What would you show to illustrate the importance of gay culture and history?
Current ideas: Static table set up for June. They see it when they enter the lobby/on way to lunch. Can stop and read, cannot miss it.
Start at antiquity, show Sappho, Egyptian tombs, historical erasure.
Go to middle ages/ Renaissance, Christian persecution. Advent of modern institutionalized hate.
Modern, 20s acceptance to return of conservatism, stonewall 70s lib movement, law and protection creation. End with a photo of Jonathon Joss to really turn the knife that it hasn’t fucking gone away.
Want to also highlight specific people in the eras. Maybe 1 to 5 with space we have. Harvey milk, Wendy Carlos, Alan Turing.
Looking for any suggestions to really make this a specisl learning experience/ way for the elder gays there to feel appreciated. Know we have a few and they’re surrounded by a sea of conservative pricks.
Thank you!!!
Tldr: suggestions for an educational gay history table. Elderly demographic.
HIV: the homosexual cancer, Reagan, lesbian role during the early epidemic, modern advancements and chronification of an otherwise deadly disease, hope: u=u and the Berlin patient.
More Milk, lots of Milk, relate it to the current administration efforts to erase him.
Oscar Wilde, Chelsea Manning, the Thebes Battalion, James Dean, Burroughs, Virginia Woolf, Susan Sontag, Freddy Mercur, Alexander the Great, Leonardo, Sally Ride…
If you can, try to get some of the attendees to record their experiences with gay culture and the Community as a whole - autobiographical writing is good, but an interview format would be better I think (sufficient staff/volunteers permitting)
It would be a nice way to demonstrate how even if they aren’t queer, they have a place and impact on the community, as well as recording stories that will likely be lost in a few years.
It’s fairly recent, but Matthew’s law:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard_and_James_Byrd_Jr._Hate_Crimes_Prevention_Act
The entanglement of queerness and military theory, from the sacred band of thebes to TE lawrence is a favorite.
Gotta check on more modern theorists, but i expect they’re disproportionately queer. Less information and more stigma exists.
Harvey Milk, Sacred Band Of Thebes, Stonewall Riots…
Any people or events that showcase gay people taking up arms in some capacity. Basically, confront the stereotype that gay people are weak or fragile.
