When Did It Happen?
 
 
WORKSHOP: When Did It Happen? When Did that Happen? (60 minutes) Purpose: To challenge the invisibility and silence around historical figures who, today, would be identified as LGBT. Prepare ahead of time the LGBT History Timeline cards for each participant: Instructions: • Tell the group that this activity covers some major events and people in LGBTQ history in the United States. This lesson plan raises interesting questions about how history gets transmitted and the impact of invisibility in school curricula. Give each participant a card (or you may have to have people work in pairs). Tell them to walk around, mingle and begin to form a line from what event happened earliest to what event is the most recent. Designate one side of the room as earliest and one side as most recent. You may have to make two lines depending on the size of the room. They have 10 minutes. Encourage participants to guess if they are having difficulty. • After everyone is in a line have each person or pair read the event starting from the earliest to the most recent. • Make adjustments to put the events in the right order. Take a minute to talk about each event briefly. Stress that when we hear about history we usually don’t hear about the history of marginalized people and communities, or that the sexuality and/or gender identity of certain historical figures (for example, Bayard Rustin) are obscured. • If you have a small group, give two cards to each participant – have the two events be chronologically consecutive events. Large Group Discussion Questions: ¬ What did you learn from this activity? ¬ What surprised you? Why? ¬ Why was this timeline difficult? Are there other communities of people in the United States whose own history timeline might be challenging to do? ¬ What other groups have been consistently left out of or misrepresented in our history books? ¬ What is the impact of invisibility in the curriculum? Hand-out: When Did That Happen Historical List When Did That Happen? LGBT History Timeline 1623: Francis Bacon, a noted homosexual who coined the term “masculine love” publishes The Advancement of Learning—an argument for empirical research and against superstition. This deductive system for empirical research earned him the title “the Father of Modern Science.” 1649: The first known conviction for lesbian activity in North America occurs in March when Sarah White Norman is charged with "lewd behavior" with Mary Vincent Hammon in Plymouth, Massachusetts. 1749: Thomas Cannon wrote what may be the earliest published defense of homosexuality in English, Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplify’d. 1779: Thomas Jefferson revises Virginia law to make sodomy (committed by men or women) punishable by mutilation rather than death. 1791: The Bill of Rights is the name by which the first ten amendments to the US Constitution are known. They were introduced to the First United States Congress in 1789 as a series of constitutional amendments, and came into effect on December 15, 1791, when they had been ratified by three-fourths of the States. 1862/1863: The Emancipation Proclamation consists of two executive orders issued by President Lincoln during the Civil War. The first one, issued September 22, 1862-delete dates, declared the freedom of all slaves in any state of the Confederate States of America that did not return to Union control by January 1, 1863. The second order, issued January 1, 1863, named the specific states where it applied. 1886: We’wha, an accomplished Zuni weaver and potter (who would be considered by Western standards and norms as being male at birth) lived as a woman in the Zuni tribe, visits Washington, D.C. as an ambassador of the Zuni people. She is received by President Grover Cleveland as a “Zuni princess.” 1913: Leo Frank, an American Jew was convicted of the rape and murder of a young girl. After his death sentence was commuted by Georgia's governor, a mob stormed the prison where Frank was being held and lynched him in 1915. 1920: The Nineteenth Amendment was ratified extending the right to vote to women. 1924: Henry Gerber forms the Society for Human Rights, the first gay group in the United States, but the group is quickly shut down. 1925: Blues woman Ma Rainey is arrested in her house in Harlem for having a lesbian party. Her protégé, Bessie Smith, bails her out of jail the following morning. Rainey and Smith were part of an extensive circle of lesbian and bisexual African-American women in Harlem. 1928: The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall is published in the United States. This sparks great legal controversy and brings the topic of homosexuality to public conversation. 1942: United States Executive Order 9066 was issued during to send ethnic groups with "Foreign Enemy Ancestry" — Japanese, Italians, and Germans - to internment camps. The order led to the Japanese American internment in which some 120,000 ethnic Japanese people were held for the duration of the war. 1950: The first gay organization, the Mattachine Society is formed in Los Angeles. They referred to themselves as a homophile group. 1952: Christine Jorgensen is the first American whose sex reassignment surgery became public. Her surgery caused an international sensation, and for many, she was the first visible transsexual in the media. 1954: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned earlier rulings, by declaring that state laws that established separate public schools for black and white students denied black children equal educational opportunities. The Court's unanimous (9-0) decision stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." 1955: Emmett Till was a black fourteen year old from Chicago who was murdered in Money, Mississippi. The murder was noted as one of the leading events that motivated the nascent Civil Rights Movement. The main suspects were acquitted, but later admitted to committing the crime. 1955: The Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), considered to be the first lesbian rights organization, was formed by Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon in San Francisco, California. The group was conceived as a social alternative to lesbian bars, which were considered illegal and thus subject to raids and police harassment. 1956: James Baldwin, African-American novelist and intellectual, publishes Giovanni’s Room, a male love story. 1962: Illinois becomes first U.S. state to remove sodomy law from its criminal code. 1963: The first gay rights demonstration in the USA took place on September 19th at the Whitehall Induction Center in New York City, protesting against discrimination in the military. 1969: A police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York City in the wee hours of June 28th leads to four days of battle between police and angry lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and trans identified people. Youth are a major part of these “riots” that mark the birth of the modern gay movement. A Year later, the first Gay Liberation Day March is held in New York City. 1973: The board of the American Psychiatric Association votes 13-0 to remove homosexuality from its official list of psychiatric disorders, the DSM-II. The resolution also urges an end to private and public discrimination and repeal of laws discriminating against homosexuals. 1982: Nearly 800 people are infected with GRID (Gay-Related Immunodeficiency). The name is changed to AIDS by years end. 1985: The first memorial to the Nazi’s gay victims, a pink granite stone monument at Neuengamme concentration camp, inscribed “Dedicated to the Homosexual victims of National Socialism”, is unveiled. 1987: ACT UP a direct action activist group is founded in the LGBT Community Center in NYC to focus attention on AIDS related issues using civil disobedience. 1989: Billy Tipton, jazz musician, dies and is discovered to be female after presenting as a man since 1933. 1991: Audre Lorde, critically acclaimed novelist, poet and essayist, who was politically active in the civil rights movements, a cofounder of The Kitchen Table Women of Color Press and an editor of the lesbian journal Chrysalis, was named State Poet of New York. 1996: Kelli Peterson founds a Gay-Straight Alliance at East High School in Salt Lake City, Utah. The city school board bans all “non-curricular” student clubs in order to keep the group from meeting. 1997: Ellen DeGeneres and her television character Ellen Morgan, come out. Ellen becomes the first show to feature a lesbian or gay lead character. 1998: Matthew Shepard, a gay Wyoming college student is brutally beaten by two young men, tied to a fence and left overnight to die. 2002: NYC expands the definition of gender to include protections for trans and gender-different people in the NYC Human Rights Law. 2002: Gwen Amber Rose Araujo, a male-to-female transgender teenager dies after being attacked by multiple individuals. The events leading up to Araujo’s death were the subject of a pair of criminal trials in which it was alleged that the attackers were angered by the discovery that Araujo — who, at the time, was living as female — was biologically male. In the most recent trial, two of the defendants were convicted of second-degree murder, but the jury concluded that no hate crime was committed. 2002: The Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a legal-aid organization based in New York City that serves transgender, intersex and gender non-conforming people, was formed by attorney and transgender civil rights activist, Dean Spade. The project is named for Sylvia Rivera, a transgender activist and veteran of the Stonewall Uprising who died the same year that SRLP was formed "to guarantee that all people are free to self-determine gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race, and without facing harassment, discrimination or violence." 2003: The Supreme Court overturns sodomy laws, proclaiming rights to privacy and decriminalizing “homosexual” behavior. 2004: Hundreds of same sex couples legally exchange marriage vows in Massachusetts, the first U.S. state to allow gay marriage. 2005: At its annual convention in Atlanta, Georgia, the American Psychiatric Association votes to support government-recognized marriages between same-sex partners. 2006: Attorney and transgender activist Kim Coco Iwamoto is elected to the state-level Board of Education in Hawaii. She is the first openly transgender person to be elected to a state level office in the United States. 2007: The David Ray Hate Crimes Prevention Act of ________ or David’s Law, is a bill first introduced in the United States House of Representatives by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas. It is designed to reinforce hate crimes, and specifically makes sexual orientation a protected class alongside race and gender. 2008: Soulforce, an organization committed to confronting religious-based hate, visits 32 colleges and universities that ban enrollment of openly LGBT students. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_United_States_Congress%22%20%5Co%20%22First%20United%20States%20Congresshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_amendment%22%20%5Co%20%22Constitutional%20amendmenthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_15%22%20%5Co%20%22December%2015http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1791%22%20%5Co%20%221791http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution%22%20%5Cl%20%22Amendments%22%20%5Co%20%22United%20States%20Constitutionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order_(United_States)%22%20%5Co%20%22Executive%20order%20(United%20States)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_22%22%20%5Co%20%22September%2022http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1862%22%20%5Co%20%221862http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_of_America%22%20%5Co%20%22Confederate%20States%20of%20Americahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1%22%20%5Co%20%22January%201http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1863%22%20%5Co%20%221863http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1%22%20%5Co%20%22January%201http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1863%22%20%5Co%20%221863http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well_of_Loneliness%22%20%5Co%20%22http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well_of_LonelinessThe%20Well%20of%20Lonelinesshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radclyffe_Hall%22%20%5Co%20%22http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radclyffe_HallRadclyffe%20Hallhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment%22%20%5Co%20%22Japanese%20American%20internmenthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_people%22%20%5Co%20%22Japanese%20peoplehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landmark_decision%22%20%5Co%20%22Landmark%20decisionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco,_California%22%20%5Co%20%22http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco,_CaliforniaSan%20Francisco,%20Californiahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois%22%20%5Co%20%22Illinoishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state%22%20%5Co%20%22U.S.%20statehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Psychiatric_Association%22%20%5Co%20%22American%20Psychiatric%20Associationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality%22%20%5Co%20%22Homosexualityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatric_disorder%22%20%5Co%20%22Psychiatric%20disorderhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSM-II%22%20%5Co%20%22DSM-IIhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuengamme%22%20%5Co%20%22Neuengammehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_camp%22%20%5Co%20%22Concentration%20camphttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_crime%22%20%5Co%20%22Hate%20crimehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta,_Georgia%22%20%5Co%20%22Atlanta,%20Georgiahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Psychiatric_Association%22%20%5Co%20%22American%20Psychiatric%20Associationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives%22%20%5Co%20%22United%20States%20House%20of%20Representativeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Jackson-Lee%22%20%5Co%20%22Sheila%20Jackson-Leehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas%22%20%5Co%20%22Texashttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_orientation%22%20%5Co%20%22Sexual%20orientationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soulforce%22%20%5Co%20%22Soulforceshapeimage_2_link_0shapeimage_2_link_1shapeimage_2_link_2shapeimage_2_link_3shapeimage_2_link_4shapeimage_2_link_5shapeimage_2_link_6shapeimage_2_link_7shapeimage_2_link_8shapeimage_2_link_9shapeimage_2_link_10shapeimage_2_link_11shapeimage_2_link_12shapeimage_2_link_13shapeimage_2_link_14shapeimage_2_link_15shapeimage_2_link_16shapeimage_2_link_17shapeimage_2_link_18shapeimage_2_link_19shapeimage_2_link_20shapeimage_2_link_21shapeimage_2_link_22shapeimage_2_link_23shapeimage_2_link_24shapeimage_2_link_25shapeimage_2_link_26shapeimage_2_link_27shapeimage_2_link_28shapeimage_2_link_29shapeimage_2_link_30shapeimage_2_link_31shapeimage_2_link_32shapeimage_2_link_33shapeimage_2_link_34
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