How much do you know about the history of LGBT rights? I've realised that I know very little- I know a bit about Stonewall, but that's about it. I think it's important for us to learn about the people who fought for the rights we have today. However, I doubt that my school will introduce that to the curriculum any time soon, despite the fact we learn about the Civil Rights movement and the suffragettes. Are there any books on the subject you would recommend? Do you think we have a responsibility to learn about the history of LGBT rights? And should we educate ourselves, or should it be taught in schools?
What shocks me the most is how quiet the society is about the AIDS crisis: it's been less than 30 years and basically most people older than me have lived during those times. It feels like such things couldn't have taken place so little time ago, the whole idea is so abstract to me. I mean, my parents were of my age back then, it's basically yesterday to them. Similarly I have very poor understanding on the LGBT history of my home country and it saddens me. I've mostly relied on autobiographies of individuals because history books often end up using statistics and other dull sources instead of accounts of the people who had to live through hard times. Most also show that LGBT history hasn't been just riots and suffering but also full of love and self-discovery - it's nice to be reminded that our existence can also be nice and fulfilling. Good films such as Pride have also been a great source of information, although it should be remembered they're never able to represent the events exactly as they were. I feel like the whole question about whether or not LGBT history should be taught in schools is more about what parts of history are seen as most 'important' or 'crucial' and what is extra people don't necessarily have to know. There's no easy answer I guess: to your average straight person knowing about the struggles of an unfamiliar minority might not be as important than the World Wars or somesuch, but on the other hand nothing will ever change unless children are taught about the mistakes made in the past. I personally would've loved to learn more about people like me in class and feel like LGBT individuals have always been there throughout history, not just some new phenomenon. At the least discussing the civil rights movements without mentioning the LGBT community should be questioned. What personally annoys me is how often the identities of historical LGBT people are never touched upon, and the underlying assumption is that everyone you ever hear in history class is straight unless they were persecuted for their same-sex attraction or something. Alexander the Great? Leonardo da Vinci? Sappho? For crying out loud, how different would my life be if I had known that Tove Jansson's life partner was another woman: I loved Moomins as a child and the fact most adults are in denial about the fact favourite author wasn't straight is just sad.
Very little, it's not taught in schools and you almost never see documentaries about it. I've heard the word " stonewall" get thrown around here and there, but that's about it.
At my school we had a history teacher who had a gay brother (she's since left). When we learnt about the Holocaust, she told us quite a bit about the "pink triangles" and as a lot of people were interested, we had a lesson at the end of the term about LGBT history. Obviously we couldn't learn that much in just one lesson but I do know briefly some stuff about our history.
Unfortunately Germany is to buissy trying to stress how much of a mistake WW2 was (I mean come on. 3 years of history classes only dedicated to WW2 is slightly overdoing it right?) That we never realy did any kind of rights movements...(even though we did apartheid in english classes and the equality for darker skined people in musik classes) and seeing as gay marriage is not legal in Germany and most of the influential population and politicians are christians, i doubt that is going to change in the near future. I think it's a shame that we aren't told anything about the LGTB comunity in school. If i'd had heard either Transgender or Pansexual at any given time in my 13 years of school i wouldn't have had to stumble across them by acident and dismiss them for a long period of time befor i could admit to myself that i fitted under those labels. Even in things like sex-ed, they never told us there was a different option than male and female together.(luckily fanfictions exist )
I don't even know what Stonewall is. I should probably look into it, but as has been said, all you ever find are statistics and graphs which are hardly detailed (I swear the purpose of sites like Wikipedia is to make everything as dull as possible). I don't know, you hardly ever hear anything about our history because the education system loves to gloss over us. In history class we heard about Hitler's intolerance towards SGA people and the pink triangles and all, and I read a pretty interesting article a while ago about homosexuality during the world wars, but other than that, nothing. EDIT: Found the link to the article! Here you go, if you're interested: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/36/a2688636.shtml
I hardly know anything about it. Not even Stonewall. I really need to find good sources to educate myself about it when I finish graduation! This is sooooo true! Except that we talked more about the first WW because my teacher was obsessed with Bismarck
