[glstn.history.month.packet] Provided by: GLSTN 122 West 26th Street, Suite 1100 New York, NY 10001 USA Tel: (212) 727-0135 Email: glstn@glstn.org Web: http://www.glstn.org/freedom/ LESBIAN, GAY AND BISEXUAL HISTORY MONTH PACKET: IDEAS AND RESOURCES In 1994, October was recognized as Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual History Month for the first time. GLSTN has been deeply involved in this project: it originated with a GLSTN member (Rodney Wilson, of St. Louis) and three of the first five members of its Board came from GLSTN chapters. In 1994 GLSTN won proclamations from Governors Weld (Massachusetts) and Weicker (Connecticut) as well as Boston Mayor Menino honoring the event, and staged the nation's largest conference on the on the subject in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in October. In 1995 GLSTN agreed to serve as the administrative home of History Month while organizers sought a longer-term solution involving independent incorporation. GLSTN sponsored the first-ever History Month Essay and Visual Arts Competitions for students in 1995, and its chapters have organized multiple local projects such as book donations to local school libraries and public lectures. GLSTN/National is working to produce a half-hour video for classroom use, entitled OUT OF THE PAST: UNDERSTANDING AMERICA'S GAY AND LESBIAN HERITAGE, in time for use in October 1996. The following materials should give you some ideas for your classroom, school and community: * 10 THINGS YOU CAN DO TO RECOGNIZE HISTORY MONTH * AMERICAN HISTORY PRIMARY SOURCES/CURRICULUM/BIOGRAPHY * GAY AND LESBIAN HISTORY IN THE UNITED STATES: A TIMELINE * TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF GAY AND LESBIAN HISTORY We welcome your suggestions and revisions to these materials. ----------------------------------------------------------------- OCTOBER IS LESBIAN, GAY, & BISEXUAL HISTORY MONTH Provided by: GLSTN 122 West 26th Street, Suite 1100 New York, NY 10001 USA Tel: (212) 727-0135 Email: glstn@glstn.org Web: http://www.glstn.org/freedom/ In 1994, a grass-roots network of teachers and community members across the country began working to see October recognized as Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual History Month. Organizations like the Human Rights Campaign Fund and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force quickly endorsed the idea, and political leaders such as Governors William Weld (Massachusetts) and Lowell Weicker (Connecticut) and Mayors Richard Daley (Chicago) and Thomas Menino (Boston) issued proclamations to celebrate this inaugural event. In 1995, we hope to see Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual History Month become even bigger and better. By organizing events on your campus and community, you can help make sure that the invisibility which shrouds our history is ended, once and for all. 10 THINGS YOU CAN DO TO RECOGNIZE HISTORY MONTH 1. Make sure your school is aware of History Month: ask what programming they will do to recognize this event, just as many campuses recognize February as Black History Month and March as Women's History Month. 2. Ask your local library or book store to do a display of books on the subject. 3. Ask your local newspapers (mainstream or gay) to publish a column on lesbian, gay, or bisexual history. 4. Organize a film festival or lecture series on gay, lesbian, and bisexual history. 5. Organize a conference on gay, lesbian, and bisexual history on your campus. 6. Place a wreath on the grave of a local gay, lesbian, or bisexual individual who made a significant contribution to your community: invite the media and explain the importance of such commemoration. 7. Donate a book to your local high school library. Offer to do or arrange presentations on the subject for history classes. 8. Recognize the contributions of lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals with posters around the campus that make their work known to the community at large. 9. Ask your elected officials to issue a proclamation recognizing the Month (see attached examples and the "Tips on Getting a Proclamation" in the GLSTN organizing guide). 10. Organize a reading group that meets weekly to discuss a book on lesbian, gay, and bisexual history. ----------------------------------------------------------------- AMERICAN HISTORY PRIMARY SOURCES/CURRICULUM/BIOGRAPHY Provided by: GLSTN 122 West 26th Street, Suite 1100 New York, NY 10001 USA Tel: (212) 727-0135 Email: glstn@glstn.org Web: http://www.glstn.org/freedom/ (* indicates that the title is highly recommended for secondary school use.) *Jennings, Kevin, BECOMING VISIBLE: A READER IN GAY AND LESBIAN HISTORY FOR HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE STUDENTS is designed to supplement existing courses in American as well as other histories. Excellent oral histories include: *Adelman, Marcy, LONG TIME PASSING: THE LIVES OF OLDER LESBIANS; *Marcus, Eric. MAKING HISTORY: THE STRUGGLE FOR GAY AND LESBIAN EQUAL RIGHTS, 1945-1990. Good primary source collections include: *Katz, Jonathan Ned, editor. GAY AMERICAN HISTORY: A DOCUMENTARY and The GAY/LESBIAN ALMANAC: A NEW DOCUMENTARY; Duberman, Martin, editor. ABOUT TIME: EXPLORING THE GAY PAST; Roscoe, Will, editor. LIVING THE SPIRIT: A GAY AMERICAN INDIAN ANTHOLOGY; *Cowan, Thomas, GAY MEN AND WOMEN WHO ENRICHED THE WORLD; Perry, Tory, PROFILES IN GAY AND LESBIAN COURAGE; *Russell, Paul, THE GAY 100: A RANKING OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL GAY MEN AND LESBIANS, PAST AND PRESENT; *Richards, Dell, SUPERSTARS: TWELVE LESBIANS WHO CHANGED THE WORLD all contain useful short biographies of significant gay people. Chelsea House is issuing a collection of biographies for young adults entitled "Lives of Notable Gay Men and Lesbians," ed. by Martin Duberman, with the first title, Kenan, Randall, James Baldwin, now available. SECONDARY SOURCES *Neil Miller's OUT OF THE PAST: GAY AND LESBIAN HISTORY 1867-PRESENT is the best, most readable survey of the subject available; Adam, Barry, THE RISE OF A GAY AND LESBIAN MOVEMENT, is an excellent secondary survey of world-wide developments; A comprehensive study of sexuality in America's history is in D'Emilio, John, & Freedman, Estelle, INTIMATE MATTERS: A HISTORY OF SEXUALITY IN AMERICA; D'Emilio's SEXUAL POLITICS, SEXUAL COMMUNITIES: THE MAKING OF A HOMOSEXUAL MINORITY IN THE UNITED STATES, 1940-1970 provides a solid overview of the modern gay movement; *Faderman, Lillian. ODD GIRLS AND TWILIGHT LOVERS: A HISTORY OF LESBIAN LIFE IN TWENTIETH CENTURY AMERICA is a comprehensive overview of lesbian life. Two photographic histories include: *Thompson, Mark, THE ADVOCATE HISTORY OF THE GAY AND LESBIAN MOVEMENT; *McDarrah, Fred, GAY PRIDE: PHOTOS FROM STONEWALL TO TODAY. More specific studies include: Williams, Walter L. THE SPIRIT AND THE FLESH: SEXUAL DIVERSITY IN AMERICAN INDIAN CULTURES, which studies homosexuality in America's native cultures; *Berube, Allan, COMING OUT UNDER FIRE: THE HISTORY OF GAY MEN AND WOMEN IN WORLD WAR TWO, which explains the key role of the Second World War in the formation of the modern gay movement) also now a documentary film); Kennedy, Elizabeth and Davis, Madeline, BOOTS OF LEATHER, SLIPPERS OF GOLD: THE HISTORY OF A LESBIAN COMMUNITY is a fascinating study of the Buffalo lesbian community from the 1930's on, based on oral histories; Chauncey, George, GAY NEW YORK: GENDER, URBAN CULTURE, AND THE GAY MALE WORLD, 1890-1940, explodes the myth that there was no gay community prior to recent times; *Timmons, Stuart, THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY HAY: FOUNDER OF THE MODERN GAY MOVEMENT, a readable biography of the founder of the first ongoing American gay rights group; *Duberman, Martin, STONEWALL, which tells the story behind the riots considered the beginning of "gay liberation"; *Shilts, Randy. AND THE BAND PLAYED ON: PEOPLE, POLITICS, AND THE AIDS EPIDEMIC, which details the early history of the AIDS epidemic; *Shilts, Randy. CONDUCT UNBECOMING: GAYS & LESBIANS IN THE U.S. MILITARY, details the history of this heated topic. EUROPEAN HISTORY Duberman, Martin, et al, HIDDEN FROM HISTORY: RECLAIMING THE GAY AND LESBIAN PAST, is a multicultural collection of essays on various topics; Boswell, John, CHRISTIANITY, SOCIAL TOLERANCE, AND HOMOSEXUALITY: GAY PEOPLE IN WESTERN EUROPE FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA TO THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY, is the comprehensive work on the subject, while Boswell's SAME SEX UNIONS IN PRE-MODERN EUROPE looks at how the Church sanctioned gay relationships until the end of the medieval period; Cantarella, Eva, BISEXUALITY IN THE ANCIENT WORLD, examines Greco-Roman attitudes; Goldberg, Jonathan, QUEERING THE RENAISSANCE, looks at recent scholarship on gay and lesbian issues in this period; Kennedy, Hubert. ULRICHS: THE LIFE AND WORKS OF KARL HEINRICH ULRICHS, PIONEER OF THE MODERN GAY MOVEMENT, a biography of the German gay rights activist; *Plant, Richard. THE PINK TRIANGLE: THE NAZI WAR AGAINST HOMOSEXUALS explains the gay experience of the Holocaust; *Heger, Heinz, THE MEN WITH THE PINK TRIANGLE is a useful oral history of a gay Holocaust survivor; *Faderman, Lillian. SURPASSING THE LOVE OF MEN: ROMANTIC FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE BETWEEN WOMEN FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO THE PRESENT, offers information on both America and Europe. NON-WESTERN HISTORY A comprehensive documentary collection (with materials on Europe as well) is *Likosky, Stephan, COMING OUT: AN ANTHOLOGY OF INTERNATIONAL GAY AND LESBIAN WRITINGS (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992); Hinsch, Bret, PASSIONS OF THE CUT SLEEVE: THE MALE HOMOSEXUAL TRADITION IN CHINA (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990) surveys the Chinese experience; Iwata, Junichi, and Watanabe, TSUNEO, LOVE OF THE SAMURAI: 1000 YEARS OF JAPANESE HOMOSEXUALITY details the tolerance that existed in that Asian nation prior to the modern day. FILMS *BEFORE STONEWALL (90 minutes), a history of the pre-Stonewall gay community; *LAST CALL AT MAUD'S examines pre-Stonewall lesbian life through a study of a well-known San Francisco lesbian bar; *COMING OUT UNDER FIRE: THE HISTORY OF GAY MEN AND WOMEN IN WORLD WAR TWO (75 minutes), based on the book of the same name (see above) documents this subject; *THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK (90 minutes), the 1984 Academy Award winner on the life and assassination of the first gay man elected to public office in the U. S.; *COMMON THREADS: STORIES FROM THE QUILT (85 minutes), the 1990 Academy Award winner which tells the human and political history of the AIDS epidemic through the stories behind panels of the NAMES Project Quilt; *VOICES FROM THE FRONT (90 minutes), focuses on the history of AIDS civil disobedience movement led by ACT-UP. ----------------------------------------------------------------- GAY AND LESBIAN HISTORY IN THE UNITED STATES: A TIMELINE Provided by: GLSTN 122 West 26th Street, Suite 1100 New York, NY 10001 USA Tel: (212) 727-0135 Email: glstn@glstn.org Web: http://www.glstn.org/freedom/ 1492: Columbus "discovers" America. 1566: First known execution (in North America) of a person for same-sex sexual activities, by the Spanish in Florida. 1607: First permanent English colony established at Jamestown, Virginia. 1610: Virginia adopts "sodomy laws" of England, making sex between two men a "capital crime" punishable by death. Although no longer a capital crime, in 1995 sodomy remains a criminal act punishable by imprisonment in twenty-four states. 1642: Elizabeth Johnson becomes first woman to be punished for violating sodomy laws, in Essex County of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. 1776: Thirteen colonies declare independence from Britain. 1777: In a move seen as "liberal" at the time, Thomas Jefferson proposes a revision of Virginia law to reduce the penalty for sodomy from death to castration. This is never enacted. 1778: Gotthold Enslin becomes first American discharged from the Army for sodomy. 1787: Constitution approved; United States government takes current form. 1790: Samuel Slater establishes first American textile factory in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The "Industrial Revolution" follows, with rapidly-growing cities gradually replacing the farm as the living and working environment of most Americans. 1860: Walt Whitman publishes first "Calamus" poems in Leaves of Grass, celebrating his "love of comrades", a veiled reference to his homosexuality. Whitman is typical of the new gay subculture emerging in American cities. Freed from the prying eyes of family and small-town neighbors, gay people in cities were freer to act on their sexual orientations than before, and found it easier to meet others like themselves. Noted psychiatrist Havelock Ellis was to comment, after a 1915 visit to the United States, that "The world of sexual inverts, indeed, is a large one in any American city." 1865: Civil War ends. Slavery abolished and voting and citizenship rights granted to blacks by Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. 1869: Hungarian psychologist Benkert invents the word "homosexual" to describe people attracted to the same sex. This signals an important attitude shift brought on by the new medical profession: rather than being a criminal act or a sin (as the act of sodomy was considered to be), loving someone of the same sex was now seen as a psychological "condition" or illness which should be cured, not punished. 1889: Lesbian Jane Addams founds Hull House in Chicago, America's first "settlement house" offering services for the poor. Addams is vital in founding the new profession of "social work." As educational and economic opportunities began to expand for women in the late nineteenth century, more and more entered this new profession as well as others like teaching and nursing, which allowed them to earn their own incomes and live independently, without husbands. Some then were able to act on their same-sex desires, and the term "Boston marriage" came to refer to two women who lived together for a long period of time, derived from the large numbers of professional women who did so in Boston. This independence was the prerequisite for the emergence of lesbian communities. 1920: Women win right to vote with passage of Nineteenth Amendment. 1924: The Society for Human Rights, America's first known gay rights organization, is founded in Chicago. Police and media harassment forces its disbandment in less than a year. Nevertheless, the "Roaring Twenties" sees a new openness toward homosexuality, with gay artists such as Langston Hughes and Bessie Smith achieving prominence through the "Harlem Renaissance." The new "nightlife" of the era included many "bohemian" clubs, where gay people were welcomed. 1929: Stock Market Crash bring on Great Depression of the Thirties, where restricted economic opportunities curtails individual freedom for many, a setback for gays. 1941: United States enters World War Two. 1942: U.S. military, under influence of psychiatric establishment, revises codes on homosexual behavior as part of general revision brought on by World War Two. Previously, soldiers could only be expelled if witnessed committing "sodomy"; now, being "homosexual" was enough for dismissal. The army begins asking entering soldiers about their sexual orientations, and expelling any recruits or present soldiers who admit to homosexuality--whether or not they have ever acted on these desires. These are known at the time as "blue discharges" because of the color of the paper on which they were printed. Approximately one hundred thousand Americans are discharged on this basis over the next fifty years. 1945: World War Two ends. Veterans Benevolent Association founded in New York by gay service people to fight "blue discharge" system. 1949: Soviets explode first atomic bomb, and Communists take over China, prompting hysteria in America over "Communist threat." Sen. McCarthy begins charging that "subversives" have undermined our government and begins "witch hunts" to get rid of them, earning time nickname as "McCarthy Era." 1950: Undersecretary of State John Puerifory speaks of a "pervert peril" in testimony before Congress, leading to "witch hunts" for gays who work in the federal government. Mass expulsions of gay employees begins. 1950: Harry Hay and others found Mattachine Society in Los Angeles, America's first on-going gay rights organization. 1953: Newly-elected President Dwight Eisenhower bans employment of gays by the government in Executive Order 10450. Employees of federal, state, and local governments must take "loyalty oaths" to gain employment, swearing (among other things) that they are not homosexual. These regulations are not repealed until 1975. 1955: Phyllis Martin and Del Lyon found America's first lesbian rights organization, The Daughters of Bilitis, in San Francisco. 1955: Gay African-American activist Bayard Rustin visits Montgomery, Alabama, in midst of famous "bus boycott" led by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. He instructs King and other activists in the techniques of non-violent civil disobedience, which become chief tactic of the black civil rights movement. He later organizes the 1963 March on Washington where King delivers the famous "I Have A Dream" speech. 1958: ONE magazine, a publication affiliated with Mattachine, wins a case against the U.S. Postal Service, which had banned distribution of any publications on homosexuality through the mails as "obscenity", before the Supreme Court. Greater publicity of gay causes becomes possible. 1964: Congress passes Civil Rights Act, preventing states from infringing on the rights granted to blacks by post-Civil War Constitutional Amendments. Passage was considered the result of the massive civil disobedience and protest campaigns led by King and organized by Rustin. 1965: Gay and lesbian people picket outside federal offices in Washington to protest the government's employment discrimination against gays. First public protest by gay people in the nation's capital. 1966: National Organization for Women (NOW) founded to fight for women's rights. 1969: Angered by police harassment, patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a New York gay bar, fight back during a raid, initiating several days of violence known as the "Stonewall Riots." Gay leadership adopt a new militant attitude, borrowing from other movements of the time to use slogans like "Gay is Good" and founding a "Gay Liberation Front." Many cities begin "Gay Pride Marches" in late June to commemorate this uprising against oppression. 1973: The American Psychiatric Association votes to remove homosexuality from its list of "illnesses," ending a century of efforts to "cure" gays by psychiatrists. 1974: Elaine Noble becomes first openly lesbian or gay person elected to state office when she wins a seat in Massachusetts State House of Representatives. 1979: First "March on Washington for Gay Rights" draws 100,000 marchers. 1980: Embracing support from the "Moral Majority," Republican Ronald Reagan wins Presidency having pledged to "resist the efforts...to obtain government endorsement of homosexuality." 1981: A new disease appears mainly among gay men, earning it the nickname "gay cancer" or "Gay-Related Immune Deficiency." Later known as "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome" (AIDS), this disease sweeps through the gay community and other groups in American society, primarily people of color. Over one hundred thousand gay men die in the next decade. The "Moral Majority" decrees that the disease is "God's punishment for homosexuality," and the Reagan administration is extremely slow in its response to this health crisis: President Reagan does not even mention the word AIDS in public until well into his second term in office, and public health officials cite the slowness of the Reagan Administration's response as the central reason for AIDS becoming an epidemic in America. 1982: Wisconsin becomes first state to ban employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Today, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont have such laws, but 41 states still allow such discrimination. 1983: Representative Gerry Studds of Massachusetts becomes America's first openly gay Congressperson. 1986: In a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court upholds the sodomy laws of the state of Georgia in the Bowers v. Hardwick decision. As a result, government continues to have the right to arrest consenting adults having sex in the privacy of their own homes in 24 states. 1987: Activists form the "AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power" (ACT-UP) in New York. Using direct action civil disobedience techniques, this group spreads nationwide and, through its protests, forces the government to take substantial action to fight AIDS for the first time. 1987: Second March on Washington draws several hundred thousand marchers. 1989: Denmark becomes first nation to legalize gay marriage. Norway becomes the second in 1993, and Sweden the third in 1994. 1993: Third March on Washington draws one million to Washington. 1993: Massachusetts becomes first state to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation against public school students, heralding emergence of widespread gay youth activism. 1995: President Clinton ends ban on federal security clearances for gays, the last vestige of the McCarthy-era restrictions. ----------------------------------------------------------------- TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF GAY AND LESBIAN HISTORY Provided by: GLSTN 122 West 26th Street, Suite 1100 New York, NY 10001 USA Tel: (212) 727-0135 Email: glstn@glstn.org Web: http://www.glstn.org/freedom/ 1. The word "homosexual" was coined in which year? a. 545 B.C.E. b. 300 C.E. c. 1745 C.E. d. 1869 C.E. e. 1938 C.E. f. 1949 C.E. 2. Which of the following empires was ruled for over two centuries by openly gay or bisexual emperors? a. China b. Rome c. Greece d. all of the above e. none of the above f. a and b only g. b and c only 3. True or False: Jesus condemned homosexuality in the Bible. 4. In what century did homosexual acts become illegal in western Europe? a. the first century B.C.E. b. the first century C.E. c. the thirteenth century d. the nineteenth century 5. In what nation did the first large-scale "gay rights movement" begin? a. England b. France c. Germany d. the United States e. none of the above 6. In what year was the first public speech asking for gay rights made? a. 1776 b. 1867 c. 1919 d. 1945 e. 1965 f. 1969 7. True or false: Gay concentration camp survivors were often re-imprisoned by German authorities after being "liberated" by Allied forces after World War Two. 8. True or False: American Indians discriminated against people whom they perceived to be gay. 9. In what year was the first person executed for being gay in North America? a. 1492 b. 1566 c. 1778 d. 1869 10. In which of the following years was the first American soldier dismissed from our armed forces for being gay? a. 1621 b. 1778 c. 1865 d. 1969 11. When was America's first "gay rights group" founded? a. 1869 b. 1924 c. 1951 d. 1969 12. Which President made it illegal for the American government to employ homosexuals? a. Washington b. Lincoln c. Eisenhower d. Reagan e. Clinton 13. Name America's first lesbian rights organization. 14. Name the gay African-American man who organized the 1963 March on Washington where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" Speech. 15. When was the first gay rights protest in Washington, D.C.? a. 1924 b. 1953 c. 1965 d. 1979 16. Who was the first openly gay or lesbian American elected to state political office in the United States? a. Roberta Achtenberg b. Barney Frank c. Harvey Milk d. Elaine Noble 17. Two-part question: a. What state was the first state to outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation? b. In what year? 18. Name the 1986 Supreme Court decision which upheld the right of the government to invade the homes of gay people and arrest them while engaging in sexual relations with other consenting adults, which is still illegal in 24 states: 19. Name the direct-action group whose civil disobedience demonstrations are credited with getting the government to take action on the AIDS epidemic: 20. In which of the following countries is it legal for gay people to marry? a. Australia b. Denmark c. Israel d. the United States e. none of the above SCORING: Give yourself one point for each correct answer, or one-half point for each part of a two part question. Answers: 1. d. 1869. A Hungarian psychologist named Benkert invented this term. Prior to this date, people may have committed homosexual "acts," but they were not labeled "homosexuals" (or members of a particular group whose identity derives from that act) until the nineteenth century. 2. f. a and b only (China and Rome) In China during the Han dynasty (second century B.C.E. until third century C.E.), many emperors were gay or bisexual. The Chinese term for homosexuality, "duanxiu, " means "cut sleeve" referring to a famous story when an emperor cut off his sleeve rather than awaken his lover, who had fallen asleep on his arm. Rome was ruled in the first two centuries C.E. by fourteen openly gay or bisexual emperors, including Nero and Hadrian. 3. False. Most passages which are interpreted as condemning homosexuality are found in the Old Testament, and derived from Hebraic tribal law; all of the few New Testament references ar all in book written by Paul, who was born decades after Jesus' crucifixion. No condemnations of homosexuality are found in any of the "Gospels" or books which deal with the life of Jesus. 4. c. thirteenth century. Only in the late Middle Ages were homosexual acts made illegal in Western Europe. Some historians feel this was a reaction to the "black" or bubonic plague, which killed one-third of Europeans at that time. Terrified, people began looking for "scapegoats", and persecuted many minority groups, such as Jews, "witches," and homosexuals, who were "different" and blamed for the disease. 5. c. Germany. German activists began organizing in the 1860's and had formed an organization dedicated to advancing gay rights which had over 100,000 members by the early twentieth century. Its petition drives for legal reform were signed by such people as scientist Albert Einstein and writers Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse. 6. b. 1867. Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, a German lawyer, delivered a speech before the Congress of German Jurists in Munich in 1867, when he called for the repeal of "paragraph 175," which made same-sex sexual activities illegal. He also founded the first gay magazine and lobbied for legalization of gay marriage before his death in 1890. 7. True. As violators of "paragraph 175", homosexuals were judged to be criminals; since concentration camps were not considered "jails", the liberated gays were often sent to civil jails after the war to serve their sentences. None ever received financial payments which the German government made to other Holocaust victims. 8. False. Many native Americans had an institution called "berdache" where individuals could take on the social role of the opposite sex and take a same-sex spouse without fear of ridicule. Some tribes actually revered berdaches for their special "calling." The existence of berdaches has been documented in at least 140 different tribes. 9. b. 1566, when the Spanish executed a French priest for living with a berdache. 10. b. 1778. Gotthold Enslin, a lieutenant, was dismissed at Valley Forge for having been caught in same sex sexual activity. From 1945-1993, over one hundred thousand Americans were dismissed from the armed forces for being gay. 11. b. 1924. The Chicago Society for Human Rights was America's first gay rights group, although it lasted for less than a year due to police and media harassment. 12. c. Eisenhower. In Executive Order 10450 in 1953, President Eisenhower bowed to the pressures of Senator McCarthy's "witch hunts" which claimed that not only Communists but also gays were betraying American secrets to the Russians. These laws were not repealed until 1975. 13. Daughters of Bilitis. Founded in 1955 in San Francisco, this organization also published America's first lesbian magazine, THE LADDER. 14. Bayard Rustin. Rustin also taught King the non violent civil disobedience techniques which made him famous. Rustin was urged from the civil rights movement because of his homosexuality, which the FBI used to blackmail King. 15. c. 1965. Organized by Frank Kameny and the Mattachine Society, this picket of slightly more than a dozen people aimed to repeal McCarthy-era restrictions on the employment of gay people by the federal government. 16. d. Elaine Noble. An open lesbian, Noble was elected to the Massachusetts State House of Representatives in 1975. 17. a. Wisconsin b. 1982. Since then, the following states have joined Wisconsin: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont. 18. Hardwick v. Bowers. In 1986, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote, upheld the conviction of Michael Hardwick, an Atlanta man who was arrested in the privacy of his home by Georgia police for violating the state's sodomy laws. 19. ACT-UP. The "AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power" was founded in New York in 1987, six years into the epidemic. At that point, President Reagan had yet to say the word "AIDS" in public even though the disease had killed 20,000 Americans during that time. 20. b. Denmark. Since Denmark did so in 1989, Norway and Sweden have also legalized gay marriage. In the United States, some religious sects marry gay people, and many cities grant "domestic partnerships," but no states currently recognize gay marriages as legal. RATINGS 1. 15-20 points. FABULOUS. You really know your stuff, and deserve an immediate tenure-track position as a professor of Gay and Lesbian Studies. 2. 10-14 points. FINE. You know a lot, but could brush up a bit. Hit the library! 3. 6-9 points. FAIR. You really need to buy a gay history text and read it...tonight. 4. 0-5 points. FAILING. Do not pass go, do not collect $200--go straight to the bookstore to stock up on gay history texts! ----------------------------------------------------------------- ***** ***** ***** This document is part of THE GLSTN TOOLBOX, an online resource of practical information and tools, for educators, students, parents and community organizers, to help fight homophobia in K-12 schools. Founded in 1990 as a regional volunteer organization in Boston, The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Teachers Network (GLSTN) today has over 20 chapters around the country and is the largest organization of teachers and community members dedicated to ensuring that all students are valued and respected, regardless of sexual orientation. GLSTN's work includes community organizing, providing programming to schools, and developing materials that teachers can use to raise awareness among their colleagues and students. Membership is open to all who are committed to ending homophobia in schools, regardless of sexual orientation or occupation. The GLSTN TOOLBOX is available from the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Teachers Network World Wide Web Site: http://www.glstn.org/freedom/ In the interest of sharing this information with others, you may copy and redistribute this document provided that all notices remain intact. You may not charge or make a profit from the redistribution of this material. If you have writing which you would like to contribute to The GLSTN TOOLBOX, please contact us by phone at (212) 727-0135 or by e-mail at glstn@glstn.org.