Francisco's Tenderloin district who launched the first ever LGBT riot against the police, at Compton's Cafeteria in 1966.

As a direct result, the San Francisco Police Department established a liaison to improve its relationship with the queer community.

3. Who was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in the United States?

a. José Sarria
b. Kathy Kozachenko
c. Harvey Milk
d. Elaine Noble

b) Kathy Kozachenko won her race for Ann Arbor city council in 1971, followed by Elaine Noble in 1975 (Massachusetts legislature) and Harvey Milk in 1977 (San Francisco Board of Supervisors).

José Sarria was the first openly gay political candidate, making a failed bid for public office way back in 1961 (San Francisco Board of Supervisors).

4. What was the "Twinkie defense"?

a. A polemic on the dietary habits of lesbians
b. A pamphlet supporting the role of young gay men in the community
c. The legal strategy for lessening the sentence against murderer Dan White
d. None of the above

c) When Dan White assassinated Harvey Milk and San Fransisco mayor Moscone, the defense lawyers argued that White - a former football player, police offer, and fireman - had recently taken to gorging on junk food. They argued this was evidence that his mental health had deteriorated, convincing jurors to convict him of mere misdemeanor, and sparking the White Night riots of 1979.

Contrary to popular belief, the lawyers did not argue that the junk food itself was responsible.

5. Which President's life was saved by a gay man?

a. Gerald Ford
b. Ronald Reagan
c. Richard Nixon
d. George W. Bush

a) Disabled Marine vet Bill Sipple just happened to be on the scene when Sarah Jane Moore pulled a gun on Gerald Ford in 1975, diving at her to deflect the bullet. In the intense media coverage that followed, Sipple was outed as a gay man. Harvey Milk later said that Sipple's homosexuality was the only reason he'd been sent a Thank You note from Ford rather than an outright invitation to visit the White House.

6. What Supreme Court case invalidated sodomy laws across the country?

a. Bowers v. Hardwick
b. Lawrence v. Texas
c. Loving v. Virginia
d. Griswold v. Connecticut

b) After being arrested in Houston for consensual sex, John Geddes Lawrence took his legal challenge all the way to the Supreme Court, and sodomy laws around the country were finally invalidated.

Griswold was the case defining a right to privacy; Bowers was the first unsuccessful attempt to get the SCOTUS to strike down sodomy laws; and Loving was the case that ended laws against interracial marriage.

7. Who was Bayard Rustin?

a. Gay rights activist and organizer of MLK, Jr.'s 1963 rally in Washington, D.C.
b. Author, poet, and painter famous for discussing the queer side of the Harlem Renaissance
c. Octogenarian activist famous for being out since the beginning of the 20th century
d. First NBA player to come out gay, after retirement

a) Rustin is famous for being a friend of Martin Luther King, Jr. and a fellow Civil Rights activist. Rustin was the principle organizer of the march that culminated in King's "I have a dream" speech.

But all of the choices were real figures in queer African American history. b) is Richard Bruce Nugent, author of "Smoke, Lilies, and Jade"; c) is lesbian activist Mabel Hampton, who lived out and proud for over 80 years, and d) is John Ameichi, formerly of the Orlando Magic and Utah Jazz, who came out in 2007.

8. The first transgender mayor in the United States was elected in...

a. 1978
b. 1996
c. 2004
d. 2008

d) Just last month, the state of Oregon saw the election of the country's first transgender mayor, Stu Rasmussen. Rasmussen had already served as mayor of Silverton, OR back in the 90s, but came out as transgender before the 2008 election.

9. The first Academy Award given to someone for playing an openly queer character went to...

a. Peter Finch
b. William Hurt
c. John Lithgow
d. Tom Hanks

b) And the Oscar goes to... William Hurt, for 1985's Kiss of the Spider Woman. Finch had been nominated in 1971 for Sunday, Bloody Sunday, as was Lithgow in 1982 for The World According to Garp. Hanks' Philadelphia win came in 1993.

10. By what name is the proposed "Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act" more commonly known?

a. the Frank-Baldwin Act
b. the Harvey Milk Act
c. the Matthew Shepard Act
d. ENDA

c) Democrats in Congress have been trying to expand existing Hate Crimes legislation to the unprotected categories of sex and gender since 1999, when national outrage at the Matthew Shepard murder. It passed both the House and Senate this year as part of a Defense Appropriations bill, but pressure from the President, Congressional Republicans and unsympathetic Democrats led to its being dropped from the final bill.

11. How many openly gay politicians elected to federal office are currently serving?

a. None
b. 3
c. 5
d. 7

b) With the recent election of Jared Polis as freshman Representative from Colorado, the tally now stands at a whopping three: Polis, Barney Frank (D-MA), and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI). They were preceded by Gerry Studds (D-MA), who served until 2003 and passed away in '06.

There are not and never have been any openly gay Senators.

12. What activist group got its start in 1987 with an act of civil disobedience at Wall Street that led to 17 arrests?

a. GLAAD
b. OutRage!
c. the Gay Liberation Front
d. ACT UP

d) ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, was formed to call attention to the conspiracy of silence and stigma surrounding what Jerry Falwell called "the gay plague". They received their greatest notoriety for a mass protest targeting St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1989, due to the Catholic diocese's opposition to AIDS education.

13. Which U.S. president received a visit from We'wha, a Zuni two-spirit widely mistaken for "an Indian princess"?

a. Grover Cleveland
b. William Taft
c. Harry Truman
d. Ronald Reagan

a) Grover Cleveland. A member of the Zuni tribe of present-day New Mexico, We'wha was a sensation in the capitol in the late 19th century. Photographs taken of We'wha give us rare insight into a nearly forgotten history of indigenous attitudes toward gender fluidity.

14. How many countries have legalized same-sex marriage (not civil unions, but the full deal)?

a. 2
b. 4
c. 6
d. 8

c) In order of legalization: the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, and Norway.

Due to a recent high court decision, Nepal will be introducing same-sex marriage rights in the near future.

15. Gay performers (often in drag), who attracted a spike in popularity in New York of the 1920s and 30s, were known as...

a. pansies
b. travesties
c. illusionists
d. wildeans

a) From Broadway to Harlem, the popularity of pansy performers in the late 20s and early 30s led to a veritable "Pansy Craze" in New York city.

A turn towards increasingly conservative views of public mores effectively shut these down, but by the 40s the term "pansy" had gained widespread currency as a euphemism for queerness.

Difficult, wasn't it?

My intention in writing this quiz wasn't to dig up the most obscure facts possible, but to show the relatively sparseness of widespread information about LGBT history.

Knowing the exact office of the first openly gay elected official may or may not strike us as vital, but it's important to know that gender fluidity was an accepted part of some Indigenous traditions as far back as recorded evidence goes, or that gay black activists were an integral part of the Civil Rights movement, or that queers have been involved and subsequently erased from some of the most major events of our shared American history.

One of the challenges we face is the lack of an inherited history. Many groups pass shared history on from generation to generation, parent to child, but queer children typically grow up without parents who share that history - forcing us to reinvent the wheel with each new generation.

I hope that this quiz encourages us all to research more about some of the people and events I discuss here. Putting it together was an eye-opener for me, as well.

Labels: lgbt history, pico, quiz