Friday, September 02, 2016

"Those Who Do Not Learn History Are Doomed To Repeat It."

We all have heard of that saying and it is also true that if you don’t know your history it might be stolen from you.
We Could All Use a Refresher on LGBT 101
Contrary to some, not all LGBT millennials are dismissive of the earlier generations' hard-won victories. But there's still a huge knowledge gap when it comes to history, writes Terry Beswick of the GLBT Historical Society.
The Advocate
By Terry Besick
February 9, 2016

A few days ago, a friend posted a viral YouTube rant called “Show Some F*cking Respect!” In the video, a young gay activist who calls himself Davey Wavey laments his queer peers’ disrespect and ageism towards their elders, accusing young, entitled gays of taking the LGBT community’s hard-won victories for granted. The video racked up more than 5 million views in less than a week.
[…]
But later that night, I attended the GLBT History Museum’s fifth anniversary party in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood, where I live — and was impressed to see a packed, diverse crowd that included a fair proportion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender young people mixing with their elders.
[…]
Just in the last 30 years of my adult life, there has been so much struggle for historic change in the LGBT community: legalizing consensual sex between adults, opening up the military, domestic partnerships, marriage equality, electoral representation, the rise and fall of AIDS, transgender visibility — with all the amazing individual stories of courage and profound love, and of tragedy and triumph along the way.
But I also find with the telling certain parts get left out or changed depending upon the teller.

I remember when I was first coming out there was a “LGBT” (I put it in quotes because they said they were a LGBT paper but in reality it was a G paper and I use a capital G because it was for rich gays only) newspaper in Hartford called the Metroline and they ran a piece on Stonewall and they said it was the “Gays” who rebelled. When he was called out on that by trans people and lesbians he dug his heels in and went on a rant.

And that is not an isolated case, I seen it happen over and over. A doctoral candidate presented a paper on LGBT people on television and she didn’t have one trans person listed that was in a TV show and when we called her out on it she said she couldn’t find a show with a trans person in it and I told that I would give her an “F” (I have since found her paper on-line and she changed the title to L&G in television). I went to a workshop at the True Color’s conference on LGBT history that was given by a professor from, I think, Brown University and she didn’t have any trans history. I called her out about and she gave the same excuse there is no trans history (I gave her a list of books on our history).

And rewriting our history can have disastrous effects on us. Congressman  Barney Frank pulled us out of the 2007 ENDA saying that we can’t expect to come in at the last minute and expect to be added at the last minute to the legislation. He totally ignore our lobbying efforts for inclusion into ENDA, people like Phyllis Frye and Karen Kerin who lobbied Congress back in 1994.

So knowing our history is important and speaking up for our history is equally important.

Some books you might want to read;
Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity
by Julia Serano
Paperback –280 pages (Jun 1, 2007), Seal Press; ISBN-10: 1580051545

Transgender Rights
by Paisley Currah (Editor), Richard M. Juang (Editor), Shannon Price Minter (Editor)
Paperback - 400 pages; (August 18, 2006); Univ Of Minnesota Press; ISBN-10: 0816643121;

Becoming a Visible Man
by Jamison Green
Paperback - 264 pages (June 4, 2004) Vanderbilt University Press; ISBN-10: 082651457X

tone Butch Blues
By Lislie Fienberg
Paperback - 320 pages (April 1, 2004), Alyson Books; ISBN-10: 1555838537

Transgender Nation
By Gordene MacKenzie
Paperback - 190 pages (April 1994), Bowling Green State Univ. Popular Press; ISBN-10: 0879725974

How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States
By  Joanne Meyerowitz
Paperback - 400 pages (April 1, 2004), Harvard University Press; ISBN-100674013794

Transgender History
By Susan Stryker
Paperback - 208 pages (May 6, 2008), Seal Press; illustrated edition; ISBN-10: 158005224X

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4 comments:

  1. Richard Nelson9/2/16, 7:09 PM

    “But I also find with the telling certain parts get left out or changed depending upon the teller.”
    “So knowing our history is important and speaking up for our history is equally important.”

    Thanks Diana for this important article. I want to speak just a bit on the above sentences from your article with no intention of claiming any prizes or pats on the back. The following sentence also from the article is only partially true. “When he was called out on that by trans people and lesbians he dug his heels in and went on a rant.” This almost wipes some of us out of the picture, important queer (gay) men who stood up against the Metroline and others over and over as they tried to erase from ourstories the trans community, the bi-community and anyone else who didn’t fit their bill of who belonged. I believe the fight you refer to happened around 2008 when the then editor of the Metroline published articles on Stonewall making the claim there were no drag queens there. When I read the article I sprang into action. I called my comrades in the trans community, the radical left community and anyone else that I thought would be alarmed at the retelling and erasing of ourstories. All responded with a great shout of NO! Meetings with members of our community were held and the editor refused to retract his statements. An excellent article appeared on Queers Without Borders site commending the folks at the Metroline and setting the record queer, thereby knocking the tricksters off of their pedestals.

    One of my proudest fights in my life came in 1999 when the Metroline claimed that there were no drag queens at Stonewall. Taking them to task were many of us in the radical lgbt community sending in letters and demanding a retraction of the then editors statement. I as one of the organizers called on comrades in the radical left, Conn-Bi-Nation, members of the Trans community, the lesbian community, True Colors and others to denounce this and to send in letters. It was a community wide effort. Letters then began appearing attacking drag queens as a disgrace to our community and another fight erupted. As the education program director of the Ct. Stonewall Foundation at that time and working on a very important exhibition of ourstories (some call it his) myself, Pura Gomez, Carolyn Gabel-Brett, Paul Hartung, Tim Denman, and a small group of other concerned folks made arrangements to bring to Hartford Sylvia Rivera to the October Congress. I was delighted to not only introduce Sylvia but to use my introduction speech to not only condemn the Metroline but those who in its pages were rallying against Drag Queens and against one of our hard working community members the co-chair of the Ct. Coalition for LGBT Civil Rights. One can listen to the both myself and Sylvia speaking at the conference in the link below.

    I have made it a point in my long activist career not to allow nor stand silent when anyone tries to erase any of our people even if the erasure is not intentional. We can not as a people afford to do this in any manner shape or form nor to allow people to not tell our stories correctly. We still have too much to lose.

    Links that may interest anyone who is interested in our stories”
    https://furbirdsqueerly.wordpress.com/no-drag-queens-at-stonewall-you-say-we-say-take-a-flying-fuck/
    Or the you tube video of the Congress with Sylvia and myself
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr29w3ziGt4

    ReplyDelete
  2. Diana_CT9/2/16, 9:22 PM

    Yes, that is the incident that I was talking about. I was only on the fringes and had hear all the details.
    Thank you for filling in the rest of the story. I remember JM talking about it what I read in the Metroline.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Diana_CT9/2/16, 9:24 PM

    That is a great video!!!
    I just skimmed parts of it and I want to see the whole video tomorrow.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Richard Nelson9/3/16, 10:58 AM

    JM has in her archives copies of the letters that were written in 1999. Some hateful stuff from L and G folks but some very uplifting letters in support of our whole community and in support of the Trans community in particular. Do make it a point to read the article about the Metroline as it has some excellent facts gleamed from factual sources about the Stonewall rebellion. How we shook our head as year after year the same old argument by some in the community came up usually against the fact of drag queens and Stonewall and usually brought up by white gay men.

    I believe that the gulf between the Gay INC mainstream and the many more of us is still wide. Many times I do not want to cross that polluted water, build a bridge as it seems so much has to be given up. (the truth is usually the first causality) Justice, freedom and equality for all is right up there at the top. I can remember arguing so many times that I as a gay man did not want my rights if all of our people were not included. Go back to the drawing board! No one on the outside should be allowed to define who we are or who belongs within our movement. (So many times that is just what happened.)

    Anyway enjoy the video and the article. A small contribution to the fight for our rights and YES when some of us say LGBTQ+ we mean it.

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