History

Students Share Their #LGBTQhistory Icons LGBTQ history month happens every October, and GLSEN has the resources for you to make your class LGBTQ-inclusive year round! Find a full LGBTQ history timeline and more at glsen.org/lgbtqhistory

To learn more about GLSEN and our work to make schools safe and more inclusive for LGBTQ students, visit http://www.glsen.org

CONNECT WITH GLSEN:
http://instagram.com/glsenofficial
http://facebook.com/glsen
http://twitter.com/glsen
http://glsen.tumblr.com
Pride without Parades Today is the 50th anniversary of the world's first Pride march, and our history tells us four things that we need to change about the celebration. Hear me out.
From Democracy to Fascism: A History Lesson RBG’s death woke me up. I had felt like I was paralyzed by fear and information overload, but now I understand what’s at stake. I understand that we can’t depend on other people or institutions to fight for our democracy. It’s up to us.

In this video, I give a (warning: kind of scary) lecture about how democracies can—and have—easily become fascist states, with a focus on the 1932 and 1933 German elections. I talk about why registering to vote simply isn’t enough. We are witnessing the fall of democracy and the rise of American fascism, and we need to fight for our lives.

Beginning tomorrow, I’ve committed to spending at least *30 minutes* each day fighting for our democracy—whether donating, phone banking, or talking to friends and family. I’m doing it to honor the legacy of RBG, so I’m calling it the RBG Memorial Challenge.

Every day for the next six weeks, I’ll post a daily, 30-minute-task at @rbgchallenge on instagram, and I hope you’ll join me. And every day, I’ll pick one lucky winner who tags me and #rbgchallenge—showing me proof of your 30 minutes—and send you a fun surprise (a book? Fun gay swag? You’ll find out!) in the mail.

Finally, if you have your own following, I hope you’ll find fun ways to incentivize your network to join your RBG Challenge “team” as you complete your tasks and inspire others—maybe you pick one person each day to send baked treats, or handmade jewelry, or anything at all!

We can protect our country, but it‘s not enough to vote. We need to fight with everything we have.
SIP OF HISTORY: THE LAVENDER MENACE For more on Friedan and The Lavender Menace, see:
.
Betty Friedan, “Up From the Kitchen Floor,” New York Times Magazine, 1973.
.
Betty Friedan, Life So Far: A Memoir, Simon & Schuster, 2001.
.
Eric Cervini, The Deviant’s War: The Homosexual Vs. The United States, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020.
SIP OF HISTORY: WOUNDED KNEE OCCUPATION For more on the Wounded Knee Massacre (1890) and Occupation (1973), see:
.
"AIM Occupation of Wounded Knee," The History Channel; "Occupy Wounded Knee: A 71-Day Occupation and a Forgotten Civil Rights Movement," The Atlantic; /MPR News, From The Archives: The Sounds of the Wounded Knee Occupation; Osage News, Osages Reflect on the Wounded Knee Occupation of 1973; Indian Country Today, 13 Images Remembering the Occupation of Wounded Knee; American Indian Republic, The Origins of the American Indian Movement and the Wounded Knee Occupation: A History of Liberation and Defiance.
A SIP OF HISTORY: THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE The electoral college votes today - how did it start?
A SIP OF HISTORY: THE STUDENT STRIKE What was The Third World Liberation Front?
A SIP OF HISTORY: RUSTIN AND KING For more on Bayard Rustin's incredible story and complicated legacy, read Out Magazine's op-ed "Bayard Rustin's Legacy is Complicated, and That's Okay" by Jared Loggins.
SIP OF HISTORY: QUEER NATIVE AMERICANS Native American non-binary identities have existed for thousands of years. For more on GAI and Two-Spirit history, check out:
.
Brian Joseph Gilley, Becoming Two-Spirit: Gay Identity and Social Acceptance in Indian Country (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006).
.
Maia G. Sheppard and J.B. Mayo, “The Social Construction of Gender and Sexuality: Learning from Two Spirit Traditions,” Journal of Social Studies Research 36, no. 3 (Fall 2012), 263-282.
SIP OF HISTORY: DC'S NOB HILL Over the past fifteen years, the number of bars for LGBTQ+ people has decreased by 37%. The number of bars that primarily serve LGBTQ+ people of color has fallen by 60%. During the pandemic, this disparity has gotten even worse. Feel free to tag your favorite QTPOC bars for us to protect and support in the comments.
.
For more on Nob Hill and DC’s Black queer spaces, see:
.
Kwame A. Holmes, “Chocolate to Rainbow City: The Dialectics of Black and Gay Community Formation in Postwar Washington, D.C., 1946-1978.” (PhD dissertation, available online).
.
National Parks Service Historic American Buildings Survey, “Nob Hill.”
.
Justin Moyer, Washington Citypaper, “On The Hill.”
.
Sean Bugg, Metro Weekly, “Closed for Business.”
.
Julie Compton, “Black-owned gay bars are dwindling. Can they survive Covid?” NBC News.
SIP OF HISTORY: THE QUEER FILM FESTIVAL For more on Frameline, go follow them at @framelinefest!
And for more of its history, check out "Frameline Film Festival," World Heritage Encyclopedia, Project Gutenberg.
SIP OF HISTORY: CHRISTINE JORGENSEN Jorgensen’s story is an important one, but we should also pause to recognize the crucial role of whiteness in her rise to fame. Indeed, queer and trans people of color had been defying gender norms long before 1953, only to be obscured by Jorgensen and the norms of white femininity. For more on these previously overlooked stories, check out BLACK ON BOTH SIDES: A Racial History of Trans Identity by Dr. C Riley Snorton (@c.rileysnorton). @alokvmenon also has a recent post on “Black Trans Leaders from History,” which does a wonderful job of summarizing Dr. Snorton’s research.
.
For more on Jorgensen, see:
.
Susan Stryler, Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution (New York: Basic Books, 2017).
.
Joanne Meyerowitz, “Transforming Sex: Christine Jorgensen in the Postwar U.S.,” OAH Magazine of History Vol. 20, No. 2, History of Sexuality (Mar., 2006), pp. 16-20.
The Importance of Screaming Queens: A Conversation with Professor Susan Stryker QUARANTINI: DAY 11

Yesterday, I sat down with Professor Susan Stryker, co-director of Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria, which tells a little-known story of LGBTQ+ violent resistance, three years before Stonewall.

View the film here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-WASW9dRBU

And follow along with Quarantini here: https://ericcervini.com/instagram
Was Hamilton Gay!? More 1-minute queer history: https://instagram.com/ericcervini

For more on Hamilton and Laurens, see the definitive biography:
Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton (New York: Penguin, 2005).
APRIL 13, 1990: QUEER NATION STRIKES BACK Quarantini: Day 19

Some sort of egg-laying rabbit BROKE INTO my apartment!

Bonus: Can you guess which show I was watching on Hulu? Hint––it was gay and ahead of its time!
APRIL 15: SILENCE = DEATH? Do you know what SILENCE = DEATH really means?

Follow along at https://instagram.com/ericcervini
April 17, 1965: My favorite day in GAY HISTORY Want to learn more about Frank Kameny and the Mattachine Society of Washington?

Pre-order THE DEVIANT'S WAR: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America at https://ericcervini.com/book.

Play