LGBTQ history

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• 5/28/2023
  

  Dangerous Records: Why LGBTQ Americans Today Fear the Weaponization of Bureaucracy

  by Emily Hand

  Requests made by Texas's Attorney General for information about gender change requests on drivers' licenses and other documents alarmed transgender advocates because the data could support an official list of trans Texans at a moment when the group faces public vilification. History shows that innocent bureaucratic records can be used oppressively.

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• SOURCE: The Nation
  5/23/2023
  

  How to Fight Back Against the Right's "Parents' Rights" Moral Panic

  by Jennifer Berkshire

  Parents' fears about losing control over their children have been the raw material for potent politically-motivated moral panics for a century and more. But those panics aren't irresistible, because parents everywhere still value public schools as democratic community institutions.  

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/23/2023
  

  Most Book Bans Driven by Tiny Minority of Activists; LGBTQ Themes Central to Objections

  Individuals who filed 10 or more challenges to books were responsible for two thirds of all complaints about books, suggesting a small group of political activists is driving the phenomenon. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/22/2023
  

  Dept. of Ed Charges Georgia Book Removal May Violate Civil Rights

  A review by the department's civil rights unit concludes that Forsyth County, Georgia may have created a hostile learning environment for Black and LGBTQ students through its book removal policies. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  5/15/2023
  

  If it's Ineffective and Harmful, Why is Gay Conversion Therapy Still Around?

  by Andrea Ens

  Conversion therapies endure because their purpose is political, not therapeutic. They seek and symbolize the eradication of LGBTQ people from society and are promoted by groups who want that eradication to happen. 

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• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  5/12/2023
  

  Indiana U. Pres.: Legislative Attack on Kinsey Institute a Attack on Academic Freedom

  Ironically, Alfred Kinsey's work was the subject of moral panics and suppression in his own lifetime. 

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• SOURCE: Indiana Public Media
  5/5/2023
  

  Indiana's Kinsey Institute will Have to Carry on Without State Funds

  The pioneering research institute for the study of human sexuality has been a victim of the "groomer" moral panic; the legislator introducing the funding restrictions has called the late Alfred Kinsey a pedophile and suggested the institute was "hiding child predators." 

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• 5/7/2023
  

  Let Us Now Praise R. DeSantis

  by Marc Stein

  "I can’t believe it’s taken this long to have a political leader take a stand against gender and sexuality!"

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  4/27/2023
  

  Shameful Echoes of the 1950s Lavender Scare

  by David K. Johnson

  At the height of the McCarthy era, a bipartisan congressional committee concluded that gay and lesbian personnel should be purged from government service because of the alleged "weakness of their moral fiber." Teaching this history could make students more able to recognize political moral panics today. 

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• SOURCE: Slate
  4/24/2023
  

  A Hunt Through the Queer Past for the Anonymous "HHC" Ended in an Unexpected Place

  by Aaron Lecklider

  The repression of the past has meant that few early LGBTQ activists have kept detailed records of their work or their communities. But sometimes the present community of historians can collectively find those ghosts of the past. 

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  4/10/2023
  

  Jeanne Manford's Support for her Gay Son was Revolutionary

  At the time Manford began publicly supporting her own gay son and organizing a group for other parents of gay children, 49 states had laws criminalizing gay sex; the scope and bravery of her activism is difficult to appreciate today. 

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  3/27/2023
  

  Gender-Affirming Care Has a Long History, and Has Affected Non-Trans People Too

  by G. Samantha Rosenthal

  Medical intervention to make people's bodies conform to their assigned place in the gender binary has a long history; it has been controversial principally when the same treatments have been used by transgender people.

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  4/6/2023
  

  What Disney's Orange Bird Logo Says about Corporate Support and the LGBTQ Movement

  by Julio Capó, Jr.

  In the 1970s, Disney was much more willing to tolerate the anti-gay tirades of singer Anita Bryant, which previewed today's "groomer" accusations, because of a lucrative and politically expedient partnership with Florida's orange growers, suggesting movement power, not corporate benevolence, is driving change. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  4/3/2023
  

  Why Didn't 60 Minutes Push Back on MTG's "Pedophile" Smear?

  While Lesley Stahl responded that Democratic politicians aren't "pedophiles" or "groomers," historians Manisha Sinha and Brandy Schillace explain that the term has a longer and uglier history in campaigns to marginalize queer people and to use fears around sexual purity to justify oppression of outgroups. 

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• SOURCE: Harper's Bazaar
  3/28/2023
  

  Gladys Bentley: Gender Outlaw

  by Cookie Woolner

  Gladys Bentley was one of the most popular speakeasy performers in prohibition-era New York, and used the performance category of "drag king" – women playing on stereotypes of masculinity – to be herself. 

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• SOURCE: Texas Monthly
  3/23/2023
  

  Trans Texans, Fearing Violence Inspired by Legislation and Rhetoric, Look to Armed Self-Defense

  Supporters of gender-related legislation deny that they want to eradicate transgender Texans, but members of that community fear that political rhetoric suggesting they are child abusers will encourage vigilantes who are already staging armed protest at LGBTQ events. Like other Texans, many are arming themselves. 

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• SOURCE: OutHistory
  3/28/2023
  

  Historian Marc Stein Launches Database Project to Identify LGBTQ Direct Action and Protest

  by Marc Stein

  A project dedicating to identifying and cataloguing direct protest actions by LGBTQ advocates fills in significant gaps in our understanding of the geography, scope, targets, and demands of protests through the years. 

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• SOURCE: Raw Story
  3/24/2023
  

  The Role of US Evangelicals in Radicalizing Ugandans Against LGBTQ Rights

  While the accusation that LGBTQ adults are a risk to the safety of children has recently reemerged in American politics, US evangelical groups have been encouraging it in Africa for years. 

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• SOURCE: Associated Press
  3/22/2023
  

  DeSantis Moves to Expand "Don't Say Gay" Law Coverage to all Grades

  The move would exempt lessons in state-mandated health instruction, but such courses would require allowing parents to opt out of them. The change could be implemented by the state board of education without legislative approval. 

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• SOURCE: Vice
  3/21/2023
  

  Leaked Emails Show Christian Nationalist Anti-Trans "Holy War"

  “Stopping the existence of transgender people and the acceptance of trans people in the public sphere is to them some sort of religious imperative,” according to historian Thomas Lecaque.